Strong recall in the dream but not after..

It’s a very descriptive title :razz: Last night I had 3 or 4 increasingly awesome dreams. When I “woke up” in a fake dream bed, I remembered them almost fully with detail and vividness and just had a rich memory of them. But a few seconds later when I woke up, it was almost all gone and I was left with only vague images and some idea of what I had done.

It was still a decent amount but a lot was gone and especially the vividness and richness of my memory of it, the difference was HYOOGE. Like going from a big hi-definition movie to 10 dull grey-ish small pictures.

This happened to me a few times and it’s fascinating and annoying, have you had this happen?

Yes, this happens!

I have a feeling that this is because dreams are easier to remember while the brain is still in a dreaming state. It is almost as if the memories are in a different format than real life memories, they need to be translated into the format of words and concepts we are familiar with.

Luckily, recalling dreams gets better with practice. :cool: I notice a big difference between times when I record actively and times when I don’t.

I believe this has to do with the fact that the dreaming mind and the waking mind are wired differently. Dreams are, it seems, not supposed to be remembered as their memory is quite short-term. That is why practicing dream recall is required; it’s an active process to move dreams from short-term memory to long-term by recalling and reliving the events that transpired in said dreams. I would advise staying calm after waking up, keeping your eyes closed, trying to stay in sleep mode, clear your mind and when ideas pop up in your mind make associations with other words and ideas. This will often lead you to remember something that happened in the dream, then, bit by bit, you should be able to recall the dream in its entirety.