other ways to improve recall.

[mattmuffler]

Ok so I know that keeping a dream journal helps you to remember your dreams etc, but often I find that I have to spend ages writing them down. Like if I go over my dreams in my head heaps will that also help to improve my recall? I know that writing it down is probably the best method right, but is there any other way? Thanks guys

[ClouD]

I recently saw a post about someone recording their dreams as audio, which can in a few ways actually be more effective than a written DJ. You can of course play through what you've dreamt in your mind, though verbalising in some form helps to solidify the memory. If you can try and feel the same feelings when mentally replaying the dreams, then it can obviously strengthen the dream recall, but still not to any great extent as easily as writing it down, or recording it in a way that uses words. You might like to try rewinding your dreams before you get up after coming out of a dream, even before opening your eyes. In fact if you disregard your body then it's a lot easier to do this. Basically just start from the very point you exited the dream from, and rewind slowly and deeper into your dream. You'll find your memory of dreams increases dramatically over a period of time, and you can go deeper and deeper each rewind. Rewinding your day before you go to sleep, will also help you with this technique of recall.

[mattmuffler]

ok sweet, i might just have to man up and stick with the dream journal haha my family will think i'm going crazy if they hear me talking about random dreams in the morning haha the annoying thing is though is that i use an alarm to wake up, so i move and open my eyes to turn it off. so immediately lots of the recall is lost right? but thanks i will definately try the rewind thing!

[Patrickstar12]

I guess you could just suffer the annoying alrm for a bit while you replay your dreams...I use the alarm on my phone most of the time to wake up and I just sit thru it while I go over my dreams

[mattmuffler]

yea tru. hmm il giv it a try eh. ill have to try find an alarm thats bearable haha

[SkypeGoat]

: I guess you could just suffer the annoying alrm for a bit while you replay your dreams...I use the alarm on my phone most of the time to wake up and I just sit thru it while I go over my dreams I agree the alarm usually kills my DR. Then I found this ipod dock/alarm clock and when it goes off it starts real quite like and builds up to a wild creshendo of beeping, but in that first few seconds of quiet, I can slam on the snooze and begin recall. So I would agree in setting another alarm, or finding a softer one.

[mattmuffler]

o mean i'll give that a go. cheers. i tried the whole rewind thing. and it totally works haha thanks!

[Stardrowned]

i recommend body clocking it. it takes a little bit of training but it's worth it. i've been doing that for a couple weeks, and had excellent recall. started using an alarm clock a week ago and havnt remembered shit.

[mattmuffler]

how do you do that? is that when you train yourself to wake up after each dream? or at a certain time?

[Stardrowned]

say you have to get up at 6 am. you fully realize and understand that you must get up at 6, either for school, appointment, whatever, your body has like an internal alarm clock that will wake you up at 6 am. basically just tell your mind and body the time that you have to wake up at and it'll do so. my girlfriend usually comes over at 7 so i know i have to get up at 7 and i always wake up around then.

[Stardrowned]

i only use it for when i need to get out of bed, but i'm sure it could be used every 90 minutes or after every dream, i don't see why not.

[mattmuffler]

ok gotcha. i used the MILD technique last night. the whole tell yourself youll wake up after each dream period and remember the dream, and it worked! ill hafta improve it because my recall wasn't that great but i did wake up a couple of times! no LD though but that was due to the lack of recall haha

[Ishi]

Dreamqueen suggests using a sleep mask to improve recall

[Geeome]

There are some drugs which you can take (Melatonin, B5 and B6, etc) Also, I listened to ninja's subliminal lucid mp3 and it was insane for my recall. I was getting 4 dreams a night. It was without the wake-up at 6:00 every morning, though. Perhaps thats my issue.