I dream BUT once awakened I remember nothing

[Wandering_Lensman]

Greetings friends

My puzzle is as the title says when I got to bed I sleep fairly well, I dream as everyone does but on waing up I haven't any recollection of anything except on very very rare cases.

It matters not what time it is either -I work as a night nurse so for part of the week sleep in the daytime

Can anyone suggest a way of learning how to recollect these dreams.

[Traumwandlerin]

Write down anything you remember. Write down if you remember you've dreamed, but can't recollect the dream. Write down, what kind of feelings you awoke with. Write down what you could have been dreaming that fits those feelings.

Do this everyday, after a few weeks your memory should enhance.

[shadowx]

Some people simply dont remember. In fact you could ask some people "what did you dream of last night?" And they will answer nothing, they did dream, as you know, but they just dont remember it at all.

Traumwandlerin's advice is good though, the only thing i want to add is you should log it straight away, the second you wake up.

It is amazing how quickly a coherent dream can descend into a mist of noise and blurred images, in the time you take to get out of bed, get dressed and grab a pen it can all go so keep the log book next to your alarm clock!

[Traumwandlerin]

Of course shadow, forgot to write that ^^

But people don't remember cause they trained themselves to not remember. If you are not interested in dreams for several years your subconcious won't bother you anymore with remembering them. It just erases them out of your memory. That's efficient so you don't have to deal with those boring shit.

[shadowx]

Im not a biologist nor a psychologist but i would have thought that the lack of memory is due to either the dream being purely in short term memory where details are sketchy and duration is only a few seconds per memory or simply because the brain bypasses the memory areas so it is never remembered at all, just as a false memory can bypass the "input" part of the brain (since it never happened).

In your theory it would be easier to train the brain to remember like you suggested, but in mine it would be near impossible to do by willpower and thought and would be more biological involving brain chemistry and such.

Not that it matters

[Traumwandlerin]

The short term memory is actually quite longer than only a few seconds and can last 30 minutes or longer. But of course in people who learnt not to listen to their dreams it wouldn't even reach the shortterm memory but will be filtered out in the ultra shortterm memory (hope that's the english term). But what is filtered out is decided by the subconciouss, so you only need to retrain it to get it in the shortterm memory where with a bit of training it can linger a few minutes. Than using some memory enhancers (like repeating, thinking about it and stuff) until you are able to write it down.

[shadowx]

I havent studied much but i did psychology at college (in the UK college is optional education, for free, between the age of 16-19, i dont mean american style college which is university!) and we were taught how STM last something like several seconds, less than a minute but i cant remember how long, and was limited to 15 or 20 "items" (eg names, words etc...) if the memories arent passed into long term memory then they are lost, which does hold up for me since i sometimes awake from a dream and have that feeling of what happened in it but then a minute or so later it is almost all gone unless it was especially vivid.

What you said about the subconscious filtering the information makes sense though... you may be on to something there!

[Kitty]

You could also try meditation just before bed, and if you don't remember, when you wake up too
it might help to build focus
xx

[Traumwandlerin]

Well, I had several classes in university about psychology You know I work in a cross section between physics and psychology, how the mind understand physics and deal with it. So I've got no Master in this. But since this kind of stuff is now a bit more than a hobby for me, at least in some areas I guess I know a bit of what I'm talking ^^ This memory system is only one of many models. No one really knows how the mind works but this model works for many things.

[TornUpReaper]

Good suggestion, I as well have trouble remembering my dreams and am considering trying this. I read somewhere that it is helpful if you lay in bed for a little while after waking it can help bring your dreams back to the surface so that you can remember them more easily. Is there any possibility of that being true? Or should I definitely just write everything down the moment I wake up while everything is fresh in my mind? :type:

[Adder]

I really started getting good recall when I started realizing I was dreaming whilst within the dream. Perhaps deliberatly decide whilst awake to look for specific things in your sleep... and then when you dream of this thing you might remember its importance and make some progress towards lucid dreaming. Now I do dream-initiated-lucid-dreaming nearly every night and I find them much easier to remember in detail then dreams which I am merely a participant in.

[TornUpReaper]

I really started getting good recall when I started realizing I was dreaming whilst within the dream. Perhaps deliberatly decide whilst awake to look for specific things in your sleep... and then when you dream of this thing you might remember its importance and make some progress towards lucid dreaming. Now I do dream-initiated-lucid-dreaming nearly every night and I find them much easier to remember in detail then dreams which I am merely a participant in.

wow, that's definitely something to consider. no luck so far, but soon i hope!