Thread: New LD'er in training, trying to learn best techniques for dream recall

I'm in almost the same situation.
I cannot remember the last time I woke up during night. Except for the 3 times I've woken myself up on purpose to try and remember my dreams.
I actually think it's many years since last time I woke up during the night.
This makes it really hard to write a dream-journal since I don't remember anything at all in the morning.

I think I might've had some success with one technique though.
I read here on the forums that if you write a summary of your entire day before you go to sleep, this will help you remember your dreams.
I've done it twice with mixed results (if you can say that after two tries ), but I also woke myself up those two nights to try WILD which failed, so I didn't get a good nights sleep.
I think that might've ruined it a bit, so I'm gonna keep trying!

Originally Posted by wintersleep

i just read about all this and i am thinking that my biggest problem will be dream recall.

i really hate this about myself: IM A DEEP SLEEPER!!!!!
that really sucks bc. the instructions say that u need to wake after a dream, in the middle of the night...

...could someone plz inform me or give tips on how to dream recall bc. i have no clue.

You're going to have to keep trying. By keep trying, I don't mean for four days and then come to the conclusion that you're just a heavy sleeper and that's that. I mean try it for maybe 3 weeks. Every night, set the intention (whether mentally or verbally) to wake up at a certain time. Set an alarm to help you. Don't get discouraged, early on. Every night, go to bed with the same determination to wake up at that time. Over time, you should find yourself waking up, whether by the alarm or by intention alone. You have to train your body to wake up at that time, it's not always just going to respond to your desire to do so.

So keep it up.

Originally Posted by wintersleep

also i guess u could say ive had about 3 LD's. And ive come to hate them bc. i realise im asleep but i never want to stay asleep. This is bc. with the ones ive had, i try to wake up but cant and i end up just sitting in one spot waiting for the dream to end, which takes like 5 minutes! i havent had active LD's, im just aware that im asleep and i go with the flow.
i guess what im trying to say in the above paragraph, is that i want advice on how to wake up from dreams also.

That's completely on you. If you're lucid - conscious - and you don't want to just sit down and do nothing...DON'T.

Get up and do something. You can do anything, so why sit there doing nothing, and then regret it later on??

Oneironaut gave good advice, but I'll just add a little bit.

One question, first: Do you have a steady sleep schedule? If you're going to sleep at 9 one night, 11 another night, 12 another, and 10 another, your body's not going to be adjusted to going to sleep at a specific time and that might be screwing you up a bit. So, if you're not already doing this, start going to sleep at the same time each night and waking up at the same time. This will get your body (and not just your alarm clock) adjusted to waking up at a certain time and it should make it easier to start recalling your dreams. I'm a relatively light sleeper, but one time I developed a steady 8pm-6am schedule when I was going to my university (first semester, easy classes, bad roommate, and few friends made it easy) and I could tell myself what time I wanted to wake up and I would. It was pretty cool... and then school became harder and that went away

I don't know if it will help you sleep any lighter; I doubt it, but it should help as far as getting up to record your dreams.

Also, if you haven't done this already, keep this in mind: when you wake up, don't move. If you need to turn your alarm off, fine, but then just lay there and think about the last thing you can remember. Try to remember a person, a place, a color, an idea, a smell, a shape... anything. You'll usually find that once you remember one detail, more details will come. Once you have one detail in your head, work backwards and try to figure out what happened before that. Once you have as much as you remember in your head, grab your journal (which should be VERY close to you) and start writing. Start with writing an outline so you don't forget the main idea, and then go back and fill in the details.

As far as having boring LDs, there's a simple cure for that. Before you go to bed, decide what you want to do in your dream. Make a plan in your head and review it a few times before going to sleep. Then, when you do become lucid, act on that plan. Don't sit around thinking, just do it.

As O said, keep trying. People progress at different rates, so it may take you a little longer to start recalling your dreams. Then again, at some point you'll suddenly start remembering a bunch and it will be awesome! Think of the results I hope this was helpful and I wish you the best of luck!.

i have not been trying to lucid dream until 3 days ago when this was posted. the 3 LD's i had werent on pupose and i think they were triggered by having something important to do in the morning[fishing trip , cristmas, etc.] which made me sleep lightly.
i do have a wobly schedule at nights[go to sleep from 11 to1] so i guess i need to change that and try to be more on point.

Maybe I regular sleep schedule will work for you, but personally I'm the opposite.

I've not had a regular sleep schedule now for about 7 years since I finished school. During that time I was generally a very heavy sleeper -- only ever aware of waking up once: in the mornings. Since losing any kind of pattern to my sleep I've turned in to a very light sleeper -- waking multiple times a night (I assume after each REM cycle?)