Do you remember your dreams? After all, everyone sleeps, yet many can’t recall what they dreamt. Improve your dream recall with these easy tips.
How to Remember Your Dreams
Sleeping is crucial for well-being, and dreams are vital. However, did you know everyone dreams, even though many say they don’t? Learn why dream recall is beneficial. Plus, if you want to start remembering dreams, try these tips for an easy way.
Why Dream Recall Helps
What is it about recalling your dreams that prove helpful? Cognitive psychologists who study dreams list many benefits for remembering your dreams. These include the fact that dream recall:
- Improves problem-solving and decision-making.
- Helps you cope with stress.
- May help with life guidance.
- Increases self-awareness.
- May serve as a spiritual healer.
- Helps you understand feelings and emotions better.
- And, finally, remembering your dreams helps you understand what your dreams mean compared to your life. Some call this dream decoding.
When Dreams Occur
While dreams may occur during any of the five sleep stages, most cognitive psychologists suggest that they occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is when the most vivid dreams occur.
- The first REM sleep generally starts after about 90 minutes of sleep. It is also the shortest REM sleep, lasting about 10 minutes.
- However, each successive REM sleep gets longer, eventually lasting 45 minutes to an hour after about 8 hours of sleeping.
Best Tips for How to Remember Your Dreams
While experts, like the Lucid Dream Society, mention many ways to aid dream recall, here are some simple tips to get you started.
Eat Lightly Before Bedtime
The worst thing for a good night’s sleep is overeating too close to bedtime. However, you can snack lightly before retiring and not interfere with your sleep time. Besides, some foods and Vitamin B6 are known to help promote dream recall.
Say a Dream Affirmation
Tell yourself that you’ll remember your dreams before you go to bed. This will help you remember them when you wake up.
Consistently Go to Bed at the Same Time
Regular sleep schedules are tremendously helpful for dream recall. Your body needs to rest, and getting a good night’s sleep, complete with all its sleep stages, will help you remember what you dreamt.
Maintain a Comfortable Sleeping Environment
If you want to ensure a restful sleep, nothing is more conducive to this than sleeping in a comfortable environment. Besides, a good night’s sleep helps you heal.
- Use the highest-quality bedding possible. Bed linens that are soft and luxurious are inviting to sleep.
- Also, keep the thermostat low since cooler temperatures help you sleep better.
- Besides, you can cover up with a light blanket or two if you get too chilly.
- However, there’s more to a good sleep environment than this. Also, guard against ambient noise (unless it’s white noise or a low-speed fan), avoid blue light from electronic devices, keep the shades, blinds, curtains, or drapes closed.
Ask Yourself a Question
Another helpful way to remember your dreams is by asking yourself a question you must answer in the morning. This helps your subconscious process solutions and may aid dream recall.
Get Up in the Night to Remember Your Dreams
While getting up too many times from sleeping can be a nuisance, getting up a few times is beneficial if you want to improve your dream recall.
- However, before leaving bed, keep your eyes closed and stay in the dream as long as possible. This helps you remember the dream when you get out of bed.
- Also, when you get out of bed, jot down any notes you have immediately. Otherwise, you’ll forget them when you’re fully awake. And these quick notes will help with dream recall.
- Besides, most people only remember their last dream, so if you wake up at night, writing down what you remember will help you better recall your dream.
Record Your Dreams
Many dream researchers say the best way to remember your dreams is to record as much as you can recall as soon as possible after you get up. This includes when you get up at night.
- Use a dream journal or diary or record details on your phone.
- Jot down specific bits of detail, and especially dialogue, since words disappear from memory quickly when you get up.
- Also, you can sketch what you remember.
Name Your Dreams
Did you know that giving your dreams a name helps you remember them? Besides, intriguing names can help you recall more about the dream. Try names like “Windy Night,” “Driving down a Desert Highway,” “Dancing at Midnight,” or some other description.
Reminders During the Daytime Can Help
Something you see during the daytime can serve as a trigger to remember your dreams. When this happens, write it down. Then, think about it occasionally during the rest of the day. This may help you remember more dream details.
Try Using a Dream Anchor
A dream anchor is something in your room that you focus on and can use to remind yourself to remember your dream when you see it. This can be a picture, a piece of furniture, a colorful or memorable object, or anything that helps you as a dream remembrance.
Pay Attention to Patterns to Help Dream Recall
Again, here, the small details count. Pay special attention to the room’s temperature, what food you eat, where and how you sleep, and the hour you go to bed and wake up. Aim for consistency.
If You’re a Lucid Dreamer, Write Down What You Dream
Lucid dreamers are rare, but when you are in a lucid dream and know you’re dreaming, you can often control what happens. When you wake up (in the night or the morning), write down as much of your dream as you remember. Over time, you’ll remember more of your dreams and can use this dream journal to help you analyze them.
Adopting some of these tips will improve your ability to remember your dreams.
