When recalling past dreams, I have a chain-reaction.

I tried dream recall in the morning, and besides remembered parts of the nights dream, I remembered a past dream, and then another. I started recalling tons of dreams I’ve had from a while back, dreams I hadn’t thought about except the morning after the dream itself. If I just sit, remembering past dreams, with the intent to remember another, after a while I do.

A lot of them are only fragments, but for a lot, I remember the scenario, or setting. I’ve started typing them up, and realize how little I actually remember, but do remember I thought about the dream during the day I had it. (one dream, from my childhood I remember walking around at recessing going over it because it was a very enjoyable dream)

I’ve found that several dreams take place in a certain area that resembles a lot of places I’ve been (I’ve moved a lot), all in a mesh, but that seem to link together. There is a hill, at the bottom of the hill is my old elementary school, but what goes on there is many things that have nothing to do with the actual place, and a nearby a park that seems to combine several parks I’ve visited in the past, and a large version of my old backyard. Up the hill are places I’ve visited, and certain specific roads that recur, as well as a relatives house that I’ve often visited, with many changes.

Recalling other dreams, I’ve noticed that I’m often climbing a hill, or walking down a hill, which seems like an odd dreamsign. Is this normal, for an activity/environment like this to be a dreamsign?

Has anyone else had this chain-reaction of dream-recall before, where they remember dreams from the past simply by keeping it on their mind for the day, or sitting quietly waiting for them to come to them?

EDIT: I’ve been able to find new dreams by following patterns. A group of people might lead to another dream with the same people, or a place might remind me of another dream in a similar place.

Human memory is associative. For example you may struggle to remember a song or a verse, but once you hear a small part of it, you will have no problem recollecting the whole. It works the same with your life memories, you may randomly remember something that happened in your childhood, and then start remembering related details.

Dream memories are harder to hold on to, because they are discontinuous. When a dream ends, unless you wake up immediately, there’s a void, and therefore the dream memory doesn’t get connected to anything else in your mind. By practising dream recall, you are exercising your memory to form the connections between dreams and the waking life.

It is a good idea to go through your common dream themes if you struggle to remember the dreams you had, because there’s a large chance of accidentally triggering one of the memories that would otherwise be unavailable.