Thread: Dream Recall

So I understand that good dream recall is important for just about anything that has to do with lucid dreaming. For the things it is not necessary for, it still greatly improves success rates. However, I have school and I have to get up at 6:30 AM every day, and have no time for dream journalling. I can't get up earlier because I don't get enough sleep as it is, and sleep loss is even worse than bad recall. So does anyone know a way I can practice/improve dream recall without dream journalling? If it is when I get up it has to be something that I can do on the go.

I've been on the fence about recall lately I think it is very important BUT not completely necessary to lucid dream, and that also depends on what technique you are using etc. If you are trying dild techniques then your are definitely going to need good recall same goes for deild and some other methods.. What I would suggest is that upon every awakening at night you lay still and focus on what you were last dreaming or anything you can remember, run through it in your head a few times and just by doing that it will help with recall to some extent but you will not likely have 'good' recall by doing this. This is what I have been doing lately as I've been busy and I've only been writing my lucids down and I'm finding I still have ok recall not as good as when I dj but I usually remember a couple dreams a night with some detail. Hope that helps

Well another problem is that I never wake up naturally in the night. Is there any way to induce this?

Originally Posted by Avian

Well another problem is that I never wake up naturally in the night. Is there any way to induce this?

Probably a more reliable (and healthier) version of the water technique is to drink a LOT before bed. I do what I call "water cycling," where I drink water pretty much all night long, starting at bedtime and supplementing it every time I wake up during the night. Over the course of an average night, I usually drink a liter or two of water and wake up four to six times with no need for an alarm. I started doing this not so much as a dream technique as a way to avoid hangovers after drinking heavily (for which it also works wonders!) but it also provides a lot of extra opportunities for dream recall and WBTB. Just make sure a bathroom is convenient, all that water has to go somewhere!

I read about something called the water technique, I tried it last night and it worked!

Basically, take a glass of water or juice to bed with you and put it close so you can reach it easily in the night. You need to be thirsty by this point, the thirstiest the better. Before getting into bed take a big swig from your drink, this should feel refreshing.
Lay down in bed for a while and as you feel yourself starting drift off take a small swig from your drink, you can now sleep.
Now what should happen is that during your REM cycle your body should crave some water and you should wake up, you can take a sip from your drink now aswell.

Hope this woks!

Try out a few mantras, look it up or see a forum about it, basically it's just chanting a phrase that means somthing to you for example 'I will wake at 2am' or I 'I will wake after every dream'.. It's surprisingly effective it works the same way as when you know you have to wake up early to an alarm for somthing that's really important and you find you wake up before your alarm has even gone off. Another thing to note is to keep your mantra simple and short and make sure you understand what you are actually chanting. So as you drift off to sleep in your head you might want to chant 'I will wake at x time' and repeat it as many times as you can and try to drift off to sleep as you do it or if it keeps you awake just do it for 5 minutes or so then go to sleep.

Also, I am not quite so sure about the WBTB thing. I am not sure when I am supposed to wake up. I am worried that I am doing it wrong and that will lead me to not get a lucid dream. Am I supposed to do it after a dream, during a dream, during REM, after REM, before REM, during NREM, etc. I just don't know when I am supposed to wake up of if it even matters as long as I am well into my sleep cycle.

I guess the reason is because no one really ever covers that. They just say 5-6 hours after falling asleep or something like that so I don't have much info.

I tried mantras last night and it worked. I said "I will wake up after my dream" out loud, in my head, I wrote it in the air with an imaginary pencil, and finally I typed it on an imaginary keyboard until I felt that it had sunk in. I woke up at 4:18, just 2 minutes before my usual alarm (it was at 5 though) but I'm not sure if I woke up after my dream or during it. That is irrelevant though, considering that I was so comfortable I just fell asleep again, but I think I had FA at some point, although I was basically half asleep anyways.

It can be pretty hard to pin point your exact rem time because it's always changing due to your sleep cycle and how tired you are etc, that's why people say just aim for 4 to 6 hours and even if your not dead on your rem period it'll likely start within a short time.
My advice would be don't stress about hitting your rem sleep at the sweet spot, just pick a time between 4 to 6 hours which ever is most convenient and go for it.
I'm by far not the most experienced lucid dreamer to be taking advice from though but in saying that I've managed to get lucid almost on demand within a few months of studying how to and taking advice and all, that's why I am trying to help were I can.

What technique are your using btw?

I am using a kind of SSILD/WILD combo. SSILD doesn't work for me I tried it once and it took me a bit to fall asleep; nothing happened. I can just tell it is not my thing. On the research section there is an SSILD experiment thread and many of the successes are when they are doing SSILD and they fall asleep in the middle of it. So my technique is several quick and more precise SSILD cycles to kind of get in the groove, followed by long ones where I will not even try to switch between steps until I feel like it (in the shorter ones I will switch after a timeframe within the range of 20 seconds). Hopefully I will WILD while doing this, or drift off and have a false awakening. I will do frequent reality checks, every 2 cycles or something. I have only tried this once, and I decided I needed to get to sleep so I didn't complete it. Besides that, I have tried WILD dozens of times but never during REM because I didn't know about that so basically a lot of time wasted

Ssild is a good technique I mainly use it now and it works pretty much everytime unless I fall asleep too quickly, I use self awareness lots during the day aswell which seems to help, maybe when you do your wbtb only wake up for a really short time like 1 min or don't even get out of bed at all, then do four 5 second cycles then jump straight to the longer cycles, I have noticed it really does help your awareness during sleep even when I fail to become lucid straight away I usually just realize I'm dreaming randomly when I see somthing strange.
Have faith in it! You probably need to adjust it to fit you best like with most techniques, the wbtb during ssild is pretty crucial to the success of it that's what I have found you need to be tired enough to fall asleep within 5 minutes or so but not too awake either, also on the tutorial it says 'don't think of any logical thoughts' which basically means let your mind wander as you do it and try not to think too hard about it, I also find that to be REALLY important to using ssild.

I'm surprised no one has said this yet: In the morning, after you wake up, try to remember as much as you can from your dreams. Think about your dreams while you're getting ready for school and on your way to school, trying to recall as much detail as possible. If you want to, you can also write down your dreams after school or while you're on the bus/in the car on the way to school, if possible.