I recently started writing in my dream journal again, but for some reason it feels harder this time:
I don’t really have any problems remembering dreams upon awakening, the problem is that I easily feel stressed and feel like my memories can leave at any moment, so I pretty much hunt down whatever memory I can grasp but then I start forgetting everything else instead.
For some reason I find it much harder to really “keep hold” of the dreams - even when I remember a lot of details and believe I will keep them I still seem to forget more and more no matter how hard I try to keep them in my memory.
I know I have felt pretty tired these last mornings, but will this really affect your dream recall this seriously?
I also have some confidence issues with this, like I “might not get anywhere” and “what if my dreams will have the exactly same degree of vividness no matter how long I write?” etc.
I’m new here but I can tell you about my experience with journals. Until I began using a journal a couple of months ago, I rarely remembered anything about any of my dreams. I knew I had dreamed but I just couldn’t recall them at all. I began writing them down and my recollection increased dramatically. However, the effort and the concentration left me unable to return to sleep in the middle of the night. I began using a small digital recorder that I keep by my bed. I simply reach over, activate it and speak and my recall has increased substantially because I don’t have to waste time writing - I just dictate into the recorder. The following morning I can transcribe my dictation. It works great for me. Good luck!
You might be doing this already but for me it really helps to stay lying down, in the same position as I woke up, and try to extract as much information and details from my dream. When I’m confident I have everything I can get I keep repeating them, studying so to say. Then when I’m sure I know everything and there is nothing new to learn I go to my journal.
I find moving around washes away the dream.
I have to say that, but I think that your problem is in:
Confidence is more than a half job in pursuit of lucid dreams, because without confidence is very hard to achieve anything… And you may said that you experienced lack of confidence because of problems with recording dreams, but I say that you have problem of recording dreams because of lack confidence…
I have the same problem and I don’t see that as a problem, I see it more like a situation, I know I will forget dreams pretty quick upon waking so I record them instantly, and when I don’t have a time in a morning, then just a few lines in smartphone, and later in DJ, and yes with so much less details, but that’s just how it is…
