Wow congrats with that amazing experience, strad-the-shifter! Hopefully you can really use LDs to solve your insomnia problem. A little remark though: you’re saying you had this LD between 1:30 and 4:30. Do you mean the LD lasted 3hrs or that it happened roughly somewhere between those hours? Because, even if you sleep 10hrs, the longest REM period you’ll experience (which will be the last REM period) will last 45 minutes, perhaps an hour if you’re lucky. Nevertheless, very impressive experience! Good luck with your LD practice
Xlantes: thanks for sharing those urls Though personally I wouldn’t rely too much on dream dictionaries. They’re handy for very general themes, but the symbols which make your dreams unique can only be interpreted by you and you alone.
Hi strad-the-shifter!
Your experience was awesome! Do you mean you stayed conscious not only in your dreams but also in your sleep during 3 hours?
Hi Xlantes!
It’s an interesting site. But what do they mean by “dream cohesiveness”? Do they refer to the realism and vividness or the consistency of the dream?
Can someone please help me? My dream recall is really bad. If I even remember anything, all I remember is one little fragment that doesn’t even feel like a dream. Like take today for example, I tried having a lucid dream and I tried moving and I moved in real life. All my dreams feel more like thoughts if anything. They aren’t clear at all.
Even if you just have a fragment, write it down. Even if it’s just a feeling you have upon awakening, write that down. Over time those bits and pieces will become clearer and more dreamlike as you keep recording them on a daily basis.
Yes, I agree with Zataod. Write down everything you remember. In my case, writing down my dreams often triggers more dream memories. Same thing often happens when I concentrate on the things I dó remember, no matter how little that might be. If you remember a particular feeling, keep it in mind and try to visualize some common dream themes/objects/feelings/situations, things you usually dream about (if you can’t remember these, use real life themes/object/… as they are often very commonly found back in dreams). If, during the visualization, you encounter the same theme/object/… from your dream, you’ll usually notice it and it will trigger more dream memories.
Also, stay calm upon awakening. Keep your mind still, don’t force the memories but let them flow gently. Try to use one memory to trace others. Personally, this goes better if I hold the image passively instead of actively. Forcing it will almost always have the opposite effect. At least in my case…
Another thing you might do, is when you go to bed, repeat to yourself that you WILL remember your dreams in the morning. For me, it usually works better if I repeat it together with the hour of my first awakening. For instance “I WILL remember my dreams right upon awakening at 7am”.
And finally, keep practicing, every day. Even if things go very bad, don’t give up! Because if you persist, it will improve one day, especially if you truly believe it. Intention and motivation is one of the strongest subconscious powers.
I decided last night to start improving my dream recall so hopefully I could start becoming lucid.
I just kept telling myself before I went to sleep that I would remember my dreams until i dropped off.
I havent remembered a dream for years exept for one which was just a couple of little details i remember, not much of it.
I used to remember alot when I was a child. Now i dont even remember having any let alone what was in them
I remember having at least 4 dreams, and I remember some content from 1, and lots from the other, im telling you this is amazing for me!
One was rather boring, I only remember that i was watching a TV program which Ive been waiting to come on for ages and I was really excited, there was noone around and I vaguely remember the opening to the program, it was just showing what happened last series and stuff.
The other one I remembered alot of, I was back at school, it was the last day.
I got on my friends bus by accident because I was talking to him as we walked out, my parents werent there yet though.
I think there was 2 scenarios playing at once(weird?) because I remember riding the bus for a bit and then standing by school waiting for my parents for a bit.
Eventually, I realised i shouldnt be on the bus and i had to get off, I asked where the first stop was and it was quite far away, so I was worried. I got a text message asking where I was. We stopped reasonably soon though because someone had left their phone in a brown bag by a church.
I asked if I could get off and the driver wouldnt let me, but my teachers(the good ones) who were on the bus for some reason, opened the back of the bus open like a massive door and I jumped out.
Then, there was a kind of lorry thing there, and for some reason I crawled under it. Then, i was lying there and it fell o me, like the wheels had just disappeared or something. I woke up and my arm was all tingly.
Sorry if im boring you but im excited, this is very unusual for me to remember so much, more than ive ever remembered before!
Im so proud!!
Awesome thread you guys have going on here - I just read the whole thing ( took a while )
I hardly ever remember anything from any of my dreams (If I’m lucky I’ll get one vivid one every two or three months), and I had that one right before I found this site and learned about the Dream Journal technique and such, but by the time I had enlightened myself on the issue, I had forgotten almost all of the dream
So last night this is what I did whilst I was falling asleep.
Breathe in, “I will remember my dreams”
Breathe out, “I will wake up after each dream”
I did this until I got very drowsy to the point where even if I wanted to, my mind wasn’t even going to let me think about anything. At that point I just let myself go and was asleep soon.
I woke up at 2.30 (I went to bed at 11), almost forgot what I was doing, and remembered the smallest fragment of a dream, kind of like a still image, and sloppily wrote it down)
I said the mantra a couple more times before I fell asleep fifteen-twenty minutes later, probably around three.
I woke up instantly at 6.20, which makes sense because it would be the end of the last REM cycle, and I was able to remember another image. I was so proud of myself! It proves that even the most stubborn of dreaming-minds can be cracked open. I’m gonna keep with my journal until I can at least remember one almost-vivid or vivid dream a night and then try LD ing.
i duno if this will work for alot of people but this is how i usually remember my dreams
as soon as a wake up, instead of laying there trying ot remember i just go take a shower…at some point standing in the shower i’ll just suddenly remember an entire dream in a second…i think the reason this works for me is because when im in the shower i just sit there and think alot and my mind just kinda wonders…i doubt this will work for n e one else but it might be worth a try…if you wake up and cant remember n e dreams after the first five minutes go get in teh shower and see what happens
Sometimes I get a pretty good recall then other times I kind of wake up and keep thinking and expanding the dream in my head so I cant really recall the original dream.
keep a dream journal and write down every bit of dreams you can when you wake up… even if they are just small fragments of a dream. one thing i did when i started improving my recall was setting my alarm for the different periods of the night i should be in REM sleep. 4.5 hours, 6, 7.5, etc. try it out, and once again don’t think you can have good recall without a DJ, it helps so much!
(random comment vaguely related to the topic)
Yesterday I had a very wacky dream with George Dubya and friends - my own post katrina syndrome : )
The moment I woke up, I told my girlfriend a fragment of the dream which was somewhat funny :
“Hey I had a dream where George Bush was serving aubergine to customers (including myself) in a foreign country, and by the time he put the aubergine into the plate we were advised that because of inflation the price of the dish had doubled since we ordered it”.
This is not the kind of dream I tend to remember for more than a few minutes, especially when it’s not a nightmare (haha it could have been with that main character…). But because I told it to someone so quickly, I still remember it quite well.
Conclusion : I add my little contribution to the overwhelming amount of evidence above. -> WRITE A DJ or at least tell your friends about your dreams. It anchors the dream elements into your memory.
I’ve just started writing down my dreams every day since a couple weeks ago. For the first week and a half I remembered a dream every night, but for the last 4 days I havn’t remembered a single one. Not even a vague detail. What’s up with that?
That happens to most of us. You have great dream recall for weeks and suddenly a few days with barely any memory. I don’t know what causes it, but I know it’s usually only temporary. You can normally easily overcome it by using autosuggestion or selfhypnosis. The former method is most often used and works extremely well if it’s being practiced very profoundly.
You could repeat to yourself in the evening that you don’t want to forget writing down your dreams. These autosuggestion techniques can be used for so many intentions and are usually quite effective after only a few days.
If you remember a few flashes from the dream, try to capture them within your mind as vividly as possible. Use them to feel what could have happened before or after that specific moment you remember… but don’t think too much about it; pay attention to your intuitive feelings of what might have happened. Important is not to think too much about other things while doing this… also, it’s best not to move a muscle when you’re reconstructing the dream.
This method should work better after some time and practice.
When I wake up in the morning, I usually remember my entire dreams, but lately, I can’t remember them. And if I’m lucky, only a part of it…
What can be the reason of it?
My life hasn’t change much. I just had my first school days and thought that could be the reason. But the first days of my school, I could perfectly remember my dreams. I don’t remember them for like 4-5 days or something…
It happens to everyone of us. When you’re a little stressed, or do something new IRL which requires your attention, you can temporarily lose your dream recall. So I think it’s due to your first days of school. Don’t worry, it will come back soon!
Do you mean you stayed conscious not only in your dreams but also in your sleep during 3 hours?
Do they refer to the realism and vividness or the consistency of the dream?
And welcome to the forum!
