Passion/intensity waning

[lucidknight]

I feel as i've gotten older, dreams have become much less intense. I feel i'm not as engaged throughout the whole experience as i use to be. It feels kind of like, when you lose passion for something. What also came along with it, is a lack for dream recall. Another thing is i've found, because i'm kind of less engaged, even nightmares don't really scare me anymore; it's more like "meh, neeext..". I don't feel as taken away as i use to be, maybe reality has struck hold of me and the fairy dust of dreams have blown away. How can i gain back the intensity? you know, the kind that's like watching a fantastically engaging movie, but obviously 10x better.

[Sensei]

This is really not losing your "youth" it is just losing your "recall". Your dreams were more vivid and you were more conscious in them when younger, so they were better. Nightmares aren't dreams with scary elements, they are dreams that are like being near a dementor, like all the happiness in the world just got sucked out of you. So my advice is to work on recall and have more "epics". An epic is what I call a long engaging dream that you have the controls, whether or not you know that you are dreaming.

[Sageous]

Speaking as an "old guy," let me confirm from experience that your dreams can be every bit as vivid, engaging, novel, and generally interesting now as they ever were. How important you make your dreams and the effectiveness of your recall are less dependent on age than interest. Life is full of diversions and complications that constantly threaten to overwhelm already marginal events like dreams. It is up to you to keep that from happening, to choose to keep your dreams important. Give it a shot; you will not be dissapointed... be warned, though, it might take a while to get back into a dreaming groove similar to your youth -- or rather how you remember those dreams to have been.