Thread: Do you record dreams in present or past tense?

I meant to put present tense... Meh. I have a tendency to write in present tense, but occasionally I write in past. I'll go back through my journal and see if there's a reason why I do one or the other...

-Amé

I write mine in past tense. It's already happened, so past tense seems fitting to me..This is a cool topic, Burns.

hmm, i actually had to check my DJ in order to see. i use both, and sometimes a sort of hybrid between the two...

I use past tense as I am remembering a dream.

However I find sequencing dreams difficult. As I remember part of a dream, I will remember what came before that, and then what came before that, etc.

But then other details and story lines will jump into memory, and I am often not really clear on the sequence of events.

In my DJ on DV, I'm just posting LDs which are much clearer than my NDs.

However I find sequencing dreams difficult. *As I remember part of a dream, I will remember what came before that, and then what came before that, etc.

But then other details and story lines will jump into memory, and I am often not really clear on the sequence of events. [/b]

yeah, i know what you mean. i get this pretty often on longer non-lucids where the vividness fluctuates. however, i find my lucids are usually easy to record in a sequentially accurate way.

do you find sequencing harder with non-lucids?

I actually do a bit of both depends on the dream, mostly past.

Originally posted by Gwendolyn
I write mine in past tense. It's already happened, so past tense seems fitting to me..This is a cool topic, Burns.

tup

Past tense, usually, but I may try doing it in present to see if it has any effect on my recall. Thanks for the idea, Burns.

Past tense, but occasionally if I am recording a really exciting or interesting dream, I switch to present tense without realising it.

Originally posted by MartinB
Past tense, but occasionally if I am recording a really exciting or interesting dream, I switch to present tense without realising it.

That's exactly the same as me. It drives me nuts when I realize that I've switched tenses, and I have to go back and correct all the verbage (damn OCD! )

I almost always record mine in the present tense. Occasionally, I'll flip to past tense for a sentence (that usually happens when I forget to mention a detail or get events out of sequential order and have to record the new info and/or corrections). And I agree, this is a cool topic. Hmm, is anyone interested in making a research experiment out of it? We could have present tense recorders vs. past tense recorders and each group would record how many dreams they recall each night. At the end of a few weeks, we could tally them up and see if there's a significant difference.

^^ It would be important to make sure everyone uses the same recalling method in the morning (that is, for example, staying in bed for 2 minutes or so then getting up and writing their dreams) as well as the same level of detail recorded.

Anyways, I use a mix as well. I think I usually use past tense, now that I think of it. But I think "reliving the dream" through present tense writing could be pretty cool!

I vote for making it into a research experiment. I actually thought about posting this topic in the Research Forum, but I thought it'd get more responses in General Discussion.

Do with it what you will, Research Team!

I actually switch back and forth, but I clicked present tense because that's the one I use most.

If this becomes a research project, we could also record information such as age, gender, occupation, and frequency of lucid dreams. Whatever you think would be pertinent to such a study.

I record my dreams in the past tense but have decided to change it to present in order to help my recall.

ok...so I read thru this thread yesterday and I had a dream about it last night (non-lucid). Short version of it: My sister and are at a mall walking around and im just watching my feet move and nothing else and then i realize something, i stop walking and i tell my sister that when she thinks back on this it should be in the present tense and not the past. I make it sound like this big huge deal. Like the fate of the world depends on it. She starts getting all serious about it too and starts asking why and what will happen if she doesnt remember it all in the present tense. I tell her not to worry about it and just pretend that its all in the present........
weird dream.

Originally posted by Starlite
ok...so I read thru this thread yesterday and I had a dream about it last night (non-lucid). Short version of it: My sister and are at a mall walking around and im just watching my feet move and nothing else and then i realize something, i stop walking and i tell my sister that when she thinks back on this it should be in the present tense and not the past. I make it sound like this big huge deal. Like the fate of the world depends on it. She starts getting all serious about it too and starts asking why and what will happen if she doesnt remember it all in the present tense. I tell her not to worry about it and just pretend that its all in the present........
weird dream.

LOL - same thing happened to me after I read the thread about dreaming you were the opposite gender. I went to bed that night and had a flying dream, only I was a guy. Power of suggestion, I guess!

Past tence, mostly.

Persent tence sounds GAY ^___^