The study of one's dreams is a topic that has been written about by many an author...but then so is love, and that doesn't seem to stop new material from coming out on a daily basis. Explaining how to remember dreams was the basis of the first booklet I ever wrote and self published as White Arrow Press back in 1986. The booklet sold for $2 per copy from the trunk of my car with possibly as many as eighty or ninety copies moving into circulation.

Condensing that booklet down to a one page Hub may be a tad tricky, but let's give it a shot in the hope that a reader here and there may find a helpful hint or two that didn't make it into all those other writings on dream recall. Do feel free to pick and choose what works for you, ignoring what is redundant and/or worthless and retaining the stray nugget that seems to have some worth.

When it comes to dream study in toto, there are at least four divisions to consider:

1. Why bother? That is, what makes dream study worthwhile in the first place? The answer to this question must of course be considered before any dreamer even cares about the rest of the story.

2. How can dream recall be improved dramatically? (The subject of this Hub.)

3. What is the true meaning of a given dream or dream series?

4. So? Once a dream is accepted as important, remembered in detail, and interpreted to the dreamer's satisfaction, there remains the issue of what is to be done about it. Often, the answer is "nothing whatsoever"...but not always.

Nearly every text I've read on remembering your dreams states that you must arrange to sleep a nice, regular eight hours per night--or some such foolishness. If you're retired with adequate retirement income and are able to regulate your own day (and night) as you choose, sure. But that's not the case for the young mother trying to balance a checkbook, a full time job, and twin children...or an oilpatch worker working bone grinding twelve hour shifts under difficult and dangerous conditions...or the soldier in combat...or an oilpatch worker dreaming about a soldier...or a long haul trucker....or pretty much anybody who's got a life that can be called a lfe. It is clearly easier to remember dreams if your life has a rhythm to it, yes.

Nonetheless, I've captured some pretty high impact dreams while snatching a twenty minute nap in the driver's seat of an eighteen wheeler because it was that or fall asleep behind the wheel. Regular sleep cycles are nice but not absolutely essential.

That said, let's (for the sake of discussion) say that you're headed to bed in a more "normal" manner. Here are a few dream capturing aids, a checklist to go through just before dropping off to sleep:

1. Telling yourself that tonight, you WILL remember your dreams in vivid detail. No, this doesn't always work, but it does seem to up the percentages a touch or two.

2. Asking your spiritual guide (if you have one) to help you recall your dreams. If you don't have a guide, you can ask the Dream Master to help out. Some folks believe absolutely in the existence of such a Being, while others will argue vehemently that it's a placebo effect created entirely in your own mind. For myself, all I can say is that when I've tried it, it did seem to make a difference at least some of the time.

3. Have a light close at hand. If you live alone, this can be a bedside lamp at any wattage your little old heart desires. If you live with a cranky spouse who can't get back to sleep once awakened, you may want to tone it down. Some hardcore dream recorders prefer the fancy type of pen that has a tiny light built right into the pen itself. My own favorite is a little heftier than that: Wal-Mart has a small flashlight powered by two AA batteries. The last time I stocked up on these, they were running around 78 cents apiece. Besides their low cost, they have another great feature in that they're light enough to hold in your mouth while writing. That might sound gross or icky, but when you're throwing a set of two hundred pound tire chains caked with frozen mud onto a big rig at two a.m. with the mercury showing 27 degrees below zero, you need both hands to sling that iron and you need to be able to see. If the Wal-Mart flashlight will work for that, it'll work for writing down dreams with the added benefit that your spouse--knowing you've put the thing in your mouth--will probably not "borrow" your special light and forget to return it.

4. Have something close at hand on which to write. This can be a fancy dream diary with gold lettering on the front announcing its nature, but it doesn't have to be; an ordinary spiral notebook works about as well at a fraction of the cost. It's the content that counts; never judge a dream journal by its cover. The one advantage of the dream diary as that it's less likely to get mixed up with non-dream notebooks since a glance identifies what it's for. Hint: It helps to leave the notebook open to the next available page. Flipping pages can be enough to cost the dreamer a fragile dream state capture.

5. Have something close at hand to write with. The pen or pencil should also be easy to locate by touch, there being no joy in almost getting a dream recording and then forgetting the entire thing while you were fumbling around trying to find that cotton pickin' Bic. Yes, this is the voice of experience speaking!

So far, all of this may sound tediously familiar, ho hum. Hang in there. We're about to provide a few clues found in few other writings, if any.

It's the middle of the night. You've just had the most amazing dream of your life, one you just have to get down on paper. But first, you've really gotta go. Must've been that third cup of coffee just before bedtime--

No! Don't do it! Getting up and doing something mundane like answering nature's call is a dandy way to not remember that dream, to lose it entirely, or to lose the most important parts even if some parts remain available. On the other hand, sometimes nature is really, really hard to ignore. If you truly can't wait, at least start mentally mumbling or whispering or something, describing the dream to yourself, whatever it takes.

Presuming that you can control the urge for now:

1. Don't get up. As stated above, moving around unnecessarily pulls the attention away from the fierce concentration sometimes needed to capture that dream.

2. Don't even open your eyes if the dream gives any indication of slipping out of your grasp. Instead,

3. Keep mentally checking over the dream's details as you reach for light, pen, and paper. I've occasionally carried this so far that the first few key "trigger" words describing the dream were written down in the dark, they were that fragile. They were of course nearly impossible to read later, but the operational word here is "nearly": These words might have required neat copying before the job was done, but they were already "locked onto" the page and unable to escape, yay rah.

4. If you're ready to write but still have your eyes closed and seem to have lost the dream, apply the mental search described below the next photos. This is a trick that seems to work for me about one third of the time I try it, which is a whole lot better than nothing.

5. If the dream is complex, write down key words and/or phrases first, then expand the description later. That way, you can often produce a richly detailed dream story instead of just an isolated part or two.

NOW get up and go to the bathroom!

Mentally searching for a just-lost dream all too often goes something like, "AGHH!! What the dickens was that dream, anyway?" Yup, I still do that kind every now and then. There is one that works a little better, thankfully. It goes something like this:

1. Think of your awareness as a giant rotating searchlight. As it turns in endless circles, through three dimensions in fact, it pretty much keeps moving unless it "spots" something of interest. Then it stops until directed to once again get moving. Even using the mental searchlight without further refinement has done the trick more than once, but if there are no positive results after a few moments of trying, consider:

2. Places. A lot of my dreams used to have their starting point on or around the western Montana ranch where I grew up, in particular with a view of some high, rocky cliffs that could be seen to the southeast whenever anyone looked out a front window of the ranch house. That setting hasn't manifested so much in recent years, but the setting--the place--is often enough the key to bringing back the entire dream. And somehow, just mentally looking for places that might have been in the dream...helps.

3. People. Focusing on recalling who might have been in the dream also seems to help. That necessarily mean your mother showing up in the dream was really your mother. Maybe yes, maybe no. But that's for the Interpretation Hub to explore; for now, it's all about recall.

4. Things. For the sake of getting to the point, this includes both living things like animals and trees as well as inanimate objects like a deck of cards or a fishing rod.

5. Feelings. Even if the visual image can't quite be pulled into focus, a strong emotion is still worth recording. A feeling of dread might have you looking over your shoulder for a while, but who knows? Being cautious because of it might save you a bit of misery, too. As for the opposite, who among us--other than a certified masochist/pessimist--would turn down a pervasive feeling of joy that stuck around for an entire day?

6. Sound. This is not crucial in some dreams, but in others it makes up the entire point of the experience. What a spiritual guide said, for example. Or possibly music. I'm a singer/songwriter among other things, and more than one of my songs came directly from the dream state. Lyrics, melody, the whole works.

In summary, by (a) doing the Pre-Sleep Preparations, (b) applying the Tricks Of The Trade, and (c) when necessary, performing the six part Mental Search, it is possible to dramatically increase your volume of recorded dreams. It may not happen all at once, but the principles do work, given time.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32