the BIG remembering dreams topic part V

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 :wink: 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 :smile: 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 :smile: 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 :smile: 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 :smile:

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?

I first started using a dream journal to remember my dreams in April this year. I would usually be able to remember at least one dream a night, sometimes two, and I got a couple of short lucid dreams from doing reality checks in the dream.
A few months later, I started having less dream recall. I’d only remember maybe one dream a week. Sometimes I’d remember something from a dream later in the day though. However, I once got two really good lucid dreams two weeks in a row and I hadn’t recalled any dreams other than them in those two weeks.
Anyway, quite recently I went for almost a month without remembering a dream. Then a few days ago I had a dream which I remembered more of throughout the day, so when I got home I wrote it down. The next night, I remembered a dream and wrote it in my dream journal in the morning, then later that day I remembered another dream I’d had earlier in that night. Last night, before I went to sleep, I told myself that I’d wake up at 4:00 AM (I tend to have better dream recall when I wake up early in the morning and don’t have to get up straight away) and that I’d remember what I dreamt about. I ended up waking up three times during that night (1:00 AM, 3:30 AM and 6:00 AM) and each time, I remembered a dream. I quickly wrote it down in my dream journal each time and then went back to sleep.
The first time I woke up that night, I lay there in the same position and tried to remember my dream, but couldn’t really remember it, but as I started getting up to pick up my flashlight so I could see my clock, I then remembered what the dream had been about! I think 3 dreams is the most I’ve ever remembered in one night. :smile: I guess maybe telling myself (before I fall asleep) that I’ll remember my dreams works?
Also, I think maybe I had better dream recall when I woke up straight from the dream, or woke up while I was still having the dream, because that’s what happened then.

sorry windowlicker, I thought someone would reply and then forgot about your post. :sad: It would probably be an idea to search for a meditation topic … there is one in pathways which mainly deals with using meditation as a means to LD and you should find some smaller meditation topics in beyond too. I also remember some old meditation topics which would be in the archives forum now.

because we are more aware when lucid it is usually a lot easier to remember LDs than normal dreams.

a big resounding yes to all three :happy:

I have trained myself to remember my dreams.
I found it hard at the start (not so very long ago), but now it seems to be easier.
i actually remembered 2 draeams pretty clear and with many deatails tonight (new record for me :razz:)
when i woke up today, i was laying in my bed for about 10 seconds, and then a dream just popped up in my head. when i was writing notes about the dream, I just came on one more dream :happy: