Hi! I kinda have a bad situation here. I used to remember up to 5 dreams per night. Now I only remember 1 if I’m lucky. It all started when I stopped remembering dreams for a day or two. After that I only wrote key words of my dreams but never make a big story out of them. I had them scattered on some papers so I’ve picked them and wrote them back on my DJ. A day or 2 I was remembering 2-3 dreams but then I couldn’t remember that many. I kinda lost my enthusiasm so please help me.
I’m sort of an on-and-off lucid dreamer. There will be periods in a year where I’ll work on my dream recall and try to improve my lucid dreaming ability. I’m now in my first week of this year’s effort lol. Yeah, I know I should stick with it for longer.
Anyway, as always I have to build up my recall from scratch. It goes a little faster every year, but the basics remain the same. Focus on your intent to remember dreams before you go to sleep and then just write down anything you can when you wake up. You can always weave those keywords into stories later during the day. But keep in mind that building up dream recall takes a little time. For me it’s usually about 2 weeks to go from “virtually nothing” to 3-5 dreams a night, but for others it takes a little longer.
Also, everyone has dry spells. There was a period last year where I remembered about 2-6 dreams a night for 3 straight weeks, and then suddenly there were three days with no recall at all.
It depends a lot on what you’ve got going in your life. You kinda need a steady sleeping rhythm to remember a lot of dreams, but by far the most important things are:
the intention to remember dreams (work on this before you go to sleep - a couple of minutes should suffice)
keeping track of ANYTHING you remember
And, once again, dry spells happen. It’s natural. Just keep writing down everything you remember, however minor. Before long you’ll be like me where you even remember what direction the wind was blowing in a dream.
I also often read dream journals of other prominent LD4all members to get more inspiration. The more I read about other people’s great dreams the more motivated I am to have dreams that rival theirs.
Thanks for the reply. The first time I made a DJ I remembered 3 dreams, ad it kept going like this for weeks. Today I’ve only remembered part of a dream. Anyway, I’ll set my intention from now on.
I usually don’t have to do much to remember my dreams. If I really interested in my dreams I usually remember them. If I’m not I only remember bits and bits of the one I had just before waking up. I think the key is intention. If I haven’t been interested in my dreams for a while but want to start remembering them I just make an intention to remember them before I fall asleep. And in a few days time I can remember all of them again. How much sleep I get also determines if I remember my dreams. So my tip is: Get enough sleep and just keep at it!
I write down quick notes on a college notepad during the night. Just keywords really. Then during the day I’ll write detailed accounts in my dream journal. For those you who also use a similar approach…
Do you ever wonder what the fork you were writing when you read your notes? One of my notes from yesterday read: “Jurassic Park, Rijk, alarm” (Rijk is a friend of mine).
The only thing I could think of was: “okay, now what?” I had no idea what I was supposed to write down, since those three words were basically all I had. When I tried REALLY hard I managed to remember another detail or two so that I could at least craft a complete English sentence (but just the one, mind you).
Svenshinhan, if I can READ the words I am ok. but the earlier in the night I write them the harder it is to read … plus if I leave it a day or two to type them up it’s more difficult to guess what the vague word/s were supposed to be
After spending yesterday reading about LD and stuff I had a short lucid dream during the night. My intention wasn’t really focused on going lucid but rather on remembering my dreams. It all began with me waking up in my bed, the bed standing out on the road outside my house. When I got up and started walking up my driveway I affirmed to myself that I was dreaming. I also focused my eyes on my house to keep myself lucid.
Then I decided that I wanted to fly, as I had made a plan about flying earlier if I would end up going lucid during the night. And so I flew away shooting straight up in the air above my house, but then when I tried to stop flying and go back down again it did’t work, and I kept on fying over the forest and landed at another house, so about here I lost my control and don’t remember much more… What should I have done here too keep lucid and in control?
Also, I recalled parts from about six other non lucid dreams, more than I have remembered in a long time, so I guess spending time reading about and researching the subject and of course intending as mentioned several times before really works.
My friend directed me to this site a while ago and I just recently found it again under all the junk in my bookmarks. We had been talking about dreams once day and she started going on about lucid dreams and wanting a dream buddy. I was supposed to be practicing all this time.
Sadly… I can’t remember my dreams most of the time. I’ve tried nearly everything but, to me, it seems like I just don’t dream. I may remember a snippet here or there once a month from a single dream but that’s about it.
So if anyone has any suggestions as to what I can do to better this problem and remember my dreams, even partly every night, so I can step on the path of lucidity, please share.
-Your Friendly Sometimes Insomniac and RLS(?) newcomer,
RestlessDreamer
but it might be that you should just refuse to move your body after you wake up, and think about if you remember anything,
you don’t need to write it down really if you remember it,
i want people to figure out more quickly that all we need for lucidity is to become familiar with waking up.
GOD FORBID but, are you in a noisy place where people would rob your memory by talking to you or making noise or an alarm clock just violently waking you up without any reflection time ? silence during sleep = sacred,
Yeah, that’s true, I find it very hard to remember my dreams after waking up from an alarm clock or if it was noisy while I fell asleep, silence during sleep is very important.
When you first wake up, and don’t remember your dream, try not to just dismiss it and move on.
Sit in bed for just a second and try to remember, think of just dreams in general. Its funny how I can sometimes go from “Oh, didn’t remember the dream” to having a whole dream roll out before me.
If that doesn’t work, try to think of trigger words. These are random words that may have some involvement with the dream you had last night. These can be hit or miss sometimes, but they’ve helped me out a lot.
What to do: When you wake up, and don’t remember the dream, just start thinking of random words, (EX. Elephant, dog, vampire, computer, LD4all.) Words with no pattern of specific meaning. You could also think of places or situations, those work sometimes too. All the while trying to think of your dream.
The hope is, one of the words you think of will remind you of a fragment of the dream, then the fragment will remind you of the rest.
(EX, One of the words you thought of was elephant, and you suddenly remember riding an elephant in your dream, and then you remember your dream was about you going to the circus or something)
It might not always, work, but it’s worked for me, and it’s worth a try.
Goodluck!
I know this may be a dumb question but how are normal dreams suppose to be? Cause when I dream, it’s like wathcing TV with low brightness and contrast settings.
It varies from person to person. My normal dreams are very vivid and like real life.
Some experience normal dreams like you do. But it could be that you just lose some dream quality when having vague recall. Even if that isn’t the case … all dreams can be improved once lucidity is attained.
Ok so i have been waking myself up with an alarm two to four times a night for 3 weeks now, but this week ive done the same thing but cant remember my dreams. Maybe the problem is that most of the time i will just turn my alarm off and go back to sleep. But ive sat still right when i woke up every once in a while and tried to remember my dreams but still cant remember!!! What should i do???
First off, dry spells in both LD’s and dream recall do happen, so try not to get too frustrated. First thing to check is that your alarm is set for 90 minutes intervals after you go to sleep, with the first interval coming no sooner than 4.5 hours into sleep. Second thing to worry about is how much sleep are you getting, anything less than six hours is terrible from most dreaming work, and 9+ is ideal. The reason is that REM period length drastically increases towards the end of the night. Third thing is are you telling yourself when you’re going to bed that you’re going to remember your dreams and write them down, or something of the sort. As you do, you should be thoughtfully considering the meaning of the words, a mindless mantra is no good at all. Finally, as soon as you wake up, don’t move; just lie there and see what comes to you. Even if you don’t remember a full dream, do you remember a fragment, some details, ot even just a mood or impression you’re left with. If so, write it down. Try not to move until you’ve recalled as much as you think you’re going to then go right it down.
Also, we have a nice guide already compiled on the subject that you might want to take a look at here: [Improving Dream Recall)
Does anyone have any tips for improving dream recall? I’m just getting back into dream studies/lucid-dreaming after about 9 months of break. I used to remember an upwards of 6 full dreams a night, and for some reason I haven’t been able to remember anything from my dreams for the past 3 nights. If I recall, mugwort tea greatly intensifies the vividness of dreams… [tried this last night, same problem] But if anyone has any other tips, I’d appreciate it. And, for the record, I’m getting plenty of sleep and waking up naturally (which is rather important, I think.) I’m recording my dreams with a tape recorder when I wake up. That’s not the problem. I wake up not remembering any of the dreams, before I move or open my eyes or anything of the sort.
This has sort of bummed me out because I used to have several LDs a night and could fully remember tons of dreams…
I figured this out. I’ve been taking St. John’s Wart which allows you continue releasing serotonin while your sleeping and it messes with your dream and sleep cycle. A lot of people who take SJ’sW or other similar drugs have problems with insomnia and such. SO, I’m going to take a break away from the stuff and see what happens… Even if I fall back into depression.
