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.
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When i can recall a dream it is usually in the 3rd person, where i am looking down at myself or another person. also when i recall having a 1st person dream i don’t remember being able to control anything. everything seems to be planned out for me from the start. and if i do try to intervene, i wake up. What i wanted to know, is this going to be a problem for me?
That happens to me a lot. When I’m dreaming as me, i feel like I have no control (and often I have blurred vision and can only hear the dream). But more often, my dream switch between looking through my eyes, and looking at what going on like it’s a movie. does that ever happen to you?
im trying really hard to lucid dream and everynight before i go to bed i always tell my self anything i expierence is a dream and i always go along with it and think its reality. last night i had a dream i wasnt even myself i was just spectating a situation that felt like forever and i woke up with tears in my eyes cuz it was just like watching a really sad movie. And now that the day has gone by i barely remember it.
I’ve always been really good at remembering dreams, and sometimes did write them down. But the thing is, I am a writer, so often when I’m trying to write my dream down, what i wish happened in the dream, and what would make the dream a solid story or have a plot pops into my head. And soon, the actual dream, and all my own new thoughts blend, and i don’t know whats what. is there anything u can think of that might help with that?
Also, i often recall dreams I had, but most of the time, not right after I wake up. Usually once i get going, get out of bed, I’ll suddenly have the memories of the dream flow into my head. I can also remember dreams I had a fairly long time ago. Will this make it easier to Lucid dream?
I have almost never been able to remember my dreams, so this is really cool. Its my third day journaling, and its definitely made a difference. The first night, i could vaguely remember standing somewhere, but i didnt know where or why. the second night i remember walking down my street. then last night tried the alarm clock method and remembered TWO whole dreams. neither had very much detail, and both were very strange, but at least its a start!
Hi, I think lucid dreaming sounds really cool. I may have had a half-lucid dream once or twice.
One time when I was about six or seven I dreamt I saw Peter Pan and then I said in my dream, “I know I’m dreaming,” but maybe that was just still a normal dream.
The second time was about a month ago, it was a really exciting dream. It started off as definitely a normal dream – with nonsense things, but then I was riding on a dragon and it seemed like I was actually controlling it – if I leant forwards it would go down and if I leant backwards it went up – I think it might have been a lucid dream and it was really exciting!
Do you think these two were lucid dreams?
I tend to have really confusing dreams. I kept a dream journal for a week last May, and I’m starting to write in it again, but I just can’t see connections between them. My dreams seem to be really sparatic and have no relevance at all. It’s like my brain takes sleeping as a time to whatever the heck it wants to do, and if I’m lucky I get to watch my brain be an 8 year old kid on pop-tarts and cracker jacks at Disney Land.
For anyone having trouble remembering their dreams, there is an app for the iPhone called Sleep Cycle. It is an alarm that wakes u up gently. That has no help at all but actually makes remembering your dreams harder. the positive affect is that it measures your individual sleep patterns and can tell u when u are most likely to have a REM stage. I use it and it helps a lot. but use another alarm to wake u up to remember ur dreams. This is only good for measuring your dream periods, and wakes u up gently.
If you smoke weed everyday your recall WILL suffer greatly. Just saying.. it did for me.
Dream journals are the best and one of the only ways to improve dream recall, so start one.
If you cannot recall any dreams at all I suggest, as some have already said to wake up between sleep cycles, personally the whole sleep cycle thing is unnecessary. As in you don’t have to precisely wake up when you’re dreaming, though it is preferred. Basically waking up makes you more aware so you can recall dreams much more easier.
Works for me.
Also waking up 4 – 6 hours later is pretty much when you are dreaming (REM) so eitherway you are waking up at the “right time”
Happy dreaming
So basicly I tried a dream journel one time, and I could recall only two snippets of a dream, discourging me slighty.The secound night I couldn’t recall anything, no matter how much laying down calmy I did. I don’t think setting an alarm for the end of REM is clever because I have a VERY loud alarm and 4 other members of family!
What do I do?
Help! I tried doing the WBTB method a bunch of times and it never works for me. I really want to lucid dream and i don’t understand the other methods. Does anyone have a suggestion for me?