ideas for catching a dream
For many, remembering dreams is a process that begins with simply turning toward the dream-world. If you are wanting to remember your dreams, here are a few things to try:
If you haven’t yet, recall and write past dreams down. Re-read past dreams. Draw, creative write, and wonder about them. Paying attention to the dream world and keeping it alive in your waking life encourages the two worlds to interact.
Try simply intending to remember your dreams. Consider writing on a piece of paper “I will remember my dream,” and whatever other intentions you might have for the dream-space. Put the paper under your pillow or by your bed.
Try setting an alarm for 90 minutes before you normally wake. Humans tend to be in a REM cycle at this time.
Engage in relaxation practices before bed. Meditation, gentile pranayama or breath work, grounding practices on yourself and your bedroom, mindfulness, yoga nidra. Whatever might work to help you relax your mind and body.
Upon waking, do not immediately get out of bed. Lie very still. Many people hit energy that interferes with recall at this point. Waking-life stress, to-do lists, and responsibilities tend to want to barge into the forefront of the mind. Hold the intention to remember the dream as much as possible.
Visualize collecting your attention into the center of your head. From the center of your head, gently ease out of the thinking mind-state into the receptive mind-state and search for the dream.
Finding a dream can be a bit like fishing. Eyes closed, keeping your attention in the center of head, imagine searching the space around you. If only a piece of a dream pops up, hold that piece gently and wait. The rest of the dream may be attached to that original dream. If you sense another dream behind the first, keep pulling the images in like you are pulling a thread. Keep pausing and pulling to bring in more recall.
Record your dream. Writing down your dreams is one of the best ways to interact with them. Many people enjoy hand writing dreams, but I find it cumbersome and too time consuming. I keep a monthly dream log on a cloud-based document and use the voice to text feature to record a dream on my phone. Voice to text is a nice option because you can close your eyes while talking, which makes your mind more receptive to further dream details and recall.
Overarching western culture is not very interested in dreams. It prefers that we desist from talking about or interacting with dreams. It insists that hearing another person’s dream is boring at best. Collective energies like these can interfere with dream recall.
However, each of us are dreaming many times every single night. Just because we cannot remember our dreams does not mean we are not having them. Dream recall can be a process, be gentile and patient with it! The more you turn your intentions and attention toward it, the more likely you are to open up to your dream world!