Helping someone getting a better Dream Recall - How?

the Stuff Dreams are made of...
1

I have a friend which claims that he doesn’t dream at all, or at least never remembers a dream. As I’m trying to get him into LDing, I really want to help him with increasing the dream recall. (He’s always really amazed by my dreams so I suppose he’d have the motivation once he knows he’s dreaming too…)

But how do you actually do that if a person never even remembers the slightest bit?

He’s also a really ‘odd’ sleeper, at least for my terms it’s pretty weird. Once his head hits the pillow you just have to wait about 2 minutes (at night) to a maximum of 10 minutes (nap) and he’s asleep. I’m even having trouble waking him up after such a short time, as he seems to drift REALLY fast into deep sleep. If I do wake him up he’s not able to answer even the easiest questions (usually he just says yes, no matter what I’m talking about) and drifts back into sleep within just a few seconds after that.
After he’s been asleep awhile it’s virtually impossible to wake him up without spending about 5 minutes shaking him in order to keep him from falling asleep again. What also works is telling him that something horrible happened or if he has to get up for work.

I did manage to get a single dream out of him after I awoke him from an afternoon nap. But he forgot that he told me about it a few minutes after being really awake, and apparently also forgot the dream then, as he denies he ever had a dream like that.

tl;dr: What do I do in order to increase dream recall of someone sleeping like a log?

To be honest, I really don’t know what could work. His deep sleep seems to be a impenetrable border as he forgets everything shortly before and shortly after sleeping. So, I hope someone of you has some good advice to share. :smile:

2

Advice him to get a DJ. A DJ increases dream recall over time significantly, acts as a good source of motivation and let’s you see DS’s of your dreams.

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As I said, he doesn’t remember even slightest fragments. I doubt that simply owning a dream journal makes him aware enough to actually remember them. But I’ll definitely talk to him about it, every single bit helps I guess…

I’m probably going to need a combination of techniques to make him aware of dreams. But the key problem is making him (or better: his mind) aware again that there ARE dreams.

But I’m unsure on how to do that? Waking him up in the middle of the night regularly? Meditation? Advising him on watching hypnagogic imagery?

I mean, I’ve got a bunch of ideas myself, but it seems like my approach here is kinda uh, “experimental”.

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It doesn’t matter. Many people didin’t remember anything at all as well, until they got a DJ. By having a DJ and writing in it you program your mind to focus on dreams. Thus, you remember more of them.
Of course, at first he won’t have much to write. It can be simple feelings or colors he remembers. It can also be “I don’t remember anything at all”. But with enough time, he will certainly be able to remember whole dreams.

A DJ should solve the “I don’t have any dreams” problem. When he starts remembering at least 1 dream each night, you should introduce him to some techniques like MILD (+WBTB), WILD (+WBTB), DEILD and DILD. It makes no sense for him to try LD’ing if he doesn’t remember any dreams. He would just simply forget the LD’s he had, therefore, a DJ should be the priority at first.

Those cruel methods are not necessary. Try DJ. If that doesn’t work (which is very improbable), you might try waking him up in early morning and he should be remembering some fresh dreams.

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Oh, thanks for clarifying that Paulius!

I didn’t think a DJ could have such an impact. Always thought DJs work only if you already occassionally remember dreams (which almost everyone does I guess).

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Yet another DR problem - hold on tight! :content:

I don’t know about your friend, but I’m a heavy sleeper myself (or at least I think so). All of us are heavy sleepers after a long and tiring day, especially if we had to get up early too.

Usually, people who, once they fall asleep can’t be bothered to wake up not even by the loudest noise (hyperbolic speaking), have the longest and most intense dreams. The problem with your buddy could be either that, upon waking up, he’s so sleepy (after a log-sleep, easily understood) that he doesn’t care to remember his dreams, or his sleeping cycle ended a long time before he actually woke up making his recall impossible - a sort of sleeping cycle disorder.

This is what proved to me to have great results:
First Technique: Upon awakening, try not to move at all - or at least at little as possible. Concentrate only on not moving for a few seconds. Then open your eyes and try to recall what your dream made you feel like (happy, sad, scared, desperate, confused etc.). Try to recover that state of feeling. Usually you wake up with the exact same feeling you had in the dream, in which case hold on to it. Now, close your eyes, or keep them open if your surroundings don’t distract you, and try to remember a picture or a word of your dream. Focus as hard as you possibly can while maintaining that state of feeling you woke up with. Next, weather you remember something or not, lose the focus and relax - stretch a bit. Can you remember now? Focus again as hard as possible and if anything comes to your mind as you try to remember (even if not related to dreams at all) write it down, or draw a sketch of what you saw. Can be even only one word. The idea is to have something written/drawn down. This whole thing shouldn’t take more than 1 minute if not even less.

Repeat this ‘process’ every morning. If you still can’t remember after (around a week), you’ll end up with a nice bunch of random words and/or sketches.

This one takes some time, but should fix your recall problems by the end of it:
Second Technique: Keep a schedule: at a certain time you go to sleep and at a certain time you wake up too. No alarm clocks! Even if you can’t control when you wake up - you still can control when you go to sleep. It’s important to build up a schedule and keep it going for a long time (say a month), for as the moment you’ll brake it (on purpose) for 2-3 hours earlier, your body and mind will be taken by surprise by the drastic change in your program and thus your sleeping cycle will shift brutally making you able to remember your dreams.

Tip: If you do start to remember your dreams, feel free to add your own imagination to your dream-story. If you don’t like how something turned out to be, change it, or if something doesn’t make sense and you’re not OK with it, add a teaspoon of logic to it. However, if you like them the way they are, let them be. Shape your entries in such a way that by the end of each of them you’ll be pleased with them ending up with a short (or long) and original story.[i]

This way the subconscious mind will eventually understand your message that the dreams are your dreams and you shape them the way you want to without accepting anything intruding. This will have a tremendous impact on your control by the time you start getting LD’s.[/i]

Cheers,
Don :smile:

PS: Don’t rush anything - keep everything natural and you’ll see the results in no time. PM me if you have any questions - not that I wouldn’t answer here, but I’ll lose track of this topic. :expressionless:

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Thanks Don, going to incorporate this into my evil plan for sure! :ebil:

So much work to get other people into paying more attention to dreams… :anx: