3 Days in a row... What am I doing wrong??

[littledreamer]

I having a horrible losing streak as of now. Three days in a row, and absolutely NO dream recall!!! What could I be doing wrong? I listen to some LaBerge before I goto bed, and keep lucid dreaming on my mind right till the moment I fall asleep. This is tragic. I thought things were getting closer, as I was recalling 2-3 dreams a night for a while there. Now I have this dry-spell. Suggestions? LD

[marcher22]

Don't fret! This is just a minor setback for a major comeback! Keep trying to remember. Try thishttp://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=93005&highlight=timer many users have reported getting better dream recall. All the best, marcher22

[littledreamer]

Thanks for the reply! At least I know it wil probably subside. One thing, the link you posted doesn't work for me. Could you retry? or post the name of the thread? It redirects me to the main forum page. Thanks again!

[Optim]

I believe that I have the answer to your problem. There is a tutorial on this site that I will provide the link to later in ths post, but for now here are some key tips. When you first wake up, do not move. Instead, lie still and remember as much as you can. When you remember it all write it down. Because dreams are in our short term memory we tend to lose them when we begin to do something as simply as moving. Also, create a checklist for yourself. Try to remember things that frequently appear in your dream and go down your list. For instance, " Was Dad there?" or "Was I at work/schooll?". This checklist of coarse will be custom designed so that it helps you remember YOUR dreams, so it will have to have things on the checklist that appera often in YOUR dreams. Also, if you happen to wake up in the middle of the night, don't just go back to sleep. Instead write down whatever parts of your dream that you can remember. Notice that dream recall is very dependant on a dream journal. I hope you keep one. Dream views contains very good tutorials on dream recall. Use this link here> http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=66343 I am sure that you will find the dream recall tutorial very easily and will learn enough to get you out of this terrible 3 day dryspell.

[Serenity]

Optim has some great suggestions... it's pretty much what I do too... One of the things that has really helped me was making my notes on my phone. It also reduced the occurances of pen marks on my sheets I found what really boosted my recall was to open my "Notes" program in my phone and just write little one-liners on each scene i remember. If I'm having difficulties in recalling my dream, I lay in the position I woke up in (with my phone in hand), close my eyes and start asking myself questions. Or, if I do have a vague memory of the dream, I just think about it. Sometimes going back to the same position and closing my eyes brings it back. It helps to keep my phone in my hand so once I get the rush of the scene back, I can note it straight away. Also, if I'm not sure about the appearance of one of those questions, I'll still write it as a possibility that it showed up, and just question mark it. There are certain things that are pretty much always on my mind; so sometimes, they appear in dreams residually, as an affect of me always thinking about them.

[littledreamer]

Thanks everyone. I will start to follow any advice you give me. Dream recall is no joke. What's funny is, I fixed the link Marcher22 posted, and I followed it. Last night, my dryspell ended for I remembered 1 dream. That 1 dream happened to be my first (true) lucid dream!!!!!!!! It happened JUST like a previous endeavor. Last time, i was talking to my mother, and "This is a dream" happened to roll off my tongue. After than, everything went unstable, and I could "feel" my eyes. Everything was then black, and I assumed it was the inside of my eyelids. (I thought I woke up.) This time was a different story. I don't remember what caused me to become lucid, but I remember becoming unstable, and then seeing black. This time though, I "opened" my eyes and looked at my hand. (reality check.) My pinky was sort of fading in and out depending on how i moved it. I KNEW i was dreaming. I flew, etc. Of course after stabilizing and whatnot. I tried to get it as realistic as possible by looking really close at objects. it was surreal. This is where another question arises: Why did something so vivid become so ordinary after I woke up??? I woke up, opened up my MacBook Pro, and started typing out my dream. It was then that I noticed that this awesome moment was slowly becoming more and more like ordinary dreams. Foggy, foggy, foggy. In fact, I couldn't remember some of the things I did. Also, this dream is starting to appear less realistic in memory, though I remember thinking to myself how realistic everything was. plus, right when I woke up, I was so flabbergasted by what I just experienced. Now it doesn't seem like such a big deal. What is up? Is this all just a case of bad recall? I want to remember these events as if they happened in waking life. Thanks for all the help! LD

[XeL]

Why did something so vivid become so ordinary after I woke up??? I woke up, opened up my MacBook Pro, and started typing out my dream. It was then that I noticed that this awesome moment was slowly becoming more and more like ordinary dreams. Foggy, foggy, foggy. In fact, I couldn't remember some of the things I did First of all, congrats on your first lucid! Quite the achievement! When I recall a dream, I don't write it down right away. When I wake up, I try to lay as still as possible with my eyes closed. I then go through the whole dream in my head to move it from my dream memory to my short-term memory. This is a lot easier to do if you don't move around or open your eyes. If you start thinking of anything else you'll get side-tracked. Just try to lay still and think through your dream without falling asleep. In this way you'll manifest your dreams into your real memory. It's also a lot easier to remember details this way. If you find that there is something you don't remember, go through the dream over and over again in your head. In some cases a new fragment will come to you and you'll remember even more! Usually when I have a good lucid dream it puts a big smile on my face for a 1-3 days. Good luck!

[javier__cantu]

Relax, don´t try too hard. Think about something else before bed, play some video games, stumble some random and strange pics, then imagine weird situations involving flying or something out from reality. 3 days is nothing, don´t worry. Maybe you are dreaming right now!

[XeL]

Maybe you are dreaming right now! Maybe you should read through the whole thread?

[littledreamer]

First of all, congrats on your first lucid! Quite the achievement! When I recall a dream, I don't write it down right away. When I wake up, I try to lay as still as possible with my eyes closed. I then go through the whole dream in my head to move it from my dream memory to my short-term memory. This is a lot easier to do if you don't move around or open your eyes. If you start thinking of anything else you'll get side-tracked. Just try to lay still and think through your dream without falling asleep. In this way you'll manifest your dreams into your real memory. It's also a lot easier to remember details this way. If you find that there is something you don't remember, go through the dream over and over again in your head. In some cases a new fragment will come to you and you'll remember even more! Usually when I have a good lucid dream it puts a big smile on my face for a 1-3 days. Good luck! Thanks XeL! About keeping your eyes closed: The way I woke from today's lucid dream kind of made this impossible. If I remember correctly, at the end of my dream I ended up blinking, and when I opened my eyes from this "blink," I opened my "waking" eyes. (Physical eyes) It was very strange. One second, A giant door is swinging open in my direction, then literally after the blink of an eye, I'm staring at my ceiling at 7:30AM. Perhaps I should intentionally end a dream after a certain amount of events lapse. That way I can know that I'm about to awaken, which would help me stay still and keep my eyes closed. I think I read somewhere a month or so ago that going to sleep in the dream will wake you? Also, I was so excited to get into action after my reality check that I forgot to do some important stabilizing steps out of this book I'm reading. The book tells you to look at your hands in detail (which I did) and to begin to touch as many objects as you can to get the dreamworld as concrete as possible. (This, i did not do for it never crossed my mind.) The world around me (as far as I remember) seemed very, very lifelike when it came to detail, but it did not seem as stable as I would have wanted it. It started in my house, and when I walked into a certain room, everything was scaled up in size, including the door that was swinging open towards me before I woke up. So in short, I knew that I was dreaming (for sure), and I was able to control my own actions, but I had a hard time controlling the environment. I'm not too worried about it, though. I remember Stephen LaBerge saying in an interview that Dream Control and Lucidity were two different concepts, but with Lucidity, Dream Control becomes POSSIBLE. With practice, I suppose. Thanks for the advice. I'll be sure to follow it. Hoping for another Lucid dream tonight, LD

[XeL]

Ah yes, closing your eyes in dreams often result in waking up. It's okay if you open them upon waking up, I do too sometimes out of confusion. Just close them ASAP, before you start taking in the impressions of the room. You want to keep focused on remembering the dream, and ONLY the dream. Thinking about other things such as daily tasks, homework, etc, will also often result in lost dream memories. You seem psyched up about it! That's good! Motivation and ambition plays a huge part in LDing. Keep it up!

[littledreamer]

Thanks, XeL. I didn't go lucid last night, but I should have. (My latest dreamsign was right in front of me...) Thanks for all the help, everyone! Alex

[Quiver]

Hey Alex, congrats on the LD! Sometimes after I wake up I try all those suggestions above (check list, laying still, fragments etc etc) and I still can't seem to remember anything. What usually helps me is opening up a word file, taking 5-10 minutes and writing out a pure stream of consciousness style block of text. I initially keep the topic related to dreaming but allow my mind to wander as I continue writing. The important things are to write/type as fast as possible, don't censor yourself (ignore spelling and grammar), stay positive and remain receptive. Example of how I might start: "I know that I have dreams evry night and I allow myself to remembr them...rememberingg dreams is easy and as i open mind the dreams are bound to come flowing back. maybe it was about soccer or maybe school...its easy to remember dreams...people talk about their dreams all the time... like Tina was telling me about..." blah blah blah Eventually some tiny thing triggers an avalanche of recall. I've noticed the same thing as you about the loss of vivid imagery and general epicness of a lucid dream upon waking after thinking "everything looks so real!" in the dream itself. For me, if a random lucid dream coincides with a period of slumping recall, the after-effect of the dream is not as potent. By contrast, if a lucid dream happens during a period of soaring recall, then the euphoria and memory of it tend to stay with me much longer. I wonder if it could be peaks and valleys in brain chemistry. Good luck for big recall and many more LDs

[Loaf]

Keep it up littledreamer, I consider myself an expert at LDing, but every so often I'll hit what we call a "dryspell" when lucid dreams and recall go out the window. I spent a whole month with no dreams! But they came back.

[JollyRoger]

We can all speak faster than we can write. I recommend a recorder of sorts so when you wake you can blast out as much as possible before you forget too much of your dream... I've found that to be a huge help because writing as soojn as I wake is a bit screwed up to say the least... Also I find when I listen to it later that day it brings about even more memories of the dream I was recording in the first place... Then if you want write it down later!

[DougD720]

Don't worry about it - like everyone's telling you. I was on a longer streak than this up until today. I was remembering 3-4 dreams a night for weeks then in the last week I would be lucky to remember one and then this morning I had an LD Dreams can be funny like that. Keep going for it and you'll get it, don't worry.

[littledreamer]

Thanks everyone! I have been having some success in recall, and I think i'm getting closer to having lucid dreams more commonly. For a while there, I was having the weird pattern of 1 recall a night, then 2 days without. Then 1 again, then another 2 without. the night before last, it was another "1" recall. Then last night, I recalled 3 very vivid dreams, with one of them being a lucid moment! (I woke up immediately after becoming lucid. I did reality checks, so I know for sure that it was not a FA. ) I hope that tonight I can recall the same, or more, and perhaps become lucid again? (But not wake up immediately after! I'm not even gonna add last night's to my LD count... ) Thanks again! Hopefully all this thinking, reality testing, and mantra chanting will catch on and start giving steady results!! Alex