Is it over-the-counter, or must it be prescribed?
Yeah, I want to see if that really works. 
It’s over the counter. It didn’t work for me, but hey, you never know! Go for it!
Great! I’ll take off to buy some tomorrow when I get off from work. Thanks.
I’ve been using melatonin for the past few months.
I’ve read about it not working for some people but it works fine for me, just take it an hour or so before you want to sleep, and be sure to dim the lights, I’m pretty sure light ‘destroys’ melatonin, or at least greatly diminishes it’s effect. If you can find delayed release melatonin, go for that. They are made to more imitate the body’s natural melatonin output. They release a small amount initially, so you start to get tired, then release the rest over the next six hours. With plain ol’ non-extended release melatonin I have found myself more prone to waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep (as my initial dose was already wearing off). In addition, the extended release melatonin I got includes some B-vitamins. Those are always nice to have, I assume.
One side effect of the extended release formula is that there might be some melatonin still swimming around in your head after you wake up. You will feel very tired, but just get some sunshine and start moving and you will be back on your feet pretty fast.
Also, I read melatonin is a potent anti-oxidant (yay!).
I heard somewhere on here that melatonin lowers recall, though. Can anyone clear this up for me? 
I am unaware of melatonin acting on some specific mechanism to reduce your dream recall, however…
You will probably wake up less during the night, in that melatonin promotes sleep. Waking up less would probably decrease the amount of dreams you remember? If you have restless shallow sleep, you probably remember a lot of dreams. So that’s the only way I could see melatonin reducing dream recall.
Anyway, I don’t see my recall on melatonin being much different than off melatonin. My dream recall has much more to do with how much I am concentrating on remembering dreams, or how striking a given dream is (I forget the boring ones!).
Melatonin could conceivably increase dream recall, if it helps you sleep longer. I find that the extended release variety also extends the time I spend in that area between sleep and wakefulness in the morning. In that tug of war between melatonin and the sunlight through my window I remember a lot of dreams as I drift in and out.
(for some reason I cannot edit the previous post)
I forgot to add: Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone which your body already produces assuming you are a healthily human being. If you can sleep normally, there’s no real reason to take it. For most people it’s just useful for counteracting jet lag. (I take it to force myself to sleep early, otherwise I have a habit of fighting sleep until some ungodly hour.)
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, so if melatonin does reduce recall, that would suggest a deficit of melatonin increasing recall? (i.e. a sleep disorder?)
Melatonin does wake you up naturally in the middle of the night. However, when I took it my recall went down. I’ll have to try it again sometime, but I’ll stick with my current system now, as it has been working well for me.
Hmm, what dose should I take?
[edit]
Got that from wikipedia.
Cool! I didn’t know that. As far as dosage, I don’t know, go by the bottle? dosage seems to vary widely among the melatonin supplements. I once found some at Walmart that had 1/15’th the amount of another melatonin supplement I was taking. I think they were just being cheap though.
Anyway, I previously took 3mg. I now take 1mg, and it’s the delayed release variety too. The initial release is just .25mg which is enough to make me drowsy.
So most melatonin supplements already provide way, way more melatonin than is necessary to make you sleepy- probably the rationale has something to do with the half life of melatonin? So you will have a full night’s rest.
i take melatonin its very good sleep aid you dont need it if you can get to sleep normaly i dont think it does anything to sleep recall it simply is for helping with sleep disorders
I have used Melatonin before, (as a sleep aid and for lucid dreaming).
While it did help me get Lucid Dreams, if you don’t have one it significantly reduces your dream recall abilities.
At least it did for me.
I quit really taking it unless I absolutely had to because well, after taking it for a long time, your body may start depending on it, since your body doesn’t need to produce as much natural Melatonin when you are taking it in pill form.
I would say try it for a week, and if it doesn’t help you then don’t waste your time on it. Its just not worth waking up feeling out of it all the time for a LD if you can get them naturally.