Not remembering lucids...

Hey Guys,

Do you guys ever forget lucid experiences?
I think I had a lucid dream last night, and I have a memory of flying for the first time. However, i don't remember much. I think it was really long. That is, if this was even a lucid dream?

Calum

I'll forget one every now and then, especially if there are stil a few REM cycles between it and waking up. Can you force yourself to wake up when you feel the dream fading? Then you could write it down in your DJ.

Okay, to LD09, yup! It frustrates me sometimes, remembering a fragment or so, but my recall has become epic since keeping a regular DJ. I write down everything, no matter how insignificant. After a while, you remember things as easily as in the Waking.

To Seeker, Absolutely! If you're lucid then it is possible to wake yourself up! Most people try to dive into the dream further, so its not a usual request. Whenever things get a bit hot for me I just will myself awake, if that makes any sense.

Sometimes, this includes just telling myself to wake the @#$! up, you know, just stand still and command myself. Other times, if I'm a bit iffy on lucidity, I can feel both my dream body and real body, in which case I just concentrate on my real body. To me it's like being on a road between my two bodies and just moving towards the real as opposed to the dream.

Hope that helps!

alternatively, you can learn to stabilize completely. by that i mean go through a routine that makes you completely grounded and aware of your senses. if you are really 'there' you will remember everything upon waking as if it just happened and you were transported back to bed. to assist in this you can use a specific task - when i am fully lucid i look at my hands before beginning to stabilize. this provides a stable reference point that may trigger a clearer memory of the sequence of events after that.

also, i think it's best to do a minimal amount of activity in a lucid until you can sustain a high level of lucidity. so try to avoid wandering off and doing a bunch of stuff you'll end up forgetting ;).. it definitely takes patience - i still forget this sometimes and completely stray from what i set out to do.

i agree with cygnus. it depends on how lucid i am. sometimes i have been lucid for an hour and not remember much. other times i have been lucid for shorter and remember everything to this day.

so stabilizing/making the dream vivid is the challenge or goal for me.

Strange how such a lucid dream experience that could be such fascinating visitations could be forgotten.

Recalling lucid dreams several days or weeks later usually happens to me when some small detail or element IRL triggers the memory to the dream.

I think I have many LD adventures that to date remain forgotten.

It's a natural human barrier that people seem to face: chronic amnesia
while exploring that border of dreaming & wakefulness.

well yeah, that's because the part of our brain designated for dream memory is extremely short term.

Think of it this way. Long term memory (obviously) can hold a ridiculous amount of information. Next is short term memory, which can hold 7 (+ or - 2) bits of information. so your short term memory can hold anywhere from 5 to 9 bits of information depending on genetics. Finally is the dream memory which hold 2 (+ or -1) bits of information, so your dream memory is designated to hold from 1-3 bits of information.

However unlike Long term memory which (excluding those who suffer from memory problems) stretches indefinately, short term memory lasts about as long as a day (give or take, usually you go through many sets of information set into your short term memory a day, so in reality, 1 day is an estimation. Truthfully the information gets replaced a LOT more often than this). Your dream memory usually only lasts roughly an hour, maybe less. I'm not sure of the figure here, but you understand how it compares to your other memories types.

You know that old adage "In one ear and out the other"? That's a great comparison for the actual situation. The more you learn, unless you take time to commit your dream or short term memory to the long term, as you go about your day, or even go through your morning routine, you WILL forget what you've already learned. This is why if you don't take a few moments to remember your dreams before doing anything else in the mornings, you will lose a lot of detail. Taking that time places this information in the Short term memory, which will hold until you type it out in your DJ, which will begin the process of transfering that to the Long Term memory part of your brain.

The purpose of a DJ is to transfer your dreams from your dream memory to your short term memory, and eventually your long term memory. Otherwise none of us would remember any of this! As you commit more and more dreams to your short, and then long term memory it gets easier. Your brain makes more connections between your dreams and your desire to remember them and places the information in the only place it can exist indefinitely: The Long term Memory.


So... yeah... just a bit of Memory Psychology for you guys.