3 Quick Techniques To Remember Your Dreams

Your dream state is a powerful, malleable world where you can resolve difficult feelings, hone problem-solving abilities, and process a lifetime of memories. Learning how to recall, interpret, and even manipulate your dreams can give you compelling power over this otherwise unconscious experience. Keeping a journal, practicing lucid dreaming, and setting intentions for your dream experience are all ways to better remember your dreams.

Keep a Dream Journal

Keeping a dream journal makes it easy to track your dreams and recognize patterns. This helps you analyze the meaning behind your dreams and do a deep dive into what your unconscious adventures are telling you. Share your dream journal with one of our Psychics for an expert interpretation of these experiences. Working through your dreams can give you some powerful tools for managing your waking emotions as well.

Keeping a dream journal may also help you build a greater awareness of your dream state. In time, this can lead to lucid dreaming, where you can control your dream state.

How To Keep a Dream Diary

Keeping a dream diary is a simple practice that just requires mindfulness and commitment. Set a clear intention when you purchase your dream diary, and aim to write in it every morning. 

Keep your dream diary and writing utensils by your bed so you can record your dreams immediately after waking. Never put off dream journalling, as your memory of the dream will fade quickly once you're wrapped up in the waking world. If you sleep with a partner, keep a small reading light with your journal so you can take notes discreetly, even in the middle of the night. 

Tips for Rocking Your Dream Journaling

Improve the effectiveness of your dream journal by:

• Writing in the present tense: This helps you recall the dream more vividly.
• Including details: Describe faces, places, colors, and symbols as clearly as you can.
• Drawing pictures: Even a rough sketch can jog your memory and improve future dream recall.

The Wake Back to Bed Method

The wake back to bed method is a popular strategy for initiating lucid dreams. If you're itching to manipulate your dreams and engage in fantastical sleeping adventures, this approach can help you enter that state. Since you actively control a lucid dream, you're more likely to remember it as well.

How To Use the WBTB Approach

The principle behind the WBTB method is fairly simple:

• Set your alarm for five or six hours past your bedtime or about two hours before you usually wake up.
• Go to sleep on time.
• Wake up with your alarm and engage in an activity that keeps your brain active for 30 to 60 minutes.
• Go back to sleep with the intention of recognizing your dreams.

Optimizing the WBTB Method

The WBTB method requires quite a bit of trial and error, as everyone is different. Some people prefer to sleep for just three or four hours before waking up. Your period of wakefulness should last for at least 20 minutes and no more than 90, but you can make adjustments within this period. The key is to fully engage your mind while keeping your body relaxed and ready for sleep. Try reading, watching a short video, or doing a word puzzle while you're awake.

Reality Checking and Intention Setting

Reality checking is a type of mental training that enables your mind to notice its awareness of a situation. This activity relies on the prefrontal cortex, which often disengages in the REM state. Learning to reality check is essentially learning how to wake up this part of the brain even when you're asleep. Sound complicated? It's easier than it seems.

How To Perform a Reality Check

Get into the practice of reality checking several times a day. Do this when you're awake (even if you feel silly) and it will become a habit you can carry into your unconscious state. To do a reality check:

• Ask, "Am I dreaming?"
• Evaluate your environment to confirm whether you're waking or dreaming.
  • Look at your hands.
  • Look in a mirror.
  • Glance at the clock several times in a short period.
• Mindfully interact with the world around you and note your observations.
  • Hold your nose and see if you can still breathe.
  • Close your eyes and determine whether you can still see.
  • Press your hands together, or push against a solid object.

If you're dreaming, one of the above tests will likely fail. Your hands or face will appear strange, the clock will rapidly change times, or your hands will pass through solid objects. You may find you can breathe even though you've pinched your nose, and you can still observe your surroundings through closed eyes.

Adding Intention to Your Experience

Enhance your reality check by completing a specific intention in your dream state. Set and practice your intention before going to bed by:

• Clearly stating your intention by saying, "I will realize I'm dreaming."
• Connecting an action to your intention that puts you in control of the dream, such as flying.
• Closing your eyes and vividly picturing yourself completing the action in your dream state.

Repeat these steps right before bed and immediately upon waking. After seven to 10 days of practice, your intention will become so strong you can easily complete it in the dream state.

More Tips for Improving Dream Memory

You can improve your dream recall further by actively improving your sleep state. Here are some tips:

• Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
• Avoid screens for two hours before bed.
• Don't drink alcohol in the evening.
• Destress before bed with soothing activities such as a bath, a puzzle, or an adult coloring book.

Improving dream memory is an exciting practice that can open a new world of insights and experiences. At PathForward, we're passionate about helping you unlock the potential of lucid dreaming and dream interpretation to recognize new depths of your inner soul. Try these powerful practices today.