4 ms·

This was a really enjoyable read - thank you for posting. I've always had difficulty remembering my dreams after waking, so I'm almost jealous of the amount of

This was a really enjoyable read - thank you for posting. I've always had difficulty remembering my dreams after waking, so I'm almost jealous of the amount of detail and realism he was able to retain, but then again, I guess 3 weeks of nothing but dreaming would do that

bfrydl 8y ago
If you want to remember your dreams you can train yourself to do so. Keep a journal on your nightstand. The moment you wake up, write down all the details you can remember. After doing this for a while, you will remember more and more and the memories won't fade so easily. You can also cheat a bit in my experience by waking up maybe 45-90 mins before you normally would, then going back to sleep. The dreams you have in this period should be more vivid and easier to remember.
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  How do you ever remember to write in it after waking? I'm lucky if I remember deodorant first thing in the morning. I'm usually good 5-10 minutes after waking, but before then I rarely do things like shower and sometimes won't even make coffee. I guess I can talk to folks and be really mean at first - I don't remember these outbursts, though. It gets worse with bad sleep hygiene.
  - nessus42 8y ago
    I'm just like you in the morning, but I was asked to keep a dream journal for a creative writing class. I was sure it wouldn't work, but it did. Put the journal (opened to the right page) and pen right beside your bed where you can't miss it when you wake up. Write down anything that's in your head, even if it's just, "I don't remember anything." Eventually, you'll start remembering dreams vividly and be able to write them down. Or at least this seems to work for most people. I have no idea why. Of course, it probably doesn't work for everyone. But then again, what does?
  - bemmu 8y ago
    Have the notebook next to you in bed with a pen ready. If you need to get up to do it, you'll often forget all or most of your dream by the time you get to the notebook.
    - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
      That's the thing: I do have a pen and paper by my bed - mostly for those "going to sleep" thoughts but also so I always know where one is. I never remember until I've been awake and moving around for a bit. :)
- voldacar 8y ago
  Sounds like a fun experiment. I'll try this and report back in a month
- redka 8y ago
  You can also - and this has worked very well for me - do a little affirmation in your head before you fall asleep. Just say to yourself a few times: "I'm going to remember (all) my dreams". This is super easy and very effective. After a few days/weeks I was able to remember several dreams that I had that night. The cheating you mentioned also works very well and you can actually do it a few times with each nap being 10-20 minutes.
echelon 8y ago
I'm always curious about expository writing like this. I have pretty bad ADHD, so unless the topic is interesting or the information is summarized, I'd rather pay money than be forced to read it. (I noped out of this article pretty quickly.) What makes reading articles in this style interesting? It takes a lot of time, so there's definitely an opportunity cost.
- joecool1029 8y ago
  >I have pretty bad ADHD, so unless the topic is interesting .... to you >What makes reading articles in this style interesting? People who are interested in the topic find detailed articles on that topic interesting.
joecool1029 8y ago
Everyone is different. When I was young, I was a natural lucid dreamer and had substantial recall. I wrote tons of my dreams down. There wasn't a time I thought this was unusual until many years later in school after my recall declined. When I reached high school, a teacher had explained the concept of lucid dreaming to a class that seemed skeptical. There was one other student aside from me that experienced them. In response to discovering this 'oddity', I ended up joining a community to log my experiences and discuss them... there's a large variability in the kinds of dreams and the ability to induce them. I ended up meeting my last gf on that community and she never had a lucid (her dreams were mostly fragments of the prior day's events) Mine weren't like that. Sometimes I would just fly around in environments that were similar to what I experienced in life. I would often just test to see what I could do (move objects with my mind, that sound of crap). Oftentimes, I would just live out daily events as either a different person or myself in another time and place. A hallmark of my logs was the amount of time I experienced in each dream, when I was very young I would experience what would feel like a week in a night. There were times it felt even longer, one time in kindergarten I lived out a portion of gradeschool and woke up crying because I realized the friends I made there wouldn't be in the real world. Today, I am an infrequent dreamer and not active in that community anymore. I can occasionally induce a short lucid dream if I have a quiet morning to myself and set an alarm to wake up a bit early. I find my recall goes up when I am teaching myself things. The recall is not related to the material I'm learning. So yeah, there's some variability in dreaming.
- kamih 8y ago
  It's interesting that you mention your recall increases when you're learning things. I've recently started learning and practicing new music, and when I focus, fragments of old dreams just randomly appear in my head.

bfrydl 8y ago

If you want to remember your dreams you can train yourself to do so. Keep a journal on your nightstand. The moment you wake up, write down all the details you can remember. After doing this for a while, you will remember more and more and the memories won't fade so easily. You can also cheat a bit in my experience by waking up maybe 45-90 mins before you normally would, then going back to sleep. The dreams you have in this period should be more vivid and easier to remember.

Broken_Hippo 8y ago
How do you ever remember to write in it after waking? I'm lucky if I remember deodorant first thing in the morning. I'm usually good 5-10 minutes after waking, but before then I rarely do things like shower and sometimes won't even make coffee. I guess I can talk to folks and be really mean at first - I don't remember these outbursts, though. It gets worse with bad sleep hygiene.
- nessus42 8y ago
  I'm just like you in the morning, but I was asked to keep a dream journal for a creative writing class. I was sure it wouldn't work, but it did. Put the journal (opened to the right page) and pen right beside your bed where you can't miss it when you wake up. Write down anything that's in your head, even if it's just, "I don't remember anything." Eventually, you'll start remembering dreams vividly and be able to write them down. Or at least this seems to work for most people. I have no idea why. Of course, it probably doesn't work for everyone. But then again, what does?
- bemmu 8y ago
  Have the notebook next to you in bed with a pen ready. If you need to get up to do it, you'll often forget all or most of your dream by the time you get to the notebook.
  - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
    That's the thing: I do have a pen and paper by my bed - mostly for those "going to sleep" thoughts but also so I always know where one is. I never remember until I've been awake and moving around for a bit. :)
voldacar 8y ago
Sounds like a fun experiment. I'll try this and report back in a month
redka 8y ago
You can also - and this has worked very well for me - do a little affirmation in your head before you fall asleep. Just say to yourself a few times: "I'm going to remember (all) my dreams". This is super easy and very effective. After a few days/weeks I was able to remember several dreams that I had that night. The cheating you mentioned also works very well and you can actually do it a few times with each nap being 10-20 minutes.

echelon 8y ago

I'm always curious about expository writing like this. I have pretty bad ADHD, so unless the topic is interesting or the information is summarized, I'd rather pay money than be forced to read it. (I noped out of this article pretty quickly.) What makes reading articles in this style interesting? It takes a lot of time, so there's definitely an opportunity cost.

joecool1029 8y ago
>I have pretty bad ADHD, so unless the topic is interesting .... to you >What makes reading articles in this style interesting? People who are interested in the topic find detailed articles on that topic interesting.

joecool1029 8y ago

Everyone is different. When I was young, I was a natural lucid dreamer and had substantial recall. I wrote tons of my dreams down. There wasn't a time I thought this was unusual until many years later in school after my recall declined. When I reached high school, a teacher had explained the concept of lucid dreaming to a class that seemed skeptical. There was one other student aside from me that experienced them. In response to discovering this 'oddity', I ended up joining a community to log my experiences and discuss them... there's a large variability in the kinds of dreams and the ability to induce them. I ended up meeting my last gf on that community and she never had a lucid (her dreams were mostly fragments of the prior day's events) Mine weren't like that. Sometimes I would just fly around in environments that were similar to what I experienced in life. I would often just test to see what I could do (move objects with my mind, that sound of crap). Oftentimes, I would just live out daily events as either a different person or myself in another time and place. A hallmark of my logs was the amount of time I experienced in each dream, when I was very young I would experience what would feel like a week in a night. There were times it felt even longer, one time in kindergarten I lived out a portion of gradeschool and woke up crying because I realized the friends I made there wouldn't be in the real world. Today, I am an infrequent dreamer and not active in that community anymore. I can occasionally induce a short lucid dream if I have a quiet morning to myself and set an alarm to wake up a bit early. I find my recall goes up when I am teaching myself things. The recall is not related to the material I'm learning. So yeah, there's some variability in dreaming.

kamih 8y ago
It's interesting that you mention your recall increases when you're learning things. I've recently started learning and practicing new music, and when I focus, fragments of old dreams just randomly appear in my head.