Is Dream Recall Easier When You Let Your Body Sleep?

[lomba15]

What im asking is, I can sleep for like 9-10 hours, is this too long, will i forget the dream? Or should I try and wake up after like 6-8 hours? Thanks.

[Mancon]

You are able to recall more dreams the more you wake up in the night. One of the tips for people struggling with recall is actually to wake up in the middle of the night. As long as you have good recall...I wouldn't worry about waking up earlier. If you are struggling with remembering dreams..I would try and wake up early.

[lomba15]

Thanks!

[Supernova]

Personally, I find that I recall much more in the way of dreams when I'm able to sleep in. Part of this has to do with waking up several times, however your REM periods get longer the longer you sleep, and the latter ones seem to produce the most easily-recallable dreams.

[n00bf0rlyf3]

If you want to do this it will take discipline, trust me, when I wake up the first thing I want to do is fall back asleep, not stay up for 5 mins journaling. But since later on you will wake up pretty much after every dream you can exploit that and get like 6-8 dreams in a night and have a much higher chance of lucidity

[melanieb]

Lots of good advice here. Find out what works for you. Try each effort for a week and see how it works!

[Frobthebuilder]

More sleep is generally better, but make sure to write down your dreams after every awakening. If you go back to sleep, you will most likely forget the previous dream. Sometimes I get lazy when I sleep in and don't write anything down, and even though I can remember having like four dreams, I can only remember what happened in the latest one.

[mcwillis]

It amazes me that often I will wake up and lay still for five minutes and not remember any dreams. I get up, go to the bathroom, make a cup of tea, roll a smoke and then sit down on my sofa. I then grab my dream diary, open it, look at a blank page and suddenly memories of the nights dreams come to me.