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>What you need to do instead, if you remember anything at all (even just part of a dream, some fleeting image) is get out a piece of paper and write it down immediately, in as much detail as possible.

I've had very good luck with a slight variation of this, too -- especially at the start. Rather than immediately waking up and writing down your dream(s), I've found it very helpful to immediately close my eyes and continue to visualize the dreams as I go back over what happened in each. This lets you build up more concise (see: faster-to-write-down) outlines without as much "real world" visual input trying to break those fragile dream memories. This approach might be overkill for writing down a single dream, but IMO helps a lot when you're trying to remember and write down multiple/many dreams.

Curious, I've been doing pretty much the opposite, deliberately forgetting my dreams. Most dreams I remembered weren't pleasant, and forgetting them created a sort of 'blacked-out' period of genuine recreation. Like, I usually constantly think about things to optimize/study/do, and being very aware of what was happening in my sleep seemed to carry over that pattern into my sleep, if that makes sense (if not, then just think that waking up with a nightmare very present on your mind feels less rested than waking up not remembering your dreams). Now I have this place where my mind is actually free, at the small prize of me not consciously knowing what it does with that freedom. Also, getting too involved with dreams seemed related to drugged-like states to me, similar to what user jamal-kumar reported.

This article now makes me wonder whether I might be losing out on some benefits of dream recall. Curious to see what else researchers find about it.

Not a researcher, just interested in the topic:

I see it like this: You spend a third of your life asleep. By not "utilizing" your dreams, you effectively waste that time.

dream recall is very easy to learn and even easier if you actively write down your dreams. From there on, it's not much further to start looking into lucid dreams, where you can take control, even over nightmares.

Facing my nightmares in my teens (even without being lucid) was very liberating.

Sure, but are those hours really wasted if they make you feel refreshed? Sleeping is very important in terms of long-term memory organization, health etc. I always felt that those life hacks of trying to learn new skills or solving difficult problems in your sleep were pretty short-sighted optimization attempts, since those hours are not "lost", but indeed very productive, only in ways we don't directly notice. I might reconsider if there is overwhelming evidence of the benefits of recalling dreams, until then I am very happy about what I've achieved in terms of getting restful sleep. In terms of lucid dreaming or facing distressing memories, I prefer doing those things in more controlled meditation or therapeutic hypnosis settings (for which we do have evidence that it works).

Same, I used to have a lot of nightmares so when I stopped recalling any dreams I was pretty happy. Can't say I missed anything tbh.

I guess I was way more optimistic and gullible, now I'm realistic and don't trust anyone, even myself :D

yes, I resonate with this! It's exhausting to have this much mental stimulation at night. If I'm woken up at any point I can recall the dream I was just in and they're often really stressful dreams. I've been working with my nervous system and I'm wondering if there's some dysregulation going on that's contributing to my stressful night's sleep (like I'm cycling from fight/flight right into freeze all night long). I also tend to have more stressful dreams in the morning near that time when cortisol is released to help our bodies rise with the sun. Been wondering about that as well.

Yup, can confirm this. Replay as much of the dream as you can once you realize you're actually awake. It's crazy how fast the dream fades from your memory too, every second you lose more and more of it.

Also, the better you get at exercising this, the better chance you have at entering a lucid dream. Best chance for those is also right when you wake up, spend a couple minutes recounting a dream, and then fall back asleep.

The best ones are where you can fly at will, and then you realize you are in a dream. You may still have a few seconds where you are semi-conscious and can "fly".

When I was younger I used to mess with some really obscure shit called oneirogics. It's obscure enough that I can't even google it.

It's basically substances or methods you can use in order to dream harder. Cholinergic (affecting choline, basically the opposite of anticholinergics which are horrible pesticides ruining everything), and other ways (Maracuya (passionfruit) leaves under the pillow with its distinct smell to remind you you're dreaming when you're asleep, WILD lucid dreaming, etc).

There's like communities around these, and they're the wildest things you'll ever experience. Ever since the dream where I jumped off a train that was taking me to a genocide centre, lived somehow despite this fact, and was stabbed by cosmic nazis by bayonets to death in painstaking detail I've never had anything resembling a nightmare ever since (like a recognizance things aren't happening for real and I can just wake up and laugh) and pretty much stopped that shit because it's super weird and even more underground than the illegal drug scene.

I met a guy in Colombia who was a professor who was studying indigenous people doing this kind of thing, hence the maracuya leaf method. It's like another world, where people deliberately dive into their dreams and come back with insights.

There's an extremely interesting paper to me published in Nature Neuroscience which is the best insight into dreaming I've ever seen, as how it's probably an adaptation for anticipation in a virtual reality kind of environment. When you consider when you see animals like your cat or dog twitch around when sleeping while lightly barking/meowing it makes total sense [1]

[1] https://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/scholarly-activitie...

> It's obscure enough that I can't even google it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneirogen

It's been long enough I forgot the proper term for it, huge thanks!

Wow, that list is pretty huge. I don't remember trying anything on that list outside of Galanthus, which was pretty interesting.

It's not on the list, but I used to take 5-HTP before bed for making my dreams more vivid.

Yeah a lot of the stuff on that list is definitely just things you can score at the vitamin store, tons unfamiliar to me there too

I have done that by dictating to my cellphone. Voice to text.

It is less violent than writing. Requires less focus. Less damaging to the fragile memories.

Just mumble into the phone.

And did you see improvement in dream recall and/or dream vividness?

For the time of recording the dream, yes, my recall is better than with writing. The memory is less liable to fall apart.

In the longterm, there is no longterm here. I am not a regular dream-journaler.

I am a regular vipassaner tho. Which is great for recall and vividness.

One tip that really works for improving dream recall:

When waking up, close your eyes and try out a couple of different sleeping positions. Apparently you recall a dream much faster, if you get in the same position you were in while you dreamed it.

> if there was anything to remember from your dreams, you'll lose it by doing this. Dream memories are extremely fragile

I've always had a natural ability to remember my dreams. And one of the most curious things about my dreams is that I can recall (as in right now) dreams I had decades ago. I can often remember them until late in the day. I can also know when I had a dream I already had years ago (it happens often). It's almost like a deja vu.

I never had a dream diary, but I would like to make one just to find these repetitions, connections, relations, etc.

I thought this was common. I have a few recurring dreams I have had since I was a kid. I may have them once every two years or so, but since they are recurring I can remember them well. I never write down my dreams, though.

Since it's way more likely I'll fall asleep near my phone, I've started tweeting my dreams on wake. I do have to admit, it is getting a lot easier to decipher them for longer afterwards, too.

It's also getting a lot easier to pinpoint the origins of dream contents into things I had been thinking about while awake, too. The connections just seem a lot more apparent.

From a practical standpoint, do you turn a light on? Do you write on your lap? Do you have a side table?

I've wanted to write my dreams down but not sure how to do it without bothering my partner in the middle of the night.

Since sleep helps cement long-term memories, I wonder if there is a feedback effect when some of the memories are dreams you wrote down from the nights before.