looking for help with non disruptive recall during the night

Hi all

For many years I had really great dream recall but for the last 1-1 1/2 years my recall is as poor as its been for over 20 years. Granted I've let it slip and rarely journal anymore. Trying to build this again.
What I find is during the night I sometimes wake with recall of dreams that interest me but at times when I write them I'm then too awake to get back to sleep easily. Used to never be a problem. In the morning then I either have no recall or only dreams that don't actually interest me (I know should write something anyway to build habit). I used to experiment with memory techniques to try and form an association to the dream image during the night, so could remember in morning without having to move to write. Mixed success with this. Any advice or tips?
I'd love, if on non lucid or not particularly interesting dreaming nights, I could remember and have journal ling only take a few mins. More important for me by in large to get some stretching and meditation in before the day gets going...
Tnks

Though journaling is the key to better recall I think it has to be done with enthusiasm to be effective. When you’re about to fall asleep you want to be excited about recalling a great dream and ready to pounce on it as soon as you wake in the night.

I struggle to fall back asleep also so I never write my dreams down in the night. Instead I try to remember one memorable image from the dream, such as “a flying pig” and then in the morning I can use that image to recall the rest of the dream. I know others recommend writing down a few key words or using a voice recorder as well.

Sometimes I just ignore my early night dreams and focus on the last few hours instead so I don’t have so many to recall and jot down in the morning. You have to accept you’ll be missing out on some interesting dreams earlier in the night but I find the later morning dreams are easier to recall and more vivid anyway so I don’t mind the sacrifice.

If you want to note down the non-interesting dreams without this being too disruptive, I'd suggest that you simply journal keywords relating to them. Try to go through those dreams' key moments and quickly pick out the visually distinct elements, which can be what you'll write down as key words. Even writing down just a few keywords is a decent amount of effort towards memory consolidation, which is presumably what you want here. This can be done without writing, where you commit a visual element or thought to be remembered later, but I personally find that to be unreliable, so I always prefer writing when possible.

You may find that sometimes the keywords may still not be enough to maintain recall of some dreams, which is why I'd personally suggest to try and expand the writing about the dream a bit, whenever the first chance for it arises, assuming this doesn't disrupt any other intents or objectives you have.

When you say that you can't get back to sleep as easily, how long are we talking about in terms of staying up/awake?

Thanks for that. Recall has been better this last week. Intent and enthusiasm really are key, regardless of what one does...
Been writting in my phone. When I get one, others come...Not overly interesting content...still building blocks...Don't know will I get back to previous levels of commitment...I had some epic LD's in the past. If I was kept awake in the past for an hour, I'd find it interesting...slowly moving through levels of sleep...Though I know it takes an ongoing motivation and time commitment...Will see where I get to...May start reading some Andrew Holecek again...Used to build good motivation.
Thanks for feedback. Posting here and getting response helped

I found that using a voice recorder app on my phone, stashed nearby, minimizes movement and disturbance (it's done in the dark with eyes closed). I found it was easier to understand sleepy voice that to read sleepy scrawls. The voice recorder also gives detailed time stamps on your wakings.

The recommendations to focus more on latter wakings is a good strategy. Keywords as well (but this can lose some detail). I think picking particular nights to decide to do really detailed recall, and being more relaxed about it on other nights helps as well.

I also stopped all night-time recording and keep a running mental list of keyword/images from dreams, I find that I generally remember most everything in the morning, some details degrade that's true. But it's also disruptive, because I usually spend not a small amount of time on reviewing the mental list at different wakings to keep it fresh until morning, and that is a bit stimulating. Sometimes it's better to record those keywords then just go back to sleep.