Remembering Your Dreams: Immediacy

Can you find the time to write what you remember?

It can be tempting when we wake up with a nice clear memory of our dream from the night before to take our time in writing it down. When our dreams seem so sure in our mind, it is easy to forget how quickly they can dissolve in the light of day.  By having a bit of discipline and writing down our dreams as soon as we are able, preferably as soon as we wake up, we are far more likely to capture the essence of our dreams while it still fresh in our minds.  If there isn’t much time to write first thing, try just writing a few key symbols or strong emotions.  You can always come back an update the details later, but even better is to write as much detail as we can in the first place.

Dreams seem to be like ice cream, they just melt away in the sunshine!  So capturing them when we have that precious opportunity is vital.

Remembering Dreams: Address Low Level Anxiety

Relax! Is it time to take a mental break?

By now it should be starting to become apparent that we can’t work on dreams without working on our self, and vice versa.  Our dreams are a product of our mind, and all that we think and feel, and consequently say and do, comes from what is going on in our minds.

As a result, the common stress and anxiety that we feel day to day can have far reaching implications.  If we think of our dreams when we are happy and healthy as like clear, vivid, full colour, high definition film or TV, then dreams when we are stressed or anxious are like trying to watch TV when the aerial has gone, or when static interrupts the channels.  It as if we can see something is going on, sometimes we can make a vague picture, or understand the odd word, but we can’t grasp enough of what is going to make sense of it all.  Anxiety is like static in our brain.

Often we suffer from a consistent but “low-level” anxiety.  This means we are not majorly stressed by worrying about a particular big bad thing (such as the stress of a partner or loved on passing away, moving house, divorce, changing jobs, adding or losing new members to the household and so on), but more that we have a constant sense of worry, of things being not quite right, even though we aren’t sure exactly why.  With low level anxiety like this we may have confusing or stressful dreams that try to work through our concerns, or we may experience the exact opposite.  Sometimes when we are so distracted with stressful thoughts through-out the day, the dreaming mind likes to take a bit of a holiday when we are asleep, and use the excuse to forget about all our hassles and concerns and let our imagination loose on something fun and light and happy and above all – stress free.   This can be a great release for us, a way to cope with pressures that otherwise might feel too much to bear.

The trouble is, we are so used to thinking these stressful thoughts that when we wake, the first thing that pops into our head are all the things we have do that day, all the things we didn’t finish yesterday, all the things we have to worry about tomorrow.  And any memory we might have had of a happy, stress-free dream vanishes like snow under a blow torch.

Now, if we can learn to remember our happy dreams, we can carry that feeling into our waking lives and feel less anxious.  If we can learn to remember our problem solving dreams, we can apply those solutions in our waking life and feel less anxious.  And when we fell less anxious, we are more likely to remember our dreams, because we won’t be worrying the first thing when we wake up, right?  So this is what we refer to as positive reinforcement.

The trick is to break the negative loop that makes us feel anxious and forget our dreams.  We can do this by a few different approaches.  Try different ones and see what works best for you, it may mean focusing on one thing or a combination of methods.

1. Identify the cause.  I am personally a great believer in trying to identify the cause of my anxiety.  It is usually something I have put off doing that I know I really should, or something I don’t want to think about.  I find, by simply doing the task at last, or facing up to the thing I have been avoiding, is often enough to make my anxiety vanish.
2. Make a list of what you can control and what you can’t.  Tell yourself there is really no point worrying about the things you can’t change, but then put steps beside the things you can and give yourself a nice, unstressed time period to do these things in.  If you feel powerless but anxious about global warming, chose some activities that make a real difference in your life, such as taking up recycling, catching public transport, or even joining an action group; if it is economic concerns, try drawing up a personal budget, making an appointment with a financial planner or setting out a plan to get rid of your credit card debt.  What ever it is, recognise that you can take control over your own situation.  As you gain a a sense of personal power, low level anxiety often diminishes or goes away completely.
   

   We can use our awareness to reduce the static that anxiety causes in our minds

3. Practice self awareness.  Anxiety is often a gnawing feeling at the back of our mind, and even though we feel uncomfortable, we don’t admit it to ourselves.  If we start to recognise that we are in fact stressed, we can start to do something about it.  If we practice paying attention to what the first thoughts are that come into our minds when we wake in the morning, this is often a good clue.  We should all most of the time wake thinking “mmm, what a lovely sleep, what fascinating, beautiful dreams, oh I am so lucky to be alive!  What a wonderful day I have ahead!”  (Wouldn’t it be nice?) On the other hand, if we wake thinking “Got to get up, got that meeting today and didn’t finish the presentation yesterday so best get in early, and didn’t do my ironing last night but need to wear my good shirt for the presentation, and think it’s rubbish day today, and when is the credit card payment due?…”  You get the picture.  As we start to notice what we think, we can start to change it if we don’t like it.  We can take back control of our run-away thoughts.
4. Practice physical and mental relaxation.  We all have our own ways.  For some it is meditation or yoga, for others it is golf or running, or sewing, gardening, fishing or making model planes.  Whatever it is that makes you relax, take time out, and focus the channel of your mind so you get rid of that static, it is a good idea to make time for that in your life.  It really can make a difference.
5. Remember to breathe.  I know it sounds crazy because we all breathe to stay alive, sure.  But whenever you feel anxious when you are awke, when you first wake from sleeping, just stop the run-away mind for a moment and breathe.  Do it consciously, deliberately – think about it.  Beathe in and out deeply.  Do this at least three times and chances are you will better than you could have expected for such a seemingly simple thing.  Breathe…….breathe………………breathe………………………………..

So it may seem strange to some to say that fishing or paying off the credit card will help you remember your dreams better, but the fact is, the more we can free our minds to do what they are meant to do, which is help us, teach us, heal and inspire us, the better our minds will be able to serve us.  Our dreaming lives and waking lives are not as separate as we may think.  A few small changes in one area can result in great rewards in another.  And the beauty is, that once we start making positive changes, the reinforcing loop will help keep us going for the better.

Remembering Your Dreams: Try Again Later

A lot of conventional wisdom on remembering dreams insists we should write them down immediately upon

Sometimes the best way to remember a dream is to forget about it until later

 waking, that preferably we should wake naturally, and spend some time in bed letting the dreams crystallise before we get up or even talk to anyone.  I agree this is the most likely way to recall dreams.  But how possible is this for most of us, most of the time?  Chances are, such luxuries are confined to rare holiday breaks or being sick and stuck in bed!

The good news is, that even if we can’t experience the ideal awakening, we can still work on remembering our dreams – later in the day.  A dream that has not had a chance to come to light at all can be a bit like a cleanly amputated finger (sorry for the macabre symbolism!  Stick with me!)  That is, as long as the dream is complete and untampered with, it can actually survive for a limited time on its own.  If you try to remember the dream during the day when you are distracted and listening to other conversations or absorbed in other tasks, it can result in the dream being half remembered, confused, and then forgotten.  Cut off from the source of your consciousness, it will shrivel and die.

But leave it alone, don’t even think about it, and it can be like putting the finger on ice.  Then, when you have all the necessary equipment, which in the case of remembering dreams is primarily space and time to be undisturbed, and you may be able to effect a full recovery.  What dream recall needs is your full dedicated attention, but not to be forced.  You need to be able to relax, close your eyes, and let your mind drift away.  If the dream has not been “bothered” through-out the day, so the memory has no stress or sense of effort attached to it, you may find your dream comes simply floating back of its own accord.  (Even if you did leap out bed when the alarm rang or the baby cried and immediately started to think about the 50 million things you had to do that day.)

Dreams can come back later in the day if you invite them, rather than force them.  It may be when you have a bath, just go into the bedroom or living room (with the TV off!) and lie down and close your eyes for a few minutes.  You may even find that you remember your dreams from the night before just as you are drifting off to sleep the next night.  If this is the case, it’s often a good idea to rouse your self and write the dream down then.  This will “clear” your mind so that there is space for a new dream to come, and allow you progress with your dreams, instead of trying to revisit the same things night after night because you haven’t had the time to remember.

The important thing to realise though, is just because you don’t remember your dream straight away, doesn’t mean you can’t try and recall it later on.  Try and do it the same day though.  Dreams tend to have a short life span without being pinned down to paper, and will dissolve in your memory to make way for the next one.  So if you think you don’t dream, instead of trying to remember your dreams when you wake up, look out for them making a guest appearance as you fall asleep!

I don’t dream, or do I?

If we all dream, why don't we all remember?

Just as surely as your dreams want to be understood, so too do they want to be remembered.  And yet not remembering dreams, or denying even having them, is one of the most common remarks I hear about dreaming.  We now know that scientific evidence indicates that everyone dreams, whether they recall those dreams or not.  There do seem to be some very rare exceptions, and these cases involve damage to a particular part of the brain.

If you or someone you know isn’t remembering their dreams, there could be a variety of reasons why, including:

• They don’t want to.  This could because they don’t value their dreams, they might see dreams as just random firings of the brain, they may have been ridiculed when young for talking about dreams and this learned behaviour taught them dreams were trivial and unimportant.  Another reason is that the dreams they have might be too confronting or difficult to deal with in everyday life.  This sometimes happens when people have been traumatised in some way, their dreams are trying at a subconscious level to deal with their suffering, and it might be too much to for the waking mind to deal with straight away.
• Alcohol and drugs, particularly certain sleep inducing medication, have been shown to reduce the quality of REM sleep, where dreams often occur and are easier to remember.  This creates the effect of feeling that you have had a deep sleep, and even though dreams can occur in non-REM sleep they are far more difficult to recall.  (Some drugs however, especially nicotine patches and hypertension medication are know to have the alternative effect and induce strangely vivid dreams or even nightmares!)
• Being over-tired.  The sleep of the exhausted is somewhat similiar to the sleep of the intoxicated, in that the natural sleep cycles are altered, with far less REM sleep and greater “deep sleep.”
• Sudden waking and a busy lifestyle.  Waking to an alarm or baby crying, leaping immediately out of bed and rushing to do whatever it is needs to be done means the mind has no time to reflect on what was just going on in sleep.  If you have the luxury of waking naturally, maybe even just when on holidays, you should notice that with a little effort, your dream recall can increase quite dramatically – provided of course you weren’t out getting totally drunk the night before!
• Paying attention.  The ability to remember dreams comes very naturally to some, but even they can improve and someone who never remembers their dreams at all can learn to by giving it a little attention.  Like any skill, it improves with practice and dedication.

So the good news, if you really want to and you are committed, chances are you can do a lot to remember your dreams.  But if you are harbouring some latent skepticism, mistrust, fear or disrespect of your dreams and your subconscious, you will eventually have to address those hidden feelings before your dreams come to you freely.

Remembering Your Dreams – Fake Sleepiness!

Dreams can be slippery little suckers.  You wake up knowing you have dreamed, but when you try to remember what it was, to put words to it, they can slip away and leave you with nothing more than a vague impression or sensation, like a mist at the back of your mind that clears gradually as the normal business of going about your day takes over.

That is why, if you can, you should try and take a couple of moments straight after waking before you get up and physically leave the dreaming space of your bed.  Keep your eyes closed for a few moments, don’t speak – if your partner tries to wake you just murmur sleepily and roll over – these few precious moments can make all the difference in grasping at least a single image or word from your dream.  Hang onto that, write it down.  When you have more time later this single image will be like a key that lets you back into the dream.  You may start to remember things that happened just before it or just after it – but in any case you should be able to build on what you had, instead of having nothing at all.