Common Remembering dreams?

[magic]

How often does people in general remember what they dream?
I almost always remember my dreams, I usually dream about stuff I experience in my daily life but in a distorted reality.
For instance when I was with my girlfriend i dreamt about me following her to work.
And yesterday I saw Star Wars, Episode 3 and I dreamt I was witnessing a huge battle.
When I practice AP I dream about going out of body, ( and I may do so ).
How come some people remember their dreams more than others?


/Magic

[CFTraveler]

How often does people in general remember what they dream? Usually people remember the dream they were having when they wake more than any other time. So how often? Once a day. If they are 'quick wakers' they probably slip back into alpha right away and don't let the dream memory settle in. But if you wake up slowly, 'stew in the dream', possibly have hypnopomps when you wake, you probably give your brain time to let the memory settle in while it goes up to alpha. That's my 'educated guess'.

I almost always remember my dreams, I usually dream about stuff I experience in my daily life but in a distorted reality. For instance when I was with my girlfriend i dreamt about me following her to work. Most of the time what you dream is what your subconscious understands. The subconscious witnesses and stores in the form it understands. What we know from the subconscious is that it's 'language' is symbolic, and completely accepting. So what you think when you see the movie has a lot to do with how you experience or process it in the dreams.


When I practice AP I dream about going out of body, ( and I may do so ). Remember that dreams are forms of projection- so when you dream about projecting you're creating a model of being out of body. Chances are that you're actually projecting- just into a self-created environment close to you.

How come some people remember their dreams more than others?
/Magic Many reasons. If something in your environment is not letting to sleep deeply enough you may wake at more frequent intervals, fixing the memory (see the beginning of my answers). So if I wake four times in one night, as opposed to one, I'll probably have four dreams remembered (or parts of them) as opposed to one.
Also, when you make it a mission to Astral Project of Lucid Dream, you train your mind to let your conscious mind into your subconscious mind, and that improves recollection also.
So there's many reasons.

[Alaskans]

Nice observations... ditto 8)

[mreee]

I remember my dreams most times, but if I dont "process" what I have dreamt just when waking,
there is a chance I forget it, unless i really try to think about what I dreamt.
Seems like dreams recall are stored in a different place than our every day "normal" recall,
and that we need to fetch the dream data and store it where its easily accessed in the physical realm (physical brain).

There is some strange thing with dreaming and obe, if you cant remember it, it didn't happen.
Well atleast thats what the effect is to the ego. Just kind of puzzeling to think about, I mean if you
interact with something through an obe that your physical brain cant remember, it didn't happen to you,
but it happend to whatever you interacted with in the astral, if that entity rememberd it?

I am not entirely sure that memory is a part of the physical brain, I have a theory that it is the spirit part
of us that hold our memory and I dont believe that the memory is being downloaded from the "silver cord"
to the brain when we enter our body after an obe.
My view of it is that when we obe or dream and leave our bodies, the memory which is a part of the soul will leave with it
and when reintegrating with the body after ending the obe, we forget the things we did because the brain (not the memory),
tries to filter our experiences, and if it cant for some reason comprehend what it has seen it will be filtered out so to speak,
much like when people experience some kind of trauma, some mechanism in the brain filters the experience out.
The memory is there but it has been filtered out.

So that means, the more you experience in the astral or in dreaming, the more "acceptable" it seems to the filtering brain,
and the more you "remember" or lets say are allowed to remember, because the memory is there.

The idea that the astral body memory is a copy of the brain-memory and will be reintegrated on entry is an idea I find unlikely,
my hypothesis is that there is no copy, there is 1 memory and its an attribute of the soul and not the physical.
The physical brain is just a filter in regard to memory.

Just my thoughts.
Mreee

[CFTraveler]

I have a different theory and it isn't dependent on 'where' memories are stored, more on 'how'. In my idea memories are stored in the frequency they are experienced, so waking memories are experienced at a different frequency than dreaming memories. So when you're awake your brain is working at the frequency in which you can easily reference the waking memories, but when you are asleep, the only memories that are really accessible are the dream memories, that is, the memories you have experienced while dreaming/projecting, since they are experienced at a different frequency. This 'sort of' explains why you can go to previous dreaming memories when you dream, and then you wake you realize that what you remembered in the dream happened before in the dream, not in waking memory.
Anyway, this makes more sense to me than reality-filtering download problems and explains more of things like 'knowing you've been there before'- because you actually did.
Just my opinion, obviously.

[Alaskans]

There is some strange thing with dreaming and obe, if you cant remember it, it didn't happen.
Well atleast thats what the effect is to the ego. Just kind of puzzeling to think about, I mean if you
interact with something through an obe that your physical brain cant remember, it didn't happen to you,
but it happend to whatever you interacted with in the astral, if that entity rememberd it?
IMO that is why even though OBE's feel 'more real than reality',but once you reenter your body they suddenly feel like a dream. (maybe thats just for me?) I absolutely believe memory is external, at least in part, and I also have the same view as CF about memories being on different frequencies.

If the dream is important enough, somone, my 'higher self' maybe, will make me remember my dream even if I had no idea I even had a dream, it could be 20 seconds to 10 years later that I remember the dream I never remembered having. Seem like proof of external memory. To the ego, things you dont remember didnt happen, but they did happen, and in a sense are still happening since they still exist as an imprint on the universe. If you really want to get deep, all things that are, have ever been, and ever will, have already happened and exist somewhere in the space of the universe. Why are we seperated from that eternity? That could really crack open time-space I think.
These are just my theories and I dont have evidence for some of it.

[RyanParis]

The reason it's hard to remember dreams is they aren't a conscious activity. Your conscious mind doesn't have dreams. That's why when you wake up consciously again, you can barely remember what you experienced.

That said, there are some things you can do.

You can, before falling asleep, repeat to yourself that you'll remember your dreams.

[Korpo]

I disagree.

Consciousness explorers like Charles Tart and the people at the TMI think that everything we do is conscious, however memory from one state of consciousness can be hard to retrieve in another (concept of state-specific memory). Dreaming/OBE and physical waking life are different states of consciousness, but recall can be improved.

Or go with Robert's concept - the problem is usually not that you are not having OBEs, but that you don't remember them, which is for your mind the same as if they didn't happen. OBE and dream recall and memory downloads are therefore important building blocks in Robert's MAP program.

Oliver

[Alaskans]

I pretty often lightly sleep with awake style conciousness and yet dream, or listen to (astral?) people talk, or continue my train of thoughts into and through deep sleep. I think it depends on the person/circumstances if conciousness and dreams take place at the same time. Lucid dreaming is all about dreaming while "concious". Thank you for sharing the theory though, we're here to discuss right?

[Korpo]

we're here to discuss right?

:shock: :?: :lol: :mrgreen:

No, really, the fact that there seems to be something to remember indicates that you were conscious. Degree of awareness - that's another thing. IMO, as soon as you can say "I recall" or "I remember", you were conscious. Not necessarily lucid, but conscious. :)

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

I think both of you are using different models of consciousness to describe what happens when you sleep and what determines lucidity.
Korpo, you're describing a model that sees consciousness as a matter of degrees, while I think Alaskans is using the new brain/old brain model, which I happen to use to describe these experiences.
In the model Freud & Jung used (the old brain/new brain model) consciousness is considered to be the part of your mind that judges (compares), plans, and makes decisions on what it decide based on comparing past memories with perceptual input. It also uses verbal language; What Freud & Jung considered the 'rational' mind. The subconscious, or unconscious (depending on how much access you have) is the part of your mind that observes & stores. It reacts using emotion only, so it's power of judgement isn't 'rational', but 'reactive'. It is the part of the mind that's 'on', and pretty much accepts everything as real. Memories, emotions and symbolism are it's modes of operation. In this model, the degree of lucidity depends on how much of the conscious mind is 'on' while dreaming.

[Korpo]

But if you follow Moen's explanations in his elaboration on this state-specific model, he has an interesting twist on it: There's a certain amount of interpreting needed to retain recall, but the experiencing part of the mind is actually receiving and filtering the experience. He trained a minimal amount of interpretation to let the experience flow seamlessly and still get downloaded.

His observation is that as soon the interpretation fully stops, you click out, and as soon you have to much interpretation, you don't actually experience anything. Mix this together, and none of the parts is superior, but only together an experience, and indeed a lucid one, is the result.

I think Freund & Jung were also having some cultural bias towards "being rational" as being something absolutely positive. For something "reactive" the subconscious seems to be incredibly powerful, and also have access to wisdom that people often never access in their waking life - see dream wisdom.

Thanks for pointing out the different models. :D

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

But if you follow Moen's explanations in his elaboration on this state-specific model, he has an interesting twist on it: There's a certain amount of interpreting needed to retain recall, but the experiencing part of the mind is actually receiving and filtering the experience. I'm with you right until there and I agree-

He trained a minimal amount of interpretation to let the experience flow seamlessly and still get downloaded. This is where I stopped understanding- do you mean that he thinks (or postulates, or theorizes, or whatever) that there has to be interpretation for recall? Or that the act of recalling something is done by the conscious 'rational' mind? Or something altogether different?


His observation is that as soon the interpretation fully stops, you click out, and as soon you have to much interpretation, you don't actually experience anything. This I'm not sure I agree with- do you mean overanalyzing something you're perceiving it makes you drift off into a fantasy? Maybe I'm not understanding it.

Mix this together, and none of the parts is superior, but only together an experience, and indeed a lucid one, is the result. I never said anything was superior- IMO as a woman the word 'rational' is actually rather limited, because it means you can only do one thing at a time- serially. But it's how the 'waking' mind (aka 'conscious' mind) is described by those esteemed psychologists. :mrgreen:

I think Freund & Jung were also having some cultural bias towards "being rational" as being something absolutely positive. Actually Freud more than Jung, as he considered the male to be 'rational', conscious and superior, while the female was 'emotional', subconscious, and 'all over the place'. (Remember that the root word of 'hysteria' is 'hyster'=uterus. So yes, there was some bias.


For something "reactive" the subconscious seems to be incredibly powerful, and also have access to wisdom that people often never access in their waking life - see dream wisdom. Which is probably the main reason why Jung and Freud had their falling out- Jung insisted that dream interpretation was the way to access and decode the most powerful part of the mind, the feminine subconscious, while Freud made everything to be about sex.
So we're not disagreeing, I'm just pointing out the model of the mind that gave birth to all this psychological mumbo-jumbo.


Thanks for pointing out the different models. :D

Oliver Just trying to promote comprehension in a confusing world. :wink:

[JoSac]

I;d agree on what R.B. said about shadow memory.

Everyone dreams, some just don't remember them. When they can't be remembered they are right on the tip of your brain when you wake up. Try to think different thoughts, and one might set off a trigger and then the whole dream flashs back in your memory. Eventually you become good at this and remember all of them without having to try and recall them.

JS

[Korpo]

CF,

I think Moen actually found a very good working model for download and recall.

When the monkey mind is active, the experiences stop and the interpreting mind keeps on going on making interpretations: "I just saw a cat - A cat in the astral? Weird! - My sister had a cat when I was a kid. - She still owes me 5 bucks. - With the 5 bucks I could go out and buy me --- Wait a minute! I just saw a cat!!!"

So he delved into this and tried to relax this interpreting mind out of the equation. What he found was that when he got really good at it, first experiences came in much better, but then he only experienced clickouts. Instead of experiences he just got a fast forward in time to after such an experience.

He then found that experiencing mind and interpreting mind serve both a function - the associations made by the interpreting mind link stuff into our memory by linking it to other things in our memory. The problem is this kind of mind will just go on and on making associations and take awareness of the experience and prevent the experience of the psychic event. When he completely switched away from the interpreter, there was no experience, though. It did not "download" (in Robert's terms).

So he trained allowing a minimal amount of interpretation to actually download the experiences, reducing that amount further and further until the experience got fluid and continuous and fully downloaded. I think Moen really is on the right track here for an effective method of recall.

Oliver

[dynamicdreamer]

I always remember dreams when I wake up but unless I purposefully think about the dream I had when I wake up I won't normally remember it later. Unless of course, it's a really vivid dream. What I dream about differs. Sometimes I dream about life and sometimes it's something I haven't even thought about in forever or just something weird. :)