We’ve all experienced this to some extent. Waking up in the morning after a night full of exciting adventures, still shaken up by all the action/drama/romance we went through. The feelings disrupted by the alarm clock are still as fresh as ever, while the experiences feel more real than what’s in front of us right now.

The moment fades, minute by minute, and the memory slips through your fingers into oblivion just as quickly as it found its’ way into your mind in the first place.

Sure, it may stay longer in your memory than most dreams do, but the details become blurry, and soon you may only be able to recall certain aspects of it, rather than the whole picture. And what about all the other adventures you went through last night? And the night before?


Researchers speculate that we forget up to 99 % of our dreams in the first waking minutes! Only those bearing strong emotions (negative or positive) or repeating night after night will occupy our minds for more extended periods.

Think about any old dreams you remember to this day. Chances are, they were either reoccurring, nightmares, or felt deeply meaningful. Given that you usually dream around 4 to 6 dreams each night, the percentage of the dreams you remember becomes minuscule.
Remembering one’s dreams is not of crucial importance to most of us. It’s crowded in our minds enough as it is, thus remembering dreams is a low priority.
However, it’s the most critical aspect to lucid dreamers – to have a conscious dream, it’s essential to recall the ordinary ones. It helps to differentiate the reality and the dream world more efficiently, which raises the chances of figuring out to be in a dream.


Here are some of the best techniques to remember one’s dreams more vividly and in greater numbers:

  • Dream journal. This is by far the best activity to remember your dreams. Not only does the dream itself go into record when you write it down, the mere fact that you wrote it down already burns it into your memory, even if you never read the journal itself. Make sure to keep it as close to your bed as possible and write down everything you remember after waking up, with as much detail as you possibly can.
  • Telling about it. Similar to a dream journal, talking about your dreams to friends and family will almost guarantee that the dream will not escape your mind. Your companions might even point out something in your story that you missed yourself, which can be significant in figuring out the meaning behind your dreams.
  • Reading. It’s important in and of itself to read a book once in a while, but it can be very beneficial to improve your ability to recall dreams and relive them in your mind more vividly. You could also read about the meaning of dreams in the eyes of famous psychologists, such as Carl Jung. It will bring you closer to the realm of dreams and plant a seed inside your head that our nightly adventures are indeed meaningful – and help you remember more of them.

Engaging in these practices will result in you remembering more dreams every morning. Your dream journal will grow stout. Your wishes to lucid dream will become a reality.