How to Remember Your Dreams

How Can I Remember My Dreams?

One of the most important skills whilst learning to lucid dream is to improve dream recall. Many people claim that they don’t dream. This is in fact incorrect, what they actually mean is that they can’t recall dreaming.

Everybody dreams but our ability to recall dreams varies widely. There are a few good reasons why improving dream recall is important.

Firstly, the ability to remember our dreams gives us a subconscious link between our waking world and our dreaming world. This is exactly what we need when we want to lucid dream.

Secondly, what is the point of having a lucid dream if we cannot remember it when we wake up? We wouldn’t even remember that we’d had a lucid dream!

Thirdly and most importantly, by recalling our dreams we will be able to spot what our Dream signs are. We will come to these shortly.

The good news is that invariably, we can improve our ability to recall our dreams. Even if you are one of the lucky people who have always been able to recall their dreams, the following exercise is still worth doing as you will be surprised just how many dreams you actually do forget.

Keeping a dream journal

The most effective way to remember your dreams is to write them down. This helps in two ways. By writing your dreams down immediately after you wake up, you are securing the memory simply through the process of writing it down.

Also, by having a record of your dreams you can read through them at any time, spotting your dream signs and also reinforcing the waking world\dreaming world link. It’s amazing sometimes when you read through an old dream journal and all the memories of that dream come flooding back.

Your dream journal can be anything from a notepad, to a diary or even just a sheet of paper. Alternatively, you can download this dream journal in .PDF format and print several off.

The best time to record a dream in your dream journal, is just after a phase of REM sleep, as mentioned earlier it is in REM that we do most of our dreaming.

If you wake during the night, before reaching for your dream journal, just lie perfectly still and go over the dream a few times in your head. Only when you are sure that you have remembered the main points of your dream, should you begin to write down your experiences.

For most people you will do this only in the mornings to begin with but there is another method that will enable you to record more than one dream per night.

This is a simple technique that involves using an alarm clock to wake yourself up just after an REM phase.

Remember your dreams

If you recall, we have REM stages after about ninety minutes after sleep onset. It’s better to aim for the later REM stages because these tend to be longer.

Before you go to sleep, set yourself an alarm to alert you after roughly four and a half hours. When the alarm wakes you, hopefully you will either be in a stage of REM or just coming out of one.

Importantly you should be able to recall some sort of dream. Once you have made a record of your dream, continue to sleep normally until you wake naturally in the morning. On waking you will more than likely have had another dream so as before, just lie still for a moment and go through what you can remember before writing it all down.

Already you are being able to record two dreams per night doubling your previous efforts. When you feel confident with this method, aim for more dream recall by waking yourself up during other REM periods during the night.

I would advise against doing this every night because your sleep will be disturbed but if you are consistently recording two or three dreams per night when you try, you are ready for the next step.

Keeping a dream journal should increase your ability to recall your dreams. The length of time this takes varies amongst different people but most people notice some results within two to three weeks of starting their journal. Some take longer so don’t get disheartened, the results are well worth the hard work!

Dream meanings and dream signs

“I awoke in the morning as usual. I lay in bed for a moment and reached over to pick up the phone, as I had an important call to make. I started to dial the numbers and glanced away briefly. Looking back at the phone, I noticed something odd had happened. The object in my hand had now changed into the remote control for the television! What was going on?”

As you may have guessed, I was in fact dreaming. The above extract is from my dream journal. That was my first hint of what was to prove to be one of the major dream signs to occur repeatedly throughout my dream journals.

After spotting this, becoming lucid became a lot easier. Whenever I see a phone in my dreams I almost always know that I am dreaming, and therefore become lucid.

That is exactly what a dream sign is. It’s a common theme that occurs within your dreams that may give you some sort of hint that you are dreaming.

Keeping a dream journal is the key to spotting these because you can read through old dreams and try to spot a common element. Some dream signs can be something as subtle as a flashing light or the appearance of an animal occurring repeatedly in your dreams.

Noticing them and seeing them for what they are is the key to making a dream sign work for you.

Leave a Comment at the Bottom of the Page. Older Archived Comments are Below…

cant remember dreams ever!
Wednesday, 15 June 2011 13:55
no memory

i havent remembered a single one of my dreams for years and even when i try to remember right after i wake up it’s like i didn’t even have a dream. how can i possibly keep a dream journal if i have no memory of any of my dreams, if i’m even having any?

Dream recall
Tuesday, 14 June 2011 23:49
Star Wars Fangirl

What’s nice is that I’ve always been able to easily remember dreams, and even get back into them several nights in a row. I always write down my best dreams, like the ones with a large scope or exciting event. I remember one dream I had where the geography of this one place never changed at all, but remained constant throughout the several miles of land. I would sometimes travel back to the same place I’d been before. When I woke up I was able to draw a really accurate map too and even get an idea for a book from it. Which leads me to my next point: the story had a beginning and an end. Pretty much the only thing that didn’t make much sense was the beginning, where my school was taking a field trip to a volcano in the ship from the movie Alien. But other than that, it was pretty consistent through the whole dream.

Anyway, my point being my dream recall is excellent, and always has been. Almost nobody else I know can do it like I can. I feel so special

Recall
Friday, 03 June 2011 01:26
OJ

I found that setting my alarm to go off four hours after I go to sleep–and three hours after that–really helps recall. I started this last Friday (today is Thursday), and since then, I’ve managed to recall around two to three dreams per night. At least one dream each night is vivid. I’m eager to see when all of this is going to pay off.

True? Near death experience?
Monday, 30 May 2011 12:15
Caoili

I was in my granny’s house in greece and slept in the bed that gave my gran nightmares.
It gave me awful nightmares that i was being pulling into rooms of blood and was being tortured by demons.
A priest came out to bless the house and the nightmares stopped. Is this all in my head or not? The nightmares were very vivid and i can recall them like they are still happening.
It was more like an NDE/OBE of Hell. Is this normal? Is there and explanation?

help
Thursday, 19 May 2011 19:01
anonymous

When trying to recall dreams, right after waking up, do not move AT ALL. Go over the dream and then when you have it firmly in your head, write it down. It was stated in the article.

Dream sign
Saturday, 07 May 2011 07:46
JayJ

I’m interested in lucid dreaming and its the second day that i have been keeping a dream journal now , 1st night i could remember 3 dreams but not a lot of each ,wrote down like half a page maybe less , 2nd night i could remember 4 dreams and i could write down like 1 and a bit pages about my dream , but 1st day n 2nd days dreams differ a lot , only thing they have in common are some people ,is this my dream sign a certain person
oh and i got s question , how real does a lucid dream feel?

dreams.
Saturday, 23 April 2011 10:04
stacey

why do we have the same dream over and over?

An old sign
Saturday, 23 April 2011 03:14
Jacob

Back when I was about 6-8, I had a recurring dream sign. I thought of it as a nightmare, and always woke up when it started. There was a picture of a wolf staring head-on at me, and it started moving. It gets bigger and I realize it’s running at me! I step away and it jumps out at me, and I see it all in third person.

I wonder: Is it possible for an old dream sign to come back?

trying…
Friday, 25 March 2011 18:14
carlton

i have been trying to lucid dream for about 3 weeks and now almost every night i have a vivid dream i can remember but its not completely clear and i dont have much control i think it is because i dont realize im lucid ive read all my dreams in my jounal and there is no recurring dream sign. any ideas on how to help

The dream journal doesn’t work for me
Friday, 11 March 2011 07:18
crazy memory

I usually remember small fragments of my dreams, so I wanted to try to remember more of my dreams with the dream journal. I would even tell myself before I went to bed “I’m gonna remember my dreams” but I actually started forgetting all of my dreams. When I stopped trying to do the journal, I started remembering more of my dreams again. Any suggestions on other ways of enhancing dream recall besides the ones here?

awsome
Wednesday, 09 February 2011 19:09
pinkrose gorillaz lover!

i have known about lucid dreaming for years, and studied it too, but never tried it. like one month ago i started wanting to try it out. sounds fun! when i first figure out im lucid, im gonna go to plastic beach and do some telekinetic powers with a wand. one fore each element! like a fire wand or a water wand…so on =]

alarm
Tuesday, 18 January 2011 19:43
john

do we really have to wake up at 3:30

To Mike and Co.
Friday, 07 January 2011 02:09
Constance

Constantly ask yourself during the day if you are dreaming or not. You will then start to ask yourself if you are dreaming when you really are in dreams, which become an effective tool for then mentally shaping up that dream!

lol
Tuesday, 16 November 2010 01:46
Daniel

ive got it easy appearently, cuz in my dreams im always a wolf
Lucid dream for the first time
Wednesday, 10 November 2010 16:14
Lucid Dreamer

I heard things about dream journal, alarm clock and i was following them and i also followed “Reality Check” step. Before i went to sleep, i wrote a word “REAL” on my finger. While i was dreaming, i dreamed that i’m in the mall and i got a fear of falling while i was in a random store. In dream i decided to look at my finger where i wrote the word “REAL”, i looked at it and it was gone, than i realised that i’m dreaming. It was so much fun, i never had lucid dreams before, they’re so awsome. Hope i get one tonight

for (Somebody)
Saturday, 11 September 2010 07:08
Marshall

What I do to remember my dreams is to tell myself “Tonight I will remember my dreams.” I do that from the point i lie down to when I actually fall asleep. The first couple nights I remembered maybe one or two, but now I’m up to about three or four dreams a night, and I feel very close to having my first true lucid dream.

no dream signs.
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 00:35
Lia

My dreams are random and don’t really have a consistent sign. Usually, in a dream, I’m in a different body. Could that be my dream sign?

Help!
Monday, 16 August 2010 17:55
Somebody

I remember to do a reality check once every 10 minutes-I’ve covered that part-but I can’t remember dreams. I KNOW I had them but i can’t remember them. Last night I lay still when I woke up in the middle of the night and in the morning and I tried to let the dream come to me but it seemed like my mind was empty. Why? Are there other ways to remember? PLEASE help me! For all I know I could have had a lucid dream last night but I don’t remember it!

i dont get it… dream signs?
Thursday, 12 August 2010 19:38
christian dean harris

i remember my dreams fairly well but the only paterns i’ve ever notest is that thay seem to be long fairly cohearint story lines (like my teacher was captered by a ninja clan and thay where trying to tern him in to a white sapermisit and the got the searum forula worng and when me and my frinds got there to reskue him… h-he was a pedifile. i have ADD so this is helping me to keep my trane of thought and i’m not going to erase it couse i’m prowd and i can’t spell) but thay hang together so well that i cant notes pattrns couse thay have fermiler places, people, and verble corectnis of the people in them any way text dose not change (at least text that is like story line text) and obgects don’t change (unless i or some one has magic and changes it for my benifet) it seems to you i have a good controle over my deams but half are nightmairs a can’t wake from and the other half are painful and vary involintary but all have a story line like a book… thats trippy as fuck

Remembering
Saturday, 31 July 2010 07:25
Ozzy

I cant seem to remember my dreams at all, im trying keeping a dreaam journal but i cant because i cant remember my dreams, please help!

person view?
Tuesday, 27 July 2010 15:57
Justin

why are most of my dreams in third person?

Dream journals
Friday, 11 June 2010 06:22
Me

I have been keeping a dream journal and I must say, your journal writing is much more poetic than mine.

Dream Journals Work!
Thursday, 08 April 2010 00:26
Jake

I have kept one for the past 2 days, and already I remeber details of dreams much better. For the first time I can ever remeber, I sensed warmth in a dream and, it’s hazzy but, I think I may have also smelled fresh rain! I NEVER smell anything in my dreams. Usualy.

Dream recall.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010 22:57
Owen

Yesterday, I started a dream journal. One dream woke me up, and I wrote it down. I went back to sleep, and in the morning, I found I have had, and remebered 2 more dreams. I think this is working for me!

4 and a half hours
Thursday, 17 December 2009 13:56
bob

It seems unhealthy to wake up in the middle of the night to write a dream. Could I still become a lucid dreamer without having to do this, or is there other methods availble to try out?

REM
Wednesday, 14 October 2009 03:12
damian

first of all i dont actually get the thing about REM
second when i wake up i cat remember ANY of my dreams

Mike answer
Monday, 12 October 2009 23:33
Dream lover

if you can, try to spin around in circles. This, for whatever reason, can make a dream more realistic and give you control

Couldn’t remember dreams AT ALL
Thursday, 27 August 2009 08:51
Scott

Well yesterday I was determined to learn how to lucid dream so I followed this guide, constantly done reality tests and created a dream journal. I set my alarm clock to wake myself 6 hours after falling asleep, only to wake up in the night and in the morning without ANY sort of memory of my dream. Is there anything I can do to make sure I don’t just wake up with no memories of my dream?

half lucid?
Sunday, 19 July 2009 01:13
mike

i’ve had moments where i’ve had a text message in the middle of the night, its woken me up from my dream.
i’ve them proceed to read the message, then think about the dream i was having. then i’ve fallen back asleep and carried on with the same dream.

these kind of dreams have kind of been ‘half lucid’ i know im dreaming, but i sometimes can’t control my actions fully. any tips?