Thread: If you can't remember your dreams, TRY THIS!

This idea is actually fascinating. Since I am no psychologist, I've been thinking up all sorts of questions (before even trying it! haha, Which I will do tonight!) like "How are we supposed to be able to recall our dreams in full detail, if we cannot even remember our day in any such detail?" and following that, "can memory and recall of daily life physically be improved? of dreams too? or is it we're not paying close enough attention?" "If its possible, is improving daily recall going to help improve dream recall?" What do you guys think?

I hate writing stuff down so, I'm going to try goin over my day in heaps of detail in my head for a couple of days and try writing it down for a couple of days to compare. I will post my results

Super thanks man! I rarely remember any of my dreams, but last night, after this, I was able to recall 3! 3!!!! They were only short dreams, but this is big progress for me. Much thanks

Originally Posted by Alexm309

This idea is actually fascinating. Since I am no psychologist, I've been thinking up all sorts of questions (before even trying it! haha, Which I will do tonight!) like "How are we supposed to be able to recall our dreams in full detail, if we cannot even remember our day in any such detail?" and following that, "can memory and recall of daily life physically be improved? of dreams too? or is it we're not paying close enough attention?" "If its possible, is improving daily recall going to help improve dream recall?" What do you guys think?

Very insightful and probing questions, you sure got me thinking!

I think I am going to start doing this. Today I realized that I remembered a lot of details of things I did after I woke up, but not much after I got back and started wasting time on the internet.

Here's my first entry, is it too detailed?

Code:

Woke up after noon: 12:15ish.
Stood around a little while recalling more details of dreams.

Went to frank's. Got chicken tenders and beer battered fries.
I got two ketchup cups and one with barbequeue. I left my tray
in the way of the BBQ sauce and this guy and girl both needed 
to get it at the same time as me, so it was a little awkward.
Sat in the far southwest corner booth. Tom & Jerry was on TV. 
These two guys were sitting to my left and were talking about
it as well. They showed a couple episodes, one with the little
duck and the other with a baby dog.

It was an uneventful walk back to my dorm. Until I saw Kate. She
had just gotten off of class, and we were walking at the same
speed such that we walked into Tripp at the same time. She was
wearing her usual hat and scarf, but she had these big purple
sunglasses on. Some guy I didn't know commented on them "Nice 
shades" he said. She replied "Thanks!!~ They were from my
Grandma!" I said "No way your grandma?" We continued to walk to
the building. I told her I had class to go to in an hour or so.
She was done. We disagreed which door to go into, and I ended up
influencing the decision to go into the BoHi door. She made a 
comment on it being BoHi, I said "Yeah I read your emails!" We
went our seperate ways.

I spent about 15 minutes reading email and replying to my project
partner. I then realized that I had forgotten about my lab, and
then quickly printed and downloaded it. I did the prelab quickly.

I left for the lab, and ended up waiting for several minutes on
my way to the engineering building. I took the usual route.

I got to lab early, at about 2:15 PM. I waited a few minutes for
the TA to open the door. I talked with Ka for a minute and some
other people about the prelab. I was unsure of my answer, but
it was correct.

The TA went over our lab in a funny accent as usual. He said the
lab record was 26 minutes. We finished in 18 and set that MOFO.

After leaving I told the TA I thought we had several weeks before
the next lab. I am not so sure now.

I went straight home the same way I came. I was able to cross
both university and johnson without much wait. As I walk upstairs
I checked to see if Kate's door was open. It wasn't. 

Once I got into my room I left the door open for a while while I
browsed the web. I lost track of time. I mostly browsed DV and
talked on DV chat. I spent some time browsing 4chan after I 
closed my door. Thought about fapping. Didn't. Mostly stumbled.

I exchanged some texts with Clark, and then he came over at like
7:30 and we went to carson's. We both got nachos, mine had guac,
jalapenos, lettuce, and tomatoes. I drank Squirt, Clark said that
Squirt has no flavor. We talked about math some. Clark's friend
Mitch was there as we were leaving. Dude is weird. I also told
clark about the pizza guy who was delivering to 1650 kronshage.

We watched some family guy, american dad, and then the daily show
and colbert report. Nothing was on after that, and then clark
left at like 12:00. I browsed /b/ most of the time.

At 12:25 I stopped watching futurama and browsing 4chan and went
to carson's and bought honey roasted panuts and kettle cooked 
chips.

I got back at 12:30 AM, did some browsing on DV. Then I started
this entry. My first entry.

Probably doesn't make much sense. I wrote it for me


Edit: Didn't remember anything last night >_>

I don't think detail has too much too do with it. I've had really vague ones were I just go over it in my head, and foot-notes help me remember the details, and I've had a few 3 pagers. As long as you are remembering everything important in your day, it's level of detail doesn't have to be too ginormous.

Oh. My. Gosh.
It all makes sense now!!
Sometimes I can remember 3+ dreams per night.
Sometimes I can't remember even one.
Okay, so ever since I was in elementary school I've kept a journal and I still do.
But I just realized that every time I journal before I go to sleep, those are the nights I remember my dreams, and the days that I forget to journal are the nights that I don't remember any dreams.
I am soooo journaling every night after reading this!!! Thank you so much!!!

This is AMAZING!!!!
First night, nothing.
Second night, there dreams. I usually remember one a MONTH.
Thanks so much!!

I've had trouble to remember my dreams lately, from remembering 4-5 dreams per night.
I'll definitely try this method, thanks.

I tried this and it works great Thanks! Cool technique

i haven't bin able to remember ANY dreams for as long as i can remember, which as you can imagine would greatly effect trying to lucid dream so I'm going to try this tomorrow, i would tonight but all my day consisted of was waking up with a hangover and playing halo

I always do this when I get into a dry spell. This always break me out of it Thank you MasterMind!

I don't think so that it will be helpful to remember the dreams.
But i will try it to remember the dreams because i am really want to know about the dreams information.

This was very informative. Great thread...

Dehär måste man ju bara pröva.

This sounds interesting, after a little rough patch in my private life recently i started keeping a normal journal but i haven't typed in it the last few days since it has gotten better instead i have been focusing on making my DJ but i guess i can combine the 2 of them and see what kind of effect it has. Thanks for the tip!

Originally Posted by NoUsername

Dehär måste man ju bara pröva.

Det lär vi göra!

I tried this yesterday, before I went to bed i wrote a 3 page detailed log of my day. I couldn't remember any dreams this morning but I will keep trying this because i felt better after i did this kinda like a load off my mind. Im sure my dream recall will get beeter after doing this a few times i will update it tommorow thanks.

Originally Posted by MasterMind

The last night I just tried a new way to remember my dreams, and when I woke up I almost remembered my vivid dreams instantly. I actually had a lucid dream to, but not for very long because I didn't take my time to stabilize it.
Anyway the day before that I had did something that I don't usually do. When I came home from school I wrote down my events that day, my waking life so to speak, almost like a diary, but not really. I wrote downthe most important things like some conversations, events, thoughts etc.

Here is what I wrote:

This day I woke up around 6.46 am then I went down and ate breakfast.
My dad asked worried "How are you today ?". I just answered that I was really tired. After that I went up to my room and were stressed of not having enough time to write down my dreams in my dreamjournal then I got dressed. I rushed downstairs, told my mom that I were in a hurry because I didn't want to miss the bus. I walked quickly to the busstation, but the bus came 4 minutes later so it was cool. On the bus I met Tom Isgren my old classmate from Lindeborg school. I asked him what grade he got on the movie we made together, and he answered MVG. Then we talked about how much tests we had. When the bus arrived in Davidshall the clock showed 7.50 so it was plenty of time left before we started my next class. On my way to the lockers I were worried that I had forget if we were free or not, so I looked for a computer and I found one but it was broken. Then I saw Johan Holm, my classmate, and I got reliefed. On my way up for the stairs I saw the rest of the class sitting on the steps. At the fourth floor I met Felix and then Teodor came and then David. Then Angelica ran up and was very tired cause of the stairs and she said
"My god what I am tired, I went to bed at 3.00 am" and I said "Well, that explains why" and she laughed and she told me that she would laugh the whole day because when she are tired she do.
Then I had many lessons, Math, Swedish, and Biology (NO). When the schoolday was over I argued with Andriano about lucid dreaming, he tried to convince me that I was just dreaming that I were lucid, then I asked him "You've had a lucid dream right?" yes he said, then I asked "It has to be a proper lucid dream because you are aware of it otherwise you wouldn't remember it that well, but maybe you remember your normal dream to?" and then he said "Yeah, that's true but... are you saying that every dream is lucid?" blabla. then I went home, but I really convinced him there.
The bus were late as usual and when I came to Mobilia I met Astrit, my classmate from Kulladal school and then I took the 7 bus one station and went home. etc

This took me 10 minutes to write down , but when I woke up I remembered 4 dreams, and I usually just remember one, but I didn't had to recall them like laying still in the bed or something they just showed up like normal memorys when I woke up. I also use a voice recorder just to quickly record it when I wake up and then fall asleep again. Well, I hope this helped someone, and sorry if my english sucks

Sweet Dreams!

What your doing is working on your memory/recall brain capacity using your waking life. That will reflect on your dream recalls because your developing memory, exercising it.
Good shot, liked your idea.

I think the reason it makes you wake up when your dreams are transitioning is because you just trained your body to remember everything about the dream. So if the dream starts to change before your very eyes, it will probably destablize and collapse

Woaaahhhhh had 7 dreams after doing this, but only remembered 3 when the morning came. I woke up after each dream remembering them clearly but was too tired to write them down, i wish I had now. I shall continue to do this thanks!

Well, regarding the technique described here, it´s all good.

Just want to share that for me if i keep aware all day long i´m positive that i´ll recall 3 to 4 dreams per day (my average).

Also chocolate before bed increases the vivid characteristic of my dreams....

I'm going to give this a try. All my life I've been able to remember at least one or two dreams every night. But lately it's like my dream recall switch has been turned off. I've tried Vitamin B6, chocolate, bananas, apple juice, cheese (not all on the same night) and even binaural and isochronic beats. But nothing seems to help. I don't know if it's stress from trying so hard to have a lucid dream (I've only had three) or what but it's driving me crazy!

ima try this tonight i might try it with wbtb, i give u the result tomorrow.