I’ve been trying to get better at remembering my dreams. I’ve been getting about 9 hours of sleep for that last week or so, and waking up by alarm clock for school. I have a dream journal but so far I haven’t wrote anything in it because I can’t remember my dreams. Later in the day sometimes though, I will see something and feel like I have seen it before ( in my dreams possibly ) when I know I haven’t seen it before. My question is, is the alarm clock killing my chances for an increased chance of remembering my dreams? Or is there someway that really helps with remembering your dreams?
In my experiences an alarmclock helps your chances of remembering your dreams because it wakes you up sometimes when you are in a dream and you’ll have amazing dream recall.
What LDing methods do you use? 9 hours of sleep is enough to easily do WBTB, one of the easier LD methods in my opinion.
But if you truely want to recall your dreams just repeat to your self when you are falling asleep. “I will remember my dreams.” Almost as if you were trying to MILD but instead of repeating “I am dreaming” just do the thing I suggested.
It’s what I did when I first started and I’m recalling 2 to 4 dreams a night.
I agree. Autosuggestion is one of the best methods for increasing your dream recall. If you repeat it, really make sure you firmly believe what you’re saying. Put some strength and affirmation in it.
Personally I think alarm clocks often ruin your dream recall, because they force you to focus on them and move your muscles to shut them down. The best way imo to recall dreams is to wake up without an alarm clock, and to lay completely still (don’t move ANY muscle!) while you try tracking down the previous dream (like, if you remember a fragment, use it to find other fragments and tie them together until you’ve reconstructed the whole dream). Actually, the same autosuggestion technique can be applied to wake yourself without the aid of an alarm clock, or to remember not to move a muscle upon awakening. For instance, repeat to yourself “I WILL awake myself at 6am”, “I WILL remember not to move a muscle upon awakening” or “I WILL awake myself after each dream”. You can experiment with different intentions.
This autosuggestion method even works better if you do the repeating when your body is in a highly relaxed state (this is called selfhypnosis).
In any case, I’d first work on your dream recall until you can at least remember one dream each night, before you embark on a LD quest. Because, if you don’t remember your dreams, it will be pretty hard to remember whether or not you were lucid last night, even though LDs are usually much easier to remember, especially the highly lucid ones.
I haven’t been trying to LD, because I have been just trying to remember my dreams for now. I have been doing autosuggestion for this whole time and been wanting to remember my dreams, but nothing has happened yet. Guess I’ll just have to be patien and keep trying.
How do you practice autosuggestion? How many time have you practised it (a week, I suppose)? Is the first thing you think about when you wake up is remembering your dreams?
Sorry for the late response. Usually every night I practice autosuggestion, unless I’m too tired and don’t feel up to it. When I first awake I do try to remember my dreams, but my mind is blank.
This morning, I woke up with out an alarm clock and got still got nothing. Hmm…
edit: Also, last night I tried WILD after awhile because I couldn’t fall asleep. I got this feeling once I counted to about 50 where I fell like my eyes were open but I couldn’t see at all. Was I on the right track?
I cannot understand where your problem lies. I’m sure 99% ot the people can recall their dream with 3 days of autosuggestion.
I could be your alarm clock. When you wake up in a REM sleep stage, you have about 80% chances to recall a dream. It’s just 10% if you wake up in a non-REM sleep stage. When you wake up naturally, you generally wake up from a REM sleep. I most often wake up after a multiple of 1.5 hours (duration of a sleep cycle). So when I wake up after 7.5 hours or 9 hours of sleep, I can easily recall my dreams.
Are you stressed, those last times? When people are stressed, their dream recall is often very bad.
About your last question: you’re on the right track, but you didn’t go very deep in the hypnagogic state (the state between wake and sleep). You have to continue until you see imagery, or have strange sensations (hypnagogic hallucinations).
Nope, I haven’t been stressed lately. Guess my dream recall is just naturally bad (if that is even possible?). Hopefully in time I’ll get it.
I’m gonna try it again tonight, lay in bed for a bit when I wake up, and just think and try to remember atleast one dream. If I don’t get anything I’m gonna take a short break, a few days, and go at it again.
Also, I just got a new bed Hopefully that will help!
Generally, when you wake up, the advice is given not to move in order to remember your dreams (what is rather difficult if you have an alarm clock! ).
If you have to move, after you moved, you lay back in the same position in which you woke up.
You begin to remember your dream, then you take your DJ and pen, which are near your bed. Even if you don’t recall very well your dream, you write down what you remember.
If you don’t remember anything, you list random things which come to your mind. One of them may make you recall a fragment of your dream. If you recall a fragment, you build up your dream in the reverse order, from present to past, asking yourself what happened before.
If you still don’t remember anything after two minutes, don’t worry. It will be better next time.
I did lay back in my original position this morning, which actually did help me. I am sort of eager to go to sleep tonight so I can try and remember a dream.
For some reason, I feel like I know I’m going to remember my dream tonight. It’s a good feeling.
Aaaah having those flashback moments ?? Déja-vu ? Does it kinda strike you all of a sudden ?? And you think : WTF ??? I’ve already seen this !!!" Because I have those too
And some final advice. When your laying on your bed after waking up. Start thinking simple things in your mind, like “a plain, a bike, a woman etc”. It has sometimes helped me first to get shards of dreams and then combine the shards in to dream scenarios.
Thanks, I’ll definately try it out. The other day, I couldn’t remember my dream, but I did remember a check for 300 dollars. Maybe that could have helped, who knows?
One night I convinced myself that I would remember all my dreams. I woke up and remembered 6 of them, but I didn’t write them down right away so I forgot most of them.
) when I know I haven’t seen it before. My question is, is the alarm clock killing my chances for an increased chance of remembering my dreams? Or is there someway that really helps with remembering your dreams?
Hopefully that will help!
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