Improving Recall

Hello, I am new to this site, But not new to lucid dreaming. I go through periods where I often have them, and If I have one I usually have a dozen or so a night. I have a bizarre sleep rhythm (I may be narcoleptic), And if I lucid dream it usually starts after only a few minutes of sleep and lasts 45 minutes to an hour, many dreams back to back.

In these dreams I usually crash and burn when I try too hard to control the dream and impose my will. Like when I try to manifest something, or move in a way that the dream is not moving toward. I find that lucid dreaming is a lot like surfing, or anything that involves fines. If you try too hard you crash. Then in the dream I become aware that I am lying in bed, and I feel like I am out of my body, from here I become aware that I am dreaming again and I start a new dream.

The problem I am trying to solve is to get into lucid dreaming at will. The first night after I found this site and read it, I had several dreams that I was lucid dreaming. So I was aware in the dream that I was dreaming, in the dream, but in the dream I was dreaming, I was not aware that I was dreaming in the main dream. If that makes any sense, I was dreaming in a dream. I don’t know if that counts as a lucid dream.

But last night I was just working on recall, I woke up several times, being aware that I had been dreaming. But as soon as I woke I forgot what I was dreaming about, so I did not have anything to write down. How long does it take someone to improve their recall?

Thanks,
Oddnes

For me all it took was about a week, but I'm sure my recall could still be better. As long as I'm not jarred out of my sleep by something (such as an alarm clock) I can stay in bed for a few moments and piece together the fragments of my dreams before they fade. As long as you don't move and try to concentrate on your senses and potential dream signs you should start to remember bits of your dreams. Once you have a bit you can often work forward or backward from that point, piecing together more of the experience.

thanks for the info!!! I had a similar experience last night as the day before, I seem to have good recall only when I lucid dream early after going to sleep, and sometimes late in sleep, just before I get up. in contrast I can remember lucid dreams that I had years ago, quite vividly, and far better than my memory usually retains things. It's like they are burned into my brain.