Thread: Problems With Dream Clarity

I want to know as well

I feel this is worth reposting in this thread:

Originally Posted by RaveCrazedDave

A few days ago I constantly said to myself "ok, when I lucid dream, I'll focus hard on my hands, take in every little detail." After a few nights I had a lucid, and I remembered to really focus on the details. I grabbed a nearby dude's face and looked at it intensely, and while I did it I was thinking to myself "this is amazing, it's like I'm awake, don't forget how clear it is." When I woke up I didn't feel like it was clear, but I strictly remember thinking and saying to myself over and over again that it was very very real, so I decided to trust myself.

I think we expect too much from lucid dream memories. For instance, when you remember or think about something that you saw in awaking life there is always a little fuzziness to the image, but in this case, you don't really expect or demand to remember every little crease on someone's skin. I feel we think of dreams that way because we are still so insecure about the subject (the more inexperienced people like me at least). We feel the need to really hammer down that we had a lucid dream and how it felt and looked, and it becomes frustrating when we can't. Of course this is all speculation, but if it has a bit of truth in it, it might mean you should expect not to remember everything you dream, if you also don't remember everything in a waking memory. Do this: think about an event that happened in awaking life and one that happened in a dream. Compare the level of visual detail you remember from one and the other. Of course, you'll remember the girl's beautiful blue eyes (and visualizing them in your head is a whole different story), but you probably wont remember every little eyelash. I get frustrated myself with this, but I'm starting to feel more and more that maybe we're overreacting.

I feel that memory is a big part of it. Practice dream recalling, but instead of only thinking about detailed events involving vague shapes and objects, think about those objects hard. Focus on them, how they felt, behaved or looked. Hell, maybe even make simple drawings. I've never done this myself (at least not yet), but I don't think it is that big of a leap to think this would help a lot. Also, do visualization exercises.

(Love this guy, by the way; his posts are the best, and he's probably handsome AF, ladies).

I don't know if this is relevant to your problem, but I think this observational aspect of it might really help, as well as realizing that it is nothing more (and perhaps nothing less) than an awake memory. You might also want to check out things like image streaming to aid with your affinity to mental images, if you think it might help, though I'm not sure if that's a thing or not.

I agree with Dave above; we can't expect the clarity of our lucid memories to surpass that of our waking memories. What is important (and what is often most memorable) about our experiences-- lucid or waking-- is how we feel. I understand the frustration of not being able to recall every detail of what could be an unfathomably beautiful setting, but remembering how that setting made you feel-- grateful, peaceful, existentially small, or whatever it may be, is likely what you will remember, and what many would argue is the most satisfying thing to remember anyway.

If you are looking to hammer down those details, I would recommend making clarity your sole intention for your next few lucid dreams. Focus on the little things. Then, when you wake up, in addition to your regular dream journaling, grab some colored pencils and sketch it out. You don't have to be an artist, but I find even scribbling down the color scheme or trying to recreate textures can help spark my visual memory.

I'm pretty handy when it comes to recreating certain events or people in my dreams. Just last night I had a pretty vivid LD, and I finally came to a conclusion, and that is that dream memory is almost pretty on par with regular memory. Like in the waking world, when we remember things that happened about 10 or 20 years ago, we tend to remember moments more than the actual vividness of that memory.

Funny thing however, I did have a legitimate issue with clarity in that dream. My vision was very clearly impaired, and I tried "commanding" the dream to clarify my vision, but to no avail. Even when I put on my glasses in the dream, my vision still wasn't up to snuff. Then, in the span of a few minutes, things went back to normal. Just something I thought I ought to share.

I had a lot of problems with clarity and still do at times and use a few tricks to clear up the dreams. I sometimes refer to this as anchoring since when my dreams are getting fuzzy it feels like I am losing them.

I started by really looking at the detail of my hands, every nook and cranny, the hairs and even rubbing my hands.

I then realized that when I interacted with the environment I was in, my dreams would be clearer. Reach down and grab some grass, rub it in your fingers and look at it, heck you can even put it in your mouth. Rub on the wall, pick something up and interact with it.

Another thing I do is shout, it was weird doing at first but seemed to work really well for me.

Hope this helps a bit.