New guy here (need some help!)

Hey guys, I read about LD's years ago, but didn't have much motivation to really stick to the whole process of achieving them. Well, like most people on here now, after watching Inception I decided what the hell I'll give it some effort this time.

So yesterday I decided to read up and found this site and read all of it's intro pages on the home page to all this dream stuff. About midday I took about an hour nap, thinking before napping that I wanted to remember my dream, and after I woke up I probably had the most vivid dream recollection in years.

Needless to say I was pretty excited, but last night I had no success in recalling any of my dreams. I woke up once about 6 hrs after falling asleep (not to an alarm) and didn't recall anything, so I went back to sleep and got up about 2 hrs later (again not to an alarm) and didn't recall anything, and was kind of pissed haha.

I guess what I need help on is is how to improve on dream recollection? What were your techniques to become better at recalling your dreams? Is it simply just repeating to yourself as you fall asleep that you "want to remember your dreams when you wake up"?

And secondly, the whole idea of performing reality checks while in a dream is kind of puzzling to me. For myself, when I'm in a dream (or recalling it afterward) it feels like I'm not really in control of my actions, that I'm kind of watching myself act through my dreams but through my own eyes? Hopefully I'm explaining it well enough for you guys to understand haha. I just can't grasp the idea of actually having the awareness to perform an action such as a reality check when I feel so lost during dreams.

I'm not gonna lie though, the dream I did recall yesterday ended in a nightmare though, so I wasn't as motivated last night to really remember my dreams in case they were nightmares again haha. Did any of you run into that problem when starting, because the emotions you feel during those nightmares, however goofy the situation is logically, feel pretty real when experiencing them.

:welcome:
Firstly i started attempting lucid dreams a week ago, my dream recall went form 0 to about 4 recalls a night. The main reason i think this is because i listen to binaural beats as i fall asleep (my current one has subliminal messages). The most common way of remembering dreams is through a Dream Journal. It is a method were as you wake after your dream you instantly write down your dream or just keywords. once you have a few dreams you should read through them before you go to sleep. If you do not wake up after your dreams normally you can set an alarm clock (which is risky because you don't always know what time you are dreaming. and it could wake you up during a lucid dream). Or you can repeat a sentence to yourself AS you fall asleep like: "I will wake up after my dreams and remember them vividly". Secondly I think it means you are in Third Person if you feel like you are watching your dreams and not in them, i'm not sure how to solve this though. And as for the awareness of performing a Reality Check the idea is to look at your sorroundings and see if anything is out of place, therefore you may cause a habbit in yor dream and you 'should' perform one in your dream (I never have). As for recalling the nightmares i'm not sure how you would do that, but if you do have controlled lucidity during a nightmare you can control the nightmare and have it as you want it.
I hope this helps and good luck! :)

Hi Darkbright, welcome to DV :D

Obviously, most people experience their dreams the same way you're describing if they don't achieve lucidity. You'll just have to build up familiarity with your own dream world, and recall is a great place to start. Suggestion is a powerful tool, and you might try carrying it to the next level with dream incubation. In bed, picture a person, place or experience you want to dream about, and give yourself the suggestion, "I will dream about X." It's a little more concrete than "I will remember."

Regarding reality checks, a big part of their effectiveness is making you question reality when you're awake. You create the habit of questioning reality which can then carry over into dreams, but you also become more familiar with the way your consciousness experiences the waking world, improving the odds that when you're dreaming, you'll notice the difference.

Anyway, you're on the right track by starting with recall, and a nightmare isn't all bad news; nightmares are probably the #1 cause of accidental lucidity, when people teach themselves to either take control or just wake up. For me, work/school anxiety dreams are one of the most reliable ways to go lucid.