Too busy to dream...

Alright, my problem is that as a student in college and I have lots of work and a busy schedule, making it difficult to get a decent amount of sleep in. I need two alarms to make sure I wake up, and if I try to stop to think about my dreams, I just fall right back to sleep (running the risk of oversleeping my 8-am!). Usually the jolt required to wake me up is enough to erase most dreams from my head, even when I might have time to write them down. I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one with this problem, and I was wondering if anyone else has had anything that helps. I've tried finding time to take naps or get more sleep, but most of the time it's really just not feasible, so I've been resigned to just working on dreaming during the weekends. If anyone has suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Viv

I have this exact problem too... I really don't know what you can do about it. I've kind of put my efforts on hold until the summer....

If going to bed earlier is impossible for you (which really does seem to be the best way to solve problems with dream recall), then you might want to just set your alarm clock to go off 2 hours earlier or so. When you wake up, you see if you can remember any dreams (it might be best to set the alarm about 6 hours after you'll fall asleep so you wake up during REM-sleep) and whether you can or can't, you get up, do whatever you normally do in the morning before you leave for where ever you have to go. After you're done, however, you can now go back to bed and fall asleep again. You'll still get just as much sleep, but you'll now have a better chance of waking up from a dream at least once. Of course, you probably won't like having to get up earlier than usual, so this does require some willpower.

That's the best advice I can think of, although you'll still have to set alarm clocks when doing this. I'd recommend to just set them a few minutes earlier than normal and allow yourself to stay in bed for a while, thinking about your dreams. I usually can recall at least part of a dream if I do this.

Other than that, you might try taking something that increases the vividness of your dreams, like Vitamin B6. This should help with dream recall.

On a side note, I used to need two alarm clocks to wake up as well. But then I got enough of it and went back to one. At first I slept through it a couple of times, but after a week or so I was fine. I never sleep through it now. If you want to use just one clock, you just have to let your system get used to it for a while, then it'll be fine (if you work the way I do anyway).

I hope that helps in some way. If not, then you might want to consider letting go of lucid dreaming until you have more time to spend on it. After all, you have the rest of your life to learn how to do it. ^.^

i'm a full time (15 credit hour) college student with at least 8 hours of out of class lab time. i work 24+ hours a week and i wake up at 5:30am every week day. i also party and do all that social crap. i recall around 2 dreams upon waking up in the morning and if either one of them are interesting i make a serious mental note and write it down sometime before i leave my home. so it's not impossible.

some ways you can improve your recall.

leave a note pad by your bed along with a low intensity light. you will wake up after every REM period in your sleep. make a serious effort to quickly jot down things from your dream. then just fall back asleep. sort out the notes in the morning when you have time or when you get back from school/work. they will jog your memory enough for you to put the dreams together.

or you could just wait until the weekend... get a good nights sleep. then in the morning wake up... do something to stir your brain muscles... walk/dance/sex/whatever... take a nap. just lay down and concentrate on the backs of your eyelids (whatever it takes you to rest).

and go.