Seven Steps to Better Recall

We all dream from four to twenty times a night.  We dream those dreams in color and in wonderful vividness.  But upon awakening it is easy to forget the adventures we live each night.  Here are some very simple ways you can hold on to the usefulness and excitement of you dreams:

1.  Keep a pen and paper at your bedside.

2.  Get enough sleep.  Most of us really do need 7 to 8 or more hours to feel our best, and  to recall our dreams easily. If you need an alarm to wake you or a cup of coffee to feel good in the morning you are probably are not getting enough sleep.

3.  Before sleep, write out your day notes in your journal.  Just four lines about what you did and felt today.  This will greatly increase your recall in the morning.

4.  Wake up naturally. This way you will usually awaken right after your longest dream of the night.  If you are getting enough sleep you won't have to be battered to wake by an alarm clock.

5.  Lie still for a moment and learn to ask yourself, "What was just going through my mind."  Form the habit of thinking this thought before you ask yourself what day it is, or what you have to do today.

6.  Take your time and write out your dream in any way you remember it.  If you are rushed, jot down a few notes.  They may suffice to bring back the dream when you have more time.

7.  If you don't remember a dream,  write out one sentence about what ever you were feeling or whatever first came into your mind as you awoke.  In time this habit will convince your memory that forgetting a dream will not get you out of the natural resistance to putting pen to paper. Within one or two weeks, almost every one I have ever worked with starts recalling dreams using these steps.  If you do not, read another book on dreams, and ask yourself if you are for some reason anxious about remembering your dreams. Most likely, you are not following one of the steps!

Beginning Your Dream Journal

Keeping a dream journal will add excitement, mystery, romance, and I hope, a great deal of insight to your life.  A journal will show you that your dreams are rich and usually very well constructed from a dramatic and meaning point of view.  Five minutes of journaling will help you recall your dreams more fully and accurately.  Your mornings will be full of recalled adventures, and you will keep the dream from vanishing so you can interpret it later in the day.  The difficulty in recalling dreams for most of those who follow these simple instructions for a week or two is not in recalling too few dreams, but in remembering too many.  If this happens to you, decide how many dreams you care to record per week, and let the rest go. One dream a day is usually enough to satisfy most people, and one dream a week is enough to keep you busy if you study it closely.

Recording your dreams can be a pleasure, and if you include the information suggested below, your dream journal will assist you in understanding your dreams. At the Delaney & Flowers Dream Center, students use the following format:

Sample Dream Journal Page

Here is an example of a page from the journal of Bertrand, a cabinet maker who would like to be a writer as well.

If you use a new, dated page for each dream you recall, you will have plenty of space to write your commentary at the time you recall the dream, after an interview, or during a monthly or yearly review of your dream journal.  Brief, but careful day notes will be a great aid to recalling the specific waking context that led to a particular dream.  Frequently, the issues you outline in your day notes are the very ones you will dream about that night.

If you are beginning your dream journal, you might like to start by recording the dreams you remember from childhood, a well as any particularly vivid or recurring dreams and nightmares you recall from your youth and adult life.  These will give you a variety of important dreams to reflect upon as you study your dreams.  Good luck!

These instructions have been published in All About Dreams, HarperSanFrancisco, 1998