Originally Posted by
Tipharot
Sleep with your phone under your pillow. Install some phone app dream journal or even just use the notes in your phone. Then when you wake up you can quickly note down a 1-2 sentence description of your dream.
This also has the advantage of helping you remember dreams that you have during earlier REM periods. Let's say you have a bunch of dreams in your early REM periods, don't write them down, and then have a bunch more in the last REM period of the night. You'll typically remember the dreams from the last REM period, so the earlier ones go forgotten if you're waiting until you get up in the morning to note down your dreams.
I used to say that pen and paper was better, but since converting to using my phone recently I've been able to store a lot more dreams that I would have simply forgotten otherwise. A lot of times I wake up in the middle of the night, after some dreams, but I'm just too tired to do anything other than go back to sleep. Since it only takes 30 seconds or less to grab my phone from under my pillow and note down the brief gist of my dream, I can do that and go back to sleep without issue.