Hi! New to LD, trying to improve my dream recall...

[knecht]

Hi. I'm completely new to the idea of Lucid Dreaming; I've suffered from lots of bad nights of sleep recently, and as I'm starting to get better from it I decided I may as well try to remember and control what I'm actually thinking about when sleeping I'm struggling a bit with building up dream recall. What seems odd is some nights I can remember 1 or 2 dreams quite clearly without much effort, whereas other nights I can't remember anything but a couple of fragments. Are there any good ways to try and improve this? I've read somewhere that cheese or milk just before bed sometimes help create vivid dreams; I've tried this and did get a fairly detailed dream afterwards. Was this just a coincidence or is there actually some truth in this? I've started sporadically doing RCs throughout the day. I don't remember to do them very often though; I think I'm going to try the technique where you RC whenever you see a particular sign (not quite sure what that is called). I haven't had any success in RCing in my dreams yet though. Does dream recall improve after practise at it? I want to know why the difficulty of remembering dreams varies so much from night to night. THanks

[Hot Chocolate]

Keeping a dream journal is the best way to improve your recall, if you aren't already. Sometimes I don't remember anything from the night before while trying, but then during the day is see something that was also in the dream and it all comes back to me. You dream recall should improve with practice. I'm not a fan of RCing a lot during the day, establishing the habit is hard and the LD will be at random times. I'd recommend MILD for beginners instead.

[KingYoshi]

Welcome to Dreamviews! The best way to improve dream recall is practice and getting into the habit of remembering dreams. The easiest way to do that is keep an updated dream journal. Make sure you write down all your dreams in as much detail as possible. Remember, the sooner you write it down after you had the dream, the more you will remember. This is why many people like to set an alarm clock and wake periodically throughout the night. Write their dreams down, then return to sleep. The reasons recall varies can be infinite. Stress, how tired you are, how long you sleep, levels of awareness, clarity of the dream, etc. There are many different factors that can alter how well dreams are remembered, but with practice, these factors do not have as great an impact. As for the milk and cheese, it may have just been placebo. Here is a list of supplements/vitamins that help with recall. Just click on the supplement and it will give you information and a list of common foods the supplement can be found in. http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=56235 Good Luck to you!

[Maria92]

Yeah, I'd check out the MILD tutorial and apply it to your dream recall efforts. i.e., devise a mantra designed to improve your dream recall. Something like, "I will remember my dreams" worked wonders for me. Repeat it to yourself throughout the day, and also right before sleep. I went from 0 to 2 dreams recalled per night in about a week, if that. Also, keep a dream journal. It actually helps a lot.

[CarmineEternity]

Might I suggest meditation and autosuggestion? If you meditate for 10 mins before bed, many good things will come. And as for autosuggestion, create a mantra, such as, "In the morning I will remember my dreams and write them down." Recall is a big step on the path to lucidity! If you try this, it should help. Happy Lucidity!

[knecht]

Autosuggestion would be easy enough to do, would you suggest doing that just before I go to sleep? It's not exactly meditation, but I've been looking at SBaGen and binaural beats. I might try making an MP3 to listen to just before sleeping, although I want to look up a bit more about it first.