I’m just starting a dream journal again, I wasn’t using one for a couple months, and my dream recall was good for awhile, but now my Dream Recall has gotten really bad. So i’m going back to writing in my journal.
I started writing a DJ just this morning! I was doing one for a while, a few weeks ago, but then I went on vacation for three weeks and stopped. I decided to start again, since it seems important. I have naturally good recall; once my subconcious picks up on the fact that I want to recall dreams, which it does fairly quickly, it delivers. Even so, developed recall is almost always better then natural, so I still have a lot of work to do. I do have dreams in my head (a lot, in fact) from when I was younger that I never wrote down. Sometimes I just look through my mental dream archive and “watch” dreams that I had when I was 3. Its kind of amazing what you can remember sometimes.
I do, kind of. I type my dreams. I have a wordpad document where I archive all of my dreams. On average, I can remember at least one dream a night, or at least fragments.
I just started writing a dream journal June 28th and at first I was remembering at least 1-2 dreams and I was doing pretty good but now I can’t remember any at all. I think looking at LDing sites helped me remember my dreams because I stopped looking at LD sites and now I can’t remember any of my dreams.
Mercy Hershey 
I don’t write in a DJ, never have probably never will. I remember my dreams fine without one. What I do is as soon as I wake up from a dream I go from the last place I was and just go back through the dream as far as I can, and then from there I just play it through in my head until where I woke up. This works fine for me, but its still a good idea to keep a DJ for lots of other reasons, like looking for dreamsigns and stuff, and also so you can look back on it ages after you’ve written it.
The first night I decided to keep a dream journal I found myself awake over an hour in the middle of the night writing it down. Too much hassle …I remember a lot of detail anyway … even on dreams years ago so just don’t bother.
However I do think the ones I put on the site are helpful in that I am thinking about them more than if I did not put some anywhere at all.
for about 5 months I wrote every night in a DJ, now that summer is here I find it hard to keep it going! When I’m camping with friends and sleeping in tents, and going on backpacking trips it’s hard to bring along a DJ and have time for it. I am trying to get back into it though!
I’d like a bit of advice for keeping a DJ. I’m already starting to see why I abandoned my last one (it wasn’t just because I wen’t on vacation, I could keep doing it there). I hate handwriting with a passion. I’m not good at it, it takes a long time, and mine is very hard to read. However, I’m a good typer, so I think I would have an easy time keeping a DJ on the computer.
Here’s the problem: I don’t have a comp in my room, and at my dad’s house I don’t even have a comp that I own. This creates all kinds of problems for LD; I can’t use it to play music or run software that is meant to be run while dreaming, and I can’t just get up and record my dreams. Normally, I can’t just get up and get on the comp. My mom doesn’t like it and my dad is usally using it, at least at the time of my waking. I wan’t to keep a DJ, though. Writing it just doesn’t work for me. I’m hoping to get a laptop sometime in the next 6 months, but until then, I’m not sure what to do. I hardly have any money, so I can’t get a Palm or anything. I’m actualy trying to save my money so I can contribute to the purchase of the laptop; I need at least a $100 to contribute enough so I can get the model I wan’t.
How can I keep a DJ?
EDIT: Fixing an underlining problem.
I keep a dream diary, because without it and the glass trick I have NO dream recall whatsoever. 
Whats that?
Shift.
If you hate writing so much why don’t you just write down the basics.
Use keywords and draw pictures to illustrate anything you’d like to remember. Writing in your own personal dream journal doesn’t have to be read by anyone else but you, so don’t be too hard on yourself.
Keep it simple.
Use crayons to draw silly pictures that resemble dream events.
I personally never write out whole sentences in my journal (when I find time to write in it at all), instead, it’s full of notes and drawings.
Thats a neat idea. I have to point out, however, that I have nothing against writing, just writing manually with my hands. Perhaps that was what you meant anyway, I’m not sure. Drawing pictures is a great idea. I do a lot of drawing just using a regular pencil, maybe I could do some sketches of the dreamscenes. That would be killing two birds with one stone; I’d improve my artistic skills and be keeping a DJ at the same time!
hi there , well i still write in mines, but its also great fun looking at those you created all those years ago.
I have that same problem, acutally last night I used that technique and it work!! I was sooo happy that I got to remember a dream, it was stupid but im getting there. I can’t wait 'til I get to LD.
happy dreaming everybody!!! 
"Quote:
glass trick
Whats that?"
I would like to know also.
Basically the glass trick is this:
When you go to sleep, take a glass of water. Tell yourself what you are doing (I am going to sleep and I am going to dream after I drink half this glass of water) then drink half the glass. Then say something along the lines of ‘when I wake I am going to drink the other half and remember my dreams’. repeat the second part when you wake up in the morning and your dreams should hopefully flood into your mind 
Whoa never heard of this technique before. Does it really work? I gótta try this… 
It’s helped me remember my first dreams in about, oh 3-4 years. So I’d say it works pretty well. Once I got lucky and remembered 4 Dreams from one night. 2 in pretty good detail and 2 in low detail. Hehe. Most nights I just remember one to two though.
There’s a problem of privacy if you keep a dream diary(unless you can write it in code). If someone read it - they could find out your most secret thoughts as the symbols in dreams are too revealing.
Normally I can remember quite a lot of my dreams and think if they are importment enough hopefully I won’t forget them.
I only write down dreams that I thought were weird, and I only right down keywords like “Blue” and “Pins” when I look at that I instantly remember, “Oh yeah that was that dream on the beach where I had to search for pins in that detective agentcy!” (Don’t ask)