Baby Steps: Working on Dream Recall

I always used to be one of those people who say "I don't dream." Actually, it wasn't even true to say that I never recalled my dreams -- only that I didn't have very good recall, that I didn't pay much attention to my dreams. Then I came across one of LaBerge's early books, and was fascinated. About ten years ago, a bit longer, I started working on recall. The usual stuff, keeping my eyes shut when I woke up, scanning for memories of dreams, writing them down immediately. Of course, I started getting better.

Oddly, I found myself going back to the same places. I even had names for two of them: The Leper Colony and The Brothel. The leper colony was always full of social rejects, outcasts. One time, actual lepers. Another time, junkie-anarchist punks, and so on. And I was with them, but even in that group of people, I always felt like an outsider, an outsider amongst outsiders. The brothel was always full of extremely powerful, highly sexual women who were somehow dangerous -- not evil, but they certainly didn't have my best interests at heart. It took me a while to realize that I was going back to those places, and I never realized it while I was actually dreaming, which I guess would have been a major step towards lucidity. It was only after I woke up that I'd think, hang on, that's kind of similar to the dream I had before. The appearance of the place and the people were always quite different, but there was a feeling about it -- I heard someone use the phrase "dream tone" -- that made me realize it was the same place.

Would that count as a "dream sign"?

Sigh. At the time, I'd just gone through a difficult divorce, about a year earlier. In waking life, I felt pretty certain that I'd moved on, got over it. But in my dreams, my ex-wife often appeared before me. It was never good. Sometimes she was taunting me, mocking me. Other times, she'd be trying to talk to me through a glass window, and I couldn't hear what she said. It actually became so disturbing that I stopped noting dreams, more or less gave up with working on recall.

Yes, yes, I should have faced it, dealt with it, whatever. But I didn't. I gave up. It was just going on too long, and nothing was changing.

I did have one memorable lucid dream during that period. I was in a very upmarket oyster bar-resto in a skyscraper in New York, meeting two women friends I used to work with. The thing that tipped me off that I was dreaming was that the waiter gave us the best table in the joint. That struck me as weird. We obviously weren't going to be big spenders, it just didn't feel real. So I realized I was dreaming. Without thinking much, I thought: Okay, if I'm dreaming, I should be able to jump through the window and fly. So I did exactly that. As I jumped, I had a sudden lurch of fear -- what if I'm NOT dreaming? Perhaps I should be a little bit more cautious about this? But I passed through the glass without it breaking and was flying. And then I realized that it meant I'd left my friends with the expensive bill, without paying for my share. And that made me dissolve in laughter, and I woke up.

One or two other glimpses of lucidity here and there.

Oh, just remembered! I had a girl friend at about that time, a very conservative woman from a religious background, quite conventional, not into anything "weird" in her life (with a few notable exceptions in one area of her life). She was a natural lucid dreamer, she said it happened all the time, she just noticed that there was something different about, say, the carpet on the floor, so she must be dreaming. I was a bit envious, and slightly peeved that she thought it was ... fun, but completely insignificant. I told her some people worked hard for years to do what she could do, and she just shrugged and said it's nothing important. I have to say, in waking life, she was a very observant woman. She noticed little things, a shifted book, slightly dirty shoes, whatever. I was often surprised that she seemed to know what I had been doing and so on, just because she noticed that kind of stuff.

Anyway. Now I'm pretty much starting from scratch, with very weak recall. I've started using a voice activated recorder, an Android app. Last night, I woke up and a line from the I Ching came into my head: 50.3, the Caldron, a symbol of ... oh, too long. A beautiful pot for preparing a ceremonial meal to be shared by the entire community. Except line three refers to a blockage of some kind, which is eventually released:

The handle of the Ting is altered. One is impeded in his way of life. The fat of the pheasant is not eaten. Once rain falls, remorse is spent. Good fortune comes in the end.

Except the line I remembered in the dream was completely different, it said: You can complete the cycle in three steps. I think it's a quote from the Little Prince, about the lamplighter on a tiny asteroid, so small he could walk all the way around it in three steps.

So, my goal at the moment is to try to remember at least one dream every night. I keep a journal by my bed, I often write in it before going to sleep. My intention to remember. Or interesting points from one of several books about lucid dreaming that I've been looking at. Or just why I would like to achieve lucidity, what particular adventures I'd like to have.

I'm an anthropology geek. It was my major at university. I still love reading ethnography. I'd love to be able to go and visit the people I read about, see the witches and spirits they believe in. That kind of thing.

What else? I've been involved in meditation for decades, simple Theravada mindfulness practice. That might be relevant to dream recall and lucidity. I'm also an enthusiastic student of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese oracle book.

Oh, and I have a very uneasy relationship with sleep! At some points in my life, I've had long periods of terrible insomnia. Not for quite a while now, but I still don't really sleep easily and well and regularly. Sometimes I can't get to sleep in the first place, other times I wake up early and have trouble going back to sleep.

I look forward to learning from the community here.

Thanks, everyone, for the resources and ideas that are available here!