Thread: trouble remember dreams

Hi everyone,

I have been reading stuff online for a few weeks now, not previously knowing about lucid dreaming i was researching if you could choose / control your dreams. anyway the first step for me is remembering my dreams, i got a notepad by my bed but in the past few weeks i have only remembered 2 dreams. i just don't remember them on waking up, i also have a 3 year old son who wakes up in the night at various times. i would hope he might wake up me mid dream so i would have better recall. i am trying vitamin B6, auto suggestion. i have woke up just remembering 1 word i write this down in my notepad, nothing triggers any further memories. does anyone have any other suggestions for me to try.

thanks for reading.

Keep writing in your dream journal every day, and immediately after you wake up. Jot down down everything, even if it's just emotions or dream fragments, recall gets better with time and practice. You could try going to bed after drinking a lot of water also, that way you will naturally wake up after your REM cycle (which is equated to dreaming). Before you go to the bathroom write in your dream journal, it should be fresh in your mind because you just came out of the dream.

Also, welcome to the forum

Thanks for that, i did read about that before but was unsure because i didn't want need to go to the bathroom to influence my dream which could end in embarrassment. have you try this before yourself?

I find that only going to bed with the intention of remembering a dream, not WBTB and remember your dreams, not WILD and remember your dreams, but take 3 - 4 days and spend you whole time building up your recall. I'm not sure if your already doing this but want to make sure you try.
I have lost my recall and I will be doing this technique friday night - monday morning so I will post the results.

When you wake up lie in bed for a while and try to remember the dream, dont try to remember the whole thing at once just sit and remember the last part of it, then backstep to what happened before that and before that etc etc until you dont remember anything more.
Thinking of other things like getting up for work, wheres the pen for my diary and other things will probably result in you trashing the recall of your dream away (for me its like that anwyay)

This technique works for me anyway but if you find one that suits you better use it

B6 and B12 are recommended and ive read up on acetylecholine helping too as during the REM period of sleep a lot of it is released and acetylecholine is good for memory (recalling), supplements are good and the easiest source of these vitamins but its always better to include them in your diet in my personal opinion, lots of lists on the web on what foods contain which one.
Although it doesn't always mean you'll improve dramatically they just apparently do, although taking them with the mental thought of being able to recall better may help.

Hope some of this information helped

When you wake up lie in bed for a while and try to remember the dream, dont try to remember the whole thing at once just sit and remember the last part of it, then backstep to what happened before that and before that etc etc until you dont remember anything more.




just re read that it sounded a bit mis-worded.

What I meant by it is as soon as you wake up remember the end part of the dreeam then back-track to the beginning or as far to the beginning as you can remember, remembering it backwards always seems easier as its like a sort of re wind.

I don't mean to be rude please don't take this the wrong way i really appreciate your comments and help but my problem is that when i wake even if i lie there or go to write it in my notebook i just don't remember anything sometimes just one word comes into my head so i write this down but thats as far as it goes. I think maybe i have been too impatient and too inconsistent with this so from what i have been reading on here on elsewhere on the net i am going to try autosuggestion (just telling myself to remember my dreams) for a week, being consistent in telling my self the same thing until i fall asleep, recording any feeling, thoughts, dreams etc that i experience when i wake (if any). once i have achieved this maybe i can then start using some of your suggestions here to improve recall of those dreams.

Same problem here. No soluton so far. Starting a dream journal helped very much but I am back to remembering almost nothing now. Noone here kowns a technique or solution except the 'write down everything' aproach, which is not helping when you can not remember anything. Sorry if I sound rude, but I see many people with this problem here and there is no solution to this.

Regards
Lorgarn

Well From only being off Cannibus for 2 days, i already can tell you with a positive mind and thinking about what i want
rather than whats the problem or why i'm not able to do certain things plays a major roll. I've recalled 2 dreams from yesturday night and one from friday night.
Its really key to NOT focus on "Why can't i remember my dreams" or "why can't i lucid dream" because your literally making a mental block for yourself.

Lucid dreaming takes practice, if you keep a positive mind about it and truely believe that in time you'll gain more dream recall, and more lucid dreams then definitely you'll gain these skills.
If you find it hard to be positive about it then take some time and visualize what it would be like to actually have a lucid dream. To do what you want in a world of your imagination. Feel the excitement and happiness... now hold onto thoughs positive emotions

I've struggled as you did too, but now i know to never think of what i dont want,

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Remember

Lucid dreaming takes practice, if you keep a positive mind about it and truely believe that in time you'll gain more dream recall, and more lucid dreams then definitely you'll gain these skills.

Well, how can I build up practice then? I started in December, had a decend effect for about a week and only fought against becoming more and more worse in what I do. I tried it during workday, during the weekend, I even had about 6 weeks I whenalmost did nothing throughout the day because I broke a bone in my shoulder. I do not see, how I could believe in my skills and developing any skill with an effect like this.

Originally Posted by Remember

If you find it hard to be positive about it then take some time and visualize what it would be like to actually have a lucid dream. To do what you want in a world of your imagination. Feel the excitement and happiness... now hold onto thoughs positive emotions

I did that. I have layed out what I want to do in my dreams or what I would like to dream about even when not being lucid. I have tried out several techniqes, I have even stopped thinking (or worrying) about the whole thing over the day, just keeping my dreamlog ready to just build up a certain recall ability before even trying any technique regarding lucid dreaming. It is not working for my. I fail to see, what to try next. And I also fail to think positiv about this, sorry.

Regards
Lorgarn

Learn to Sleep Consciously - Part II - Shards of Consciousness

This article tells you about the sleep cycle if you haven't learnt about it yet, and it has a tip for recalling dreams better.
Aprox. we hit our Rem stage (when we dream) 90 mins after we have fallin asleep.For example: If you set a timer to wake yourself up after 100mins after falling asleep . You'll probably wake up remembering things that you've just dreampt because you're not repeating into the sleep stages which probably happens to you and don't recall anything.
and im sure if this works with time you wont need to have a timer because your really motivating yourself in having a strong intention to attepmt to recall your dreams.

I was also typing into google "things that increase dream recall" i found an abundance of things about it you should check out if you haven't already.

Again i hope this helps lol, im trying to help ya cause i know this stuff can get frusterating.

Just an update,

I was talking to a friend about this, they let me borrow a CD. it's an hypnotherapy CD to improve memory its by Glenn Harrold (google him), he takes you into a very relaxed hypnotic state then gives your suggestions that you will remember etc. i tried this for 2 nights about 2 hours before bed and nothing still no memory of dreams (i knew i had them just couldn't remember them) the next 2 nights i listened to the CD as i was going to sleep and remembered 2-3 dreams only thing is i didn't have my dream journal to hand and since forgotten most of them, so lesson learned keep journal to hand at all waking up times!!

on a side note one of the dreams was a bit weird my son woke me up about 4am mid dream i took him downstairs and sat on the sofa we both fell asleep and (this is the weird bit) i started to dream, i knew i was dreaming i was using the TV remote and selecting menus on the TV i can only remember 2 options 1 was 'have a lucid dream' the other was 'carry on dreaming from last dream' thats the option i chose (i remember thinking to myself i am not ready for a lucid dream yet so thats why i didn't choose that option) and i did carry on dreaming from where it left off. this may not seem to weird to some people but i have also read that other people have had very similar dreams to this? is this common?

I just wanted to add for clarification purposes, take the advice of the people on this forum. But it's not necessarily telling yourself and believing you'll be able to lucid dream, but accepting as fact that your brain does have the ability to lucid dream, that others have and do experience lucid dreams, and that it is indeed a skill to be learned and practiced. So if you're focusing on what you haven't been able to do, shrug it off and know that we are all either in the same boat, or have been when we first started out. But you're on this website which is a great resource for immersing yourself in the materials you need to succeed at lucid dreaming, so don't sweat it, and get to it.