Hard time staying awake enough to recall...

I've been interested in lucid dreaming for quite a while, and now that I don't sleep on a futon anymore I'm staying committed this time. I drink lots of water before bed and have a pretty gentle alarm set to a classical music radio station. I've tried using alarms and keeping and alarm set to vibrate in my sock but if I use the same alarm a few times I get used to it and it becomes pretty ineffective. I started actually practicing my dream recall again about 2 days ago and have remembered about three dreams. The problem I have is that when I wake up, then relax and close my eyes to recall the dream, I can never keep myself up long enough to remember much before accidentally falling back asleep :| By the time I realize that thirty minutes ago I was trying to recall my dreams I've forgotten a lot. Any tips on keeping yourself awake enough to wake up, close your eyes and try to recall the dream, and write it down when you wake up? Thanks!

Well, you can open your eyes... It won't hurt your recall too much.

And writing down ANYTHING will help recall.

Good luck.

i never had this problem but i would say just get out of bed once u wake up and turn a light on it isnt that hard to stay awake for me

yeah, you don't need to have your eyes closed! when i wake up i write down any small detail straight away, then the rest comes (most of the time i have to work backwards, it still works) if i get nothin I go back to sleep, too much recall wakes me up too much :/

Like everyone said, just jot down some notes when you get up with you eyes open. You don't need to be very detailed at first. Just write down anything you remember, and complete it when you wake up :)

As Delphi said, write everything down. You might want to even put the alarm on top of your dream journal across the room, just to force yourself up. That's what I used to have to do :shock:

I find it easy to recall, I sometimes wake up at night but never seem to remember dreams its only in the morning i recall them, on saturday i recalled 6 dreams!