Thread: Unable to remeber dreams

Aww... don't give up okay? One thing that it could be is that you're trying too hard, when you stress the words of "I'll have a dream tonight" you have to sound confident, not needy. Another thing is, your body, physically or mentally, consciously or not, could be stressed. That's a major cut back on dream recall, stress. Or certain things you do before bed [I've been reading up on these things in books on Lding] like watch TV, chug a soda or caffeine in general. I'll try to keep guessing at it until I find something that might help 'cause it can really suck to feel frustrated over things you're trying to do but haven't gotten to yet [as in achieved]

And welcome to DV

When I first started I tried so hard and could only remember maybe one or two dreams a week. After awhile I learned a little bit about how to force yourself to remember dreams. I noticed that I always remembered my nightmares because I was waking up from them, meaning that the dream was fresh on my mind. If you really don't mind interrupting your sleep, and want to remember dreams I would try waking myself up about an hour or two before you naturally wake up with a loud alarm or vibrating phone. Maybe even have your phone show you a message such as "what was your dream?" As soon as you remember it, write it down in detail! Do the same thing for several nights always taking highly detailed dream journals and soon you'll start to see yourself improving. One last thing is to mix the time at which you wake up. This is not a long term dream recall strategy but rather a forced way to begin dream recall, soon you wont need to force wakeup. I hope this advice helps a bit.

Originally Posted by ccc

Over the past 3 months, I have remembed one dream.

welcome to the club....

First off, the worst thing you can do is to quit. So don't think about that option :p. Second, try not to be too negative. If you believe you can't (which I'm not saying you are believing that), then you can't and won't.
Those tutorials you are using seem to be fine. You can also experiment with other ways of recall. One thing that has seemed to work for me with recall in the past is to write in my dream journal even if I didn't remember my dream. I would write something positive like "I will try again tomorrow".
Don't loose hope though. For some people it is very difficult. I personally know people, though they are not lucid dreamers, who do not remember their dreams even after six months.

The only advice I can offer is to just lay in bed for 10 minutes after you wake up, and don't move. Just lay there and try to think of different things, and maybe something will trigger your memory.

Also, turn off your alarm clock - the sound of it going off (for me anyways) is often enough of a shock to jar any lingering memories of dreams out of your head. Try to train yourself to wake up on time just by telling yourself to wake up at a certain time. It's pretty amazing what your body can do if you work at it

Welcome to the forum, hrm thats annoying, well you need to continue with the dream journal.

Try to keep positive, any negativitey greatly detroys the chances of recall.

Thanks, I will try to keep all of this in mind.

Originally Posted by Pelirrojo

The only advice I can offer is to just lay in bed for 10 minutes after you wake up, and don't move. Just lay there and try to think of different things, and maybe something will trigger your memory.

This is good advice. It's quite possible that your mind just wakes up so quickly that you're anticipating everything you'll have to take care of during your day. Give yourself permission to not start your day for the first ten minutes of being awake.

How do I ensure that when I wake up? I tend to forget not to move when I wake up.

I don't think there's any way to make sure you don't move, just try to remember not to. Eventually you'll get it. It'll just take a lot of trying but eventually you'll be able to do it. I think that's a good rule of thumb for everything with dreaming Just be persistant and eventually, if you keep at it, you'll be able to do it.

Also: Should I actually say "I will remember my dream", or should I just think it to myself as I am dozing off?

You can say it in an undertone, and try to meditate on those words as they are coming out, just let all other thoughts pass by. Meditating and getting yourself into the trance to remember might take a little work getting used to, but once you have it, it won't go away until you've become overly stressed out. Key here is relaxation.

I used to have crap recall. Now I remember a lot. A friend taught me how to remember my dreams, I always thank her for it, and now I have to refer her here.

I have had great difficulty with recall in the past, so I can sympathize! Yet, I've realized something recently (and I mean recently!) that makes a big difference. Everybody sleeps different. I know, that's really obvious, but important. Some people seem to sleep healthily right through great amounts of stress and fatigue, while others are not so lucky. The same goes with recall; some people can remember all their dreams without waking multiple times at night, REGARDLESS of how tired and stressed they are. Others need to practice special methods and be very healthy to remember dreams.

All I'm saying is that even the SLIGHTEST disturbances and stresses can affect some peoples' dream recalls (ex: me! :p) For instance, a five degree change in temperature can change my dream recall. A fact that always surprises me is that eating a little cheese before bed can affect dream recall! Just a little bite of cheese can change memory! So, in addition to all of the great advice give above, try to think back to a time when you did remember dreams, or when you slept extremely well. Try to match those conditions to your current sleeping. Like Fiducio said, the key is relaxation!

Just keep trying, I used to remember only 1 dream every 2-2.5 weeks but now I can remember at least 1 every day.



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Oooh! Yay! I finaly remebered a dream last night!

But nothing in it seems odd, the only Out of Ordinary thing that happend durring it was I couldn't remeber anything about the people in my dream other thna their faces. I am sure they had bodies, but I do not remember what they were.
And I was at the school I just graduated from. This and the last one I remembered both took place in a place associated w/ my old school. Last time I was at the theme park we went to before graduation, and now I was in a classroom there. Also, for some strange reason, I remeber that the wallpaper in the room was yellow.

don't give up eventually you will start to remember. At first i could only remember about 3 dreams a week but after just 2 weeks i can remember 3 a night even 6 one night

The hard part is writing them down when you can't be bothered to get out of bed.

I don't think its always necessary to stay still the second you wake up (although it probably really helps if you can do it). I always fall asleep again if I don't move and then I forget all the dreams I would have remembered. If you can stay still when you wake up, great. If you can't don't get it in your head that that's going to be a problem, or it will be. Try convincing yourself its easy too. It's much harder to do something if you think its impossible or very tricky! I hope you have much future success

Well, good luck with improving your dream recall. I've been having a lot of trouble with it myself; I started my dream journal a little over two weeks ago, and so far I've managed to record a grand total of two dreams in it. As the others said, just keep trying, and I'm sure you'll get better soon enough.

Try waking yourself up in the middle of REM, you tend to remember them better that way.

Hi and welcome to Dream Views.
Congrats on the recall. The most important thing is to not give up. You'll find your way sooner or later. Dream recall doesn't work exactly the same for all of us.
Hope you catch many more dreams.