Thread: Waking Up In The Middle Of The Night To Record Dreams?

Whats your opinion on Waking up in the middle of the night to record dreams? Im just starting out, and I was wondering if it really is a good idea to wake up throughout the night, or if I can just record the dreams I remember in the morning. Will it make a big difference? If it will i am happy to do so

Of course you can, but I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night only for that. Sure, you can do it when you wake up naturally or right before you do a WILD or something. Just don't distrupt the rest of your sleep!

Well that all depends on your dream recall. Would they be more clear to you if you jot down notes when you awake in the night to finish in the morning? As for me, waking up after dreams just doesnt happen. I find that auto suggestion works quite well for me such as stating: "I will remember all my dreams when i wake up" of course you can fit it to your standards

It is always better to record dreams in the night when you naturally wake up vs. trying to remember dreams in the morning. If you simply want to remember one or two dreams a night then by all means just write when you wake up. If you want to develop a really good dream recall then write down a dream every time you wake up. It depends on how devoted you are.

Hope I helped a little

It makes a huge difference for me. I think the best is to wake up naturally from dreams, but it can be hard to actually wake up enough to write them down. At the very least try to wake up enough to relive the dream, to somehow try to solidify it in your memory before going back to sleep.

Next best is setting some soft alarms to wake you every couple of hours, and then waiting until morning.

It does depend on your level of recall, though. If you do wait until morning, make sure to write them all down the moment you wake up. Then extra details can come back throughout the day.

Sorry, What I meant was using an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night. Is THAT adviseable, or should you only wake up and write your dreams when you wake of naturally after a dream

When first starting out a lot of people choose to use an alarm during the night to help them get that extra ammount of recall. If you find you have a hard time getting back to sleep after an alarm, but still want to have the best recall possible, I would recommend using autosuggestion to help you become aware of your night time awakenings.

Hope this answered your question!

Yeah I have a lot of trouble falling asleep if an alarm goes off in the middle of the night. But if you try setting your cell phone to vibrate mode, and leaving it near your pillow, it should wake you up just enough but not enough to keep you up for hours

At first I was kind of bummed about the idea, thought I would be loosing sleep. It took some willpower to make myself roll over and write, and I wasn't happy about the idea of interrupting my night. In retrospect though--I think I had been waking up after each dream cycle all along, at least partially, but since I wasn't doing anything noteworthy (just going back to sleep) I had no reason to remember it in the morning. I would just discount it as a moment before I fell asleep, when in fact it was a few hours after I initially fell asleep.

Getting up to take notes is the best thing you can do to improve recall. And don't just write down a few words, take detailed notes including all the main elements and events.

Hey guys, thanks for all of the help. Finally after 4 nights of trying, last night I used the autosuggestion and woke at 4:30 AM just after a dream. If you have any intrest in reading the dream, look at my dream journal (the link is in my signature). It was a very strange feeling...I just seemed to open my eyes, haha. I hope that from now on this will get easier, because I've done it once. I plan to wake up at least once every night. I will record my dreams, and I can start trying techniques to hopefully have my first LD!