Dream Journal question

After using a dream journal for about 10 days or so Im beginning to see an improvment in my recall abilities, however all my dreams are still cloudy,I can remember more parts of the "story" but cant really pick out any detail,such as what colour car i was driving etc. I know there will be a big difference between people but how long does it take on average to be able to remember most of a couple of dreams per night in good detail. Im still struggling to separate the dreams i do remember, Im sure that im mixing them up when i do my journal in the morning. Is it really that important to force yourself to wake up right after the dream? I always find Im too tired to do this and go back to sleep right away. I work long hours driving all over europe and dont really sleep long enough when Im away to dream, but will be taking a break of a few months after christmas from any sort of work. Im hoping to do some physical training to help improve my fitness hoping that this will improve the quality of my sleep enabling me to catch more dreams. Has anyone got any good advice on anything that I could do with all this spare time to work towards having regular lucid dreams?? Ive read Robert Bruces Astral Dynamics, and he says doing the energy raising work with his NEW technique helps a great deal,is this true? Will learning to meditate help me at all?? Ive not had time to learn this yet,but would like to if it will help.
Regards

Mark ;D

Hey Turlock, I’m not an expert LDer but i have been doing it for awhile and will try to answer your questions as best as i can.

If you keep using your dream journal then your recall will get a lot better with time, but wakeing up right after a dream definitely helps you to remember the dream a lot easier because you just had it and its fresh in your mind. I read somewhere that the reason why a DJ helps your recall so much is because it subconciously puts greater importance on remembering and noticing your dreams, so your mind becomes more aware during dreaming and you will remember a lot more details. I myself only use my DJ to write down LDs, because i don’t have the time to write down my normal dreams everyday. But i still remember 2-3 dreams everynight because when i wake up i try real hard to remember every detail of that nights dreams, and go over them in my head as i am in the shower or something like that. So i think it has and affect as does the DJ because it subconciously puts more importance on remembering my dreams. But a DJ probably works a lot better.

Im not sure, i haven’t read it so i don’t know of the technique, you can tell me more about this if you want, i would be interested. I have done energy raising work for things like chi energy, but i don’t know if i succeeded in actually raising the energy, i was an amature :smile: .

I think it will, meditation and self hypnosis are two things that i have heard helps a lot with LDs. meditation is also a good thing to practice as a part of your every day life, not just with lds. I haven’t taken the time to learn meditation, I think ive only meditated once or twice in my life. If you have a lot of spare time i think it would be worth trying.

Good luck with your lds and keep asking questions, it will definitley help you along the way.

P.S. I’ve also heard that Vitamin B6 helps with the vividness or dreams, i believe that they do too. You can get them at any drug store i think. I don’t have the pills but i sometimes drink supplement drinks that have lots of it in it.

-=JaSoN=-

Main thing- its not necesarry to set your alarm clock or force yourself in any way to wake up after every dream.When u feel you`re forcing anything then its time to change it:)Lucid dreaming cant be seen as chores cuz in long term it wont work.Thats why i think you need to find your own balance between your sleeping needs or habits and recall.
Of course its better to wake up after every rem period.But is it worth messing with your natural sleep cycle?doubt it.Especially because simple dream diary and intention will do just fine.If u have a time or feel like it you can play with your alarm clock and such but its not required and you wont be much “behind”.
I can also say that indeed energy works help with recall.Actually every little thing you do before sleep intending to help you in recalling or lding helps cuz this way you set your mind on specific taks instead of falling asleep with your mind thorn between thousands of thoughts,doubts,etc…all that rubbish.
So just simple cleaning your mind will propably help a lot.
good luck:)

That’s absolutely right. If you’re doing something that you don’t want to do, just to increase your chances of lucid dreaming or improve recall, then change techniques. We’re all doing this because we want to, so there’s no reason to endure anything tedious or annoying.

I know what you mean about being too tired to bother, Turlock. Sometimes I wake up early in the morning for WILD, but end up rolling over and going back to sleep. “I’ll do it tomorrow… must sleep now”. To avoid becoming lazy like that, I try to always write something down each time I wake up, even if it’s just a few words that I hope will bring back the rest of the dream when I read over them later.

Anyway, I’m doing some research on the topic of memory and dream recall at the moment. You can read about it here.

How long did it take you guys to get to the point that you could remember 2-3 full dreams each night?

I wonder, is it necessary to write down all you can remember of your dreams? If I do this, it can take more than an hour, even two, if you take in to count the time I need to memorize the dream. This can be a little bit tricky a normal weekday when I need to go to school. If I think over the dream and just write down some keywords, is that enough?

meditation would help quite a bit… meditating helps you be more connected with yourself i guess. Ther fore your mental desires “such as remembering derams” would be a bit easier. So doign it before bed would help a bit i’d say

i wouldnt say its self hypnosis, some may say that. Because being hipmotised is being able to command yourself. err… yeah, command yourself. What you are acctually in is a hypnotic state of mind, there ya go

i dont think there’s some absolute rule on this… it seems to me though that if it would take u over an hour that you are remembering your dreams quite well, and could probably get away quite nicely writing down highlights and selections… probably dont force urself to do more than is comfortable… better to be consistent than to get sick of it.

Peace,
Sruthan

true, i used to jot down every detail i remembered, then i realised i was spending about 45 mins on each dream. Then its a bit harder to find out the emphisised parts in the dream, but when you read it, then you can immage the dream in your head again. Once you get into the rythm of wrighting down youur dream, your mind stopps focussing on time (meditation state) so you can just keep wrighting and you wont noticethe times passing… until you stop wrighting, and realised the time.

Here I go, in and out… I haven’t posted for ages.
I just come here every once in a while.

This is an interesting question. It would seem like immediately recording your dream is a good idea… BUT, here’s the way it works for me. Many times when I JUST wake up from a dream, going back to sleep with the realization that you will try to have a lucid dream usually induces one.
It happens to me many times. This is especially more likely to happen if you wake up from a lucid dream. You have to be quick about it. Sometimes waking up will give you a glimpse of reality and you can go right back to sleep knowing that you’re dreaming.
Consider doing this… it’s always good to experiment. But if you want to be safe, you can always keep up to date with your journal since you’re just starting it.

Also, you don’t necessarily have to be incredibly detailed in your descriptions. Personally, I’d just keep a pad of paper that I can reach from my bed and I just jot down some things that will bring back the memory of the dream (friend’s house, name of characters, notable images, environment…)

I hope this helped…

By the way, I’d just like to say this.
clears his throat

[color=red][size=200]HI JACK[/size][/color]

Long time no see man!
And you’re still doing your thrusts!
It’s good to see that you’re still devoted to this forum.
I haven’t had the time to contribute to it.
Remember those days in the old and primitive forum?
Good times… good times…

Anyone else THAT old? Other than Pas that is…
Give me a message if you remember me :content: