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Often times, I wake up with an amazing, yet fleeting glimpse of a dream I had. I would like to recollect those events I had in my dream, and try to adopt ways to better remember those dreams.

There are a few (random) ways that I have tried, but I would like to know if there are studied ways of accomplishing this.

How can I easier remember my dreams and record them for the future?

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  • $\begingroup$ You may try Melatonin or some meditation / Astral Teas (Mugwort, Chamomile, Passionflower, Calamus, Gingko Biloba, Catnip, Liquorice, Peppermint and Stevia) for lucid dreaming. Be more relax, any stress won't help you in remembering your dreams. If you focus more awareness on them, think they're real or learn how to medicate, it'll help further. Everybody is different and everybody has its own consciouness/awareness. $\endgroup$
    – kenorb
    Commented Sep 18, 2014 at 13:26
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    $\begingroup$ Is there any evidence for any of this? $\endgroup$
    – user6682
    Commented Sep 18, 2014 at 19:44
  • $\begingroup$ @kernorb comments are for comments. It sounds like you've provided an answer, so it's best to place such things in the "answer" box. By doing that site users can then vote on whether your answer is reasonable (i.e., does it provide evidence for its claims, etc.). $\endgroup$
    – Jeromy Anglim
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 5:13

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There is a lot of information on 'dream recall' related to research on lucid dreaming. For some quick information, I would take a look at Wikibook's page on Lucid Dreaming/Dream Recall.

I have tried some of these techniques, and I found that what has worked for me in the past was

  1. trying to write down everything I can as soon as I wake up
  2. lying in bed, not moving, and just letting my mind wander over what I could remember (this usually helps other memories about the dream pop up)
  3. doing this consistently every day.

The last one is the most important, you really notice that if you are consistent you start remembering more and more when you wake up. I highly recommend the book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Howard Rheingold and Stephen LaBerge. It was the required reading for a Psychology of Dreams class I took and is based on a lot of cool research.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks for the answer and the cool link, but I wondering if there are written studies or more scientific research on this subject? $\endgroup$
    – unclepete
    Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 20:54
  • $\begingroup$ The book is based on several scientific studies, e.g., journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1981.52.3.727 $\endgroup$
    – MoogleLogic
    Commented Mar 20, 2019 at 16:59
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The Wiki page on Vitamin B6 gives a reference on a paper that states that it increases the ability for dream recall.

Ebben M, Lequerica A, Spielman A. Effects of pyridoxine on dreaming: a preliminary study.

Abstract

The effect of pyridoxine (Vitamin B-6) on dreaming was investigated in a placebo, double-blind study to examine various claims that Vitamin B-6 increases dream vividness or the ability to recall dreams. 12 college students participated in all three treatment conditions, each of which involved ingesting either 100 mg B-6, 250 mg B-6, or a placebo prior to bedtime for a period of five consecutive days. The treatment conditions were completely counterbalanced and a two-day wash-out period occurred between the three five-day treatment blocks. Morning self-reports indicated a significant difference in dream-salience scores (this is a composite score containing measures on vividness, bizarreness, emotionality, and color) between the 250-mg condition and placebo over the first three days of each treatment. The data for dream salience suggests that Vitamin B-6 may act by increasing cortical arousal during periods of rapid eve movement (REM) sleep. An hypothesis is presented involving the role of B-6 in the conversion of tryptophan to serotonin. However, this first study needs to be replicated using the same procedures and also demonstrated in a sleep laboratory before the results can be considered certain.

But beware: B6 might be toxic in a certain way. At LED gave some hints here...

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I suggest you try another thing - as you know there is some stages when we sleep: enter image description here

You can change your morning-alarm time when you wake up in the time when there is end of your stages of your dream after those few hours of sleep. In that case you must try on yourself how many hours you sleep and when the lucid dream appear (time when you wake up and write your dream). After that you will be know which hour is good for you and there is better way to remember your dreams.

You can also train your brain to remember your dreams as a Pavlov's dog effect. If you will be do that many times, your brain learn how to do it automaticaly.

WARNING: There are more variables! For exemple - time of the moon. Some people with night-walker disease (somnambulic disease) can feel changes when the moon is full. Evan without this illness it's evidence that this situation can change our brains stages when we sleep. People in epilepsy have more attacks when the moon is full than in time when the moon isn't full (you can ask every doctor who help people with epilepsy) and what is curious about that, many people after attack must sleep quickly to regenerate organism after attack and their brain EEG waves are much more diffrent than normal when the moon is full. There are some ideas that hormones in our body changes when the moon is full (like in the forests when some herbs (herbalism) have some chemical concetration of their substances much more higher than in the other days. Every person who farm herbs know that and there is many books about it.

Another idea is that you can sleep, wake up, sleep again, wake up again ... in some sleep stages. However it's hard process and you can be very sleepy when the sun for your windows will be up. This is also very dangerous technic for long time to practice!

Third method is to train meditation to improve your control of your unconsciousness mind. Check this: http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/meditation.html

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