Recall dramatically dropped off without warning

I have been keeping a dream journal for quite a while now, waking up during the night a few times, either naturally or to an alarm, and last Thursday night I finally managed to increase my recall up to about 5 dreams including one brief lucid moment, writing 7 pages of notes in my journal over the course of the night. However, since that night, I have been unable to remember anything but the slightest memories from my dreams. Has this happened to anyone else? I'm doing pretty much the same things, but my recall seems to have dried up. Does anyone have any suggestions of what I might do to resolve this?

The way I see it there are types of dream recall. Automatic and triggered. I believe you're referring to the loss of the automatic recall which I will explain now.

Once many people start regularly keeping a dream journal, they get into the routine. They remember their dreams pretty much automatically as long as they continue to jot them down upon waking. I too have recently lost all automatic recall. I very suddenly went from remembering 4 dreams a night average, to now, where I remember absolutely none.

But that is only in reference to automatic recall. Triggered recall requires a lot more work on your part to induce a chain reaction of bits of a dream that I call shadow memories. When you wake, you may find that you remember one word, or phrase or person from a dream. You may wake, and see your father and somehow know that he was in your dream. The way you can fully remember the dream is not set in stone, as there are many ways, but this is how I do it:

When I wake, I wake motionlessly. I do not move a muscle, and I do not let my mind wander. My mind remains still. Do not think about what I have going on later today, or worry about things. My sole concentration is trying to remember the dream. Suggest things to yourself- eg, "I was walking...no...I was speaking to....no, I saw a..." etc. Eventually you will say a word that will trigger a sort of "jolt" in your mind. You'll realize that you're getting closer...you're on to something.

After a bit of that, you will remember perhaps one scene of the dream- a shadow memory. Remembering one, and letting yourself re-live it will trigger further shadow memories. It will cause a chain reaction, and you will eventually remember most, if not all of the dream.

Believe it or not, this is much easier than it sounds, and works almost every single time. Goodluck and happy dreaming ;)

Ah, all excellent advice, but I am sadly refering to the 'triggered' type of recall you mentioned. I'm not skilled enought at recall as of yet, and what dreams I remember I must 'build' backwards in my head while I lie motionless, as you say. Nevertheless, all you say is certainly true :)

It sounds like a dryspell to me. I don't know what you can do to fix it, it happened to me not that long ago and eventually went away on its own.

Lapses in recall are totally normal, and happen to everyone. Sometimes your recall will be good, and sometimes it sucks. That's just the way it is. So don't stress about it, since that will only make it worse. Just remember that it'll be back again before you know it.

Just don't stress over it and it'll be back in no time.

If you need a tip, simply stay motionless when you wake and think "What was I dreaming?", but do not push it too hard. It sometimes takes me 5 minutes or more simply laying there to have my flash of remembrance.

i've gone through "Dry spells" if you will and have found that during these times usually anywhere from 30 minutes - 3 hours after I've woken up I'll recall small details of dreams. As I'm recalling these small bits it'll eventually build up to the "Holy SHIT! That was a crazy dream!" recall where it all comes flooding back to me. This happened yesterday and it kind of freaked me out, because upon waking yesterday I had absolutely no memory of dreaming.

Recall and dreams are an odd thing. They aren't always linear... and it isn't like riding a bike where you never lose that skill. It's very vulnerable.

Everyone goes through dry spells though so don't get too disheartened.

Maybe you could start the recall routine from scratch?

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ead.php?t=6207

That is the dream recall tutorial

HTH! :)

After my DJ started getting full I started writing only important ones, before my DJ I was remembering 4 a night. But the mistake was I went off cold turkey so I was remembering 1 or 0 a night. Then I tried weening myself off the DJ. I found out if you just build your dreams in your mind and think about them a couple times throughout the day you build a kind of dream memory. Now I can wake up and remember 3 dreams for a couple days w/o writing them down; unless it was an interesting dream which I remember longer.