Keys to Remembering Dreams
(Source Unknown?)
Attitude
In order to begin recalling your dreams accurately, you must go to sleep with the right outlook on dreaming. If you place too much importance in the physical activities of life and view the mindscape as inferior or a trivial part of your life, you are keeping yourself from remembering your dreams. You must consider the activity of dreaming to be a valuable occurence and you must truly desire to recall and understand your dreams.
Preparation
Dreams reveal answers to questions we have buried deep in our minds, they uncover parts of our consciousness, mind, and spirit that we never knew existed. They reveal things about ourselves that we never examined or even knew existed! Like anything else new and unusual, the personal revelations dreams often bring can be difficult for us to accept. It is for this reason some of us subconsciously choose to not only forget our dreams but erase them from memory. You must be willing and in anticipation of the truths dreams will show you.
Ask Yourself Questions
Before you take off for dream land, sit down and think up a question to ask yourself- a questions whose answer will be given to you through your dream. Consider it and ponder it for awhile... then write it down! You can even use an audio recorder to take down the dream, as long as you have it "saved". Place it by your bedside and when you awake, record the reply your dream has given you! Often this will be in the form of symbols instead of a straight verbal answer. When you awake from the dream, record what you already know. You can save the uncoding for when you get up in the morning if you need to sleep more, or for later when you are more clearheaded.
Sleeping Conditions
Your physical health, environment, and other factors will affect what you dream. Experiment with the basic variables of your physical sleeping space. Try sleeping in a different room, outside in a tent, even just in a different position on your bed. See how it affects your dreams, they might just be more memorable!
Drugs and excessive amounts of food can often distract your mind when you sleep and keep the focus on your physical self. Often these variables can have adverse affects on your dreams, so avoid anything that will alter you negatively before you sleep. If it bothers you when you are awake, it will bother you in your dreams, too!
The amount of time you sleep also decides what you will recall upon awakening. Try sleeping about 4 or 5 hours, and then awake and record your dream, and sleep for another hour or two. This can be difficult when you first begin it but once you adapt you will find that you dream recall turns out much more vividly!
Transition into Wakefulness
It is important that when you awaken from a dream, you make the transition as gentle and smooth as possible. If you are used to an alarm shocking you into awareness, try awakening to your internal alarm clock some morning. As you awake, it is imperative that you not move from the position you awoke in! Lie still and breath deeply, calmly, as you call back your dream. And whatever you remember should be recorded in a dream journal of some sort.
Keep in mind that dreams love attention... the more of it they get, the more vivid and fulfilling they will be. As you slowly recall bits of dreams you will see that day by day your dream recollection expands and improves!