Does Recall Become More Natural?

[Kylau]

Hello all! I'm brand new at this and I've been reading Exploring the World of Lucid Dreams for the last couple days and I've got a question for the more experienced people here. He talks about generally forgetting your dreams right away, however he hasn't said anything about remembering your dreams if you write them down. I've had a few lucid dreams in my lifetime, I don't recall what happened as they were a long time ago but I specifically remember being aware of my dream world before. Now my real question is: When you get better at having lucid dreams do you remember them more vividly? Do you still have to write them in your journal to remember what happened or is it easier to just remember everything that happened? Right now I'm thinking about a dream that I had a few days ago, that had some pretty vivid parts. It was by no means lucid, and I hadn't read about lucidity either so I didn't write any of it down, but its very much a part of my memory. I just want to know if I'll begin to vividly remember more of my dreams.

[Oneironaught]

Recall does get better and more thorough with practice, yes. Writing them down is still very helpful in that dept. though. Just because you recall well doesn't mean that you'll retain that memory for long. Keeping a dream journal not only improves recall (by making it a more important part of your subconscious) but it gives you something to look back on, which in itself improves recall and LD frequency. It also provides a record from which you can discover recurring dream signs that you may not pick up on otherwise.

[Moonbeam]

to Dream Views, Kylau! I think that the answer to both of your questions is--Yes: I have gotten better at recall and can bring a whole dream back into my conscious mind more easily than previously, but I still need to write dreams down to guarantee that I will get them into long-term memory. I think practicing recall improves it, but there is no substitute for keeping a journal, for the reasons given by Oneironaught.

[Spartiate]

I have an above average memory while awake, so I figured that I could skip the dream journal part and just remember my dreams like if they were waking memories. It started off pretty well, and I remembered on average maybe two dreams per night. Over time however, I noticed that certain dreams (the more intense ones) started to overshadow the more average ones. For some reason, dream memories are unlike waking memories, you can't hold on to them forever. Nowadays, I can remember the dreams I had last night (if I put a little effort into it, I might be able to remember the dreams I had over the past few nights) and I can remember vivid dreams I had months ago, but the rest is lost to me. In fact, in a few months, I will likely have forgotten the dreams I had last night and still remember those vivid ones I had months ago. That's just how it works, the more special the dream, the more likely you will remember it. If you want to recall every single dream you have, however, then you must use a dream journal.