How to Remember Your Dreams
I woke up in darkness, thinking it was the middle of the night.
But no, it was dawn.
Dreams lurked on the edge of my awareness.
I tried to pull them in from the other side, but they stubbornly refused to take the leap. The sense of having been somewhere else slowly faded, and I was in my bed.
Dreams are like slippery fish of the mind, elusively evading any attempt to grasp them and reel them over to the side of consciousness.
When we dream, our non-verbal mind is dominant and it communicates in images and symbols.
By passing the filters and biases of our waking consciousness, dreams can offer us insight, solutions, and perspectives not generally accessible to us by other means.
The part of our psyche that is vast and connected to the whole of creation can communicate wisdom beyond the limited perspective of our everyday waking self.
Generally, I forget my dreams on waking.
However, I go through phases, about once a month, when I remember them for several mornings in a row. When I do, I faithfully write them down. I have kept a dream journal for decades.
Here are some techniques you can use to remember your dreams:
As you fall asleep, tell yourself to remember your dreams. Say this statement to yourself several times: "Tonight I will remember my dreams."
When you wake up, keep still and stay with the sense of having had a dream. Keep your mind focused on that sensation, without allowing yourself to start thinking about anything else.
If there is an image that stays with you, stay focused on that image. Concentrate on it. Sometimes I find the rest of the dream will pop into mind as if attached to that image.
Have a notepad near your bedside to write down what you remember. Even if it's just a fragment, that will often allow your mind to remember the rest of the dream.
Taking an interest in your dreams seems to encourage your waking memory of them.
This can involve writing down anything you do remember, even if only fleeting images, studying dreams, or telling someone else your dreams when you do have one you can remember.
A case in point: the morning after I wrote this article, I woke with three vividly recalled dreams. It seems that I was reminding my subconscious mind that I cared about my dreams, and my subconscious mind offered me a gift in exchange.