Sounds very similer to how visualization went for me, I had been visualizing for along time, and I stopped for two days and forgot how, dream recall is very similar I think, since they both involve the right brain. When I go to remember a dream it's very similar to when I go to visualize I have to kind of set my mind into a specific zone of thinking and build apon it, I can have it on the tip of my tongue but can't quite reach for it, eventually if you try hard and try to find that abstract feeling to recall, you might still beable to catch the train your recall was on before you fell off and be back where you were, maybe not as good, but still better then when you first started.