the BIG remembering dreams topic part IV

I’m lucky, my dream recall has always been pretty good. (2-5 dreams a night) Every couple of years, it seems to dwindle, so I restart my dream diary and it comes back that same night.

As for staying still upon waking, I find that I’m so eager to write it down so I don’t forget anything, that I hop right up.

Hmmmm, maybe I should try staying in bed and seeing if more details come. There’s the balance, if I get more details by staying bed, will it be more than I forget for not writing it down right away? :happy:

My recall was slooooowly returning, but the last 4-5 days in a row, nothing again. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Right after I wake up and all throughout the day I’ll have a strong feeling of the last dream of the night but it just won’t form into a memory, no matter what I try. I know I could try just not thinking about dreams at all for a while and then maybe, poof, my recall will miraculously return, but I hate to do that because I really like keeping a DJ to be a daily habit. :sigh:

Cynster, having the same problem. I DJ religiously and try to autosuggest recall before going to bed every night. I don’t think I know the proper way to autosuggest, or something. I’m not sure.

You probably get this all the time, but have you tried setting your alarm 30 mins earlier? Try to wake you up DURING a dream (REM cycle), may have some luck.

Lucid_Mike, I don’t wake up! :stuck_out_tongue: I can’t wake up to an alarm clock. Period. I don’t know how I’m going to live on my own when the time comes…I’ll probably sleep for three days straight, then stay awake for a couple of weeks, and the process will repeat…I started another entire thread about this subject.

Help! I can’t remember a single dream! huhuhu

Hi janossyd!

I moved your post into the Big “Remembering Dreams” topic. Could you please give some explanations on what you do currently to recall dreams, so that we can help you?

I already do this but I try setting it 15 minutes earlier instead of 30…like if a normal night of sleep would be 7.5 hours (5 sleep cycles), I’ll set my alarm to get up after 7.25 hours, which usually will wake me from a dream but it seems that lately even the momentary intrusion of the alarm clock causes me to forget my dreams just that fast. I didn’t always have this problem, that’s why I feel so stuck. :grrr:

Should be easy to spot fellow dreamers. They’re the ones walking around with their eyes shut! :wink:
(Actually, that would explain a lot of the bad driving I see here in Sydney)

For me the most important aspect to remembering dreams is to firmly set my intention before bed. My biggest obstacle with dream recall is that after a month or two of solid journal(ing), I get a little bored with my dreams.

I’ve had this problem, I keep thinking when I wake up that I haven’t had a dream because I don’t wake up out of any dream or remembering any image instantly. Sometimes I won’t write anything down because I kept firmly believing that I hadn’t had any dreams. The technique of going back to the last thing you remember in your mind has been useful for me. Just don’t get frustrated about remembering your dream which might impose other thoughts on your mind. If that doesn’t work maybe just relax and try not to think of anything. My dream always comes naturally to me, but it comes later depending on my state of mind.

…Of course, this only happens to me when I’ve awakened from a non-REM stage, so trying to wake up during one of those cycles might help.

Topic merged to the BIG Remembering dreams topic

I’ve been working on improving dream recall for a little over a month. I’ve been using the method where you repeat a mantra in your head until you fall asleep to set your intention to wake up after each dream and remember it. I’ve had very inconsistent results with this technique ranging from remembering 1 dream 4 nights in a row to nothing for several nights. I’ve tried 5 different mantras, none of them worked any better than the others. What am I doing wrong?

Welcome Mkutblue :welcome:
Mantras are all well and good, but there’s very little point reciting them over and over unless you feel the intention which goes along with the mantra. Perhaps you should focus more on your desire to remember your dreams when you repeat your mantra, and try avoid reciting them mindlessly.

:welcome:
If you did not already know, there is a BIG topic in the first steps to lucidity forum dedicated to dream recall.

Thank you. :smile: I removed the link when I merged the topic because it pointed now towards to this very thread

I am having difficulty understanding what is meant by “focuing intent.” How will I know if I have done this? How will I know if I have consistent enough recall to try lucid dreaming induction techniques? What specifically has worked for other people?

I’m with mkutblue, I still am unsure what things like this mean and I’ve been working on this topic for quite some time. :help:

I have tried DR for the first time last night and I was able to remember all 3!!! I don’t know if this is normal, but I did not write anything down until I woke up to go to work. I followed the advice to ramain in the same position when waking up.I thought about the very last image and back tracked from there. It was all very clear. I hope this continues…

I also had the feeling that I was dreaming, but was unable to do anything about it, then I woke up. Everytime. I know, I know, be patient and keep practicing! Why I didn’t do a RC I don’t know…

About “focusing intent”: mkutblue, Cynster, the terms look perhaps like complicated, but it just means that the goal you have to reach is immediatly remembering when you wake up that you have to recall your dreams - and not start to think of anything else nor begin to move. So you have to enhance your intention of recalling dreams and if you experience some difficulties in doing it, autosuggestion can help for instance.

I believe it’s quite simple to enhance dream recall with very few practice. :smile:

And welcome on the forum, charldutoit and mkutblue! :wave:

I think for starters I’m a person who relies way too much IRL on notes. I’m always afraid I’ll forget to do things so I write myself a lot of notes (I am the Post-It Princess!). So maybe this bad memory IRL affects my future memory for dream stuff…if I have poor intention to remember to, say pick up milk on the way home from work without an external reminder like a note, how good can my intention possibly be to reach my dream goals? I lie in bed at night waiting for sleep and concentrating really hard on my intention but I keep thinking, am I supposed to really be feeling something here, feeling my intention, because it just doesn’t seem like it’s doing anything!

Maybe if I could train myself to stop relying so much on external reminders IRL, I could remember my dreams better (and remember to recognize I’m dreaming). I know there are some good exercises in EWLD, so perhaps I need to practice those. A lot.

Cynster… You should leave a note beside your bed to remember your dreams! That is one way of focusing your intent.

Its not a feeling you get. It is as BW stated… the action of concentrating on the goal… remembering your dreams… just thinking about remembering your dreams IS focusing your intent.

Good luck!

You’re right Cynster. Many autosuggestion techniques like MILD for instance are based upon prospective memory, that is remembering things you planned to do. Thus I think you should train this memory by stopping relying on external reminders and by practising the prospective memory enhancing techniques in EWLD.