Dream recall currently

Dream recall is my current issues. I usually wake up 3 to 4 times a night. It comes with age especially for a guy over 70.

When I wake up lately I have no recall of dreams. I have a recorder next to my bed to record the dream if I could remember them.

However - I tend to remember my last dream before I wake up. I'd journal the dream content or what content I can remember.
But now I'm taking a different approach consider the lack of dream content. I'm now journaling as much detail of the dream segments I can remember. It about doubles my journal entries. Just started today. I figure if I can not remember dream segments I'll at least pay insightful attention to detail which will hopefully make me focus more while in my dream state. It's amazing at how much detail there is to write about.

Also, I've changed my MILD technique. As dream recall is an issue and make affirmations that I will wake up and remember my dreams in detail and then make affirmations to wake up lucid and then then begin my preplanned dream activity. But at the moment Dream Recall is my immediate goal.

I'm going to spend some time this morning reading other people's posts regarding Dream Recall. :dancingcow:

Definitely check out what others have written, you can see my dream recall tips via the link in my signature.

I think progress comes the quickest and most consistent when you make it a regular habit to reach for dream recall on every waking, even if nothing comes at first. You'll have to experiment and judge for yourself how much time to spend vs. going back to sleep, as you definitely want to maintain good sleep patterns (getting enough sleep, etc.). Remembering your final dream of the night is great!

It's all very exciting and we all want instant progress, but give it time. It is much better to have slow and steady progress than push really hard, get frustrated, and quit. Really develop a deep enjoyment of all your dreams, especially the non-lucid ones. Once you get more and more recorded dreams, you'll start to see patterns emerging about what you dream about most, and then this helps you "free associate" upon waking if you don't have any memories coming to you. Just rattle off a serious of themes that you typically dream about to see if you get any "hits" in your memory.

The more time you spend doing this every night and every day (writing up your DJ entries from your night-time recordings), the more your brain will realize that dream recall is important to you, and it will start to build/strengthen those neural pathways, leading to a snowball effect of more and more progress. Make sure you frame all this as very enjoyable as opposed to a chore, you want to make sure you have only positive thoughts about dreaming and dream recall, this will also help.

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

The more time you spend doing this every night and every day (writing up your DJ entries from your night-time recordings), the more your brain will realize that dream recall is important to you, and it will start to build/strengthen those neural pathways, leading to a snowball effect of more and more progress. Make sure you frame all this as very enjoyable as opposed to a chore, you want to make sure you have only positive thoughts about dreaming and dream recall, this will also help.

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Really excellent post in general (as usual), but this last bit hits the nail on the head.

The only thing I'll add is to try to not work so hard at this. I do not worry about my first two sleep/dream cycles. I always get up between the second and third for a brief WBTB where I clear my head with a bit of meditation. If you can get the balance between wakefulness and the ability to fall back to sleep you might find that both the clarity of your dreams in those last two cycles and your ability to recall them improves.

For example, today upon waking the first thing I did was reach for dream memories, and I had the memories of the final dream which I woke from, but not the earlier ones. I stayed quiet and still, and asked myself, "What was I just dreaming about? What was I dreaming about earlier?" and just quietly waited for images/memories to come. Slowly some impressions came, some concepts/themes, which I gently explored, and slowly more concrete images and plots came, and I was able to reconstruct several more dream scenes.

The more you reach for memories like this, and maintain intent to remember your experiences (waking and dreaming), the better and better you'll get at it. As you wrote, "use it or lose it," so use it! Don't forget to work on this while awake as well! Pick notable moments during the day to remember in the evening when you do a day review

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

The more you reach for memories like this, and maintain intent to remember your experiences (waking and dreaming), the better and better you'll get at it.

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This is so true. But.....there is also another approach, one that I just came from. I have only been able to do this a few times.

I awoke a number of times in the night with dream memories but instead of trying to hold on to them I reviewed them and then let them go. I did not get up and journal at my customary 2:00 AM WBTB time. I was waiting for that last dream.....just before my waking time. I actually stayed in bed all night which for a 71 year old guy, well.....yeah. :chuckle:

When that last dream came it was a fully conscious experience....incredibly clear. I interacted with a powerful character asking questions and receiving instruction, wisdom and acceptance. This will be one of those dreams that will stay with me. It was as if the entire night of dreaming without holding them had built into this one powerful and meaningful experience.

Excellent and meaningful comments my friends that I will take to heart.
Interesting comment about recall what you do during your waking hours and which I will incorporate into my practice.
As I stated somewhere else, my ultimate goal is Dream Yoga as well as spiritual development. From a Buddhist perspective our waking state is just another dream experience for those of us who can not perceive the original mind of empty clear light. So daily life is a projection of a body that we are habituated to accept as "real" by a "self" that itself is a fabrication, not really different than a dream body projected by our unconscious other than our "real" body is a fabrication projected by our conscious mind. So treating non-dreaming states just like dreams is good practice and practicing waking states recall I no doubt will have its merits.

Interesting thing about my recording of last week that I discovered today out of a hunch. All of my recording are between 5:20 and 5:29 AM. I have no alarm, I just wake up at that time and seem to have my best recall. I lay in bed and pick out the most prominent themes and flesh them out in my head and then record. However the technique doesn't always work. When I woke up for the last time I tried recalling the dream and ended up falling asleep. The only impression I have left is of a hand-held device like a phone or remote - something dark, squarish and with buttons. I tried pulling images from that starting point but no success.
So I'll approach this as trial and error as well as using ya'll's advice.

As far as the practice, I'm into it. I start my computer, get a cup of coffee, the dream journal auto-starts, I sit down and write and then use the recording to jog my memory.

Your posts are resonating with my practice in a very timely way.

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Originally Posted by SimulateReality

As I stated somewhere else, my ultimate goal is Dream Yoga as well as spiritual development. From a Buddhist perspective our waking state is just another dream experience for those of us who can not perceive the original mind of empty clear light. So daily life is a projection of a body that we are habituated to accept as "real" by a "self" that itself is a fabrication, not really different than a dream body projected by our unconscious other than our "real" body is a fabrication projected by our conscious mind. So treating non-dreaming states just like dreams is good practice

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This is the path I have found myself on as well, although it is not what I envisioned fours years ago when I had my first spontaneous lucid dream. The dream state .....the night in general.....is a fantastic place to work on becoming a fully realized part of the continuing evolution of what the philosopher Bernardo Kastrup calls "Universal Consciousness".....the Buddhist "One Mind". And the realization that, within that perspective, the dream state is just as real as the waking state and therefor the waking state is just as illusory as the dream state really starts to bring all of that into focus.

This morning I let my final dream of the night be my moment of waking into the day.