LOST my ability To Recall Dreams

For the Past 3 days I have not been able to recollect my Dreams in Detail… I am only able to write down a sentence regarding the theme of the dreams.

For the past 1 month I have been able to write down my dreams in detail But since past 3 days I have been able to write down only one sentence.

Does anyone know why this is Happening to me ???
Why All of a Sudden I have gone back to not being able to recollect my dreams.

In the Future Will I be able to recollect my ALL of my Dreams

Any suggestion ??
I am Really worried… Pls Help.

Don’t panic! In my experience I think it’s quite normal for dream recall to ebb and flow. 3 days of low recall is not something I would stress about personally. You’re writing what you do feel and remember which is exactly what you should do when you have low or blurry recall.

What causes low recall? Well, it could be a variety of things.
For me, stress tends to reduce my dream recall (unless I’m waking up in panic from a stress driven dream). Having something immediate to do in the morning also reduces my dream recall, as when I wake up I’m too concerned about what’s happening to collect my recall. Poor journaling habits (this doesn’t seem to be your case) are what affects my recall the most.

General tips for recall:
-keep your eyes closed when you wake up, don’t move, and really review those dreams before getting out of bed and ready for the day.

-if you have a small piece of recall, but not the entire dream, try to find anything (emotion, image, topic) right before or right after that piece of recall. I call this “finding a thread.” Pull on it, see if anything else unravels.

-record your recall or take notes on your recall right when you wake up, don’t wait until later in the day or you’ll loose some or all of it.

-even writing just one sentence or a few words is better than nothing. Dream recall improves with consistency.

-You can incubate dream recall, or use it as part of a MILD mantra if it suits your practices. “I can remember my dreams,” “I can write down all the dreams I remember in the morning” etc.

-You can try intentionally interrupting your sleep. Not my favorite method but you’re much more likely to remember a dream if you wake up in the middle of it than after it ends (as we tend to continue sleeping after and between dreams). However, if you interrupt your sleeping on a regular schedule your body will likely get used to it and the effectiveness will decrease over time as your body adjusts to the interruption as part of your sleep schedule.

Keeping a dream journal is a marathon, not a sprint. I find my dream recall is most influenced by my journaling habits and it sounds like you have good habits. I’ve gone weeks without recording much and my dream recall really decreased, but the months I consistently record improve my recall.

I don’t think dream recall is ever something you can’t rebuild, even after a long break.

Hard to say if you’ll be able to recollect ALL your dreams, considering most people have many every night (I think the average is between 5-7?)
When my recall is really strong I remember about 3 a night, currently remembering about 1-2.

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What Splash already said is right in every aspect.

I tend to lose recall in stressful times, when my sleep hygiene deteriorates or when I get very distracted in general. But it has always come back by sticking to my dream journal and simply paying attention to dreams (intent in the evening and taking time in the morning). And I’m speaking from many years of experience. So just like Splash, let me assure you that you can always get your recall back.

Write down whatever you can in the morning. If it’s just a simple sentence or a vague feeling than that’s already much better than nothing, because it proves that you do have dreams that you can reach. And the “pull from the memory thread“ technique that Splash described is very worth trying and practicing. I’ve managed to pull back volumes worth of full dreams from the abyss of memory with this trick.

I don’t think you will be able to recollect all dreams you are ever dreaming because there are too many dreaming phases throughout a night of healthy sleep to catch everything. The only way I can imagine is with some polyphasic sleeping pattern where you wake up after each sleeping cycle and remember the dream of that cycle straight away. But that’s not worth it. If you get at least one dream almost every night and more than one dream on most nights then that should be very satisfying already.

A little bit of a side note: I’m currently doing a little bit of a long-running experiment. I’m trying to see how long I can keep up a recall streak, that is I record at least one dream every night. Sometimes it’s just one or two sentences but I’m on a streak of about 1 year now, whereas before I used to have maybe a day every month when I’m completely blank. I tentatively conclude that even consistency is something you can practice, or greatly boost purely by intent.


I said Splash is right with everything she said, but I did find something I don’t fully agree with:

I’m generally a light sleeper these years (or have some other problem) and wake up pretty much every night. Sometimes several times. Some of those nights I have the best recall of all times, probably because I wake up after each of the dreaming phases. And like I said, the midnight waking is sort of a permanent thing, but it’s effectiveness on dream recall does not seem to have decreased. I would like to stress though that this is not something I recommend as a strategy for dream recall, either. I’d definitely prefer to have more solid blocks of night sleep.

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Oo yeah! Good point.
I actually usually wake up in the middle of the night too, but my ability to recall dreams in that moment is dependent on those other factors.

What I guess I meant is that by interrupting your sleep (by some alarm in the night) you may interrupt a dream and wake up in the middle of it and therefore remember it clearer.

Over time my body has anticipated the wake up and made it part of the sleep cycles, so I don’t wake up in the middle of a dream, but I suppose it still gives me an opportunity to remember dreams from earlier in the night that I may loose by sleeping longer.

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This is what I was able to Recall Today…But I do not remember if it was Early bedtime in the Night or After I tried WBTB where I got up Early in the Morning and go back to sleep…Not sure about the time…

Here is my Dream

“I was walking in my gulli and tripped on plastic rope … I turned around and saw an Aunty come out of the house…
I ran but Capita HR caught me…
She asked “you don’t want to work in TVL?”
I said yes I ran because I was afraid…
Then the manager of TVL spoke with me.
He asked me “are you interested in working?”
I said"yes any process will do but I prefer TVL”
I was wearing shorts.,. It was odd … But I convinced myself that even other boys are wearing shorts.
I was roaming around but got Lost…
There was big roads with trees greenary… there was a big garden…
I got lost… I went down a path and there were Dogs… fluffy white Dogs… many of them…
I came back went into a House…
There one boy said he will help me find my way…i walked with him till the Bus stop… But suddenly Lost him… Then I was without my T-shirt and jacket wearing only shorts… Then I went as instructed by the boy… I went into a Lane there was a flower guy… I asked him how to go to Capita… He asked me to shift a price of brick on the temple wall and the temple door opened…
I opened the temple door and went inside the temple and then out …

The other side saw a girl and I followed her. She went back to the temple and moved a brick and then she was closed in a small cabinet of marble above the Brick…
I wished I could peep and then I could see her Entirely Naked …the door opened half way.
Now all the people in the temple were looking and said that being naked in the temple was wrong…
And the dream ended"

I am saying the dream ended because I did not wake up… I simply was sleeping again…

I did not remember my dream as soon as I woke up but it was after 1 hr that I remembered this dream I have written…

Thank you Marvin,
Thank you Splash,

Is it worth writing down 1 sentence or 1 word in my Dream Journal??
How will this Help ?

You should simply write down anything you can. If you only remember very little, then this is even more important. Show your subconscious that you care and that you’re serious about your dreams. And while writing it down you might just remember more, which you can then also bring to paper immediately.

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