I Broke My Record! (LONG POST)

[Nay]

LOL..I was totally expecting to have to read all ten of your dreams in vivid detail.[]

I have many dreams too, not ten though, I think 7 is my record.  I have no idea why this is, it just happens.  I can fall asleep and begin to dream right away, but I had always heard that you only dreamt when in one of those alpha, beta states, or whatever.[]  How do I know I dream right away?  I look at the clock before going to sleep it says, 10:00pm I wake up after a dream and it says 10:10, what's up with that?  I love it though, don't get me wrong.[]

Thanks sharing your experiences, Manix!  Woot for you! 10 dreams! that is fantastic. []

Nay

[Manix]

"Have to" read them Nay? Surely you don't think I would be so mean as to rush to your house, twist your arm, and demand you to READ! HAHAHAHA! No, I had considered posting them but changed my mind when I saw most of them were rather bloody and involved some form of canabalism.

Sadly, this morning showed only the average results. 5 recalled dreams and 2 forgotten ones. None with any great detail or interesting content. Oh well, yesterday was nice while it lasted. Then again, I stayed up till 11 last night... wow, that's late for me.

[Nay]

Hahahaha...  Canabalism..eww, wonder what in the world that would symbolize?

You do love your sleep don't you..[]  My little one would not go to sleep last night so up till after midnight here. []

Nay

[Manix]

quote:Originally posted by Nay

Hahahaha...  Canabalism..eww, wonder what in the world that would symbolize?

I'm not sure I want to know.

And yes, I do love my sleep, perhaps a little TOO much =).

[darkangel13]

Awesome, Manix[]... I don't know exactly what may've induced the excellent dream recall, but I know it seems to help to lay in bed and remember them before moving at all.  My record was 14 in a night, but a few of them were pretty short, and 1 of them was audio, lol, and like you, i don't know what could've helped me recall them so well...

I read somewhere on this site that eating either cheese or bananas right before you go to bed helps your dream recall.  I don't like bananas, so I haven't tried that, but eating cheese helped me.  I don't know if it was me thinking it could work or the cheese itself, but it helped:)

-Kristina

[Manix]

14 dreams in a night! Wow! And here I am setting a goal of only 10! Do you recall how many hours you slept that particular night?

Note to Self: Try the Cheese idea lol.

[Manix]

Make of this post what you will. It is no more or less than a summery of my findings after journaling adamantly since late April.

To those of you who bother to read my ramblings I have been trying to improve my dream recall. While I haven't happened across an actual, reproducible pattern (my goal), I have broke my record of 9 dreams recalled in one night!
TEN dreams last night, TEN!
I am very sleepy from waking up multiple times in the night and am also amazed at how much I recalled. I call this victory a fluke though. I have followed the same pattern for the past three months.

No change in Diet.
No change in Daily activities.
No change in sleep.
Go to bed at 9:00PM
Get up at 9:30 AM automatically.

The only sleep pattern I found is I wake up at Midnight, 1:30AM, 3AM, 4AM, 6AM, 8AM, and finally get up at 9:30AM.

Yes, I know that's over 12 hours of sleep (I'm unemployed so I'm enjoying it while it lasts), but sleep put to good use...I hope!
Other things I have noticed.
Before the hours of 3AM I recall little if anything at all. I often record false awakenings, and brief imagery: hypnotic imagery if you prefer. It is during this time I am most prone to forgetting a dream immediately upon awakening regardless of what I do to bring in memory of it back.
Lastly, during this time period I am most prone to the OBE dream. I Dream of having an OBE like experience or actual experience, and am more likely to succeed in inducing an OBE. When the OBE/dream event occurs, the experience veers away from the typical pattern of little or no recall. Instead of having a vague incoherent, short, and more often than not, forgotten experience, my memory of the event is excellent and my mental capabilities are very close to normal.

All awakenings after the 3AM wake up point consist of long, detailed dreams, WILDS and DILDS. I have not been able to produce an OBE after this point because when I wake up, I'm wide awake; where as when I woke up before this point I was still very drowsy and relaxed. After the 3AM "checkpoint" I am more capable of producing LD's. I may be wide awake, but am somehow alert and relaxed enough at the same to time to produce a WILD (less likely) incubate a DILD (more likely) or (re-enter a previous dream (very likely).

While following the above 12 hour sleep pattern, I have found nothing to improve dream recall, improve detail recalled, or even to lesson what is actually recalled. So far, regardless of what form of note taking I used I have a 50/50% chance of remembering the dream. Last night, the night of the glorious fluke, I got up once at midnight to record dreams. In that time period I recorded 3 short dreams on my laptop beside my bed. During the various awakenings during the morning hours I simply spoke out loud a few choice words of what I dreamed before rolling over again. With the exception of my embarrassing attempt to log dreams using a recording, this is the first time I've used this technique of "note taking". While I was recording this morning, those keywords returned to me. In addition to those key worded dreams, three additional dreams (possibly those I only roused from slightly) were triggered by events recalled in the previous dreams.

This was a morning full of surprises; typically I record 1 to 3 known dreams that I simply have no recollection of (3 awakenings of "Darn, what was that again?") or false awakenings. This morning every event recorded had some visual to accompany it. No known unrecalled dreams at all. Thus, last night was a night of dream after dream after dream; all recalled in an unusual amount of detail. I was even able to remember conversations from several different dreams, all this without taking any actual notes down during the night.

Am I bragging?
No
I'm going crazy because this is what I've been waiting for, but I still haven't found a clue as to what induced it!

So far I have tried tracking the phases of the moon. BLAH! No notable affect whatsoever on my dreams; be it detail, subject matter, type, or number recalled.

If you have been SO kind as to read through this dribble, I thank you and ask you now if you can offer any possible factors that may inadvertently affect a persons dreams. Obviously, moon phases our out in my case.
Any other ideas?

Thanks, and I hope somebody has found my report of the past 2+ months useful.