Let’s begin with dream recall – your ability to remember your dreams. You can improve this primarily by recording your dreams into a dream journal throughout the night and after you wake up, and putting out the intention to remember your dreams before sleeping. Developing a stronger dream recall is important for a few reasons:

Most important - without the ability to dream recall, you wouldn’t be able to remember any successful lucid dreams you have. It would be pointless to put in the effort to learn lucid dream techniques if you forget many of the rewarding experiences soon after.

Secondly, being able to dream recall well will allow you to record your dreams in good detail into your dream journal. Later when you review your journal, you will have an easier time finding your dream signs – unique events that will help you with becoming lucid.

“Dreamless Sleep” and How It Happens

If you can remember at least 1-2 dreams each night, you’re already a few steps ahead and can probably skip this section. If you’re a self-proclaimed “dreamless sleeper” though, it’s important to improve your dream recall.

The fact is that dreamless sleep is rare – most people dream every night. The reason why many people believe they haven’t had any dreams is because they have forgotten them. There are a few reasons for this:

The brain generally clears your previous dream memories when you have your next dream in the same sleep period – so if you have 6 dreams in a night, the memory of your first dream is erased before you have your second, the memory of your second dream is erased before having your third, and the process continues until your last dream.

The memory of your last dream is easily forgotten from the overwhelming feeling of waking up. Before being able to lucid dream successfully, I would only dream recall experiences that were particularly memorable or frightening, which suggests that your mind can prioritize the importance of a dream. Waking up to a stressful alarm clock or worrying about your daily problems first thing in the morning will most likely hinder your chances of successful dream recall.

I would suggest not thinking about anything other than your dream the moment you wake up. It will be particularly difficult at first especially if you lead a stressful daily life, but it will get easier with effort. Focus on recording as many details of your dreams as possible before doing anything else.

Developing Greater Dream Recall

One factor that can affect your ability to dream recall is how much sleep you are getting each night. Being overly tired will not only add stress to waking up, but will also make it much more difficult to recall the dreams you have in the middle of the night. On a quick note, getting plenty of sleep (~8 hours) is also important because your dream periods increase throughout the night, giving you longer dream times closer to the end of your sleeping session.

Common Dream Recall Techniques

So how do you record the dreams you have in the middle of the night if they’re cleared before you have the next dream?

Some people suggest setting an alarm to wake yourself up at 90 minute intervals (important because dream periods occur at these times) from the time you sleep. However, this technique may not work for everyone. I found that my alarm clock woke me up during dreams, which countered my efforts of recording dreams. Not to mention that it was just plain frustrating.

Another technique people have used is to drink plenty of fluids before sleeping. This would ideally wake you up during the middle of the night to allow you to record your dreams. The problem I had with this technique is that it was completely up to chance that you woke up at the proper times. When I did wake up after having a dream, the urge to pee was stronger than my willingness to record the dream and after getting back from the bathroom, I forgot most of the dream.

Dream Recall Intention

What eventually happened was that I would wake up after having a dream in the middle of the night without any external help. This was pretty ideal because I wasn’t distracted by any external cues like alarm clocks and the urge to pee – giving me a good opportunity to record detailed experiences.

I found that the best way to achieve this ability is to put out the intention to wake up after each dream. Do this simply by saying aloud that you will wake up after each dream right before you sleep. Though it may seem foolish to think that you can cause something to happen by intending to do it, you’ll be surprised at how well it works. If using an alarm clock or trying to time your bathroom needs with waking up just isn’t for you, it’s definitely worth a shot.