The BIG Remembering Dreams Topic - Part II

Thanks for the welcome, okay I’ll try this out tonight.
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Ok. But don’t forget it can take a few days before you may notice some changes. Only when you’ve developped a fairly good dream recall, you can slowly shorten the practice, because then you’ll see your dream recall remains the same if you just repeat very strongly to yourself that you WILL remember your dreams. Just a quick affirmation of your intention will do then. This is possible because then you’ve already done the hard work: developping the neural pathways in your brain which facilitate good dream recall. Once these are developped, you only need to maintain them, hence the reason you get the same results with lesser practice then.

Let us know how it goes :smile:

HI

I tried it out last night and I didnt have dream recall in the morning (Even after staying in bed for 5 minutes in the morning). Before going to bed I constantly again and again reaffirmed I was to dream and i was to remember it the morning. However it didnt seem to help my poor dream recall. Any suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks

As I said in my previous posts… don’t expect it to work immediately. Give it time and keep practicing everyday and in a few days you might see some improvements. There’s no (natural) method which gives you immediate results. It’s like expecting a little child to ride a bike from scratch. That doesn’t work… Always keep that in mind while you’re practicing. If you want to succeed in this, it will take dedication, patience and a LOT of practice. Improvement comes with ups and downs, and often only in little steps. So I’d suggest to try it for a week or more and than see if you notice some changes.

Keep us updated :smile:

Good luck!

okay, so I’d just like to clarify from your last reply, at first before I go to sleep I should contstantly reaffirm that I’m going to remember my dream and then as I get better I will need to reaffirm less and less?

Thanks for the reply

Yes. I don’t think you really need to experiment with this, because once you make good progress, you’ll notice automatically when you can decrease your practice a bit to get the same results. However, you don’t HAVE to do this, because if you keep practicing at the same strength, dream recall can only improve better. I mentioned it because the practice is always twofold:

  1. First, lots of practice is needed to create the neural pathways to make an increase in dream recall possible.
  2. Once these are established, maintenance is needed to make sure the pathways don’t disintegrate again. In general, less practice is needed for that, but that’s optional, not necessary. Normally, increased practice is always beneficial because it can strengthen the pathways.

I hope this clears things up :smile:

Happy dreaming!

what works for me is to lay in bed in the position that I woke up in and review what dream I just had.

Also, you might wont to try disrupting some of your ruteens (i cant spell well) like sleeping on your back if you usualy sleep on your side or eat at diferant times of the day, eat foods you normaly would not. That might help produce some dreams.

I’m not so good in dream recall. How can I increase my dream recall?
(I write down the dreams I remember, but what shall I do when I don’t remember dreams?)

Some things you can do:

=> When you wake up, don’t move a muscle. If you think you’ll forget this, repeat the intention of remembering it during the evening. So when you lie there upon awakening, close your eyes and think back at the previous dreams. Don’t push it but let it come to you. If you have ANY impression, visuals, dream fragments or noises, use them to gather more information about it. The more pieces of the previous dream you find back in your memory, the better you will be able to fill the gaps between them. THis way you can reconstruct the dream.
If you really can’t remember anything, even if you lay still for 10 minutes, visualize the things you might have dreamed about. Visualize your major dream places or dream persons. If you have actually dreamed of them, visualizing them before your mind eye can trigger the flow of memories which will lead you to the reconstruction of the dream. This way you can get access to the dream memories indirectly.

=> When you go to bed, repeat to yourself that you WILL remember your dreams upon awakening. Don’t just say it constantly, but repeat it with motivation and strength. This way the message gets deeper into your subconsciousness. It may not work the first time you try it, because it takes time before the message has penetrated the subconsciousness sufficiently enough to have some real effects. So keep practicing if it doesn’t work at first!!

=> Set your alarm to wake you up after 4.5, 6, 7.5 or 9hrs, because then you’re probably in the middle of a REM cycle. When you wake up in the middle of a dream you have ofcourse the best chance of remembering something.

=> Ofcourse it’s best to keep a dream diary. Write down everything you can remember, even if it’s only a slight impression of a dream fragment. During the day, reread your dreams. This way you can get familiar with the nature of your own dreams and its dreamsigns. If you know your dreams, it’s easier to remember them in the morning by visualizing possible dream situations before your mind eye.

I hope this helps a bit :smile: Remember, if it doesn’t work at first, don’t panic or anything. Have patience and keep practicing, no matter how long it takes. Only if you keep practicing you’ll notice improvements in time.

Good luck! :smile:

Main diff between what mystic said and what is written in the wikibook:

mystic’s #2 is often called MILD. A similar thing is autosuggestion. Nobody here cares when you mix them up, but if you have failures with one, the other may be worth a try.

#3: Kind of obvious, but set your alarm to those times after you fall asleep. You can even do MILD when going back to sleep.

#4: Also obvious, but you might want to use a tape, special ld4all dream journal, personal organiser, etc. Whatever. You might also want to rewrite your dreams later. Then you won’t worry about getting stuff down neat or in order. You can also miss out boring details like “it was night-time” and add them on the rewrite. :smile:

Thx for clarifying my post r3m0t :wink:

My #2 was actually autosuggestion. MILD can be practiced if you wake up in the morning after say 6hrs of sleep, not during the evening. MILD is also about inducing LDs, and not really about getting a better dream recall.

As I said: Nobody cares if people mix them up. At least, I don’t. :smile:

I usually am able to recall a dream everynight. Last night I had 3 dreams but was only able to recall one of them, the first one. I wonder why I couldn’t recall the others since they happened later than the first.

zak, did you wake up from the 1st dream? and maybe the last 2 were after you went back to sleep and slept for a time after the dreams??

Usually if you wake up during a dream they are more easy to recall.

I’ve read things (like at lucidity.com) that say the best way to remember dreams, when you awaken, “DO NOT MOVE” to help you recall them. How the heck am I not supposed to move when I have to get up to turn off my alarm clock? :confused: Or does that instruction only apply when I wake up on my own?

So what DO I do when I have to get up to my alarm? For instance, I had a really vivid ND this morning before wakey-wakey time but I couldn’t recall it after I turned off my clock. But when I went to the kitchen to turn on the coffeepot, suddenly that triggered a memory from my dream, possibly because my dream was that I was late for work and/or playing hookey from work and I recalled being naturally very concerned about it in my dream since I wasn’t lucid. I noted in my DJ that when I learn to have LDs I won’t have to “waste time” on such foolish dreams as worrying about being late for work as it doesn’t even matter in dream land! :content:

Move as little as possible… just move your arm to turn off the alarm … then lie still and try and recapture the dream. :smile:

LOL !
When your alarm wakes you up, notice your sleep position and after stopping your alarm, lie in the same position again.

I have found that if I get up and do something (like going to the bathroom) and then go back to the bed I can sometimes remember more of my dreams before I fall asleep :cool_laugh: So I don’t think that you have to not move at all. And moving just a little shouldn’t be that big a deal at all according to me :tongue:

…i can have trouble waking up sometimes so i put my clock so i physically have to get out of bed to turn it off… :wink: that’s why i was worried about the “DO NOT MOVE” advice from the LI :content:

it’s quite frustrating to me that i’ve always considered myself a vivid dreamer with good recall, but since i’ve started keeping my DJ i’ve only recalled two dreams in four nights, only one of which was pretty vivid…but my EWLD and Lucid Dreams in 30 Days books came today so they should help…i think i need to do more RCs too, definitely.

thanks for your advice.

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: