Hey everyone,
I’m new to this whole lucid dream thing and i was curious as to what methods you guys use to remember dreams. I’ve been doing this for about a week and started out remembering really well then it kinda went down hill. would like any help if you can spare some.
Thanks
If you can figure out a painless way to journal your dreams then you are set. My computer is near my bed, but that wouldn’t be good enough on its own. I’m not getting up to write down a dream at 4am. So I just move my keyboard to this side table next to my bed. I just keep my computer on, keep
a text file open, and during the night I can just roll over and flop my fingers on the keys and start typing…
The key is to write stuff down as soon as you wake up… don’t think, “oh, I’ll remember that” cause even if you do, you will forget all the things attached to that event…
You might find it easier if you keep small voice recorder next to your bed.This way you dont even need the light or to get fully awake.just mumble your memories into it and type it in next day
good luck
I just let them come they usaly come when I’m eating.
Traditional notepad and pen. Recording them is the easy part; it’s remembering them that takes a little effort. For me, the most reliable method for recalling the maximum detail and number of individual dreams is to wake up routinely during the final few hours of sleep. For example, I generally get about 6 hours initially, then my alarm goes off for the first time. I’m only awake at that point for long enough to reset my alarm and scribble down some vague memories (the more vivid ones are always later in the morning). Granted some people have trouble falling back asleep, so I suggest moving as little as possible to remain relaxed. An hour later the alarm goes off again, and I repeat the above process, only this time setting the alarm for only 30 minutes. It then continues to be every half-hour until I absolutely have to get up.
It might seem like I’m destroying an otherwise restful night of sleep, but this just isn’t the case. I’m only awake for about 5 minutes tops (counting all wake-up periods), and the last year of experimentation has made it evident that I can function properly after hundreds of consecutive nights of doing this. There are exceptions, but generally people only remember dreams that have occurred during the last 30 to 60 minutes of sleep (due to the way dream memories are rarely converted to permanent storage without conscious intention), so by using the above method, I’m able to recall as many as 7 or 8 separate dreams on a particularly good night. It also helps to identify which REM cycles provided which dreams (sometimes find myself mapping out an entire night in my log), so you can more easily distinguish them.
Recall isn’t the only advantage of waking up several times during the night. It also gives me an opportunity to reassert my intention to have an LD, and to consider the previous dreams of the night while doing so. For example, I’ve noticed that after the initial awakening, the following dreams of the night will often involve a similar theme, if not the exact same plot. It means I can consciously ‘jump in’ half way through, and set myself up to recognize when the dream begins again in the hopes that I’ll think “Hey, this already happened in a dream earlier, I must be dreaming now”. It’s worked quite successfully in the past, and I suspect that this is because it allows me to interrupt the usually unconscious sequence of dreams with conscious planning and assessment.
I’d like to hear other people’s accounts of doing this.
Interesting method Atheist. I never thought of purposefully waking up multiple times in a night. Sometimes i find it hard to fall asleep again no matter how early it is. Do you ever come across this? what should i do to battle it?
I didn’t realize it until recently, but a lot of people seem to be that way. I just assumed everyone had the ability to drift back to sleep mere seconds after waking up any number of times during the night. Anyway, I guess you can try not moving at all when you wake up. Or as little as possible, anyway (you might have to turn off an alarm, or something). If your body is still entirely relaxed, it might be easier to fall asleep again.
It could just be that I’ve gotten used to doing it.
I pick up my notepad and pen and write the dream down, then put it back, and go back to sleep.
I don’t use an external means to wake me up. But I wake up aa couple of times in the night naturally, everytime I wake up I spend time trying to think back and recall any dreams. If I remember any, I go to the bathroom with my small journal and pen and scribble them down. Then go back to bed and wait to fall asleep again…this trip to the bathroom works like a mini WBTB
I also tend to wake up naturally during the course of the night. The first time is usually 3:00-3:30 and the second time is around 5:30-6:00. Who knows why… I tend to really have a lot of trouble falling back to sleep. Sometimes I wake up around 4 or 5 and just never have the ability to catch any more Z’s.
So, recording my dreams is a very delicate operation during the two “windows” of oppurtunity I have during the night. I have my DJ and a pen hanging on a stick-on hook on the wall next to my bed. During those times I wake up, I just jot down a few key words from my dreams, like “driving to pick up my dad”, or “big party at my brothers place”. It’s like what Atheist described. When I look at these phrases in the morning, it sparks my memory and I can then hopefully remember the bulk of the dream.
I really recommend that method to anyone who has a problem with getting back to sleep… or is just too tired to write for long.
Often the memories of the dreams will be in fragments, and it takes a few minutes of recollection to make them all “snap” together. Some of your dreams may strangely come to you an hour or two after you wake up, in a sudden burst. This is often the case with me. Its important not to rush or push your mind too much in the morning to recall your dreams… just let them flow.
Hopefully I’m not just repeating what everyone else said, lol… time to go to bed… 
Thanks for all the great tips I’ve tried athiest’s method and I ended up not waking up to my alarm at 2:30 and I actually slept in 'till 7:30. So I’m not sure I’ll try that again, I mean I will, just on a night that I don’t need to be up in the morning.
I’ll try some of your other methods and get back to you on how they went.
-Nova-
I must confess, I am one of those lazy people that doesn’t write down anything at night or in the morning. I usually don’t remember a non-LD unless it’s really disturbing or something. After I wake up from an LD or LD’s, I lay in my bed and go over the details in my mind. Usually I start from the most recent LD and work my way back, then forward again. After I finally get up (which is often after the LD period of my sleep), I eventually get around to recording the LD’s on my computer.
hello everyone, i am new here. i have also been having some trouble with dream recall. it used to be real good. i was recording 2 to3 dreams a nite and have recorded a max of 6 in one nite but latley it has not been real good. i found a little tip while searching the net that has really seemed to help me out. drink 2 or 3 glasses of water before bed. that way u will wake up naturally and usually will rember a dream. i then record the dream and drink another glass of water and go back to bed and repeat the process. it can cause u to get up several times in the night but it sure seems to help in remebering multiple dreams. but again if u have trouble going back to sleep this may not be good for you…
hmm what a funny elaboration on the water before bed tech… thanks,
Dr.Phil.
Ok heres my big problem maybe you guys can help. When I wake up in the morning for school I am awoken by an alarm clock. For some strange reason I am almost completely unable to remember my dreams because of this. On weekends and whenever I wake up before th alaram I can, but why can I remember them after the alarm? Any tips?
Oh and by the way I’ve never had a problem with dream recall cause during the summer I started lucid dreaming and did very well and even had some LD’s! yea! But now because of school I have been without one for a while, and I think this is partially because of my lack of dream recall.
What’s happening is that your alarm clock probably cuts down your sleep by a few hours. The REM (vivid dreaming) periods are every 90 minutes progressing from 10 to 45 minutes long. You’re missing out the longest dreams.
I have that as well! I wish I could find a solution to this. As soon as my alarm clock goes off it’s like my dream memory is instantly erased. Maybe I should train my mind to remember instead of forget when I hear the sound of the alarm clock?
The other night something annoying happened… I woke up from a great dream and grabbed my notebook next to my bed, thinking ‘I want to write this down and remember’ and when I put the pen to the paper I found I suddenly couldn’t remember a thing. 
I’m actually just very lazy… so I often don’t write dreams down even if I remember (I know! shame *shame) I’m thinking about designing a form that’s easy to fill out… because often I also can’t make sense of my handwriting during the night and my notes are a mess. T_T Also, it’s a strange gamble but maybe if I design the form in a certain way that’s unique it will also help trigger my dream memory (like that tip I read somewhere about writing in your DJ with a weird pen colour.)
Then there’s this deja-vu thing. On certain days I just randomly suddenly remember a whole dream and it’s weird, like I’m back in the middle of that dream. It’s strange proof of how the memory of the dream is probably there, but you just can’t access it. This makes me wonder if there’s some sort of meditation or technique to access that memory?
Thanks. Any other tips?
When I do make the effort I use a note pad and pen. I can’t always remember events from my dream in the right order and it can seem like 10 unrelated short dreams in one. I write as much as possible about the colours, sounds, setting, characters, thoughts etc. It’s hard to stay awake if I’m already tired from late nights (which is most of the time unfortunately) and my handwriting is all over the place 