Things affecting dream recall?

I have a couple of questions about dream recall. My parents come into my bedroom every morning and say that they’re leaving for work. Of course, this wakes me up. Will being woken up like this affect my dream recall in any way?

I would say that the more sudden you are woken up, the more you forget from your dreams. It’s best to wake up naturally if you want best dream recall.

Hmm, I thought so. I was awoken this morning very suddenly by my sister (scared me to death :content: ).

Perhaps you could ask them not to wake you up in the morning. Then just let yourself wake up naturally.

You could also drink a truckload of water, making you wake up before they have a chance of waking you themselves.

I already asked my parents not to, but my sister didn’t know, I guess.

I don’t know that I’d agree with the idea that “unnatural” awakening is deterimental for recall. I use an alarm to wake myself up at several points during the night, and each time I have a strong memory of the dream I just woke from. It’s all to do with how distracted you are when you wake up, rather than whether or not you wake up naturally or forcibly. For example, if you wake up to an alarm, and it’s part of your daily routine to remember your dreams when this happens, you’ll have no trouble. However, if someone runs into your room yelling “Come and look at this!” (or whatever), chances are you’ll forget to recall your dreams, and they’ll fade away quickly.

Since I can wake up before the alarm I use set the alarm to wake me up after about 6 hours of sleep and instead of just going to sleep normally I try to think about the fact that the alarm is annoying and that my dream recall will suck if I’m woken up by it. So now I seem to always wake up before the alarm does off :cool: , usually anywhere from 1 hour to 5 minutes before.

And since I also have the alarm in another room it’s even more annoying if I have to get up and turn it off when I wake up. So my conclusion is that the more annoying the alarm is the greater chance you have of waking up before it goes off. Therefore you most likely wake up directly from a dream and thus you remember the entire dream and you also don’t feel tired at all !! :grin:

I agree with Atheist…an alarm is just a sound.
But your parents telling you they are leaving for work has two differences with your alarm.

  1. An Alarm you set on your decided time to wake up.
    Your parents wake you before your normal chosen time to wake up at, because they have to go to work.
  2. They give verbal spoken information an alarm is just a beep.
    A verbal spoken command distracts your shortterm memory way more then just a simple beep.

Just tell them to have faith lol in your own alarm to wake from!

Nobody woke me up this morning, so I got up at about 10:30. At first I couldn’t remember any dreams, so I was a little angry. But then, a few minutes later, BLAM! I remembered a full dream. Don’t you just love it when that happens?

If you have trouble remembering your dreams with an alarm you could try to not let the alarm distract you. When the alarm goes off just lay in bed and allow the alarm to continue beeping for a few seconds as you try and focus on your dreams. Once you have a dream memory to hold on to then go ahead an turn off the alarm.

Likewise you could do the same thing with your parents. When they wake you just give them a simple “good bye” or whatever you normally say without really thinking about it. Stay focused on remembering your dreams.