Insomnia and Dream Recall

**Nevermore** · 12-03-2012 09:34 PM

Greetings, new to DV as well as lucid dreaming and have a couple questions. This first question goes out to all the other insomniac lucid dreamers out there : do you feel your dream recall is affected by your insomnia? I browsed through the similar threads (genius idea by the way) on insomnia but they mostly talked about insomnia itself and solutions to try and help sleep, not how it correlates to lucid dreaming. Personally, I have pretty terrible dream recall. In fact, until I read that you constantly dream every night and simply don't remember these dreams, I simply thought that I would only dream once in a blue moon. I usually only remember a dream about once every month or so, and most of the time it doesn't seem nearly as vivid as most of even the beginner threads I read describe them.

However, during the early morning hours I can usually at least vaguely recall dreams pretty reliably. This occurs when insomnia has taken hold of me and I stay up until around 4-5 in the morning. Around this time is when sleep deprivation really kicks in, and I actually begin to feel tired. At this point, I can go to sleep pretty easily and upon waking I will have some semblance of dream recall. After waking I can also try and drift back to sleep depending on how tired I am, and have decent dream recall upon waking again. I can repeat this process of waking and going back to sleep if I'm still tired to recall multiple dreams in one day (usually the only time I recall dreams at all). This is obviously horribly inefficient though as it burns through a couple hours of my day and can only be achieved during days where I don't need to be anywhere in the morning/early afternoon.

This morning was one of those mornings where I drifted back to sleep and was able to recall multiple dreams. I started my very first dream journal and jotted down everything I could remember about both of these dreams as I would like to get into lucid dreaming. Does anyone have any tips, other than the main ones posted in the tutorials, to help with dream recall? Clearly dream recall is an important fundamental to have when looking to lucid dream, and as such I would very much like to improve anyway I can. One last question, how long did it take you to achieve lucidity?

**Mancon** · 12-04-2012 03:14 AM

Welcome to Dreamviews, Nevermore!

The more you sleep, the more you dream, and the more you can recall your dreams. So insomnia definitely affects dream recall. You can still lucid dream with it, though. Here is a dream recall tutorial that might help you: Dream Recall Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

If you focus on dream recall and tell yourself every time before bed that you want to recall your dreams then your chances of your dream recall going up will increase. Just keep trying!

It took me about a month to achieve my first lucid. It varies from person to person, so don't give up if you are not getting it right away. If you have any other questions, just ask!

**Artemidorus** · 12-19-2012 12:48 AM

Hello, Nevermore. I'm also insomniac, or at least I have an insomniac history and still don't sleep that well, so I am particularly interested in your post (sorry it's taken me so long to get around to replying). I think a lot depends on the type of insomnia you have, and more must depend on more intricate personal factors. From what I have read, generally three types of insoomnia are distinguished: (1) difficulty getting to sleep; (2) waking much too early and not being able to sleep again; (3) very light sleep (malsomnia). I've suffered at various times from all these three, but the most persistent, and the first one I experienced, is (1). Now funnily enough when I used to have this problem really badly, I never noticed that it prevented dream recall. True, I wasn't keeping a DJ, but it would never have occurred to me to suppose that I wasn't dreaming at all...whereas nowadays when I have a night of this sort, I usually have very little dream recall. On the other hand, I find that (2) and (3) can be positively helpful for lucid dreaming. I never deliberately do WBTB (well, you wouldn't, as an insomniac, would you?) but sometimes after waking unintentionally I will drift back, not directly into a lucid dream (WILD) as far as I can see, but into a dream which quickly becomes lucid. I don't know how long it took to have my first lucid dream, it's not something I was chasing consciously at the time. But I think it was during adolescence rather than childhood, and I notice a lot of the posters here are very young - so that may be indicative, perhaps. I wish I knew what helped lucidity! I think there's a lot we still don't know about sleep. One thing I have noticed is that my lucid dreams tend to come in clusters, then there will be a gap till the next cluster. What helps recall? Lying very quiet and still until you have remembered everything you think you can - then start writing, and sometimes other memories come back as you write. But I still find that some mornings I remember nothing at all. Well, these are just random jottings really, but I too would be interested to hear from other insomniacs about their dream experiences.

**sanctispiritus** · 12-20-2012 01:48 AM

I definitely think that insomnia affects lucidity during sleep. If I wake up in the middle of the night, almost certainly I will not return to sleep in an hour or two. On those nights, the likelihood of lucid dreaming and dream recall is almost nil. However when I sleep well for two or three days in a row the propability of having a lucid dream is greatly increased. When I take melatonin I manage to sleep better, but it is not translated into lucid dreaming. The same is true if I take diphenhydramine or benadryl. In those cases I sleep better but I do not remember my dreams and I have much less lucid dreams. In my case the likelihood of lucid dreaming is directly proportional to the amount of hours I manage to sleep without taking any medication.

**sanctispiritus** · 12-22-2012 07:44 PM

during the last 3 days I slept for at least 6 hours. Mi average is probably less than 5. As a result last night I had 2 lucid dreams. Actually I do not use any technique for LDing. They come spontaneously.

**Artemidorus** · 01-11-2013 02:49 PM

Interesting, I guess there are more than just three varieties of insomnia, and we are all different! Anyone else out there want to share their experiences?

**sanctispiritus** · 01-11-2013 03:57 PM

Today I find myself with your post after a night of almost no sleep at all. I woke up at 2:20 am and could not close the lids on the rest of the night. Three hours of sleep and I can not remember absolutely nothing of my dreams. It will take 2 or 3 days for me to have a normal sleep again.