How to remember....

I am new to this whole dream lucidity thing. I think I have had them before but in a limited fashion. I had in the past been able to say “I know I am dreaming” and then be able to wake up on command. But thats all I ever did, just wake up. I only was able to accomplish this in nightmares, so my only priority was waking up, I never thought of doing anything else. Anywho, I don’t often have dreams that I remember, maybe only once every three months or so. I was wondering if anybody has any tips for me on remembering dreams. I think I heard somewhere that even though you can’t always remember dreams you do dream every night, so I just want to know a way to not forget my dreams. Any help is appreciated.

You were right on the dream every night thing, we do always dream, we just don’t always remember it.

The key to remembering your dreams is keeping a dream journal. Every morning when you wake up, write down every single detail of any dreams that you’ve just had. Eventually, your recall will keep getting better. Another thing is that when you’re trying to get to sleep, repeat in your head something similar to “When I wake up in the morning, I will remember my dreams.” This is a form of autosuggestion, and it is also used in the MILD technique to induce lucid dreams.

A lot more info can be found in the lucid dreaming wikibook:

en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming

I was about to post a question just like this myself as I’m having trouble remembering even slight fragments nowerdays, thanks a lot for the info :smile:

…of course having nothing to write does somewhat dampen trying to keep a dream diary :tongue:

I was exactly the same. If only I’d heard of lucid dreaming as a child.
The easiest time to remember a dream is right after REM sleep which happens every 1hr30min (roughly) So setting an alarm during the night and then jotting any details down then really helps.

I’d say that having an empty dream diary next to your bed will motivate you into remembering.

That’s what I’m hoping. :content:

I’ve heard (somewhere else on the forums, ah here we go) that being woken suddenly (ie. in this case by an alarm clock) can ruin your memory of whatever you were dreaming about…but then maybe I should just shut up now :uh:

Edit: Looks like more posts in that thread since have answered my question (even though it wasn’t really phrased as a question), so goodie goodie :content: