by Josh
Back in elementary school I was in a class in which we did a study on dreams. Not just meanings of dreams and facts and the like, but actually ways to remember them. Not only was it pretty sweet to be able to wake up and remember a lot of the stuff you just dreamed, but it was cool to go back months later and check out the dream journal we kept and right then, vividly remember the dreams I had months before.
Hopefully something I’ll be able to do here on a monthly basis is post an “assignment” of sorts. An activity for you to do that will, in some way, provide a better understanding of yourself or your surroundings.
So this months assignment is to remember your dreams.
“How the flip flop do I do that Josh?” Ah, good question. Yes, there really is a methodology to this and yes, if done correctly, it will work.
Step 1.
When you lay down to go to sleep say out loud “Remember your dreams.” repeatedly. Say it atleast 10-20 times. The key here is “out loud.” Doing this trains your brain/memory to do just that…remember your dreams. All dreams are in some way affected by day-to-day thoughts/activities/etc and audibly saying “Remember your dreams.” puts the action into your brain.
Step 2.
After audibly saying “Remember your dreams.”, say it to yourself another 10-20 times. The same reason as Step 1 applies to this.
Step 3.
Make sure you have a notepad right beside your bed and the second you wake up, roll over and start writing. Write as many details about your dreams as you can.
Step 4.
There is no step 4.
That’s all there is to it. Yes, you might feel like an idiot saying “Remember your dreams” out loud, but that’s a HUGE key to this working. It might take a few nights for things to get moving with this and for you to vividly remember your dreams, but after getting in a habit of it you’ll train your brain to do it automatically.
Our dreams are some of the most creative things our brains throw together and being able to remember them can be extremely rewarding.
Good luck and sweet dreams!
Usually when I wake up and remember my dreams the first thing I say to myself is “Oh my, I’d better forget that as soon as possible.”
Still, I can imagine keeping a dream diary is a great way to get your arms around your thoughts and feelings.
I’m going to give it a try!
Josh,
cool idea. have you read any of the research on REM sleep and the brain’s experimental “remixing” of dream content? i’m trying an experiment now where I’m encouraging people to blog their “big dreams” (different kind of dreaming) in a meme entitled “Opensource Goals Meme” Should be an interesting social experiement if it catches on. Check it out->
http://www.scrollinondubs.com/index.cfm/2006/3/3/Opensource-Goals-Meme-a-social-experiment-in-becoming-write-brained
sean
it really does work. i used to write down my dreams and within just a few weeks, i started having dreams that were lucid (hyper-real and totally under my control). i should start doing that again…
I’m not consistent, but I write down some of my dreams. An optional step 4 could be writing down the connections between things in the dream and their connection to aspects of real life. I find it interesting when reading back.
This could be done later in the day since nobody really wants to have to think hard about anything upon waking up.
The next step after remembering your dreams is lucid dreaming–being able to “wake up” and remain conscious inside your dreams…
Yes it does work and step four is lucid dreaming. Step five for me was taking control of my dreams. All I wanted to do was actively/simply look at my hand as a first step. For the longest time it didn’t work with even characters in my dream telling me I couldn’t! Finally it happened and have been able to use this process on and off for years. It may seem like work but I actually wake up more refreshed afterwards. The dreamworld is a great place to explore your creativety and use those images and ideas in the real world.
I used to do this years ago, just the writing-it-down part after I woke up, and it works pretty consistently. It has it’s downside though, in that you also remember your nightmares really well and sometimes bad dreams will stay with you all day, when for most people they fade rapidly after waking up.
Sounds a little crazy but even crazier enough to work….lol.
About nightmares–both my daughters have told me that they consider nightmares to be “good dreams” because it’s such a relief to wake up and discover they aren’t true!
Besides lucid dreaming there is also Gestalt dreamwork–a projective therapy whereby every visual aspect of your dream is understood to represent an aspect of your own psyche.
How do you lucid dream? I’ve had a few, but that was when I was on some really messed up sleep schedule, so it was more like hallucinating than lucid dreaming.
Remembering your dreams is really easy, you just need to write them down as soon as you wake up. Just this morning I remembered my dream, but I didn’t write it down, now that it’s evening time, I have no clue what my dream was about.
To those of you who remember and keep dream journals, do you find them helpful? I mean can you really make a connection between your dreams and your life? Do the dreams have some sort of secret message in them?
I’ve been using the technique of morning pages, as described by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way (basically 3 pages of longhand writing done first thing in the morning). Quite a few times I’ve used this to record my dreams, but I’ve never tried the verbal command/prompting before for dreams. I remember when I was a kid I used to tell my body to wake me up at a certain time, I think by saying that time 10 times before I went to sleep, and I remember that used to really work. I wonder what else we could tell our minds to do before we fall asleep?
Dreams
One of my favorite blogs, To-Done!, gave out an assignment to its readers this day. The task was to remember ones dreams.I've never had trouble remembering my dreams. My dreams have always been…
I’ve heard this technique somewhere as well… and there was also mentioned that “say it out loud” had an important meaning.
That step #3 is also very important. The pen & paper must be near… and working :)
This technique works well.
Lucid dreaming takes practice, and a full nights rest. stress and exhaustion makes it nearly impossible – for me anyways.
I was at the point where I could literaly pick anything I wanted to dream about, then make active, deliberate descicions in the dream. Absolutley amazing feeling to wake up after you though you already where – because the dreams were so real.
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Thank u very much for your tips.
I do remeber things better.
Wasim Shaikh