(First let me apoligize for the length of this post, I didn’t really intend it to be this long, I guess I just got carried away.)
Hi, I used to come to these boards a couple years back when I first started reading about lucid dreaming, but due to poor recall eventually lost interest/motivation and never actually got there.
Recently though I’ve been getting more interested in my spiritual side, practicing meditation and reading more about philosophical and religious type things and the idea of not just Lucid dreaming, but dream work to analize the dreams to learn more about myself and work on myself came to me again.
To do both though I need dream recall, and my memory has never been my strong point. (I am a marijuana smoker, though currently am on a break for about 2 weeks now) The first night I decided to try this, with the journal and all(i have a notebook i keep by my bed, and also I downloaded the Advanced Diary that someone mentioned on one of the topics on this board)I was able to reconstruct and remember 2 dreams in great detail in great length.
I was also able to analize them apparently quite well(my therapist who works in dream works told me it was a better job then most of the doctors he worked with)which gave me a bit of hope that perhaps this time I would be able to do it, at least until the next night, when I woke up only able to remember little snippets of the dream, and even once those fragments came I was unable to construct more then just that scene of the dream that came to me.
I was dissapointed, but then the next night i was again able to remember 2 dreams, quite vividly and again able to analize them with the symbolism they presented to my every day life. (I even unbeknownst to me used a MILD method of telling myself I would like to return to the world where my first dream took place, and ended up doing just that, even though the two dreams were pretty unrelated)
The next night was again a bad night for recall, able to slightly remember some of one dream, and small fragments of another 2, the night after that was looking to be another bad day, until I got on my computer to write about the fragment i was able to remmeber(which was a little longer then previous nights fragments I admit), when suddenly a piece of another dream came to me and I was able to construct it from there.
Last night was again looking to be a bad recall, waking up 2-3 times, this time taking the effort to write down the fragments in the journal(after alot of effort to even remember the fragment, and again only able to construct a small very vauge description of the one scene and forgetting the rest)in the hopes I would be able to remember/reconstruct them upon waking.
The last dream of last night I was able to remember totally because I think at the end I might have realized it was a dream, it is a little odd to explain but I was able to open my eyes in reality from within the dream and seamlessly came from dream to waking state. (basically the opposite of a WILD, which I may want to try in the next few days)
My main concern/problem is that the dream diary isn’t helping me too much, at least the notebook one. The dreams that I was able to remember and reconstruct in great detail on the computer I was able to do before writing it down, and when I wrote those dreams down in the notebook it was only a summery, which I didn’t even have to read upon waking up later in the day to record them on the computer.
The ones I didn’t remember, I didn’t remember from the second I woke up, and I had to use alot of focus and thought to try and get them to come to me, even though they were only snippets, and writing them in the notebook didn’t help remembering them any better later on or while I was in the process of writing them.
Perhaps writing them down has helped me to remember them later on, or helped me think about them more(the dreams i remembered I went over a few times in my head before writing down the summery paragraphs)and the computer diary definatly is fufilling its purpose getting me into the habit of thinking of my dreams and working on them when waking up, and I had thoughts of just going strait to that each time I woke up, but am afraid that I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep if I sit up at the computer for 15-20 minutes tyring to remember and reconstruct the dreams(Which i may or may not even be able to do).
I also have the idea that maybe the dreams that I remembered so easily was because they were the dreams that had the symbolism, that I could analize and relate to my deeper part of me to learn more about myself, and that the ones that I didn’t remember(or at least the fragments of it), seemed more like a summer popcorn movie, fun and entertaining yes, but with no real point.(I couldn’t really think of any symbolism in the fragments I had, no real deep meaning beyond just movies or video gameish type dreams)
So there inlies my problem, how do I induce dreams that are meaninful, if that is the reason why I remember them, before I have too many days of little or no recall(which I am hoping will not happen again if/when i decide to start smoking again)and start to lose motivation.
I read around the boards again, and will try the MILD technique of “i will remember my dream” for the next week or so and see if that helps, maybe trying WILD one night when going back to sleep, and maybe will try and just go strait to the computer to see if that has any difference then the notebook, this will also allow me to play some of the hypnotic/nature sounds I have that could maybe help me fall asleep faster.
A few questions is how long should I be laying in bed waiting for the dreams to come to me before getting out/rolling over to try and write about them/getting out to use bathroom(which i usually have to do each time i wake up).
Do you think my motivation to work on the dreams/learn more about myself is overshadowing the overall dream recall effects of the so called “popcorn” dreams? Is that even possible?
I know that everyone has dry spots from reading the boards but this is more like a rollercoaster where i start off with vivid long memories then drop down to nothing, back right up to vivid long memories and drop back down to almost nothing each opposing day, has anyone ever had this experience?
Does meditating before sleeping have any effect on dream recall? I know that my therapist has told me that it provokes a more deep sleep, and I noticed that one of the days where I couldn’t remember hardly anything was after a night where I chose to meditate right before falling asleep.
Thanks for anyone who managed to read that whole thing, and sorry again for the length, any other advice or tips you could give me would be greatly appreciated 
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