The BIG Remembering Dreams Topic - Part II

I wouldnt worry too much yet after 4 nights, if you would spend a month in the same condition or so then it would be time to worry
Good luck with your DJ :content:

Thanks for the advice, everyone here is very nice and helpful. I know I’m just excited to do it but I know that wanting it too much can also hinder instead of helping me. :eh:

I’m unlucky yet lucky enough to have today off from work so I am definitely going to be napping and reading my LD books that just came in the mail. I’m so busy during the week that it’s hard to sleep properly and try to have LD 's or even ND 's too. I’ll definitely post in the “first LD” topic after I have my first one. :content:

BTW, I know this is off-topic, but if there’s anyone else in this forum who lives in the Philly listening area and listens to Preston and Steve in the mornings, let me just say “Boooooooh!” :tongue: Camp Out for Hunger and Lost were great last night!

I think i’m trying too hard. So far, I have remembered and written down 3 dreams in 9 days, and two of the three were on the first two days. The strange thing about this is that the dreams I remembered were extremely vivid. I was able to recall almost a page and a half of details on my latest dream. Anyway, what can I do to improve my dream recall? It’s amazingly cool to be able to write a completely made-up story out of nowhere! I really want to develop this skill! I’ve been using the MILD adapted technique for developing DR, the one on ld4all where you tell yourself that you will remember your dream.

PS- If this matters, I keep highly irregular (if predictable) hours. During the week (sun-thurs, and sorry I don’t know what it is in Tzolkien,) I sleep from about 10:30 to 6:10. On friday, I go to bed at 11 or so and wake up around 8:30. On saturday, I go to bed from 12:30-2:00 and generally wake up around 10. Does this matter? Sorry for such a long post.

Does remembering a snippet of a dream count as dream recall or does it have to be more, like a whole scene?

I know that I dreamed a lot last night but I didn’t recall anything because too many other thoughts got in the way each time I awoke, but something triggered one little dream memory about a half-hour after I woke so I wrote it in my DJ, but does this count toward LaBerge’s recommendation of remembering at least one dream per night before attempting to have LD 's? :help:

The dream snippet was actually funny to me, I was reaching for the toilet paper in the bathroom to blow my nose and I had a vision of my boyfriend restocking the toilet paper in the cabinet we keep it in in the bathroom but I said wait a minute, he never does that, that’s something only I do, and I checked the cabinet to be sure and sure enough it wasn’t filled up with toilet paper so I knew it was a dream memory and not something that really happened and I told him about it and he laughed and said yeah you know that’s not something I would do so you were definitely dreaming! :lol:

It’s dreamsigns like that that should eventually tell me that I’m dreaming!

Dream recall is recalling dreams is remembering dreams.

Remembering part of a dream counts as a little dream recall.

Yes, stress can affect my dream recall too.

It’s only a guideline! I would say, though, that if you’re getting dream recall of one dream a night most nights, you’re ready.

Starting early won’t hurt, but you are unlikely to get results. It might be good to start early to get in the habit of doing RCs. :smile:

Yes, and good luck! :smile:

how do you count your dreams? i know it’s kinda weird but it always confuzzles me…

If you don’t remember your dream definetly don’t tell yourself it was unimportant, or you’ll never remember it.

In my case, different dreams have different emotional impact, so it’s often not hard to distinguish them. So although different scenes can occur in one dream, the whole dream nevertheless breathes the same atmosphere. It was easier to recognize the more I practiced.

I agree. This can be a handy trick to find cues more easily which you can then use to rebuild dream fragments, or even the whole dream. You can combine this together with paying closer attention to your daily life (environment, people, situations, objects), and with a bit of luck you might encounter an object, person,… you also encountered in your dream. If you’re aware of this, it can bring back the dream memories, often in big detail. I experience this quite often, yesterday for instance :smile:

I am suspecting that my allergy remedy is interfereing with my dream recall.

I’ve posted the full details here —> [url]Do allergy meds interfere with dream recall ?]
in the “the Stuff Dreams are made of…” forum.

This post here is just in case some people in this forum might be interested in that thread, or can throw some light on that issue.

What happens to me sometimes when i use the “I am going to remember next dream” mantra is that while repeating , there are some moments when i forget to repeat it…

When i get back to repeating…i suddenly realise that i just had a dream…it’s quite surprising, because it seems that little time had passed…

It’s like there are two planes of awareness…one in which i repeat the mantra…and one in which i have the dream.

Does that make any sense? :uh:

I used to be horrible at remembering dreams. It would be like a miracle if I remembered one dream a week, even if it was very vague.

I started MILD last night and I remembered 4 dreams, two of which were extremely vivid! I simply did the MILD techniques and repeated to myself “I will remember my dreams. I will wake up after every dream. I will have a lucid dream.” Try it, it really works! :smile:

I have devolved from actually recalling dreams - up to four times a week - and then suddenly I can’t remember anymore.

However, when I get woken up, I find myself heavy and nearly unable to move. I had a hunch that I was about to enter the REM state. x.x

That, and I get about 7 hours of sleep each (school) day. Hmmm…

hi all,

it’s the third time I started a DJ, now im going to LD for real.
6 days have passed. In the first three i did get better and better recall, but last three days I didn’t remember anything!

When I’m awake, I don’t move my body, and try to remember (“What did i dream, what did i dream!”) But nothing happens…
I’m still very drowsy (and a bit chaotic in my mind - in the sense of, stil sleepy) , maybe I should be more awake?
It sounds to me I’m to sleepy to recall, and my mind is not clear enough.

Does anyone had the same problem?
What should I do?

Hi Isaac !

First of all, don’t worry about this. The more you stress, the less you’ll be able to remember your dreams. It’s perfectly normal that we can’t sometimes recall our dreams, sometimes even during a few days.

If you’re on a dry spell, I would recommand to do all this practices :

  • before sleeping, repeat “Tomorrow morning, I’ll remember my dreams”.
  • when waking up, don’t move and don’t think “What did i dream, what did i dream!” : just let memories come on.
  • if after a minute, you don’t remember anything, try to make associations : think about random words, like “a dog… a plane… a camel, etc.” When one of this words makes you remember a feeling of your dreams, focus on this feeling until you catch a dream fragment. With this fragment, ask yourself what happend before, and thus you can build again your dream.
  • if you can just remember a feeling or a fragment, write it down nevertheless.
  • if after two minutes, you can’t remember anything, don’t worry : it will be better next time ! :smile:

thanks for the reply basilus west.
i’d figured out i did stress it to much…
last two days my recall is back (14th and 15th march) :happy: :happy:

I’m now a bit troubled to choose a technique.
I can’t try to wake up and immediatly try to fall asleep again (WILD), because i also want to write down dreams to keep my recall up.

autosugesstion, VILD (maybe MILD), and WILD all seem promising.
but i’m offtopic now!

What a great thread. I think this will help me alot.

For the past 3 or 4 days I have had no recall. Normally I have Recall then a day or two off then recall again, ect…

I’ve started a dream journal recently within the past month or so and my recall improved for bit and now the dry period. Not only dry but I don’t even have the impression that I dreamed something which I usually do.

I’m going to try alot of the techniques I see here and see how they work for me. I want at least 1 dream a night before I start the LD techniques.

I’m beginning to have a very strong desire to LD again, this time to really explore what’s out there and see what I can do.

The background chatter in my mind keeps referring to it as “activating” for some reason. Little “voices” saying, “you must activate now”. :eh:

so what is the general concensus of what should be done when one doesnt remember any dreams from the night before in regards to a dream journal?

I still write in my dream journal even on the days I don’t recall any dreams because I like to take notes so I can try to improve my recall. For example, if I know that I dreamt but just can’t grasp the memories, I’ll write exactly that. Or if I have zero memory, I’ll write that down too. I even write down when I had a memory but was too lazy to sit up and write it down and consequently forgot it in the hopes that I won’t make that mistake again. :content: I also keep track of my bedtime and waking time each night to see if the length of my slumber affects my ability to recall my dreams.

Don’t despair over your lack of recall; I recently went almost two weeks with zero recall, I’ve only ever had one low-level LD, still can’t recall a minimum of one dream per night, and I’ve been keeping my DJ for about five months now.

If you need advice on remembering your dreams, check out The BIG Remembering Dreams Topic - Part 2: [The BIG Remembering Dreams Topic - Part II)

Part 1 is here:
https://community.ld4all.com/t/the-big-remembering-dreams-topic/7050

There are many people (myself included) who have posted similar topics:
https://community.ld4all.com/t/dream-recall-has-left-the-building/13007/5

https://community.ld4all.com/t/remember-your-dreams-a-technique-that-has-worked-for-me/13553

There is much more advice on the forum and it’s not too hard to find. Good luck!

What’s the consensus on remembering dreams…with your eyes open or closed or both? I’m trying to think how I usually do it and I know that if I lie still and try to remember with my eyes closed sometimes I fall back to sleep and then I tend to forget the dream I was trying to recall, but then again if I open my eyes I can get too distracted by real life and not remember either. Although I guess remembering doesn’t necessarily matter either way because sometimes in the middle of the day when I’m wide awake something will strike me and give me a flash of a dream memory.

I just thought about how we say our eyes are open or closed when it’s actually our eyelids…I guess that old 80’s song by Kix “Don’t Close Your Eyes” would sound dumb if it was “Don’t Close Your Eyelids”. :content:

I think the consensus is : with your eyes closed. You more hardly remember and visualize images if they are open.