Can you create dream signs?

My dream recall is really bad, so i looked after some technic or hint which helps me improve my dream recall. Many people said dreams sometimes came back to mind if you heard a word during the day which appeared in the dream before, so the idea is that i suggest myself a word which would appear in my dream then in the morning i recall the word hopefully with the dream.

Maybe there is easier way to remember dreams but how should i lead a dream journal if i dont remember my dreams?

(my english is horrible too, sorry for that:roll:)

I'm in the same boat as you, mon ami. Before I do anything else I desperately need to improve my recall. I didn't have much luck with my first serious try last night, but I was just winging it without having read any tutorial-type stuff here. Hopefully as I try more and read more it'll get easier.

And your English is actually better than most of the kids I went to high school with ^^

Eh, you don't need to type a whole page of dreams in your DJ for it to work, just start small, like writting how you felt after waking up or the like. Also, from what I know, yes, you can induce a dream sign.

I started doing a project a week ago to induce dreamsigns because, like you, I never really had any concrete dreamsigns. So far my dreams have had a dreamsign every night (I'm still conditioning myself to RC when I see them though. I'm going to wait until the end of April and if my success rate continues - and, of course, I get to LD a few times - I'll type up my method.

LloydWallace: well good luck for us!:)

Walms: really? i try to lead my dream journal with your tips, thx:)

Bobblehat: i remind myself to say out the word during the Reallity Checks, if i have succes i will tell you too!:)

Just to reinforce what Bobblehat said you can definitely create dream signs. And yes if you succeed in doing so it should help you remember the dream. The more vivid you imagine something the better so instead of a word alone think of a word then imagine yourself seeing that word manifesting itself in some spectacular way in your dream. If you see it that night you'll likely wake up from the dream excited it worked and should have a clear memory of at least that moment.

Hi Mond

Here is the technique I used to create my own dreamsigns. So far my dreams have included one or more of the dreamsigns every night. I've become lucid twice, but I'd like to point out that I became lucid twice in the presence of dreamsigns, and not because I recognised they were a dreamsign, though (speculation) maybe I recognised the dreamsigns on an unconscious level.

I'd like to point out that I probably did much more than was necessary to create my dreamsigns, but I enjoy using my imagination and memory anyway, so no harm done.

1) I memorised all my dreams in my DJ (about 200+). I memorised them so well that I could go through the list at any time of the day - walking home from work, lying in bed last thing at night etc, without needing a written list to prompt me.

2) I found that certain features of my memorised dreams were "recycled" by my new dreams, as though the dreams were picking "ingredients" from my memorised dreams.

3) The feature I found to be recycled the most was people. These were:

Mum
Dad
Brother
Close friend Darren
Old work colleague Doug
Wife
Old work colleague Bruce
Close friend Andy
Old friend (and now non-friend!) Craig

4) I went through my list of dreams I memorised, and for each dream I imagined one of the above people/dreamsigns featuring in the dream in some way. For example:

Dream = I go back to my old place of work and the security guard has two gigantic glass tanks full of orange water.
Dreamsign = Dad

"New" dream = I go past the tanks and see my dad trapped inside one and banging on the glass to get out.

(As you will see, I tried to add the person/dreamsign (my dad, in this case) in an imaginative way.

5) I did this with all 200+ dreams and memorised the list until it was almost as though the DS was a part of the original dream memory.

______________________

Throughout the day I've been going through my list of dreams (with the DS featuring) and visualising myself recognising the dreamsign, asking, "Am I dreaming", reality checking and then flying off.

I've also been imagining seeing my dreamsigns around town, at work etc. I've also been aware of "lookalikes": because it's unlikely that I'll see the above people in day-to-day life, if I see someone who looks like, say, Craig (Bald and fat) I RC.

Take from that what you will. I'd imagine it would be worth experimenting with memorising perhaps just ten dreams and seeing how the elements of the dreams feature again in future dreams. Perhaps if someone has zero - or very little - recall of dreams they could just memorise ten events that happened to them in the last day or week and their subsequent dreams may utilise aspects of those experiences. I have no idea if that would work - I can only speak from my own experience.

As far as recall goes, I have remembered "forgotten" dreams when I wake just by going through my list of nine people and asking, "Did I dream about that person?"

Experiments:

1)I want to experiment with trying to condition a dreamsign that has never featured in a dream so far. Something dream related may help? Something like:

Stephen LaBerge
A copy of ETWOLD
The word, "DREAM"
Someone doing a reality check
Finding myself suddenly flying
etc.

2)I'm experimenting with strategies to make my dreams more vivid. For this I have applied a similar strategy: I go through a list of past dreams and imagine them being more vivid (especially frightening) than they actually were. I then re-memorise this vivid dream. It's like a "false memory" kind of thing. That experiment is in the early stages, but some of the vivid scenes are starting to feature in my dreams.