The Dream Recall Compendium
Welcome to the dream recall compendium, where I will collect every and all methods and tricks to improve recall I ever heard of. Since this is a big wall of text already let's start without much ado.
This will be split in 4 categories:
Mental Setup: Setting up your mind in the right way to improve dream recall
Supportive Techniques: To further aid you
Sleep/Dreams: Everything about sleep and dreams with relation to recall
Other: Everything else that should be mentioned.
But first I will put up 2 simple lists for dream recall states; I will use this for specific recommendations later in this compendium. There will be quantity and quality.
Quantity:
Rock Bottom: Generally less than 1 dream per night. Rock bottom is where no one wants to be.
Average: At least 1 dream per day, up to 4. You are where most people are, you don't recall a lot of dreams, but at least 1 per day.
Above Average: At least 2 dreams per night, up to 8. When you have this level of recall it might be possible for you to remember details of your dreams even hours or a few days later without writing them down already.
Skilled: At least 4 dreams a night, up to 15. Here you are likely able to get into the feeling of the dream even days later, and remembering the actual dream will be possible several months later without any significant drop in detail.
Advanced: At least 6 dreams per night, up to 20. You have a recall most people dream of; you will probably be able to remember dreams for the rest of your life when you have your DJ at hand to take a look at your dreams. Getting into the actual feeling of a dream might be possible months later.
Master: At least 8 dreams per night, you might remember each and every dream you had on some nights. At this point there is barely anything to improve left. If you are here you should only care about staying here.
Note: The quantity affects the detail of dream recall in real life, long times after the dream, more than the actual quality of dream recall. That is the reason I put these properties under quantity and not quality.
Quality:
Rock Bottom: Most dreams you recall are only impressions or maybe small fragments. Again this is very undesirable.
Average: You recall a lot of fragments but you also have a decent amount of dreams with more detail or even an actual plot.
Above Average: You barely recall any fragments anymore, you are able to recall nearly all dreams in decent detail. Sometimes you remember a really long and/or vivid dream.
Skilled: You don't remember any fragments, you can remember a decent amount of details for each and every dream you have. Long and vivid dreams are quite common.
Advanced: Most of your dreams are long and vivid, some of these dreams might even have more detail than your real life.
Master: You recall everything, for each dream you know how and when it started, what happened and when it ended. To get to this point is even a lot harder than to master the quantity. This is where a mortal god of dreaming stands.
1: Mental Setup
1.1: Mindset
1.2: Real Life Recall
1.3: Detrimental Things
1.4: Mantras
1.5: Mnemonics
2: Supportive Techniques:
2.1: Dream Journal
2.2: Tag-book
2.3: Diary
2.4: Dream Cartography
3: Sleep/Dreams
3.1: Sleep (Place, Circumstances, Alarm, Temperature, Light)
3.2: Staying in the bed after waking up
3.3: Recall from within dreams
3.4: Recurring Themes
4: Other
4.1: Individual Differences
4.2: Supplements
4.3: Unknown Factors
4.4: Recall after longer time
1: Mental Setup
Of course the mental setup is one of the most important parts of recall, just like for dreaming in general. Having the correct setup isn't everything, but it already is a lot and always a good start.
1.1: Mindset
The first step to a good recall is being optimistic about your recall, though it might sound trivial and irrelevant to some people at first, it definitely isn't. A generally optimistic mindset about dreaming is something which every experienced dreamer can recommend, it helps improve recall just like a pessimistic mindset will likely decrease it.
1.2: Real Life Recall
The connection between memory in real life and your memory in dreams often isn't as strong as one might assume. It is very well possible to have a really good memory in real life and a bad one for dreams, or vice versa. I for example have a somewhat below average real life memory. Yet my recall about dreams is probably very far above what's considered average, I can recall dreams in detail days or months later and on a good night I wake up with nearly 20 dreams.
But there still is a connection and it can be used, as long as you already have enough dream recall to beginn with, improving your real life memory is unlikely to have a huge impact, but 1 or 2 more dreams or a few more details are often of high value, trying it can't hurt. But I won't delve deeper into this topic, everything after this line would be methods to improve your real life memory, and they don't belong in here, especially since there are plenty.
1.3: Detrimental things
And of course there is also a number of things which are bad for recall, nearly all of them will be mentioned throughout the threadthough, so I will only put one thing here.
Drugs: Generally drugs are bad for dreaming, very bad. Exceptions may be possible but unlikely, so don't consider starting with drugs for the sake of lucid dreaming as it probably won't help. If you already take drugs I'll just advise you to stop taking them for a while to see if your recall drops or goes up.
Excluded from this are nootropics of course, they will be mentioned later under 4.2.
1.4: Mantras
Mantras are very useful for dreaming in general, and as well can be used specific for dream recall. For those who don't know mantras, basically you repeat a few words or a sentence several times in your head, most likely before sleeping, or while falling asleep. Example mantras for dream recall:
"I remember my dreams"
"I wake up after each dream and remember it"
"I remember my dreams in the morning"
"I don't forget any dreams"
"I have good dream recall"
These are only a few examples (took some examples out of the forum). How to use mantras and which to use is something which needs to be learned for each individual in my opinion. I've seen recommendations to use mantras only in the present tense, and it often also helps to connect a specific type of mantra with a specific color. You should try some to see how they work best for you.
1.5: Memory Type
Last but not least in this category is something I call memory type. It isn't exactly easy to change or train an additional memory type but it is already worth a lot knowing how your memory works, this is something you have to find out for yourself. If you know how your memory works you can more easily determine which techniques are best for you. I will give an example of myself.
I have a very connective type of memory, I might easily completely forget something sometimes which is a bother, but most of my memories are strongly inertwined, remembering one small detail about something often leads to the whole memory rushing into my mind. I use that for my dream recall with my tag-book method, I write down tags each night for each dream when I wake up and then I get back to sleep. When I get up I just have to look at the tags and all the dreams come back to me in full detail. There will be more about this method in 2.2.
2: Supportive Techniques
The next step for good recall is using one or a few supportive techniques.
2.1: Dream Journal
Often hailed as the first step in effective and good dreaming the Dream Journal is indeed the most important supportive technique. The advantages should be obvious, a Dream Journal helps in learning to remember dreams, it improves the amount of recalled dreams as well as the vividness. A Dream Journal can be shared with fellow dreamers and can be fun to read in after a few months or years to track your own progress.
Unlike the common opinion I will not recommend you to jot down everything always. The effective use of a DJ involves more than just writing down everything you remember, it depends a lot on your current state of recall.
Generally when you are on Rock Bottom or Average in both quantity and quality you should write down everything you have.
Once you get past that in one of the 2 categories you might consider handling your DJ different. Generally as much detail as possible is still the best course, but that might eat a lot of time, maybe even time you should rather spend on different techniques.
When you get a high level in quantity like advanced or master you might consider voluntarily skipping some dreams to improve the quality of your dreams. Skipping undetailed, uninteresting or undesired dreams decreases the chance of them occurring again.
When you get a high level of quality without a high level of quantity I recommend you to still write down as much detail as possible. Only skip details if you simply lack the time, or like mentioned above, they are uninteresting or undesired details.
And if you don’t have a lot of time in the morning in the first place, recording the dreams per voice is a good way of avoiding long writing sessions. You still should write down something when you find the time.
2.2: Tag-book
This is my own name and technique for something which is practiced by a lot of dreamers already. The idea is to have something to write besides your bed so you can jot down a few tags for each dream every time you wake up, so you have a rough line to remember your dreams by.
I recommend this to everyone in every state of recall. It doesn’t take any much effort and it’s very effective.
For a more detailed guide look here: StaySharps dream recall guide (Tag-book method)
2.3: Diary
Keeping a diary over the day also might help a lot with dream recall, small tip from my side, when you have a smartphone just try using an app for this. I started one myself and still have to see how it goes. For more Information take a look at this popular thread: If you can't remember your dreams, TRY THIS!
2.4: Dream Cartography
Making a dream map is somewhat like making a DJ, only that here you put the focus on the location, not the plot. The idea behind this is to connect and maybe to create a vivid dream scape with different locations, this helps in finding common themes, creating a better sense for location within dreams and thus in the end improving recall as well. Here is a thread with a rough guideline to make a dream map: A Practical Introduction to Dream Cartography
3: Sleep/Dreams
There are a lot of things we can do for recall, even right before sleeping, or even better while we are sleeping.
3.1: Sleep (Place, Circumstances, Alarm, Temperature)
I get the feeling this is often an underestimated point in terms of recall and dream quality. But having a good sleep and paying attention to a few important things is very important when working for a good recall. Most of these things however may heavily vary between different persons, so you will have to find out some things about yourself if you want to effectively use this.
Place: Where you sleep, and what kind of bed you have is an important point, though often not as important as the other points. You should have a bed where you sleep comfortably. Often however a too comfortable bed won’t help recall beginners as much as one might think it will. Unless you already have a really good recall I recommend you to have a comfortable bed, but it shouldn’t be so comfortable you don’t want to ever leave. Sleeping in different places away from home might also have a big effect on your recall. This is however something you have to experiment with, some places might improve your recall and some others might decrease it, you’ll have to find that out for yourself.
Circumstances: Not just the location is important, even more important are the circumstances while you sleep. Is your room bright or dark (something more on this on the dedicated light section below), do you have monophasic or polyphasic sleep, do you have music on while sleeping, are there a lot of background noises… These are all factors with big impact. Polyphasic sleep for example is very likely to improve your recall quality as it takes out a certain amount of non-REM sleep, while it might sacrifice the general amount of recalled dreams. Background noises can be detrimental to your sleep and your recall as well, however you might be able to use them to your advantage sometimes, like doing a reality check when you hear something specific. Music, binaural beats or isochronic tones might help your dream behavior as well, again you will have to try out what circumstance brings which effect with it.
Alarm: If you get yourself woken up by an alarm, be advised that any alarm which startles you will most likely kill of all chances of recall in less than 1 second. Setting up an alarm which wakes you up pleasantly is very important for a good recall, preferably use an alarm which starts silent and gets louder each second. That way you will wake up without losing your chances to recall dreams.
Temperature: This is a heavily underestimated aspect. I once tried to conduct a study on Dreamviews but no one ever cared to participate, probably due to the amount of detail I put into it. But I at least got my personal results. Without putting in too much detail here I simply advise you to pay attention to how your room temperature affects your recall. In my case a room which is too hot for example is able to decrease my recall by more than a heavy 50%, which is a huge impact. A room which is too coldis unlikely to impact me as much, but the cold can make me more lazy which may take out something like 20% of my recall. This isn’t the same for everyone of course, some might even prefer heat, but I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to sleep in a room with the correct temperature. Finding your temperature and taking action to be able to sleep with that temperature might give you a significant boost.
Light: Light levels indeed have a very significant impact on dream recall and also dreams in general. Low light levels lead to production of melatonin, which causes deep non-REM sleep. I still don’t know everything about the effect of light levels on recall but sleeping in a really dark room or even using an eye mask can impale recall a lot, judging by my own observations by even up to 80%! My theory is that recall works a lot better in relatively bright environment due to more REM-sleep and occasional wake-ups which can be used to jot down tags. If you have bad recall you should definitely check which light levels are present while you sleep, and if you constantly sleep in the dark you should definitely try sleeping while it’s bright to see if you have better recall.
If you have a normal monophasic sleep schedule you might consider falling asleep while it’s dark, and letting the rising sun brighten up your room later. That way you will have lots of non-REM sleep in the first part of the night, which causes a beneficial rise in REM sleep in the second part of the now bright “night”.
If you have a polyphasic sleep schedule you might rather consider always sleeping in a bright room, this will ensure it’s easier to get up after sleeping, as well as improve your overall chances of recall.
As with every advice here, take it with a grain of salt. So far this only what I observed myself, but unknowingly I made the necessary experiments over several months until I randomly stumbled across the connections of my recall spikes and lows with the light in my room, so I do have some confidence in what I’m claiming to be the truth and not a placebo here. Make some experiments with light levels and I’m sure you’ll be able to improve your recall at least a bit.
3.2: Staying in the bed after waking up
One simple yet effective way to increase your recall is to stay in the bed a few minutes after waking up and thinking about your dreams, try to recall the details and what happened, and get up when you have the feeling you remembered as much as possible. Don't risk falling asleep again though, unless you plan to continue sleeping. Falling back into sleep may most likely reduce what you can recall later unless you reached a certain recall skill already.
3.3: Recall from within dreams
Another simple yet effective way to increase your chances at recall is to give recall some priority within your lucid dreams. Tell yourself in lucid dreams you want to remember your dreams, set up mnemonics, use your personal way to make sure you remember the dream in as much detail as possible.
3.4: Recurring Themes
Recurring themes or dream signs aren’t just good for getting lucid; they are also useful to have something to remember dreams by. Making use of this is basically the same as learning to use them for lucid dreaming, you only have to be able to recognize them, after that recurring themes increase the likeliness of a dream being recalled.
4: Other
The section for everything else which might help recall, as well as a few simple reminders.
4.1: Individual Differences
This is just a small reminder to keep the individual differences in mind, some techniques might work better for you than for others, as I stated quite often in this thread it is important to understand certain parts of yourself.
4.2: Supplements
For the biggest part of supplements I’d refer you to this thread: Supplement / Herb / Drug Repository
Also nootropics are generally often great for dreaming. The 2 most effective nootropics I know of are Piracetam and Aniracetam. They have generally very little side effects yet a huge positive impact on dreams. However in most countries outside of the US these are unfortunately only available through prescription. Some claim they aren’t completely researched yet, so some risks might still be undiscovered.
Don’t forget that supplements should be taken with care and caution only.
4.3: Unknown Factors
Another of those small reminders. There are still a lot of unknown factors in terms of recall and some of them might be pretty much unique to some people. The only thing which helps here is paying a lot of attention to your recall in relation to what you do in your life. If you find out something interesting you should post it on DV or here.
4.4 Recall after longer time
This is the last point in my compendium. As I mentioned in the notes above I noticed that the memory of a specific dream after a long time passed depends a lot on the quantity of recalled dreams, the more dreams I was able to recall a night the longer was I able to recall the actual details or the feeling of the dream. And the further I got in terms of quantity the harder it became to disrupt my recall. So if you strive for a very constant recall without forgetting the details after some weeks or months, aiming for a better quantity might be your best bet.
Personal notes: I achieved the rank Advanced in Quantity and I’m close to Skilled in terms of quality once. I indeed had 1 or 2 nights already where I remembered each and every dream I had which is quite the achievement in terms of recall. Together with this compendium I made for the community and partially for myself I strive to master the quantity soon, as well as improving the quality of my recall. Right now though my recall dropped to an average level though which is due to huge loads of work, still not really feeling at home where I live as well as not being able to execute my special personal sleep schedule and a significant lack of sleep. But it already got better and it's bound keep improving again now that things calm down.
Edit 1: Changed 3.1 a little to make it clearer and added a very important section for light.
Edit 2 (19.04.2013): Changed 1.3 because the statement about drugs was not entirely correct. Also made several small fixes.
Feel free to post your own ideas or your progress here and tell my what you think of this compendium.
