Are you having trouble remembering your dreams? Well don’t despair! Here are a few things you can do that will almost certainly improve your dream recall:
1. Set your intention.
It is a universal law that whatever we pay more attention to we will get more of. This applies to dream recall as it does to everything. When you go to bed at night tell yourself that you intend to remember your dream in the morning. Having a dream journal and a pencil ready to go beside your bed is a good idea.
Certain images may help stimulate dream recall, especially if viewed just before sleep. Click here to look at a slideshow of images I have assembled that may intrigue and inspire the dream-making part of your brain.
2. Allow yourself time to drift up to the surface in the morning.
It is very difficult to remember a dream if you are jarred out of bed by an alarm clock. So, as many mornings as you can, allow yourself the luxury of drifting slowly awake. At these times you are on the shoreline between sleep and waking, between your unconscious and conscious minds, and this half in/half out state is when you will have the best chance to remember your dreams. In this state you can practice going back into the dream and retrieving more details.
3. Make sure you anchor the dream before it drifts away.
Many people will remember a dream clearly and vividly in the morning, only to find that a few hours later they have completely lost it! This is because they did not anchor the dream; they did not do whatever it takes to get the memory of the dream stored securely into their long-term memory circuits.
Anchoring is different for different people. Some people need to write the dream down, while others need to speak it aloud. Some need to go over it a few times in their mind, and for others it’s enough just to jot down one or two key features of the dream. Find out what you need to do to anchor your dreams and start doing it. Don’t assume that you have anchored the dream just by writing it down; for many people this is not enough. They will have no real memory of the dream when they read what they have written a week or two later. Often these people find that they need to revisit the dream a few times during the day to anchor it properly.
4. Revisit an old dream.
If you are in a dry spell of dream recall and can’t seem to remember any dreams at all, one of the most effective things is to revisit an old dream. Go through the old dream in your mind as if you had just had it recently. It is usually best to pick one that has stayed with you for some reason, one that makes you feel that the mystery has not been solved and the message has not yet been fully understood. This can give your unconscious mind a jolt, and it may respond by sending you a good dream.
5. Give the dream a name.
It is a very good practice to name your dreams, preferably quite soon after having them. This will help you cultivate the habit of taking your dreams seriously and thinking about the messages contained in them.
The name of the dream should reflect the most important feature of the dream, so naming a dream forces you to consider what the dream may have been about. And it will help you remember your dream better – once you have gone through the process of thinking about a dream, deciding what the most striking thing about it is, and naming it accordingly, you will not likely forget it.