Dream recall sleep and sun connection? How to improve?

**dreamskies** · 02-09-2011 12:40 AM

Hello, I had a couple of questons relating to dream recall.

I've been working on improving my dream recall and trying to get a lucid dream since the end of December. I'm a college student so i was on winter break when I started. during that period of time I was getting 10-11 hours of sleep every night. I was getting to bed at 8 or 9 and waking up at 6:30. I started off with remembring about 1 Dream per week and quickly got it up to 1 every three nights. By the end of break I was remembering 1 dream every night. So once the new semester starter I'm getting up at 6:00 and not getting to bed till 10:30 or later. My dream recall has dropped to 1 every 5 days or so. On Friday Night I got 11 hours of sleep. And after going 6 days without remembering a dream I remembered 3 in one night. Since then i'm back to my weekday norm of between 7-9 hours of sleep.

I'm not suprised that my dream recall is linked to more ore less sleep. As reported in this thread It has happened to other people. Dream Recall thread
Here is the thing though. 7-9 hours of sleep isn't that little. An 18 YO is supposed to get something like 8 hours of sleep. So why the trouble with recall? Also since I still have papers to write and classes to attend what can I do to improe my recall without changing my sleep pattern. i've been setting my alarm for 3:00 to try and WILD. Should I try using a timer to wake me up every 90 mins?

Also the periods of dream drought have been connected loosly to periods of lower sun expouser do to cloudy skies and or lack of outside time. Sun was out today and I was outside for about 30 min so we'll see what effect that has. I read in another thread that serotonin increases dream recall and levels of serotonin are higher with more sun.

Anyway I was looking for suggestions about improving recall in general and specifically how to improve dream recall without increasing sleep time.

**Arra** · 02-09-2011 06:39 AM

I don't know much about the sleep cycle, and my reply might be useless, but here are some things that come to mind.

It seems you get a lot of sleep given that you got 10-11 hours per night on winter break. The 8-hour norm is only an average. It's different for different people (I think females tend to need a bit more, older people need less.) It seems you need an hour or 2 more sleep than most people, although I suppose it depends on how you were feeling during the day while getting 10-11 hours of sleep. If you meant to wake up earlier and usually felt bad the next day, maybe you do only need 8 hours.

As I'm pretty sure you know since you mentioned the 90 min time period, REM periods occur approximately every 90 minutes after sleeping, but the exact time also differs among different people. So waking up in multiples of 90 mins after falling asleep will probably help you remember your dreams. I don't know whether it's healthy to wake up every 90 mins though. You're probably better off doing it during the later periods, staring at maybe 4.5 hours or so, since REM periods are longer later on in the cycle and you'll have more to remember.

I don't think you specifically mentioned a dream journal. If you haven't started one of those, you probably should. I don't know whether actually writing down your dreams improves recall more than going over them in your mind, but it might. I don't know, and this is just speculation, but I suspect taking the time to write down your dreams - actually devoting time during the day to dreaming - will make your subconscious aware that your dreams are important to you and you'll be more likely to LD and have vivid dreams.

Thinking about dreaming during the day might help with recall and lucid dreaming ability. Maybe since starting school, you've been busy and haven't devoted as much time to thinking about your dreams.

If you aren't already, devoting time in the morning to remembering dreams is a good idea. It's advised that you don't move from the position you're in when you wake up. Sometimes, it at first seems like you haven't remembered any of your dreams. All you have are a few vague images, maybe an idea of an emotion you were feeling or a person involved or a place you were in, but nothing substantial. It's advised, and I find it works well, to concentrate on even the small fragments. Usually when I do this, I get flashes of memories which quickly fade, but for a moment I remembered something else about the dream. After a couple minutes of being frustrated, almost grasping what the dream was about but not quite there, continuing to think about the small fragments I do remember, some major scene in the dream will usually come to me. From there, other scenes which followed from or led up to the one I remember come back to me. It's a good idea, when you remember a scene, to ask how you got there, what happened before the scene to cause it.

Sorry this got so long. I don't doubt you've heard a lot of this before, maybe all of it, but I don't mind. The time I've spent writing about dreaming and LDing will hopefully increase my chances of having one tonight.

**dreamskies** · 02-09-2011 01:42 PM

Thanks for the advice! I started a dream journal at the end of December. Every night just before I go to sleep I come on this forum and try and look up a new method of inducing a lucid dream. I think your tip about not moving and just trying to think about what I was dreaming might help. I have noticed that sometimes dreams I have completly forgotten come back to me in the middle of the day. For example, last night I remembered one dream which I was woken up from by an alarm I set for 1:00. I wrote down some notes about the dream and went back to sleep. When I woke up this morning That was the only dream I remembered. However, just before posting here I was think about the subject that just happened to relate to another dream I had and I remembered it.

On Friday night I had remembered 2 dreams but I knew I had had a third. I couldn't remember it but I looked at the back cover of a meteorology textbook that had a picture of a tornado. I remembered all of the sudden 1 scene in my dream where I looked at the window and saw a tornado. I quickly remembere the rest of the dream which had nothing to do with tornadoes.

Ok, Hopefuly you're tip will help.