Thread: Dream Recall Declining

My dream recall has been going down for about a month now. I used to be able to remember about two to three vivid dreams per night and for the last month now ive been lucky to remember a dream per night and happy with a few fragments.

I have kept a dream journal throughout my dream journey which started in October of this year.

I just want to keep progressing, not feel like I am going backwards.

Have you become more stressed recently? Stress can kill dream recall, as I've learned with school hehe. Also recall can naturally fluctuate. Overall don't worry too much over it as that worry will reduce recall further, its better to relax and let the dreams come .

I was having a similar problem, and still can go nights with very poor recall. My dreams are kind of shy, I guess.
Can you pinpoint anything that's changed in your life?
What seemed to help me was when I picked another technique and committed to doing it every night for a month. Anything to revitalize motivation and reinforce the importance of dreaming.
Also I agree with BlairBros about not worrying about it too much, although I know it can be frustrating.

Being well-rested is important for good dream recall. Once you catch up sufficiently on your sleep (if you're not already), you may want to try setting intention to notice the little inter-sleep-cycle wakings during the night and recall dreams during each such waking. This can really kick-start recall again. But yes as others have noted, recall does fluctuate normally. I've experienced enough peaks and valleys to know that there's always another peak just around the corner.

It also helps to think of the night as "restful dream-time", not as a time to blank-out until morning.

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's been a month since I have had any sort of consistency withh my dream recall, it's extremely frustrating to wake up in the morning with nothing to record in my journal besides "another night with no dreams."

I guess all this frustration stems from knowing how awesome it is to recall dreams. At my peak I had numerous dreams per night and it was amazing. Now that I'm back to not remembering dreams I find myself thinking back to the times when I could which reminds me why I want to lucid dream in the first place.

I would't say that I'm stressed or anything, certainly not more so than normally. Any other techniques you guys can recommend to help me remember my dreams? Its been about a month now since Ive recalled any dreams in the morning

try setting intention to notice the little inter-sleep-cycle wakings during the night and recall dreams during each such waking

Any other techniques you guys can recommend to help me remember my dreams?

Seriously -- this is the "nuclear" option. More dreams than you'll know what to do with.

If you want "more" then read here: FryingMan's Dream Recall Tips

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Seriously -- this is the "nuclear" option. More dreams than you'll know what to do with.

If you want "more" then read here: FryingMan's Dream Recall Tips

Thanks for the reply. Im wondering how my recall suddently went from building up very quickly and steadily to not only stagnation but to something which seems like regression. Im hesitant to call it that because Im sure once i start recalling my dreams again they will come back more vivid and strong than ever. Cheers

The most effective way to get good dream recall is to consistently practise it. There are no shortcuts.

But intention alone can be very effective. It was something I experimented with when I was new and it helped a few others.

I practised my memory in general by having a journal where I recalled my day in the same way that I wanted to remember my dreams.
Which was a practise that is originated from the Dream Yoga practise, but when I wrote this thread I was just experimenting for fun and accidently stumbled upon this idea. It got popular and now this forum even has a Waking Journal Section.

If you are curious you can check it out:

http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...reams-try.html

I hope it helps you!

Update: I slept last from 3 30 am to 4 pm (lol). While I don't recall any dreams from my first 5 or 6 hours of sleep I was able to record three dreams following three awakenings. They got progressively more vivid it seemed, and were the most I was able to recall in about a week. nice to see some progress being made, i am confident tonight will be another night of fruitful dreaming

Expectation/intent works for dream recall just like it works for lucidity: if you can build a positive feedback cycle of good results, causing you to *know* that you will recall dreams the next night, etc., it's a great thing.

[...] I've been doing this with just plain visualizing for quite awhile and my dream recall has sky rocketed without the use of a journal or any kind of note taking [...]

Source: http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...tml#post820803.

Originally Posted by livingthedream

My dream recall has been going down for about a month now. I used to be able to remember about two to three vivid dreams per night and for the last month now ive been lucky to remember a dream per night and happy with a few fragments.
I have kept a dream journal throughout my dream journey which started in October of this year.
I just want to keep progressing, not feel like I am going backwards.

I have period where I don't even remember a single dream, I realize that it was cause by variation of sleep(sometime i sleep at 23:00, sometime 22:30 or 00:00).

Thought I should update this thread. After that first of posting, I had another night of dreams but since then I haven't had much success, but I would attribute that to very short sleep cycles (6-7 hours). I have the next 9 days off and will be sleeping full 12 hour cycles i hope with lots of dreams