Remembering Dreams; Dream Recall
How to Remember your dreams.
The chances are if you're new to this, you don't usually remember your dreams. Maybe occasionally the vivid ones or the ones you tell your friends about that are funny or unusual, but that's as far as it goes. There is so much more to it; So many dreams that you have every single night but just can't remember.
Until you learn how to remember them. Let us teach you. 'Remembering your dreams' can be slightly difficult sometimes, specially due to the way the memory of dreams works. It's very easy to wake up not remembering any dreams at all. It can be changed with practice, but it takes a bit of work on your part. It's all worth it to learn how to remember your dreams.
For the purposes of Lucid Dreaming and this website, Remembering dreams will be referred to as 'Dream Recall' It's a term you'll hear a lot in the World of Lucid Dreaming.
Remembering dreams is usually down to practice but also the way you're trying to remember them. If you try and remember them by concentrating really hard and focusing on the tiny details, it may be difficult at first. The easiest way to start remembering the dream is just to naturally wake up, and whatever scene you first remember, if any, (it will come with practice), focus on that scene and then let it flow naturally into the next scene.
This is easier said than done, but try and recall or feel everything you felt in the dream, not just the visual side of things.
If you can't remember anything at all, then start focusing before you go to sleep on remembering the dream, tell yourself 'I will remember my dreams tonight' over and over before you go to sleep. To make it even easier, set your alarm to go off 2-3 hours before you normally wake up. By interrupting your sleep like this you increase the chances of firstly remembering the dreams and secondly having a Lucid or out of body experience during the REM stage of your sleep.
Until you learn how to remember them. Let us teach you. 'Remembering your dreams' can be slightly difficult sometimes, specially due to the way the memory of dreams works. It's very easy to wake up not remembering any dreams at all. It can be changed with practice, but it takes a bit of work on your part. It's all worth it to learn how to remember your dreams.
For the purposes of Lucid Dreaming and this website, Remembering dreams will be referred to as 'Dream Recall' It's a term you'll hear a lot in the World of Lucid Dreaming.
Remembering dreams is usually down to practice but also the way you're trying to remember them. If you try and remember them by concentrating really hard and focusing on the tiny details, it may be difficult at first. The easiest way to start remembering the dream is just to naturally wake up, and whatever scene you first remember, if any, (it will come with practice), focus on that scene and then let it flow naturally into the next scene.
This is easier said than done, but try and recall or feel everything you felt in the dream, not just the visual side of things.
If you can't remember anything at all, then start focusing before you go to sleep on remembering the dream, tell yourself 'I will remember my dreams tonight' over and over before you go to sleep. To make it even easier, set your alarm to go off 2-3 hours before you normally wake up. By interrupting your sleep like this you increase the chances of firstly remembering the dreams and secondly having a Lucid or out of body experience during the REM stage of your sleep.
In a dream, all senses are engaged, and the brain simulates waking life as best as it can. In a fully remembered dream, you can recall smells, sensations, emotions, time, temperature, sounds, images, and even thoughts that you had while dreaming.
Bear in mind this is what happens for an experienced dreamer, for most people, the most they'll remember is a flash of images or a certain dream object/place, or sometimes something they were doing, an action. But that's a good place to start from. Whatever you remember, write it down. write everything you remember down every night. Actions are easy to remember because you're engaged in doing something in the dream so it will feel more real to you. This makes it easier to remember. As with memory in waking life, the most vivid things are remembered the most easily. Now that you've got a basic background understanding of how dream memory works, here is a list of the top ways to increase your dream recall and remember more details about the dream. 1. Keep and write in your Dream Journal. This is easily the most important step; you need to practice and get used to writing down your dreams and remembering them. You have to train your brain to want to remember, and this is the quickest way to do that. You can also learn your dream signs and things that occur regularly by reading your dreams back to yourself. 2. Establish a regular sleep pattern. In order to have healthy regular dreams and Lucid Dreams, you need to get enough sleep at the right time, and set your body clock. |
Without going into too much detail, your pineal gland secretes melatonin, which helps you to stay aware during the day and feel sleepy at night, and without a regular sleep pattern, it misfires and doesn't work properly. In order to become more aware in your dreams and even perform and Out of body experience; you need your pineal gland to be working properly, and you need to go to bed and wake up at roughly the same time every day, even on weekends and days off work.
3. Eat/drink enough throughout the day.
Don't go to bed thirsty or really hungry, and at the same time don't go to bed on a full stomach or just having drunk a large drink. Just eat enough during the day so you go to bed feeling satisfied but not full.
4. Use a dream anchor.
This is a technique whereby you train your brain to remember dreams when you look at a certain object in your room. It involves a bit of self hypnosis and NLP (Neuro Linguistic programming), but you just pick an object in your room, and whenever you see it, tell yourself that you will remember your dreams. After a few weeks of this it should become helpful in triggering your memory.
5. While in the dream, if Lucid, ask the dream to help you remember it.
Really focus on the details and concentrate on being able to remember them when you wake up.
6. When you have just woken up, lay in bed with your eyes closed.
Just let the thoughts naturally come into your head; this may take some time but if you just lay there and don't open your eyes, the dream should reveal itself to you. This is crucial to remembering your dreams, just lay there and don't move.
Try and take a thought from your dream into your conscious mind and run with it. As you get better and more experienced you can take larger chunks of the dream into your conscious mind.
3. Eat/drink enough throughout the day.
Don't go to bed thirsty or really hungry, and at the same time don't go to bed on a full stomach or just having drunk a large drink. Just eat enough during the day so you go to bed feeling satisfied but not full.
4. Use a dream anchor.
This is a technique whereby you train your brain to remember dreams when you look at a certain object in your room. It involves a bit of self hypnosis and NLP (Neuro Linguistic programming), but you just pick an object in your room, and whenever you see it, tell yourself that you will remember your dreams. After a few weeks of this it should become helpful in triggering your memory.
5. While in the dream, if Lucid, ask the dream to help you remember it.
Really focus on the details and concentrate on being able to remember them when you wake up.
6. When you have just woken up, lay in bed with your eyes closed.
Just let the thoughts naturally come into your head; this may take some time but if you just lay there and don't open your eyes, the dream should reveal itself to you. This is crucial to remembering your dreams, just lay there and don't move.
Try and take a thought from your dream into your conscious mind and run with it. As you get better and more experienced you can take larger chunks of the dream into your conscious mind.
Remembering dreams takes practice and the easiest way to start remembering more dreams is the dream journal, without this it's going to be very tricky to remember dreams. You need to get your brain used to recording and recalling dreams, and the best way to install this habit is by having a dream diary. Keep a small notebook by your bedside and whenever you wake up either in the middle of the night or the morning, write whatever you can remember down. Even draw pictures if this is easier.
Some people like to have a tape recorder and just verbally describe the dream, whatever's easier for you , just make sure to store the dream somewhere.
Once you're at the point where you can regularly remember scenes and fragments of a dream when you wake up, try and start thinking in reverse.
Think about what you were doing before the scene you can remember, try slowly working backwards in your mind and let each added memory trigger the next one, like you're pulling in a rope, the more you remember, the easier it will be. When you can do this, you can even try and establish a timeline in the dream and work out which order things happened in.
Sometimes, you'll get a flash memory, where you'll be in the middle of your waking day and you'll suddenly remember something else about last nights dream, either because something you are doing in the day triggered the memory or because you just randomly remembered it. Either way it should be put in the dream diary. This is the main step in remembering your dreams, record everything about your dreams that you can remember in your dream journal.
For more details on remembering dreams and using dream anchors, or other advanced dream techniques, refer to the blog. Now Dream Recall is the first step; next we have the Induction techniques themselves. Keep reading.