Thread: Dream Recall

Originally Posted by The Legend

I've been keeping a dream journal for 3 weeks now and i can still only remember 1 on a good day, is there any other ways to improve recall? Also any good ideas for lucid dreams?

Auto suggestion works really well in helping you remember your dreams. What i mean by this is saying as an example "I will remember my dreams tonight" before bed and through the day. But you cant just simply say it and be done with it. You have to put meaning behind it and really believe it will happen

Originally Posted by Chewnie91

Auto suggestion works really well in helping you remember your dreams. What i mean by this is saying as an example "I will remember my dreams tonight" before bed and through the day. But you cant just simply say it and be done with it. You have to put meaning behind it and really believe it will happen

While this is true, autosuggestion stopped working for me after it worked for 3days straight even when I tried to make sure that it had meaning, but, I guess I lacked the belief part

Try to concentrate on your emotions. What were your last feelings. Some images, smells or sounds should be rushing through your mind. Hold on to those memories and ask yourself: "What was I doing before that" or something like that.Works fine for me.

Autosuggestion is also a good idea.

Make dreams important to you and think a lot about them... Like, review the last dreams you had before you fall asleep. I'd say do it during the day too but I'm sort of against day dreaming... Well you could do it for a bit and then stop when you become better....

I use auto-suggestion and a dream journal.

And don't just repeat the words in your mind and not think about it. That's a mistake I keep on doing

When I wake up in the morning I try to lie completely still with my eyes closed and replay my dreams backwards. Sometimes you can rewind your dreams enough to remember a few, but the majority of the time I only remember one or two dreams.

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

I'd say do it during the day too but I'm sort of against day dreaming...

Why do you say this?

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

Review the last dreams you had before you fall asleep.

This. (Also, during WBTB). Reading through some of your most detailed entries will put you in the mindset to remember.

Originally Posted by Ahab

Try to concentrate on your emotions. What were your last feelings. Some images, smells or sounds should be rushing through your mind. Hold on to those memories and ask yourself: "What was I doing before that" or something like that.Works fine for me.

This, too. You can always practice this in real life. What were you doing before you read this reply? And before that? What were you thinking at that time? It's the same memory mechanism you will use when you wake up. Go from your last thought backwards until you've reached the beginning, then run through from the beginning and see if you can fill any gaps.

Autosuggestion.

I don't recommend relying on this.

Yeah i know this all works but first thing in the morning i don't think about dreaming

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

I'd say do it during the day too but I'm sort of against day dreaming...

Originally Posted by sheens43

Why do you say this?

I think it makes me unconscious to my real life.
I found out I was daydreaming all the time; whenever I'd be making myself fall asleep, when I'll be in the shower (I'd daydream 30 minutes under the shower and then my parents would have to tell me to get out), in any moving or non-moving vehicule, whenever I walked alone, whenever I waited, whenever the teacher was talking. I think that now that i dream during the night I should start living in my real life too. Further more, I'm trying out some of tibetan Dream Yoga which consists in being conscious 24/7 which can really help you lucid dream.

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

I think it makes me unconscious to my real life.
I found out I was daydreaming all the time; whenever I'd be making myself fall asleep, when I'll be in the shower (I'd daydream 30 minutes under the shower and then my parents would have to tell me to get out), in any moving or non-moving vehicule, whenever I walked alone, whenever I waited, whenever the teacher was talking. I think that now that i dream during the night I should start living in my real life too. Further more, I'm trying out some of tibetan Dream Yoga which consists in being conscious 24/7 which can really help you lucid dream.

I daydream in most of those situations too, though probably not to the extent that you do. Still, I think it's kinda normal though. I don't know if I could pull of being conscious 24/7, my mind wanders A LOT.

Originally Posted by sheens43

I daydream in most of those situations too, though probably not to the extent that you do. Still, I think it's kinda normal though. I don't know if I could pull of being conscious 24/7, my mind wanders A LOT.

If I can do it, you can do it too. But I agree, it is hard. i always have those moments in which I just want to daydream, espacially during rides during rainy day.

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

If I can do it, you can do it too. But I agree, it is hard. i always have those moments in which I just want to daydream, espacially during rides during rainy day.

What does the Tibetan Dream Yoga say to do? Is there somewhere online that I can look at?

Sometimes I look at/do something in my early morning routine and it jars my memory into remembering a single detail about the dream, and then it goes on from there.

(Note: This might be a little bit of a TMI for some people.)
For example, I recently had a dream in which I had an obscene amount of chest hair. I wake up, and don't think that I remember any of my dreams from last night. So I sit up in bed, and absentmindedly look down. A bare, naked chest stares back at me. So I think, "huh, well didn't I just..." *Reality Checks* "...that musta been a dream, then." So then I start to remember a few more things about the dream, but not enough to put into my online DJ.

Originally Posted by sheens43

What does the Tibetan Dream Yoga say to do? Is there somewhere online that I can look at?

These are some links I got from Bonsay about the subject:
http://www.plotinus.com/zhine_tibeta..._yoga_copy.htm
http://www.plotinus.com/zhine_tibeta...part2_copy.htm

And this is a thread:
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...tan+dream+yoga

I'm not hardcore in that stuff, though. All I do, is try being conscious 24/7 except for when I'm neither dreaming or awake, and to consider my surrundings.

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

These are some links I got from Bonsay about the subject:
http://www.plotinus.com/zhine_tibeta..._yoga_copy.htm
http://www.plotinus.com/zhine_tibeta...part2_copy.htm

And this is a thread:
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...tan+dream+yoga

I'm not hardcore in that stuff, though. All I do, is try being conscious 24/7 except for when I'm neither dreaming or awake, and to consider my surrundings.

Yeah, I tried the whole being conscious 24/7 thing the other day and it was pretty damn hard. I couldn't even make it through my 8 hr shift at work. Though it is easy to see how it could help with LDing. Thanks for the links.

Originally Posted by sheens43

Yeah, I tried the whole being conscious 24/7 thing the other day and it was pretty damn hard. I couldn't even make it through my 8 hr shift at work. Though it is easy to see how it could help with LDing. Thanks for the links.

Don't think it was any easier for me... The secret is to never give up. Even if you go 'unconscious for a while or more' its, okay. Just don't give up for such a small mistake.

I also find it hard to recall my dreams but I know it's necessary in order to start obtaining LDs. But I must admit, it's so frustrating when you want to have one and then you dream as normal and wake up and realise you didn't RC and it's like a wasted opportunity.

Just in case anyone's interested, I had a dream earlier on today that I showed a fictional US president to a special booth in a cinema that was up an abnormal amount of stairs...I really wish I had noticed that stairs are not that friggin big...

No, the frustrating thing is when you develop really decent dream recall for several months (3-5 dreams per night, every night, vividly), then hit a rough spot and drop to absolute ZERO recall for a month.

I'm going through this now and it's driving me nuts. I miss remembering all my crazy dreams!

3-5 dreams a night? At the moment I'm happy with remembering one to scribble in my diary, and even then it's often not very vividly, just a couple of things I rememeber really. I hope my dream recall starts to improve!

Autosuggestion.

I don't recommend relying on this.

Why not? I've found it really useful for just starting to make an effort to remember dreams, especially if I remind myself just as I'm going to sleep.

You can't remember 3-5 dreams without waking up in the middle of the night. Each time you wake up you have to write down the dream right away.
For a normal night 5 dreams is the max (5x90 min = 7,5 hours)

Also picture yourself waking up in the middle of the night and writing down your dream, just before going to sleep. It really helps

Good luck