# Lucid Dreaming > Attaining Lucidity > Dream Signs and Recall >  >  Recalling long dreams using 90 minute technique

## luffy28

Hi,
It's been a while since I've posted on this forum. I've been trying to recall dreams so I could see dream signs so I can know what to do reality checks with (haven't in years and have only had four or five within my lifetime).

I've been trying a technique I found on this website How To Remember Your Dreams it's where you set your alarm to four and a half hours after you fall asleep then you're supposed to wake up and try to recall a dream. Then once / if you don't recall a dream go back to sleep and wake up every ninety minutes and recall a dream or not and keep doing this until you wake up.

The most I've been able to write down is two dreams, because I either can't remember a dream because the time within the dream is long (usually twenty to twenty five minutes or longer) or the details are too confusing. 

Can anyone give me any tips on remembering long dreams / dreams with lots of details. 

Thanks.

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## OneUp

To be honest man, I dont think you need to do that and go through all of that work. With daily consistent practice, you'll find that your recall will increase gradually. If you are one of those people who do struggle with remembering any dreams at all when you wake up, you need to try just staying still the next time you are awake and focus on anything you can remember. You want to quickly "grab" any dreams you can remember, and soon, bits a pieces will come to you. After a day or so, those bits and pieces will turn into paragraphs of recall for each dream. And it will still increase over time, even to the point where it starts taking you 2 hours to type up all of your dreams into you dream journal. So in the end, I don't think you need any technique, recall isn't on the same level of difficulty of getting lucid dreams; it is something that you can learn fairly quick, unless of course one has memory problems in real life.

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## luffy28

> To be honest man, I dont think you need to do that and go through all of that work. With daily consistent practice, you'll find that your recall will increase gradually. If you are one of those people who do struggle with remembering any dreams at all when you wake up, you need to try just staying still the next time you are awake and focus on anything you can remember. You want to quickly "grab" any dreams you can remember, and soon, bits a pieces will come to you. After a day or so, those bits and pieces will turn into paragraphs of recall for each dream. And it will still increase over time, even to the point where it starts taking you 2 hours to type up all of your dreams into you dream journal. So in the end, I don't think you need any technique, recall isn't on the same level of difficulty of getting lucid dreams; it is something that you can learn fairly quick, unless of course one has memory problems in real life.



Thanks,
I do have kind of a weak memory sometimes it depends on what I'm trying to learn or remember. 

The reason why I'm going to keep doing this technique (at least for another week, before I try obe4u.com's techniques again) is because most nights I have been able to do it I remember usually three to five dreams a night. It's just that I've forgotten them by the time I try to write down the details. Also most of the time I can't stay still because I usually move very quickly upon awakening , unless you're saying that I can go back to staying still after I've moved.

Also even though I remembered only one dream last night (because I thought I had an appointment) I said "What was I just dreaming?" (which I read from another thread of this forum) and it worked I didn't write down the dream till this morning once I awoke because I thought it was too irrelevant to write down. The dream felt like an obe. Last night I didn't set the alarms for the ninety minute technique because I went to bed too late.

I also notice that once I go to sleep at 3am and beyond, even if the alarms for the technique are set I don't recall dreams as good. Also I can't do WILD because visualizing before going to bed keeps me up. 

Once I get around thirty to forty dreams I'm going to look for signs and try to customize the MILD technique. I think I'm going to call the custom technique VRILD (visualization Reality check induced lucid dream).

Thanks.

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## OneUp

Do you wake up in the middle of the night/morning and remember these dreams, and just not right them down until later? Most of the time in order to get the most out of the dream you have to record them immediately after you wake up. Thats what I do. I dont wake up in the middle in the night, because after a week of practice your recall starts building up and you start remembering your first dreams of the night naturally with no problem. If you really feel that you need to use one of those techniques, go ahead, but only use it to start yourself off. Maybe after a week of using one technique you could stop using it and start recalling without any help and do it on your own. Just the mere practicing of recalling dreams increases your recall daily.  :smiley:

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## luffy28

Thanks,
I get what you're saying I can't use the technique forever to recall my dreams. The only reason I'm using it is to recall more than one dream a night (Most of the time I only recall one dream after a full nights sleep). Eventually I'm going to need to stop using the technique to recall more than one dream. Maybe once I reach my dream count goal I'll start using obe4u's techniques again. 

Thanks.

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## OneUp

Exactly, you have to "survive" on your own later on, but for now you can use it as a help. Good luck luffy28!  ::D:

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## luffy28

I think I'm going to stop using this technique because I emailed a professional from the Lucidity Institute and they said this isn't even a good technique. Plus they told me that the person who wrote / made up this technique isn't scientifically qualified to know how to instruct people in LDing. 

They told me to get a book called Exploring the world of lucid dreaming. I borrowed it from a library and tried to read it and it's too dull / scientific.

I'm going to try the techniques from obe4u, but only for three days a week like it says in the book.

Thanks.

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## OneUp

> I think I'm going to stop using this technique because I emailed a professional from the Lucidity Institute and they said this isn't even a good technique. Plus they told me that the person who wrote / made up this technique isn't scientifically qualified to know how to instruct people in LDing. 
> 
> They told me to get a book called Exploring the world of lucid dreaming. I borrowed it from a library and tried to read it and it's too dull / scientific.
> 
> I'm going to try the techniques from obe4u, but only for three days a week like it says in the book.
> 
> Thanks.



Obe4u.com to me seems like its centered on out of body experiences(though I know its really about the phase and all of the phenomena with in it), whereas EWOLD by LaBerge focuses mainly on Lucid Dreaming. Go ahead though, as that website provides a great read- "The Phase" by Michael Raduga. The indirect techniques he teaches in the beginning of that book guarantee success after only 3 tries of doing them. And even some have experienced success on the first try. Its a really good book, and it provides really easy methods. If you're one who is always busy in life, but wishes to have Lucid Dreams or OBE's, the indirect techniques within that book are just for you. 

Ahh thats unfortunate you feel that way about the book. Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming is a great read, written by a great Oneironaut. Stephen LaBerge may not have been a pioneer in lucid dreaming, but he sure was a big part of its foundation in the role it plays today. The book may be really instructional/scientific in the beginning, but if you continue on and keep reading, once you get to chapter 7, its not as instructional. The book is highly informational and is filled with many adventures from other Oneironauts to give the reader a greater understanding of the practice of Lucid Dreaming in general. I feel it is a "must read" for all new Lucid Dreamers, but of course I can't, and I'm not going to force you to read it luffy28. In the end, if anything, I suggest you read the book from chapter 7- chapter 12, those chapters filled with great stories and things that really make you think. You'll learn alot from those. As for chapters 1-6, they are almost fully instructional, but they do teach great techniques, including in depth tutorials on many well know methods such as WILD, DILD, and all the others. Whatever your choice, good luck luffy.  :smiley:

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## FryingMan

Waking up after every sleep cycle and trying to recall dreams is a great way to kickstart your dream recall.   Dream memory is strongest right after waking from the dream.  I don't do it so much now but in the beginning I did wake multiple times every single night and usually would have the memory of 4-5 dreams at least from each waking, it was fantastic fun but a bit tiring to do it every single night.

The main thing, though, is the continuous effort: always set intention to remember your dreams, and always try to recall.  Lie quietly with closed eyes and gently probe your memories.   If nothing comes try associating with common dream themes (food, sex, fighting, fear, sports, etc.).   Also, ask yourself, "What was I just dreaming about?" that's a strong trigger if you do it consistently.   Consistency is important.   Always reach for more recall!

Just this morning I woke and was frustrated at first that I had no recall, but I kept at it and kept at it and eventually recalled about 4 dreams.   Some days the memories flow in easily, and some days you must stubbornly keep at it, prying each memory out one by one.

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## OneUp

> Waking up after every sleep cycle and trying to recall dreams is a great way to kickstart your dream recall.   Dream memory is strongest right after waking from the dream.  I don't do it so much now but in the beginning I did wake multiple times every single night and usually would have the memory of 4-5 dreams at least from each waking, it was fantastic fun but a bit tiring to do it every single night.
> 
> The main thing, though, is the continuous effort: always set intention to remember your dreams, and always try to recall.  Lie quietly with closed eyes and gently probe your memories.   If nothing comes try associating with common dream themes (food, sex, fighting, fear, sports, etc.).   Also, ask yourself, "What was I just dreaming about?" that's a strong trigger if you do it consistently.   Consistency is important.   Always reach for more recall!
> 
> Just this morning I woke and was frustrated at first that I had no recall, but I kept at it and kept at it and eventually recalled about 4 dreams.   Some days the memories flow in easily, and some days you must stubbornly keep at it, prying each memory out one by one.



Thats also a great way to ruin your sleep cycle, and will keep you getting up multiple times throughout the night. Im not trying to be negative FryingMan, but that is a really unhealthy way of increasing your recall. Your body is only designed for brief awakenings after a rem period, if you stay awake for a time period over "brief" you start to mess things up. I tried doing this once, and it killed my sleep schedule. I would wake up in the morning feeling SO tired and would not be able to focus throughout the day at all. Your best chance at increasing recall is just to wake up in the morning and remember what you can. Which, isn't a hard thing because all of our most vivid and longest dreams, occur in the morning. If you use it as a way to kickstart your recall, you're still changing your sleep schedule. So now, if you were to do that, once you quit doing it, it would change your sleep cycle again. 
     One of the back bones in Dream Recall,is a consistent sleep cycle. Not only is it healthy, but it allows you to start remembering more dreams, and it even is a big plus when you are trying to go for an LD.

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## Box77

> Thats also a great way to ruin your sleep cycle, and will keep you getting up multiple times throughout the night. Im not trying to be negative FryingMan, but that is a really unhealthy way of increasing your recall. Your body is only designed for brief awakenings after a rem period, if you stay awake for a time period over "brief" you start to mess things up. I tried doing this once, and it killed my sleep schedule. I would wake up in the morning feeling SO tired and would not be able to focus throughout the day at all. Your best chance at increasing recall is just to wake up in the morning and remember what you can. Which, isn't a hard thing because all of our most vivid and longest dreams, occur in the morning. If you use it as a way to kickstart your recall, you're still changing your sleep schedule. So now, if you were to do that, once you quit doing it, it would change your sleep cycle again. 
>      One of the back bones in Dream Recall,is a consistent sleep cycle. Not only is it healthy, but it allows you to start remembering more dreams, and it even is a big plus when you are trying to go for an LD.



What about if I wake up right after every sleep cycle enough to put down on a sheet of paper I'll have at hand, rough sketches (and keywords) I will translate on the next day, just to avoid forgetting everything? Would it work better if I don't turn on the lights? Turning on the lights, that would ruin my sleep. A soft light from the phone could be enough I think. It wouldn't last more than a minute before going back to sleep anyway. It's won't be necessary to fully wake up or even fully open my eyes. Just enough to catch the details. What do you think? And what about the WBTB method? The problem I think is not being able to sleep full cycles.

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## OneUp

> What about if I wake up right after every sleep cycle enough to put down on a sheet of paper I'll have at hand, rough sketches (and keywords) I will translate on the next day, just to avoid forgetting everything? Would it work better if I don't turn on the lights? Turning on the lights, that would ruin my sleep. A soft light from the phone could be enough I think. It wouldn't last more than a minute before going back to sleep anyway. It's won't be necessary to fully wake up or even fully open my eyes. Just enough to catch the details. What do you think? And what about the WBTB method? The problem I think is not being able to sleep full cycles.



That would work Box77, but you have to keep it short. I think you could manage really good recall just by using Key words, I used to do that, and of course by writing down those keywords, they basically act as a key to remembering the entire dream. Sometimes all you need is 3 or 4 keywords and just those short memories of the dream will bring back the entire dream itself. It is completely possible. However, there is one problem I faced when I used to do that, my handwriting. As I awoke during the night to write down my dreams just by using those keywords, I would still be half asleep. I found that when I woke up in the morning and looked at what I had written down, all I saw was chicken scratch, I couldn't read a thing. 
     A good thing with the method that you are describing to me Box77, is that while it also can be a really great tool for recall, you can also take advantage of those brief waking periods and attempt DEILD. If you could manage to write down some keywords, while staying in that "half-asleep" mode, you can still attempt DEILD. When I say DEILD however, I mean its use as an extremely shortened WILD. Its a little different because specifically, DEILD requires you to recognize when you wake up from a dream, and then requires you to either re-enter that past dream, or create a new dream scene. But, there is a loop-hole in DEILDing, if you wanted to write down your dreams and then go back to and try to do it, you could. Like I said, all you have to do is stay in that mode that I mentioned. The reason that works is because your body has just woken up in the middle of the night(after each REM period) and is set up to where you should fall asleep literally within 20 seconds or less. For some people it can be more of course.
     As for the WBTB method, it is really flexible. Some people attempt to do it after only 5-6 hours of sleep, and others attempt it after 7-8 hours. If you are an adult, it is okay to do it after 5-6 hours of sleep because as one grows older in adulthood, the body requires less sleep. It can be a great aid in WILD if you do it right, and for most people it is. The only thing is, you have to find that time in the early morning that is best for you, that will increase your chances of a WBTB success. In the end, WBTB isn't really that bad at all for your sleep cycle if you are an adult because after a certain age(I pretty sure its somewhere in the early 20's) your body stops growing and it doesn't matter nearly as much as it would if one was in their teens, while their body is in the prime stage of its growth. Although, for adults, the effectiveness of WBTB could depend on many factors such as: age, lifestyle, and some others.
     All in all Box77 with the recall method you described above, I believe you could pull it off, but you have to keep those periods of brief awakenings brief and short. I would suggest no more than around 30 seconds to maybe a minute. In that short time period it is possible to write down those keywords, but I would leave out the drawings unless you can draw fast. And yes, make sure to keep as many lights off if you can because that would wake you up to much to where you wouldn't fall asleep as quickly.

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## FryingMan

I'm not advocating full WBTB every sleep cycle, just recall and quick journal and back to sleep.  Even with intention to do so, I'd usually only catch one or two, with no intention, there's only the final morning waking, and there's little doubt that this would lose most of the nights dreaming.   For one thing, you don't learn about how you dream in your earlier sleep cycles, that's quite interesting I've found.

What I do now is "mental journal" at night, and record only in the morning.  I'm getting pretty good at this but I know there are dreams and details that are getting lost.   Sometimes I'll voice journal at night if there's something really interesting, or a lucid.

I don't think it's harmful if you can get back to sleep quickly.   Micro wbtbs are I think a great way to increase lucidity.   And I think setting intention to wake after dreams IS a great way to kick start recall

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## Box77

> However, there is one problem I faced when I used to do that, my handwriting. As I awoke during the night to write down my dreams just by using those keywords, I would still be half asleep. I found that when I woke up in the morning and looked at what I had written down, all I saw was chicken scratch, I couldn't read a thing.



 ::lol::  Sometimes it took me hours to decipher my chicken scratching, although a couple of times I wasn't able to read it at all. That's why I prefer to draw sketches, that way I don't force my mind to think into words and keep it abstract, although I have lost some practice. I think it would go better as it used to be some time ago, as long as I keep on focused.
On the other hand, I find a voice recorder as a good option, although I'm not that good speaking to a microphone. There must be something psychological there because of as soon as I turn on the voice recorder my mind goes blank  :Uhm: .

When I'm fast sketching it's something like this:



That one is from yesterday after a nap but forgot to translate it. As I'm seeing it right now, I know what happened in that dream. I hope I'm gonna put it in my DJ later.

By the way, I wasn't able to recall any from last night, and I think because of I went late to bed. Apparently that is what actually ruins my dream recall. Every time I went in a regular basis and not too late, my recall improves considerably.

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## martakartus

> Just this morning I woke and was frustrated at first that I had no recall, but I kept at it and kept at it and eventually recalled about 4 dreams.   Some days the memories flow in easily, and some days you must stubbornly keep at it, prying each memory out one by one.



This happens to me all the time. Specially lately, I tend to wake up recalling only one dream or none at all, and after a while, all the dreams come flooding to me. I can go from one fragment to five or six dreams.

Having said that, I have to say that waking up multiple times a night helps me with my recall. I don't set alarms, I've got used to waking up naturally after the last REM cycles.

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## OneUp

> This happens to me all the time. Specially lately, I tend to wake up recalling only one dream or none at all, and after a while, all the dreams come flooding to me. I can go from one fragment to five or six dreams.
> 
> Having said that, I have to say that waking up multiple times a night helps me with my recall. I don't set alarms, I've got used to waking up naturally after the last REM cycles.



Yea, I do this myself still, but I dont write down anything. You'll find that just spending time thinking about the dream and what happened is enough to make you remember it later on. With more practice you can just simply wake up in the morning and recall all of your dreams of the night, it is possible. Keep at it guys!

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## OneUp

> By the way, I wasn't able to recall any from last night, and I think because of I went late to bed. Apparently that is what actually ruins my dream recall. Every time I went in a regular basis and not too late, my recall improves considerably.



Yes im glad you've seen that. A consistent sleep schedule is always a good thing for consistent recall. After a while of recalling your dreams every night though, you can afford to mess up your cycle a little bit and like I said earlier, just the mere intention and thought in mind that you want to better your recall, will help it alot as well.

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## FryingMan

I very quickly shifted to voice journaling rather than writing: 1) no deciphering chicken scratches 2) you can talk much faster than you can write [more detail in less time, back to bed sooner] 3) no need for light, 4) no fumbling for a pen and notebook.

I had really fabulous fun waking up 2-4 times a night and journaling in the first 3 months.   I had quite a number of 10+ dreams nights that way.   After that I just wanted to sleep at night but still recall and have lucid dreams and vivid non-lucids.   But WBTB I feel really is king for producing lucids and vivid non-lucids, so I still try for it on a semi-regular basis.

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## OneUp

> I very quickly shifted to voice journaling rather than writing: 1) no deciphering chicken scratches 2) you can talk much faster than you can write [more detail in less time, back to bed sooner] 3) no need for light, 4) no fumbling for a pen and notebook.
> 
> I had really fabulous fun waking up 2-4 times a night and journaling in the first 3 months.   I had quite a number of 10+ dreams nights that way.   After that I just wanted to sleep at night but still recall and have lucid dreams and vivid non-lucids.   But WBTB I feel really is king for producing lucids and vivid non-lucids, so I still try for it on a semi-regular basis.



Yea voice journaling is also a really good way to keep everything brief and short. I would do it myself if I had a tape recorder or something lol. As for your method FryingMan, im glad you enjoy doing it, I guess it all depends on how you feel about it. I couldn't imagine waking up after every dream of the night and writing them down, but hey thats just me. As for all Lucid Dreamers, we all have something different that works for us. Cheers man.

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## ThreeCat

> I'm not advocating full WBTB every sleep cycle, just recall and quick journal and back to sleep.  Even with intention to do so, I'd usually only catch one or two, with no intention, there's only the final morning waking, and there's little doubt that this would lose most of the nights dreaming.   For one thing, you don't learn about how you dream in your earlier sleep cycles, that's quite interesting I've found.
> 
> What I do now is "mental journal" at night, and record only in the morning.  I'm getting pretty good at this but I know there are dreams and details that are getting lost.   Sometimes I'll voice journal at night if there's something really interesting, or a lucid.
> 
> I don't think it's harmful if you can get back to sleep quickly.   Micro wbtbs are I think a great way to increase lucidity.   And I think setting intention to wake after dreams IS a great way to kick start recall



Concerning waking up during the night, I have to go with Fryingman on this one: if I don't wake up during the night, those dreams in the morning are _gone_.  Waking up during the middle of the night is totally fine, and as long as you can get back to sleep, will not negatively impact you in any way.

When I awake, I make certain to not turn on any lights (except for a small LED) and write my dream down.  This small WBTB often leads into a lucid dream for me, as long as I set appropriate intentions upon returning to sleep.

The alarm clock may not be the best option, as it is disruptive, but you _CAN_ as FM suggests, set intentions to automatically wake up.  You can _also_ drink a lot of water to force your body to awaken during the night.  Either will work without damaging your recall.

And OneUp, concerning adults needing less sleep: I have no idea what the heck you are talking about.  I can _easily_ sleep ten hours and feel like a million bucks.

(I know the conventional wisdom, I'm just messing with you  :smiley:  )

*You could also* try to be more aware during the day, and recall as much of a waking life day as you can (near the end of the night when you go to sleep). If you are having trouble remembering details from a waking life day, then that could explain why you are having issues recalling dreams.

Awareness and practice--that's where it's at!





> I think I'm going to stop using this technique because I emailed a professional from the Lucidity Institute and they said this isn't even a good technique. Plus they told me that the person who wrote / made up this technique isn't scientifically qualified to know how to instruct people in LDing. 
> 
> They told me to get a book called Exploring the world of lucid dreaming. I borrowed it from a library and tried to read it and it's too dull / scientific.



Lucidity Institute is a for-profit institution: of course they are going to tell you that other lucid dreamers don't know what they are talking about, and that you need their book.  LaBerge _does_ put a lot of effort into his experiments, and does subject them to a scientific rigor that most online techniques lack, but seriously: *if the technique works for you, who cares how scientific it is?*

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## OneUp

> but seriously: *if the technique works for you, who cares how scientific it is?*



Wow, truest thing I've read all day ThreeCat. This is perfect, and thanks for reminding me, I couldn't agree more.

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## FryingMan

ETWOLD boring/scientific?  I found it exciting and motivating.   And ETWOLD explicitly calls for setting intention to wake up after dreams to recall them.   Not every 90 minutes, but after dreams, meaning in the natural waking in between sleep cycles.

It's possible to remember dreams across sleep cycles, but I think it still requires at least doing mental recall before falling back asleep, to extract the memories from the fragile dream memory banks into more stable longer term storage (<<-- totally nonscientific guesswork).

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## OneUp

> It's possible to remember dreams across sleep cycles, but I think it still requires at least doing mental recall before falling back asleep, to extract the memories from the fragile dream memory banks into more stable longer term storage (<<-- totally nonscientific guesswork).



Nah, take it from me, I dont really do any of that. The only time I get up is in the morning, and I can remember anywhere from 3-9(usually 5-6 because it takes me forever to type up each dream) dreams a night. Just by practicing recall in any way, you are increasing it daily. It all depends on how much you keep up with it. Of course, thats just my experience with it, others may be different.

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## luffy28

Thank for all the replies, I'll have to read them because I'm about to go to sleep. And I'm reading the book now (exploring the world of lucid dreaming) and it's pretty interesting. I'm only going to do the obe4u techniques two to three times a week. 

I remember I awoke (a day or two ago) multiple times within the night but couldn't / didn't do the cycling techniques because of tiredness / not being committed. 

Thanks.

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## FryingMan

> Nah, take it from me, I dont really do any of that. The only time I get up is in the morning, and I can remember anywhere from 3-9(usually 5-6 because it takes me forever to type up each dream) dreams a night. Just by practicing recall in any way, you are increasing it daily. It all depends on how much you keep up with it. Of course, thats just my experience with it, others may be different.



We all have to find what works for us.  Certainly the unending desire and effort always reaching for recall is the underlying most important thing.   I can't stand the notion that I have dreams that I can't remember, I think doing recall during wakings is clearly the best way to get them all, in good detail.  However, that's not my goal -- sleeping through the night AND remembering all my dreams is the goal, but I'll sacrifice sleep now and then to get the recall.

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## Ctharlhie

The reason to wake after your sleep cycles isn't so much about quantity of recall as quality - dreams are most vivid if you wake directly from them and then record them. Developing the ability to be concscious of waking from your dreams also opens opportunity for DEILD.

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## luffy28

I recalled two dreams this morning (after waking up after six hours of sleep) but was too tired / and / or didn't want to write them down. Also the second dreams felt like it was twenty five to thirty minutes in length. 

Should I try to recall dreams upon natural awakening or after 4 1/2, 6 or 7 hours of sleep?

Thanks.

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## Verre

> We all have to find what works for us.



Hear, hear. I don't think it's a good idea to try to be too prescriptive when advising other people. Some people only feel rested if they get a night of sustained sleep, others (I'm one of them) wake up frequently and naturally during the night, and are well-acclimated to this. On the rare occasions that I zonk out and wake up eight hours later, I wake up feeling cranky and disoriented. 

I've learned the hard way that the only WBTBs likely to work for me are really long ones--anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours--in which I need to wake up completely and actively engage my mind (usually by reading or writing) before going back to sleep, and even then I won't have much of a shot at lucidity unless I perform practices that engage my attention and prevent me from falling back asleep too quickly. This can eat up lots of time during the night! And if I do get lucid, I lose even more time in the morning writing my report. However, the satisfaction of a successful attempt more than outweighs any sacrifice of sleep, which can be easily made up later. 

However, the only reason extra-long WBTBs are the right strategy for me is because I usually fall asleep very easily--_too_ easily. If you're someone who has a hard time falling back to sleep once woken in the middle of the night, then short WBTBs are the way to go! But everyone is different, so there's no "one-size-fits-all" solution, even for such a widespread technique as WBTB.

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## ThreeCat

> Hear, hear. I don't think it's a good idea to try to be too prescriptive when advising other people. Some people only feel rested if they get a night of sustained sleep, others (I'm one of them) wake up frequently and naturally during the night, and are well-acclimated to this. On the rare occasions that I zonk out and wake up eight hours later, I wake up feeling cranky and disoriented. 
> 
> I've learned the hard way that the only WBTBs likely to work for me are really long ones--anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours--in which I need to wake up completely and actively engage my mind (usually by reading or writing) before going back to sleep, and even then I won't have much of a shot at lucidity unless I perform practices that engage my attention and prevent me from falling back asleep too quickly. This can eat up lots of time during the night! And if I do get lucid, I lose even more time in the morning writing my report. However, the satisfaction of a successful attempt more than outweighs any sacrifice of sleep, which can be easily made up later. 
> 
> However, the only reason extra-long WBTBs are the right strategy for me is because I usually fall asleep very easily--_too_ easily. If you're someone who has a hard time falling back to sleep once woken in the middle of the night, then short WBTBs are the way to go! But everyone is different, so there's no "one-size-fits-all" solution, even for such a widespread technique as WBTB.



Great comment, Verre--something for all of us to remember.  

Luffy, you may find that after giving yourself intentions to awake during the night (or drinking lots of water before bed) that you begin to awake naturally before it is time to get up for the day.  But like Verre said, if you feel you are disoriented and cannot remember any dreams after awaking after four hours, you may need six or seven before you are primed to have a lucid dream.

Just work on it and see what fits you best  :smiley:

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## Verre

> Luffy, you may find that after giving yourself intentions to awake during the night (or drinking lots of water before bed) that you begin to awake naturally before it is time to get up for the day.



Drinking lots of water beats any alarm clock! Plus, you get extra hydrated.

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## FryingMan

> The reason to wake after your sleep cycles isn't so much about quantity of recall as quality - dreams are most vivid if you wake directly from them and then record them. Developing the ability to be concscious of waking from your dreams also opens opportunity for DEILD.



Well it's both to me: I lost the earlier dreams today which I had only mentally journaled upon recalling the last waking's dreams, darn.   I guess killing the "dragon" (which looked just like a person) by repeatedly hitting its head with an axe was disturbing enough to chase that other recall away...

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## ThreeCat

> The reason to wake after your sleep cycles isn't so much about quantity of recall as quality - dreams are most vivid if you wake directly from them and then record them. Developing the ability to be concscious of waking from your dreams also opens opportunity for DEILD.



Quantity is definitely part of the picture, however.  For me, the act of writing alone activates certain dream memories and sometimes entire scenes that otherwise would have been lost.  This may be an idiosyncrasy of mine, but even bullet points do not entirely do the trick, as these tend to only hit what is immediate in the memory.  Once I've written out the narrative in present tense, however, I begin to remember how one scene connected to another, and where those scenes originated from, and so forth.  And I (like many) find the best time to write this narrative is directly after awakening from a dream.

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## luffy28

I did the second technique I mentioned. I didn't awake at four hours because I stayed up too late. But I awoke after six and seven and a half hours and consciously recorded three dreams. I've been up since the six o'clock hour this morning. 

I also wanted to ask is this possible once I know the ropes of lucid dreaming:

Lars' Lucid Dreaming FAQ

It's 2.25 of the above link / faq.

Thanks.

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## DeviantThinker

I just want to chime in with my observation that even when I have had days with little to no sleep inbetween days where I can recall dreams, I still find my dream recall noticably improving in detail and length. For me, the improvement so far is definately more quality than quantity. In the past week, I have only had a single night where I recalled more than one dream and none of them were particularly lengthy or vivid. Hopefully, things will get better now that my sleep is improving.

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## ThreeCat

> I did the second technique I mentioned. I didn't awake at four hours because I stayed up too late. But I awoke after six and seven and a half hours and consciously recorded three dreams. I've been up since the six o'clock hour this morning. 
> 
> I also wanted to ask is this possible once I know the ropes of lucid dreaming:
> 
> Lars' Lucid Dreaming FAQ
> 
> It's 2.25 of the above link / faq.
> 
> Thanks.



I am super skeptical of that item, but admit that I have never attempted such a thing, and so would not know whether it would be possible.  Also, although people may mention time dilation and what not, I am skeptical if that as well (but only because I have never experienced it myself).

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## luffy28

> I am super skeptical of that item, but admit that I have never attempted such a thing, and so would not know whether it would be possible.  Also, although people may mention time dilation and what not, I am skeptical if that as well (but only because I have never experienced it myself).



In my opinion I think it would work because I visualized / talked to myself about a model I saw in a video a couple of years ago right before or before I went to sleep. One of the dreams featured / was about the model. 

This could've been my subconscious. Also in one of the dreams I asked a dream character a price for a pack of blue ray discs and this character said around $25 and I found some blank blu ray discs for an almost similar price. It was probably my subconscious.

Thanks.

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## FryingMan

> I am super skeptical of that item, but admit that I have never attempted such a thing, and so would not know whether it would be possible.  Also, although people may mention time dilation and what not, I am skeptical if that as well (but only because I have never experienced it myself).



I'll be sure to invite you to my time-dilation chamber, once I find it.    The second time, though...the first time is reserved for "The Year of Love"  ::hump::

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## ThreeCat

> In my opinion I think it would work because I visualized / talked to myself about a model I saw in a video a couple of years ago right before or before I went to sleep. One of the dreams featured / was about the model. 
> 
> This could've been my subconscious. Also in one of the dreams I asked a dream character a price for a pack of blue ray discs and this character said around $25 and I found some blank blu ray discs for an almost similar price. It was probably my subconscious.
> 
> Thanks.



Item 2.25 was read 1million words per minute, I believe?  If not, apologies  :smiley: 
EDIT: oh, I see now.  Still going Super-Skeptic on this one.

Funny, FryingMan, I had a dilated time experience yesterday.  Wonder if I incubated that?

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## Verre

> I also wanted to ask is this possible once I know the ropes of lucid dreaming:
> 
> Lars' Lucid Dreaming FAQ
> 
> It's 2.25 of the above link / faq.
> 
> Thanks.



This sounds like science fiction--that is to say, it sounds like something that someone is speculating _might_ be possible, based on particular notions (about which I am very dubious) about how the mind works, but they offer no evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that they have actually accomplished this. The human mind is not analogous to a computer in the way it stores and retrieves information. Moreover, when dreaming, our minds seem to work even _less_ like computers than they do during waking life--i.e., they are much more unpredictable. So information recall of any kind appears (at least in my experience) very unreliable in the dream state. This is an area that merits much more exploration and experimentation, both by individuals and in formal studies. 

I once heard a song in a lucid dream that was so compelling that I did my best to finish the song afterwards when awake. Then I had the idea to memorize the song, sing it to a DC in another dream, and see how they would react. The only problem was... every dream in which I remembered to perform this task, DCs were unusually hard to find. The one time I did find a DC and tried to sing the song, guess what happened? _I couldn't remember it._ After I woke up again, I could remember it again just fine. 

I only offer this anecdote to point to the fact that memory, even of things we know by heart on a conscious level, can be severely impaired in the dream state. (Also to observe that the dreamstate seems to delight in dicking us around, unless that's just a flaw of my own mind.) So if conscious memory is iffy at best, is subconscious memory likely to be that much more accessible and reliable? It's always possible, but far from plausible without hard evidence.

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## DeviantThinker

2.25 sounds like a load of nonsense. To me, it just betrays ignorance of how the mind even processes words on a page. Unless if you have a very small page, you cannot read a page on a book without shifting your eyes and that's assuming that all that is required for your brain to process text is the visuals. Most of our peripheral "vision" is basically conjured up by our brain as a prediction of how our surroundings should look like based on the previous visual update. Our vision is loads of little captured patches which are then pieced together by our brain into the apparant unified picture we consciously percieved and why you cannot see your blind spot. For you to speed read in this fashion even if the page was within your focal point, your brain would somehow have to predict with accuracy what the words actually are based on the context provided by a very small patch in the middle.
I hope I don't have to explain to any of you how ridiculous that sounds.

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## DeviantThinker

Time dilation (or time incubation lest any disgruntled astrophysicists lynch me) is a really cool effect I've noticed more in my regular dreams than the lucids I had in the past. 
The standard explaination for the psychological effect is that our mind synthesises memories of events that you didn't even experience in the dream to give the apparant perception of more time passing. However, if this is true, what does this imply about the power of our memory mechanisms? 

I present my own theory of time incubation which will probably turn out to be unoriginal:

Dreams introduce the possibility of flexible time perception due to a combination of reduced latency and freedom from physical cues.

1. Reduced latency: We know that during dreams, our brain sends signals to our limbs as if we are waking and it is only due to the absence of the monoamines that make muscular contractions possible. However, despite this paralysis, in our dreams, we are able to move and feel our limbs so that means, they are being simulated in our brain. This causes a marked reduction in signal latency which could theoretically increase the subjective time experienced per second.

2. Freedom from physical cues: In meatspace, our attention and perception of time is influenced to an extent by rhythms in our body, such as our breath and heart rate. It is not surprising that whenever we are focusing on a task, we catch ourselves catching our breath as if extending a breath cycle extends the attention we are giving to something. In dreams, many anatomical features are simulated such as heart beats and breathing which is often disjointed from real life. A common experience is to hear an insanely fast heart beat when wilding even though after breaking from the attempt and checking our own pulse, you find it normal. This combined with the reduced latency of signaling should allow somone to shift into a faster attention cycle and hence more time subjectively experienced. 

Perhaps a good test might be if you sleep with a ticking sound playing in the background and if you can percieve the sound in our lucid dream, concentrate on extending the period at which it ticks until you cannot make it any longer then go about in your dream filtering out the sound, occasionally topping up by focusing on the ticking sound and elongating it's tick period again. 

P.S. I'm aware that there is a danger of the sound being conjured up by your head but if you have well trained perception, you should be able to distinguish the illusory tick from the real.

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## Verre

There's another form of time dilation we can experience in dreams that is probably modeled on our familiarity with the structure of films and other forms of narrative storytelling. Consider how it works in the movies: you watch a film that lasts a couple hours, but it is narrating a story that can span across days, months, or years. This is accomplished through scene changes. When well-plotted and edited, these temporal jumps don't leave us wondering "omg what just happened?" but instead advance the story in a smooth and comprehensible way by skipping over events that are not essential to the narrative. 

In the dreams I've experienced whose stories appear to stretch across vast lengths of time, there have always been scene shifts and jump cuts like this, where the passage of time is implied but not experienced in tedious detail.

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## DeviantThinker

Yeah, I suspect most time stretching is like that. I wish that Rem periods could last longer than 90 minutes though. Then we could have a Lord of the Rings of a movie without any of the dubious time recalibration in my speculative theory. We would just need the naturally talented directer and editor that is our brain.

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## FryingMan

I'm holding out for real subjective time dilation.   The mind is an amazing thing, who's to say we can't experience something at "super speed" on the waking time scale, while the experience to us subjectively in the dream is at "normal" speed?   That's what I'm going to be working on  :smiley:

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## DeviantThinker

The problem is that our brain does have known limitations. Neurons with the highest clock speeds found only operate at 1000 Hz and most neurons being below 50 Hz. Also, even with myelin sheaths coating them, the transmission speeds of synapses are measured in 10's of metres per second and since most the neurons in our brain are not sheathed in myelin, the actual transmission speeds are far slower. The power of our brain comes from it's massively parallel nature and it's informational colour (a single synapse with it's rich broth of neurotransmitters is far more communicative then the solitary computer bit), not it's speed. Computer have already had our brains beat in that area, a long time ago.

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## FryingMan

Who says our thoughts are limited to physical frequencies?   I can't even guess how it's possible, maybe the experiences are all there in parallel in time dilation and our mind somehow serializes it....or maybe the mind is freed from the physical.   Etc.   Like I said, this is something I'll be working on  :smiley: 

Believe you're limited, and you'll be limited...

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## DeviantThinker

Sorry for the late reply (for some reason, I did not spot an update on this thread).





> Who says our thoughts are limited to physical frequencies?



Well not to be too blunt about it but all available evidence accumulated for the past two hundred years of psychological and neurological research does. 





> I can't even guess how it's possible



Then take that as a hint. If parapsychologists who's entire careers rest on the investigation of these fields cannot come up with a workable theory or indeed any evidence that can withstand scrutiny, what hope can you reasonably expect of yourself? Yes our "laws" are not set in stone and are almost certainly wrong but the way scientific advancement happens is through a narrowing reticle of predicted outcomes. Newtonian mechanics withstood scrutiny for centuries and the theory that superseded it, General relativity did not predict values that diverged greatly from it except at speeds close to that of of light or near incredibly massive bodies. The discovery of non physical elements to the mind would completely break this pattern. 
Ask yourself this: if you were to come up with a model of the world where the mind was not restricted to physical frequencies, how close would the model in your head resemble the reality you see?





> Believe you're limited, and you'll be limited...



Look up how well people with that mindset fared when they decided to jump off cliffs or buildings because gravity is clearly illusory though then again, maybe Bill Hicks had it right when he said that you don't ever see ducks lining up in elevators to fly south. 
If you are going to attempt that little experiment yourself, follow his advice and try it from the ground first.
 :Cheeky:

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## FryingMan

^^ You're thinking needs to be a bit more deviant, methinks!   Dreams and waking are different, and we're just barely beginning to understand what is possible in dreams...

Dare to dream!

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## DeviantThinker

What makes you think that my ideas are not already deviant enough? None of these ideas were intuitive to us and for most of human history, people were sympathetic to your more dualistic mindset that there was other elements of existence beyond the material.
It was only after scientists were slapped in the face with contrary evidence for centuries before they finally accepted that maybe that supernatural talk was a load of malarkey. 





> Dreams and waking are different, and we're just barely beginning to understand what is possible in dreams...



Yes dreams and waking are different, not sure where you got the idea that I was stating the contrary. However, they are more similar then you think. Both are in fact virtual realities constructed by our brains, the only difference between them is that one is mediated by our senses and an active neocortex whereas the other is not. 

Yes there is definitely much more to discover concerning dreams but already we know of limitations within them from past and current research. Reading text is difficult in dreams (and tends to only be doable from prolific lucid dreamers), your waking and dreaming eyes are in sync with one another, the dream world is constructed from elements with their stability directly contingent on your attention. 
Possibly the most relevant fact we know about dreams is that they incorporate any sensory information received during sleep which further bolsters the position that the only major difference between a dream and "reality" is that of the senses.





> Dare to dream!



Dreaming alone never achieves anything. People dreamed for millennia of flight but it was not until a couple of bicycle designers decided to actually build a wind tunnel and investigate how wings of different designs responded to moving air that we got the airplane. 

Rather then waste your time dreaming of faculties that we have no good reason of suspecting that we currently possess, why not put your time and effort into studying ways of making your dream of subjective time dilation a reality? Our brains are far from being the fastest possible run time possible within even currently known physics. 

You could take our brain in it's current shape and size and theoretically speed it up by a million times. That would mean in one second of our current time, that brain would experience 11 and a half days of subjective experience. One year would equate to the total number of subjective years that our human race has ever experienced times ten!

That is what science points towards: future vistas that in fact exceeds our dreams, our very limited imaginations!

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## FryingMan

Hi again DT, you're welcome to tell me I'm wasting my time on the non-dream parts of the forums, where classical materialism reigns.   Of course don't expect a reply, because I don't waste my time on those boards...cheers!

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## DeviantThinker

Very well but I will close this by saying that just because I do not think there is a non-physical component to the brain does not make me a "classical materialist". Materialism is a philosophical stance and I am basing my beliefs purely on empirical evidence. 

If the brain is purely physical, I want to believe it is purely physical.
If the brain is not purely physical, I want to believe it is not purely physical.
I hope I do not become attached to beliefs I may not want.

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## stevendoig

Don't know if this will help anyone...

If I awake in the morning and no dreams immediately spring to my mind, I immediately think of  everyday things I usually dream about - Birdwatching, work, my boy, driving, reading - this has provided me with at least fragments on nearly every occasion when I would otherwise have remembered nothing.

Couple of things if anyone wants to help btw - I've still only had the one lucid dream, but I'm concerned that I might have one and forget, so I'm forever telling myself that when I have a lucid dream next I will immediately seek out a nice big drink of coffee- because that's the first thing I do when I wake up so I would hope it would help me to remember - sound reasonable?

The other thing Ive noticed on this thread and elsewhere is people stating that the best dreams usually happen just before waking up in the morning. I've been finding that the _easiest_ dreams to remember are indeed those ones, but of late my best and most vivid dreams have been during my very first REM cycle - is this unusual?

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