Help! I've lost my dreams!

[BarefootDreamer]

All of my life I have had amazing dream recall. I recalled numerous dreams every morning in great detail. I can still remember dreams from my childhood, and teenage years. However, a few years ago, I started not remembering my dreams, I can't remember exactly when. Now I am at the stage where I will hardly ever remember a dream. I have decided to make an effort and keep a journal again (although in the past whether I kept one or not had no effect on my recall, I just enjoyed keeping them), and my recall is slowly improving. I wondered if you could all help me figure out why I lost that ability? Some things that changed in my life around that time were; my partner moved in with me, and I quit smoking cigarettes. Could these things cause a significant loss of dream recall?

[NyxCC]

Hi BarefootDreamer, there are a lot of things that may affect recall. You say you had good recall but then something happened and your recall has significantly deteriorated and this has become the norm, right? Recall usually fluctuates but if it is consistently down, that may call up for a more thorough investigation of the issue. Some things that come to mind are 1) sleep schedule - going to bed at the same time is much better for recall than going to bed at random times. 2) Sleep deprivation - if you miss one day of sleep, your recall may suffer the following day even if you get to sleep more. 3) Deep sleep - this one is a bit tricky, for some reason you may be sleeping more deeply, for example because you are not getting enough sleep 4) Nutrition - are you getting all the nutrients you need? A light snack before bed may help boost recall levels 5) Stress - if your stress levels are high this may also negatively affect recall 6) Overall awareness and energy levels. I hope listing some of the factors that influence recall will help you obtain a clearer picture of why you recall has been down recently. Also, be sure to keep track of such things and notice when improvements in recall occur. Additionally, here is a good link about recall you might be interested in reading. Hope it helps. Take care! Dream Recall Compendium

[BarefootDreamer]

Hi NyxCC I checked out that link, and it was very interesting, thanks! Already, after a couple of nights of keeping a dream diary, my recall is beginning to improve. I have gone from recalling 2 dreams a week to 3 per night. Last night, my partner woke me up around midnight and I had been in the middle of an interesting dream, but upon being awoken I forgot it instantly, and could not recall it no matter how hard I tried. I then went into my office, and this morning remembered 3 dreams. It could be as simple as that......the reason I lost my recall is that now we live together I usually get woken up at least 6 times a night by my partner, who is a very light sleeper and does not remember any dreams. It also makes it harder to maintain a regular sleeping pattern, as they will usually watch tv in bed (I never had a tv in my room before) while I would rather sleep. Thanks!

[NyxCC]

Good to hear that, BarefootDreamer! You know, we all have some constraints that are inevitably hard to work with, like family, roommates, guests, neighbors or very noisy construction sites , but the good news is if you can work on the other factors and try to max as many as possible, you can still enjoy dreaming and lucidity. Wish you fantastic dreams and awesome recall! See you around!

[duke396]

Glad you're starting to remember more. I think sometimes all it takes is to remind yourself that you want to remember, and of course the DJ is a good way to do that. Even if you only remember a tiny fragment that makes no sense, write it down anyway because you just might remember more of it once you put some thought into it and even if not, it's going to train your brain to remember. That was part of my problem for a while -- If I had a short dream or fragment I'd blow it off as "not good enough" to write down and my recall got worse. By putting the emphasis back on dream recall I've managed to get myself back up from a dream a week or less, to an average of two fragments and a reasonably detailed dream per night or every other night. Happy dreaming