How to remember dreams?
The reason why we dream hasn’t been scientifically proven yet. But we all know that dreaming is a wonderful and mysterious experience. I always wanted to remember what I dreamed about last night. Just like that, out of curiosity. In what other situations remembering our dreams can be useful?
Knowing your dreams means knowing your interior life. It is a chance to look deep into yourself and see what emotions, hopes, fears and dreams are stuck in your subconscious. The ability to remember dreams is also useful if you want to embark on a journey of LD (Lucid Dreaming). If you don’t know anything about Lucid Dreaming yet, make sure to browse the internet to find out more about it. It is an amazing experience when you know that you’re dreaming and at the same time you can completely control the dream. Apart from that, dreams are the most known source of inspirations and creative ideas. Just look at the paintings of Salvador Dali and realize what a wealth of ideas can be hidden in dreams.
It probably often happens to you that you wake up and you don’t remember any of your dreams. You think then, that you were simply not dreaming that night. It turns out, however, that you’re wrong. In fact, we all have several, or even a dozen dreams per night. Your task now is to learn how to remember as many of them as possible.
Do you want to remember a few dreams every day? It’s actually very easy. All you have to do is start your dream journal. A notebook and a pen is all that is needed. Keep them close to you bed so that you can describe your dream just after waking up in the morning. Even if you note down only separate words, bits and pieces, don’t give up. Once you get up, however, make sure to write down the dream with all the details you can recall. If you lack time to do it, write down keywords that will exhaustively describe the entire dream.
The very fact of writing it down (even if you won’t be able to read the note again) makes you remember the dream for a long time (I still remember most of my dreams from last year!). After a week of noting your dreams you will be able to remember a few dreams a day. Before you are in the habit of remembering a few dreams a day, you can do exercises that can help you in the beginning. So how to effectively memorize dreams?
1. Affirmations – Every evening before falling asleep speak to yourself in a confident voice – “ After waking up, I will remember all my dreams”. Of course, the content of the affirmations is completely up to you. Remember, however, about using positive words (a sentence such as “I will remember my dreams” is much more effective than “I won’t forget my dreams”. Pay attention to the fact that these are not just words, give each affirmation enough emotional charge, let these words be dripping with confidence and faith in remembering dreams.
2. Visualizations – Before falling asleep imagine how you wake up in the morning remembering all the dreams that you had. Think about what it is like when you wake up, and many images appear in your mind, and you remember all the dreams one by one. Experience thefeeling of satisfaction that comes from the fact that you are able to recall an interesting dream.
3. Practice your recall memory - before you fall asleep, review the day in reverse. Think of yourself as if you were just going to bed, before which you brushed your teeth, took a shower and ate supper. Keep on reviewing until the early morning. In the process of recalling dreams our brain works in reverse. It firstly recalls the end of the dream and then continues towards the beginning of it. By practicing this mechanism, you can significantly improve it.
4. Every now and then read you dream journal. Read through what you have recently dreamt about. Think about the dreams, try to figure out what they could mean, look through them again in your imagination.
5. A blank mind? When you wake up in the morning and realize that you don’t remember any dream - do not get up from bed, it's best not to even move. Try to search your mind for the dream. Search for key words, focus on your emotional state, which sometimes can be the result of the dream that you just woke up from. More than once did I recall the dream after a few minutes of lying down like that.
To the first three of these exercises, at the beginning of keeping your dream jurnal, devote approximately 15 minutes. Put your heart into it. Believe that from now on, every morning you'll recall a few dreams and you’ll be enriched by a great source of knowledge about yourself. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn about yourself from the inside, look within yourself and sometimes even get interesting signals from your subconscious.
You may also notice the extent to which reality has an impact on the world of your dreams. Think about how many new things you can learn about yourself? How many creative visions, solutions and answers can be found in your dreams? Get started today in the evening and later on share what you remember. Have colorful dreams! :)