Best wishes to all of you, and I hope all of you are doing well. I’ve been a semi-lucid dreamer for years, meaning that I remember my dreams, and feel as if I’m somewhat lucid during them. However, I have a limited amount of control and frequently get drawn back into the dream. I’ve recently had some pretty amazing semi-lucid dreams, where I felt a greater degree of control than I ever had before, and had some amazing experiences. I’ve had several conversations with some of the characters in my dreams, and they’ve given me some great advice about my waking life. I’ve also had some amazing encounters with my recently deceased done dog, and and really feel like I finally had the chance to say some the things that I wanted to save her before she passed. I’ve made the decision to become fully lucid, and am really excited about having some more lucid dreams. I’m starting by developing a regular habit of writing in my dreams are what I wake up. However, I find writing in my journal tedious, and find that I’m putting off extra sleep (and possible lucid dreams) in order to avoid doing it. I also woke up less night, and decided that there were several dreams I just didn’t want to remember. I can’t help but think that writing in the journal, and the effort involves, might have something to do with it. I have now successfully written in my dream journal for 4 days in a row, and aiming for a full 30.
However, I dislike it intensely. Right now I’m at a loss. Has anyone else had to deal with this? Any ideas for making the process more fun? To spice things up, I invested in a voice dictation system that lets me dictate my Journal entries into my computer directly, and that takes a lot less time than it took to do them by hand. It’s also pretty cool to be able to just talk into my phone and then have everything I say be transcribed into my journal. Even so, it’s still quite a bother. Any thoughts? Thank you so much for your help, and I look forward to continuing the discussion.
I’ve just returned to dreaming after a 6 months break and am focusing, among other things, on dream recall as well. What I’ve found over the years is that writing down on paper really bores me too and I end up not recording my dreams after a while (and almost completely stopping after that ). To get the best results in increasing DR you should record everything you remember… but the more you remember the more effort you have to put in recording the dream So what I do now is when I wake up after a dream I write down key words in my paper DJ, just to make sure I don’t completely forget about the dream later. Then when I finally get up in the morning, I type the dream out on the computer. I find that typing is a lot faster and much more fun than using a pencil Now I’m able to type every single detail I remember and my DR is getting a LOT better. So much better it’s motivating me beyond anything I thought was possible, which makes me want to record even more stuff from my dreams (I’m even making some simple drawings some times). Any way to record your dreams is valid. Use whatever you feel more confortable with, whatever bores you less and motivates you more
Thank you Mattias, for your thoughts and your welcome. I really like your idea about just recording a few key words when I wake up in the middle of the night. Many thanks also for the article (which is really excellent BTW). I cringed at the details part, and yet maybe that will make it more interesting. We will see.
My problem with some dreams is that I really don’t like writing down the unpleasant ones; I know that writing down everything I remember is technically a good idea, but it just doesn’t feel worth it when I have one of those dreams that just make me feel sad in the morning.
My nightmares are almost always of a social nature, and I believe they are a little worse than the typical nightmare themes about monsters etc - for example, I might dream that a close friend is about to die or that I have a fight with my parents for unknown reasons or something similar, and I don’t want to have anything to do with those kinds of dreams, much less write them down.
Writing in a dream journal is important because it helps you remember any lucid dreams that you may have in the future. However, I just jot down key words of my dreams since I believe that not every tiniest piece of detail is necessary to determine what your dream themes are. But then again I’ve only had 18 lucid dreams so far so don’t listen to me. haha
So just wanted to give a quick update. I’m now using a voice transcription program on my computer to dictate my journal entries, and they have gotten to be somewhat fun. I remember most of my dreams, so it often takes me about 40 minutes to go through them all. I mostly remember what I said and did, what others said amd did, and what happened. My recall of sensory details is poor, so each day Im starting to add more color and shape details, as suggested by the guide on realism. For the moment, I’m mainly adding everything i remember, and am many working on devoloping the habit of journaling. However, I’m going to start focusing more on dream signs once i start reviewing my dreams for them.
Oh no! I spent 40 minutes dictating my journal again today only to discover at the end that the mic wasn’t on! . I still gave myself credit though.
On another note, do most people just write highlights of their dreams, or do they record every single detail they can remember? Also, i know many of you yow upyour journals. At the the same time, the entry is supposed g
To be a consistent, logical narrative of what might have been an illogicalmdream. What do you do about those aha moments where you remember simething from earlier? Do you edit them in?
I use the same technique as mattias, in that upon waking (from each dream cycle, I try to do this during the night if I can) I write a description of a dream without using any sentences, only single words. For example, one dream may look like this:
Bedroom. Rain. Window. Cold. Apple Tree. Car. Mountain. Explosion. Escape.
That kind of thing. If the dream is particularly interesting, I then take the time later in the day to write it out in full.
I do end up writing a lot more for a lot of my dreams, but I find that for those that I don’t later elaborate, this is generally enough to recall the dream fairly well in the future. Of course, this only works if each word is directly connected to the last, and forms its own narrative. Isolated words that I have written down in the past later read as absolute nonesense, and I cannot remember what the dream was about at all!
The point of doing this is that I find that it anchors enough memory of the dream that I can recall it when looking through my dream journal, and means that I don’t take up too much of my time writing tedious (by dream standards…) or mundane dreams. Yet at the same time, it allows me to recognize running threads and themes, and even has its own advantages in that I can skim a great number of dreams very quickly and instantly and easily immerse myself in a good few weeks dreams.
This also gets you into a good habit of not breaking the routine of writing at least something in your journal. So even if you may not have time, you don’t have to miss a whole weeks worth of dreams.
I know that this may seem sacrilegious to those that write pages upon pages, but I find that this technique really takes away from some of the more boring and time consuming aspects of keeping a dream journal (and, again, most importantly makes it very hard to break the habit!) and I actually find my initial note taking immensely fun.
I’m not relly sure what you mean here Lately I’ve been going back to my DJ and editing in more details or things that I remember throughout the day. Some of these things I don’t remember where they fit in, so I just put them at the end of the post in a “random fragments” section.
In theory, the more you record the more you will start remembering. But that doesn’t mean you HAVE to write down every single boring detail. I’ve found that the most important part is enjoying what you’re doing. If you think writing in your DJ is boring, like homework, you’ll end up frustrated and just letting go and you might even start relating these feelings with dreaming. I’ve been there
It happens to me too, writing down dreams are really tedious, try using other ways of recording, like i use the voice memo on my ipod, i find saying it out much easier. Also, try telling ur friends about it through internet, i can type out a whole dream easily when im talking bout it but I just cant write them down
). To get the best results in increasing DR you should record 
So what I do now is when I wake up after a dream I write down key words in my paper DJ, just to make sure I don’t completely forget about the dream later. Then when I finally get up in the morning, I type the dream out on the computer. I find that typing is a lot faster and much more fun than using a pencil 
Now I’m able to type every single detail I remember and my DR is getting a LOT better. So much better it’s motivating me beyond anything I thought was possible, which makes me want to record even more stuff from my dreams (I’m even making some simple drawings some times). Any way to record your dreams is valid. Use whatever you feel more confortable with, whatever bores you less and motivates you more 
I really like your idea about just recording a few key words when I wake up in the middle of the night. Many thanks also for the article (which is really excellent BTW). I cringed at the details part, and yet maybe that will make it more interesting. We will see. 
But then again I’ve only had 18 lucid dreams so far so don’t listen to me. haha 
Lately I’ve been going back to my DJ and editing in more details or things that I remember throughout the day. Some of these things I don’t remember where they fit in, so I just put them at the end of the post in a “random fragments” section.