Can you tell us about what dream-recall methods you use and how?
[moved into sticky big topic 
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First question is if it’s better to go to bed early if I wanna remember my dreams? I often go to bed around 2 a.m.
Is it easier to remember dreams when I take a nap in the middle of the day?
And maybe this is a recurring question but I have trouble with my DR. I can’t remember much of my dreams at all. There are some fragment some nights, but not often.
I’ve tried to tell myself before going to sleep that I will remember them. I’ve also tried to set the alarm for 6 or 7.5 hours after I go to sleep.
When I wake I lie still and try to remember, but I can’t.
Is there any more things I can try, or should I just try more?
How long does it take to get better DR? days, weeks, month?
I’d say days. It’s better to go to bed earlier ofcourse, and if you are going to wake up in the middle of the night I’d suggest 3-4 hours after falling asleep.
If you have a hard time sleeping earlier a nap in the day will do just about the same. You won’t be that tired at 2 AM then and you mind can relax.
A banana or two before going to bed wouldn’t hurt either 
Is it easier to remember a dream if it is more vivid?
So if you do a lot of things during a day, your dream gets more vivid, and you remember it easier?!
Often you do remember vivid dreams better.
So maybe I should keep myself busy during the day so that I have much to dream about 
If a wanna remember easier.
The MOST vividest dream I had was last night and I did almost nothing yesterday. But, I did go to a water park the day before yesterday…Did that have anyting to do with it?
P.S. is vividest an actual word?
I believe you should write it as a “most” sentence: “The MOST vivid dream…”.
lol.
ok, i changed it.
I realized something this morning. I woke up after a long period of sleep and still remembered bits of about 6 dreams. The only parts I remembered had a strong emotion in it, of love or pride or something.
Isn’t it obvious that we more easily remember dreams that are emotionally significant in some way? Our memories are more easily tied to events that are very emotional, so wouldn’t this be true in a dream as well?
I’m not sure if this can help in any way. But I found it interesting.
I need a little advice on DR…
My sleep schedule’s taken a serious blow since school started a week and a half ago. I’ve gone from bedtime at midnight and waking at ten, to bedtime at ten and waking at six. This isn’t exactly good. I actually need to be up by six-thirty to get ready for school, but I wake myself up at six every morning so that I’ll have time to write down my dream if I remember it (sometimes it can take awhile, I’m not exactly focused after I’ve just gotten up). The problem is, sleeping from ten to six isn’t exactly good timing for dream recall. I didn’t recall anything at six for several days, which was disconcerning. This morning, however, I woke up and knew I’d just had a vivid dream–I just couldn’t remember it. I lay there, concentrating hard for at least five minutes, then I finally remembered it. It seemed as if the dream I remembered had ended a while ago, and it’s much easier to remember a whole dream if you wake up right after it.
So what exactly is the best time to get myself up to record my dreams? Six obviously isn’t working too well…I’ve heard that four-thirty is a good time because it’s a nice, even multiple of 90 minutes. In fact, reading past entries from my DJ, I’ve been realizing that many of them took place at around four or so in the morning. I’m wondering, though, how I’m going to make it so my alarm can wake me up at two different times each morning. Should I get a separate alarm, or just stick with six?
if it was me … I would stick with 6 am for a while. Once you get used to this change in sleeping times and the stress of returning to school goes down, your recall should improve.
you can always try 2 alarm clocks in the future if necessary
Can anyone else vouch for emotional dreams being more memorable? The more I think about it, the more I believe it.
Dreams that have an impact on you are more likely to be remembered. Before I improved my dream recall I only remembered the interesting dreams … now I have a higher percentage of boring ones. So since emotion has an impact on you I would say your observation is correct.
Anyone have any advice on how to get out of dry spells? My DR was okay for a while, but for the past week or so I haven’t remembered ANYTHING. I mean anything! I’ll lie awake in bed and not be able to recall even the tiniest dream snippet. Can anyone help?
I’ve got a bit of a strange problem: I sleep with my eyes open. (as you’re probably thinking 'gross!’)
Prior to my dream journal days, if I’d wake up from a good dream I’d think “(blank) was pretty cool, I need to remember that” then I’d go back to sleep. (Blank) being the appearance of a dream creature, location, or even just an idea. After I would wake up for the day I’d get out of bed and flip on the PC, then write out what I wanted to remember.
Once I started keeping a journal next to the bed I noticed a huge increase in the number of dreams I’d experience (or atleast remember). The very first night I wrote down several dreams. Usually I was getting 3-5 a night. None were LD, unfortunately.
However here’s the problem… as I got more into my work (illustration) my eyes were being strained more during the day. Since they’re open at night that was bad news, and I developed a serious dry eye problem. I now have to wear moisture goggles at night or I suffer for it the whole next day. It’s so bad that I can’t focus on drawing unless I wear them. They seriously affect my dream recall though. It is only on the rare occasion that I wake up and jot down a dream. Maybe once in the past 6 months. I no longer am conscious of myself waking up during the night.
Has anyone else experienced this problem after wearing a mask/goggles to bed? How did you go about solving it? It’s been a year now with no progress. I miss remembering my dreams - I’d gotten so much material out of them.
Go to bed earlier than you usually do (an hour or so) and don’t try to do anything but fall asleep - Don’t try to WILD or MILD, not even AS, just fall asleep naturally.
And taking a nap in the middle of the day works sometimes as well.
instead of writing them down … could you record your voice instead? that way if you have it somewhere handy and learn how to switch it on with your eyes shut you wouldn’t need to remove the goggles.
Hmm… I could try it, thanks 
I’m not sure if it will work because I don’t remember waking up during the night at all, but it’s worth a shot! It’s as though I sleep all the way through to the morning, even though I know that’s not the case.
The goggles block my vision completely. I think probably waking up and looking at the alarm clock ‘woke’ my mind up previously. Now without that visual cue I simply go back to sleep before the mind returns to a temporary conscious state. I don’t have any problems writing in the dark since I’ve got a thick blind and couldn’t see before. It may not have been the prettiest writing but it was still legible… barely, hehe.
I’ll put a recorder next to my bed tonight and see how it goes Hopefully I wont say anything too strange in my groggy state. Even if it’s not strange my mouth doesn’t work very well in the morning. Anyone finding the tape will likely think I recorded a slurring drunk who’s hallucinating, lol.
[i]edit: Thank you Moogle for the suggestion Last night I woke up from 4 dreams (2 ND). For whatever strange reason I couldn’t remember many details of the dreams, so when I woke up from the ND I went right back to sleep. I was very tired… perhaps that’s why. I nearly fell into a WILD after both of the ND. I would slip back into sleep and very quickly realize “Hey wait, I’m dreaming” at which point I’d wake up.
I decided to sleep in and got rid of the goggles (I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping for long). At that point I had a 5th dream, one I remember much more about. Waking up from it, I had a serious craving for vanilla ice cream (I’d been eating an ice cream cone in the dream) so I blame you for my unhealthy breakfast today, lol
Thanks again! It was great to remember my dreams finally.[/i]
I’ve got a pretty big problem with dream recalling, I tend to get really confused in the morning and I barely ever remember something from my dreams. Lately I’ve remembered like 1 dreams a month and then I’ve only remembered it very slightly (Such as short scenes, or pictures). I think it might either have something with lack of sleep (I usually sleep like 7 hours each night), or possible that im a bit stressed. Anyhow I have read that meditation might help, anyone got any experience in that?