Does dream recall alter the dreaming process?

Question

I've encountered the following phenomenon : within a single night of starting a dream journal again, my dreams became more numerous, recall improved and I'm waking up after each sleep cycle except the 1st one with more recall.

In particular, I scribble down my dreams on paper immediately upon awakening from a dream. This happens 5-6 times a night.

This makes me ask- does activating dream recall mechanism in the middle of the night alter brain chemistry or dream process, facilitating more recall?

Answer 1

Your experience with more dream following dream recall can be explained in this paper, Effect of encouragement on dream recall (Halliday, 1992). People experience lighter sleep when they recall dream upon awakening (Shapiro, Goodenough, & Gryler, 1963), Armitage (1992) reported that males had more dream recall in low stress days while females showed the opposite.

Armitage, R. (1992). Gender differences and the effect of stress on dream recall: A 30-day diary report. Dreaming, 2(3), 137. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0094354

Halliday, G. (1992). Effect of encouragement on dream recall. Dreaming, 2(1), 39.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0094346

Shapiro, A., Goodenough, D. R., & Gryler, R. B. (1963). Dream recall as a function of method of awakening. Psychosomatic medicine, 25(2), 174-180.