What does expert-level dream recall look like?

Topic. I've always struggled with dream recall -- I can consistently easily remember a single dream every night by just waking up regularly in the morning, but to remember extra dreams I've always set alarms during the night to wake me up so I write down recollections.

But this greatly disturbs my sleep, and even after weeks of practice, it still takes me 90-120 minutes to get back to sleep. I was wondering if as an alternative, I might just practice my dream recall by training myself to remember multiple dreams upon waking up in the morning. Is that how proficient LDers do it? I assume people aren't waking up 5 times in the middle of the night every night for the rest of their lives... lol.

Waking up in the middle of the night multiple times isn't a hassle if it doesn't take too much time to fall back asleep.

Think about why it takes so long to fall back asleep. I figure this usually happens because the mind is too active.

If this is the case, try focusing on something while falling asleep that doesn't take too much thought. For example, focus on breathing.

Alarms are not needed to remember extra dreams. All that is needed is awareness.

it is better if you wake naturally directly from the dreams end, try drinking lots of water at night and on each awakening
like 1 Liter

remember to remember the dream before you go to the bathroom tho, then drink more and go back to sleep :)

I second cooleymd with the water idea; it works tremendously well. But, if you don't like it or don't want to do it for any reason, you should try just setting the intention of waking up after every dream. Just repeat the words 'I wake up after I dream' 20-50 times before sleeping and you'll start getting results in a week or so (at least I did).

Waking up several times during the night happens naturally more often than you might think; in many cases, people do it but just don't realize it's happening because they fall back asleep so quickly.

In my case, when I started taking a big interest in recording my dreams right after awakening from them, I eventually found myself simply waking up naturally after almost every sleep period, usually just after the dream. It was never planned; it somehow just happened, perhaps simply because of developing such a strong motivation and intention to do so (sort of like when you know you have to get up at a certain time and end up waking up on your own just before the alarm hits). This allowed me to amass an amazing number of dream accounts in my dream journal for a single night on many occasions.

Fortunately, I usually can get back to sleep fairly quickly after each awakening (even despite that it often seems to take forever to fall asleep initially at the beginning of the night), so it doesn't interfere with my overall sleep too much. Occasionally, though, I can find it hard to go to sleep for a while. Sometimes this is because of some thought that excites me and keeps me too distracted to sleep, but sometimes it happens for no apparent reason. If you have trouble getting back to sleep due to thoughts, some techniques like meditation may help. It's also a good idea to find a way to record the dreams that won't arouse you too much: for instance, by using a method that allows you to do it without getting out of bed, or avoiding one that requires turning on a light that's too bright (or using a phone, etc., with a screen that's too bright). Those can also interfere with getting back to sleep.