how can I remember my dreams?

[Kay Kim]

Until about 6 years ago, I was enjoying dream and almost all the dreamt was very vivid and colorful along with knows it's meaning.
But then I got upset by repeating dreamt that trying to matchmaking to a man.
I declared that I will never marry this man or any other man while living on this life time. And after that night on, all of my dreams seem to stop or don't remember. Some times I glanced it bit but didn't care.

Maybe a few months ago or more, anyway, I awake one morning and feeling that there was very important dreamt but couldn't remember, just tiny part.
Then I wanted to remember what is this meaning, all my heart's desire was to know that dream. I try to think about it few minutes but unable to do. Then I went to do other things and forgot about dream. But then all of sudden I remember everything.

Since then, I use that method few times more, it work for me.
But then if I keep trying to remember, it never work.

It seems, first have to have bit glance from piece of dreamt, and sincerely desire to know from heart and no-anticipation.

 

[psychojen]

Don't know if anyone already mentioned any of this but if I were going to start examining my dreams the first thing I would do would be to make it a big deal in my own head. I would pick a night, circle it on the calendar, as THE night I'm going to start remembering my dreams and writing them down. I would buy a new dream journal, a brand new sparkly pen, and do anything to build it up in my mind. Get the message to your subconscious that you wanna remember your dreams. Maybe that night you can set your alarm at various times to possibly wake you up during REM sleep and have your journal right next to you so you can write it down while its fresh in your mind. Then get into the habit of remembering your dreams. When I was younger I did this one time and it worked pretty well. I has some crazy circus dream that night. Flying trapeze and everything. I STILL remember it.

 

[Metatron777]

As some have already mentioned in this thread that offers a lot of great advice for dream recall, intention and persistence seem to be of the greatest value when trying to recall your dreams.

I also recommend plenty of sleep, this one may be very obvious, but just in case ;) The first dream of the night is the shortest, perhaps 10 minutes in length, while after 8 hours of sleep, dream periods can be 45 minutes to an hour long.

The alarm clock can be a useful tool if you find that you sleep too deeply to awaken from your dreams. Try setting an alarm clock to wake you at a time when you are likely to be dreaming. Since our REM periods occur at approximately 90 minute intervals, good times will be multiples of 90 minutes after you go to sleep. Aim for the later REM periods by setting the alarm to go off at 4.5, 6, or 7.5 hours after you go to sleep. An alarm clock is also a great tool for inducing lucid dreams or WILD'S, personally when I want to experience this, I wake myself up with an alarm about 3-4hrs before I intend to wake up and read a book or focus on my intention or goal for about 30min, and then go back to sleep- this works very well but only if your the type of person who has no problem going back to sleep :D. And again, always with the intention of remembering the dream when you awaken.

If you find that even after trying everything " in the book" but can not seem to remember, maybe using a herb supplement to get started would be of help. I would only reccamend as a tool and not something to be dependent of though. In my experiences with herbs and dreaming while experimenting independently or in a controlled study, I found galantamine works very well indeed. Always make sure to do your research though before using supplements that haven't used before in order to know the right dosage and side effects it may have.

Hope this helps~ happy lucidity

 

[Buddy]

Apparently my mind was working on a puzzle of some sort during the night because I woke up abruptly this morning right at the solution! The first thing I noticed was a state of mind more than just groggy; it was more like feeling dizzy or drunk (no I don't drink or take sleeping meds or anything at all like that, though). I got the impression that the only reason I noticed this was due to the abruptness of the awakening.

Anyway, how I think this experience relates to remembering dreams comes from realizing that my dream state is such a different state of mind (much less "noisy" in terms of synaptic activity and the quantity of such) and a different configuration of brainwaves. So, to me, the concept of context-dependent recall applies.

IOW, I'm thinking our ordinary awakening IS the changing state of the brain and so it would be important for remembering dreams NOT to use the ordinary focusing method(s) and attempts to verbalize what we were dreaming - at least not right away. That effort would just further engage the process of normal awakening away from the dream and its brain state.

Rather, I relax my mind and "look" peripherally at or around what I seem to have been dreaming about if I can still recall any associated images or feeling. Only when I feel like I've mentally 'grasped' the dream and it's staying with me should I try to write anything down or talk it out. Because if I feel it slipping away while writing or thinking in words, then the only way to keep from losing it completely seems to be to back off and go for the feeling or the side glance technique again. Perfect practice makes perfect on this issue, I think. At least this works for me where it works at all.

Waking up in the middle of the night dreaming is kinda rare for me but when it has happened and I wanted to experiment with remembering dreams, I have only found the pad and pen beside the bed method useful. I've thought of using a voice recorder, but never got around to getting or using one.

As for the dream I had last night, it was related to using contemplation in order to spot a pattern in the activity going on in a maze of some sort. I needed to enter the maze and get to a destination in it, and I needed to do it without wasting a single minute or move. Whatever the problem was IRL, it was something that had been frustrating me for awhile and I hadn't been giving myself long enough in contemplation mode. When I did wait long enough this time, I finally grokked the overall pattern, noticed the point of entry, entered into the maze, made one semi-circle and arrived where I wanted to go.

From a third-party perspective, this might sound kind of lame, but the actual lesson for me was that when I really needed to understand certain things, the best move is to switch from the internal narrator mode of talking myself through it, to a kind of total mental immersion where comprehension can happen much faster, osmotically or holistically than with the ordinary intellect. It's like being a child and learning speech before having any speech to describe to ourselves what we are learning.

I don't think I would have recalled any of the dream that helped me remember what my mind was working on at the time unless I had used the technique I described above and I sometimes think my mind doesn't stop working on an issue until the solution has been made conscious in some way, so that's why I make an effort to remember a fleeting dream if it feels like it was about something important.

 

[Cyre2067]

I've found that if you get up, do your morning routine, and then lay down on a couch or something and close your eyes they come back much more readily. Sometimes I'll just be doing my morning stuff and then I'll take a break, close my eyes, clear the eye-sand from them and for those short seconds with my eyes closed they come back in a flash.

Just my two cents.