dream journal

[stefan101]

something i think is good to discuss with you guys :)
After a mounth of writing to my journal almost every morning and the use of the "Roam-Goam" mantra I'm capable of remembering 3-4 dreams every morning... which is good :) the bad thing is that writing them down takes me from 40 minutes to an hour.. which is a lot of time, consdering that I want to have spare time for other practices in the morning.
Any suggestions?

[kiwibonga]

You could try using a voice recorder or voice recognition software to speed up the process...

The problem with dreams is that you usually have to write them down as soon as possible before they fade away, so it's pretty much unavoidable...

[perotin]

I've never tried keeping a dream journal, but somehow my
dream recall has always been really good. I think the things
that have kept me from wanting to write in a journal is the time,
as you mentioned, and that I don't want to turn on lights to
write. I do think the voice recorder would be a geat alternative.

One thing that I find really helpful with dream recall for me is
to use self hypnosis. I usually put myself to sleep by
hypnotizing myself, and then I also wake myself up the same
way. On nights when I don't use the hypnosis to go to sleep,
I don't remember nearly as much. Basically what I do is once
I go to bed, I'll use a long countdown, starting from somewhere
beetween 50 and 100, counting down at 3 or 4 second intervals
until I get to 0. By then, I'm in a low-alpha state, very close to
the hypnagogic level (if I'm still awake at all), and then I'll use
post-hypnotic suggestion to remind myself over and over that
I'm just getting so sleepy, and before long I am sound asleep.

Waking up, I'll do something similar. I usually wake up out of
habit about 20 minutes before the alarm, so then I'll do the
countdown again. Instead of the suggestion, I usually do
energy cycling for a while, but once I'm done with the countdown
and I'm back in my controlled low-alpha state, I find that I have
really clear memories of all of my dreams (usually 4 or 5) from
the night. At that point, I'll remember them well enough that
even more than a year later the memories are still there,
especially when I'm in my hypnotized state.

[cainam_nazier]

Typically I take the time to do it. However there are times when I just can't. So when that happens I just write down a few key things. Mostly the things that I might have a hard time remembering and then I go back later and fill in the details. When doing this though I will usually lay in bed and think about the dream/s for about 5 mins before moving. I have found that this really helps remembering for later.

[stefan101]

kiwibonga: i tried with voice recording, it takes consideratly less time and is a very good alternative, thanks! :)

perotin: My opinion, and that of many others :), is that keeping a journal foucuses your subcouncios more on your dreaming experiences, that's why I want to recored them.. the simple act of recording them triggers your subcionsios to be more into it.

cainam_naizer: right now i prefer to spend this time practicing NEW and some other exercisez I think they will accelerate my advace in the area more :) At first I was also thinking of writing just keywords and then writing the whole dream, but I found that voice recording is also very good, exspecially ig you download the files on a pc, and can sort them easily. you are right about the 5 minutes :)