Thread: What constitutes good dream recall?

Good question. I don't know specifically which tutorials say that you need to develop “good” recall before you can start or what else they say (I haven't read any of them in quite a while), but in my opinion, there's no particular “right” answer. The idea is that dream recall is very helpful with LD practice, and the more the better, but I wouldn't say that there's anything wrong with working on LD induction at the same time you work on developing dream recall. As long as you continue practicing either, it will improve over time and you will be in good shape. You could work on both at the same time, or just dream recall for a while until you feel ready for the next step. Just whatever way is most comfortable or seems to work best for you.

First: techniques that require good recall before you can start attempting to LD are probably not worth pursuing; if they are wrong on such a basic issue, what else might be wrong within them? As Travis already said (and I may also have said on another thread), recall is important to LD'ing, but you can certainly start your LD'ing attempts whenever you wish -- you might not succeed at first, for a lot of reasons, but you are at least getting used to doing the techniques (and, of course, you might get lucky!). This is especially true if you are having trouble with your recall: if you cannot improve your recall, you might give up on LD'ing altogether, without ever attempting to LD at all. Also, if your recall is unworkable, you can always try WILD, whose techniques generally do not require recall at all. That said:

Also echoing Travis, there is no specific guideline for what constitutes good dream recall, and there shouldn't be. Good dream recall amounts to an ability to remember your dreams to the point where they occupy a noticeable space in your waking-life experience. This baseline could be met by as little recall as remembering just a few snippets of the last dream you had before waking, or could include detailed memories of several dreams per night, but likely will land somewhere in between, depending on your own abilities and interest. Your goal for recall, I think, ought to be to develop a sense upon waking that you were just dreaming, and an interest in looking back in your memory to see just where you may have been in your dreams; how much you remember is not that important.

Yes, if you are attempting DILD and want some dream signs to work with, you will need to recall something, but dream signs have a habit of being remembered first, so even in that case you don't have to have powerful dream recall to assemble a list of dream signs.

Later, when you are having LD's, remembering them should be much easier because they are conscious events and are far more easily stored in your memory upon waking.

tl;dr: start your LD attempts whenever you want to do so, and be a bit wary of techniques that offer such requirements before starting; there is no standard for what constitutes good recall, and there shouldn't be one, because we're all different.

Originally Posted by Sageous

First: techniques that require good recall before you can start attempting to LD are probably not worth pursuing; if they are wrong on such a basic issue, what else might be wrong within them?

... recall is important to LD'ing, but you can certainly start your LD'ing attempts whenever you wish ...

... Later, when you are having LD's, remembering them should be much easier because they are conscious events and are far more easily stored in your memory upon waking. ...

Thank you for saying that, sageous! This question is coming up quite often and I have even seen people suggesting in error that one must have a good recall before attempting to lucid dream.

As I have learned from you, Lucid dreams are stored in different part of memory than regular dreams and are remembered much easier. Also, we all remember how we woke up right after our first few LDs all excited, that we just had a LD. Very small chance that our LDs (especially first few) would go unnoticed and not remembered.

I think dream recall has little or no bearing on lucidity, just the ability to remember being lucid. It is possible to achieve lucidity every night and not remember it. I think most people would prefer to recall having lucid adventures however and this is where good dream recall comes in. With good dream recall we can more acurately determine how often lucidity is achieved, the level of that lucidity, and whether the techniques we are using are effectively increasing the quality and quantity of lucid episodes.

Well Zarathusta certainly you can forget some lucids

but I manage to wake from near 70+% of all cycles (and that includes almost always missing the first one)
I manage to have at least some recall about 85+% of the time when I wake from the 2nd to nth cycles

and I would put my lucid rate at about 3 - 5% of cycles. Is it really 6% and me forgetting some maybe,
but you'd have to be pretty damn good to manage the 20+% hit rate necessary for nightly lucid (assuming average of 5 cycles / night)
I usually manage 4 or 5 cycles per work day and 6 to 9 cycles on weekend days for a total of about 37 cycles per week
at 3% it would be about 1.125 lucids per week
at 6% it would be about 2.25 lucids per week
and this is about my range of an actual 0 - 3 lucids per week (mostly on weekends)

Sure. I wasn't trying to suggest that we DO have lucid dreams every night and don't remember them. Just that there is no causal link between recall and lucidity. I was just trying to say--perhaps not very clearly--that having a good recall is preferable. Lucid dreaming kind of loses a lot of its fun if you have no recollection of actually doing it.

Your recall seems pretty good. I tend to wake up every 1.5-2 hours on average. Though this week it has been tough to make myself sit up and record my dreams. Too damn tired recently!

^^ You might be missing one important factor here, I think.

LD's, being waking-life consciousness events (and generally fairly important ones at that), tend to be recorded into memory (short and long-term) just like any other important waking-life consciousness event -- sort of automatically, without our needing to make much of an effort. So, unlike NLD's, which usually require some effort to retain because they are discarded immediately upon waking, you probably won't forget your moments of lucidity.

So in a sense you are correct in noting that lucidity has little to do with dream recall, but for a very different reason; it's not that we're forgetting lots of LD's, as we do NLD's, but rather that one bonus of LD's is that they tend to be "automatically" recorded in memory, so recall skills aren't very important with them.

My intuition tells me you are right, and I wish for that to be true also. However, both are unreliable methods at ascertaining the truth. The problem is how can we be sure, empirically, that that is the case?

^^ Funny you should ask...

I don't have time to go into it now, but I did start a thread a long time ago that I feel addressed this question; if you're curious, you can check it out here.

Originally Posted by Sageous

here.

Yea I posted in that thread a few times it was necro even back then
http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ml#post2193919


I respond with the tale of my first Intentional Lucid which I had forgotten but recalled afterwards even tho I was very lucid and was stable for a few min
luckily by the dicipline of testing on awakening, my RC triggered the memory of the RC in the dream

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Funny you should ask...

I don't have time to go into it now, but I did start a thread a long time ago that I feel addressed this question; if you're curious, you can check it out here.

Originally Posted by cooleymd

Yea I posted in that thread a few times it was necro even back then

Threads like that are timeless. It's stickied now.

Originally Posted by cooleymd

Yea I posted in that thread a few times it was necro even back then
http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ml#post2193919

Is it a necro if people are still posting, and the guy who wrote the OP is still around? I'm not sure...

Also, my post above was directed at Zarathustra, who had asked the question; he is new here, and I figured he wasn't aware of the thread.

Regardless, I did follow your link and looked back at our conversation then; if you follow that link, Zarathustra, I hope you'll read on through the rest of our exchange; it was pretty interesting!

Originally Posted by gab

Threads like that are timeless. It's stickied now.

Thanks!

I'd offer a somewhat differently-nuanced answer. While I agree that building dream recall on its own is not a pre-requisite to beginning to try specifically for lucid dreams, there are reasons to start a new LD practice by concentrating at first on building dream recall, valuable beyond simply not wanting to forget your lucids. [Note that LaBerge opens his ETWOLD with recalling dreams as being one of the most important steps to developing lucidity in dreams.] That is the somewhat nebulous idea of "building a strong connection with your dreams." It's hard to single out any one factor of the many factors that all contribute towards lucidity, but I believe having a strong connection with your dreams is one of them. Sensei has a term for this: "general dream awareness." That is, awareness *of* your dreams. I think that having a strong connection with your dreams is made up of several factors: 1) realizing fully that you dream, a lot, every night, and that any conscious moment could be taking place in the dream state; 2) Valuing all your dream experiences, and looking forward to them; 3) Going to sleep with the intention of recalling the night's dream experiences; and 4) the explicit practice of recalling and journaling your dreams. So it is a recognition about the fact that we dream, that dream experiences are very similar if not identical in many ways to waking experiences, and the express desire/intent to be present in and enjoy and remember our dreaming experiences. Put in this way, increasing dream recall is a consequence of building a strong connection to our dreams.

On the subject of forgetting lucids. Yes, of course it's possible. Just two nights ago I didn't remember an early-in-the-night lucid until the final morning waking. As a LDer gains experience and has more and more LDs, that initial strong euphoria of getting lucid that often leads to waking directly from the LD wears off, and it can become more likely that the dreamer can continue on in a dream after losing lucidity, and/or have their LDs earlier in their REM and sleep cycles for the night, and may go through a few more sleep cycles before the next attempt to actively reach for dream recall. In cases like these, having a highly developed dream recall can save the memory of those experiences that may otherwise be lost. Many initial LDs tend to happen right before waking for the day in our last sleep cycle, and consciousness in these cases flows seamlessly from the dreaming to the waking state, and forgetting is almost impossible in these cases. But with experience, as LDs move earlier and earlier into the night, when we are less awake overall than in the late morning, it's easier to forget these as well, without the aid of a well-developed recall ability.

Many here are probably familiar with my "holistic" approach to lucidity, it involves paying attention to all life experiences (mindfulness), living consciously, and to strive for this way of being in all life experiences: paying attention to them, reflecting on them (particularly, "is this dream-like?") and practicing recalling them, whether they be waking or dreaming experiences. So in this case, having very good dream recall (being able to not only remember what happened in your dreams in the levels of detail you'd like to remember, but the *feeling* of being present and aware, being yourself, in your dream experiences), is an essential part of developing a rewarding (lucid) dreaming practice. Because if "you" are not "there" in your dreams, how can you get lucid in them?

^^ Well said, but I have to ask a couple of possibly off-topic questions:

Originally Posted by FryingMan

On the subject of forgetting lucids. Yes, of course it's possible. Just two nights ago I didn't remember an early-in-the-night lucid until the final morning waking.

But, doesn't that mean that you did remember the LD, in the end? And not only did you remember it, but its memory survived a nightful of subsequent dreaming... which sort of implies that the memory was fairly well recorded, all on its own... right?

... Many initial LDs tend to happen right before waking for the day in our last sleep cycle, and consciousness in these cases flows seamlessly from the dreaming to the waking state, and forgetting is almost impossible in these cases. But with experience, as LDs move earlier and earlier into the night, when we are less awake overall than in the late morning, it's easier to forget these as well, without the aid of a well-developed recall ability.

I've never heard of this, and certainly haven't experienced it myself (and I like to think I'm somewhat experienced); most of my substantial LD's, and certainly the most spectacular ones, still occur late in my sleep cycle, when conscious access is easiest.

Are you saying that, with experience, your LD's will occur earlier simply because you are having more of them? I suppose this makes some sense, on paper, but practice might prove otherwise: There would be exceptions, of course, but I think in the long run an experienced LD'er will tend to focus her LD scheduling on the times when she is most likely to have the best results with the least amount of effort, and with the most time available to dream (a time which, BTW, comes late in the sleep cycle when REM periods are long and frequent). Sure, she'll have a few impromptu DILD's early in the night, and sure, there are those among us who seek to stay lucid all night, but I would imagine that experienced LD'ers still enjoy their best stuff late in the sleep cycle.... so yes, an experienced LD'er might very likely have more early-night DILD's simply because they are mentally prepared for them, but I think that, with experience, those DILD's would take a back seat to the LD's that come later in the night.

All that said: I certainly have had plenty of early-night LD's, and have had no trouble remembering them upon waking (or, more curiously, inadvertently remembering them during the LD's -- and NLD's -- that occur after them). As you illustrated above (and Cooleymd did on that post he linked to above), even after a full night's sleep and dreams separate you from an early-night LD, you will probably still remember it. Also, I personally see no need to remember a LD immediately after it happens; so, if a memorable LD occurs early in my night, I will be content with letting it recede into memory while I enjoy the rest of my night's dreaming... it will likely be there waiting for me in the morning.

Please note that none of this has anything to do with your overall message about the importance of recall for LD'ing in general, all of which I agree with fully.

Originally Posted by Sageous

But, doesn't that mean that you did remember the LD, in the end? And not only did you remember it, but its memory survived a nightful of subsequent dreaming... which sort of implies that the memory was fairly well recorded, all on its own... right?

I practice a sort of "all-night-through" accumulation of dream recall on most nights: I do not record until morning most nights, but keep a running list of dreams and I add to it during waking where I perform recall. So it is typical for me for a night's worth of dreaming to survive through the night of subsequent dreaming (because it's something I've worked on for a while). The recall of that particular LD, while it may have been boosted somewhat by the fact that it was lucid, was not much different from the recall of non-lucids: it just sort of "came to me" like many of my dreams do, that at first was not immediately on my mind after waking. In other words, it felt very much like a typical case of my dream recall, not a special case due to the lucidity. I brought it up to show the contrast with waking from a lucid late in the morning.

I've never heard of this, and certainly haven't experienced it myself (and I like to think I'm somewhat experienced); most of my substantial LD's, and certainly the most spectacular ones, still occur late in my sleep cycle, when conscious access is easiest.

Are you saying that, with experience, your LD's will occur earlier simply because you are having more of them?

I believe it was sivason who originally made this point, and it stuck with me. It also matches my own experience. In the beginning, LDs occured *only* in the late morning in the final sleep cycle of the night, and typically at the end of the last REM cycle. Gradually, over time, LDs (talking about DILDs here, BTW) occur in earlier and earlier sleep cycles, and earlier in the REM cycle, as the mind becomes accustomed to and gets better at operating in the lucid state. It is like practicing the piano: as the neural pathways are exercised in the lucid state in dreams, it gets easier for the state to occur in more challenging conditions (earlier in the night), just as the pianist is able to play more and more challenging pieces over time. Also it is probably a contribution from increase in overall self-awareness over time with LD practice.

Sure, she'll have a few impromptu DILD's early in the night

Yes, this is precisely the point. With experience, DILDs will occur ealier in a given REM cycle, and in earlier REM cycles as well.

One thing to mention in answer to all those who say that one is very unlikely to forget a lucid dream. While I agree that it is unlikely, but is it possible? I once had an experience when I woke up all excited with the thought "I did it! I had a lucid dream." But for the life of me I could not remember anything else. So either I had a lucid dream, and actually forgot it. Or I had a non lucid with part of the content being the mistaken belief that I had a lucid dream, but nothing else to back that up, and insufficient dream recall. Anyway, improving dream recall may or may not help one not forget a lucid dream. If we forget lucid dreams, how would we know? While logically it makes sense that we are less likely to forget them, but we really do not know what we forget, so it is better to remember.

^^ Sure; it's possible to forget anything.

My point, though, was that, being waking-life consciousness events, LD's are much more likely to be retained in memory than NLD's, because NLD's, which are essentially the opposite of waking-life consciousness events, are generally lost upon waking as a matter of course (assuming here that you're not applying hard-earned dream recall skills). So, since you likely will remember LD's, it is unlikely that you will forget all of them, regardless of the quality of your dream recall. Indeed, the retention in memory of a LD is probably likely enough that you can use the fact that you can't remember a LD you were sure you had as a sign that perhaps you did not have a LD.

By the same token: if you woke up all excited because you had a LD, but can remember nothing about it, I think there is an excellent chance that you simply had a NLD about being lucid -- which may be a more common event than many folks around here would like it to be. On top of that, excellent dream recall might result in you managing to retain that NLD about LD'ing, and then deciding that you did have a LD because, well, that is what the dream was about.


But you know what? I could go on all day about this, but it really has nothing to do with the OP, so I'll leave it at that...suffice it to say that I believe that the skills and routines you require for recalling non-lucid dreams are not the same as the mechanisms that cause you to remember LD's. If you want to read more about my point of view on this, check out that thread mentioned above.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

...I agree that building dream recall on its own is not a pre-requisite to beginning to try specifically for lucid dreams, there are reasons to start a new LD practice by concentrating at first on building dream recall...

Yes I think there are 5 Key skills to learn in becoming a descent Lucid Dreamer

Here is the order they should be pursued in

1) Recall (if not what is the point)
2) Triggering (via RC, Awarness, Mantra, whatever works)
3) Stability (without this you won't achieve much, I recommend having goals for all dream occasions to achieve this)
4) Prospective Memory (without which you won't recall the goals and what would you achieve)
5) Control (this is the final skill to have fun)

Triggering is the hardest skill, and Prospective Memory one of the most important, Recall is the prereisquite, Control is the goal, and Stability the glue that holds it all together