Why don't I ever remember?

Question

How come I never remember my dreams?

It's about once every-other month that I will actually remember them, and be able to explain them to someone.

And everytime I remember them, they're the weirdest things ever, why is that?

Overall:

1. How come I don't remember my dreams? Does it depend on the type of person, or what?

2. Why are they so werid when I do remember them, which is rare!?

Answer 1

There are several reasons for not remembering dreams. The first reason is that we are all individuals with different needs, talents, interests and circumstances. That everybody dreams several times in the night is no longer disputed. But there are various views about the why of remembering and not remembering.

I have found that people who live busy lives and get up as soon as they wake up usually do not recall their dreams. With this goes a reasonably stable life, a calm disposition and one which makes you sleep very deeply.

The light sleepers are usually the ones that recall their dreams. Also those that worry easily about life in general.

Dreaming is called paradoxical sleep because you are almost awake when you are dreaming. This can be seen by the graph of the brain waves. The waking and dreaming brain have nearly the same brain wave patterns.

Also people who are strongly extrovert are less likely to recall their dreams than the introvert ones. As well as that everybody has a different memory bank. Not everybody's memory works exactly the same.

If you had great anxieties giving you nightmares you would most certainly recall them.

Now that you have asked this question you are most likely on the way to greater dream recall. At any rate I'll show you a few tricks of the trade at the end of this message.

You also said that your dreams were weird. If I gave you a book written in Chinese you would also say that it was weird. But to one who speaks Chinese and has been taught to read and write it cannot be weird.

You get the message. Dreams have their own way of speaking to you. They speak in pictures, in experiences, in feelings and all these work together to tell you about your state of mind and your future as well.

You may dream for instance that you are riding a cloud. You would say that was a weird dream. But then on the day after the dream you would feel really high and if I asked you how you felt you would most likely say: "I am on Cloud Nine!"

We use such metaphors every day by the hundreds, and yet we don't think of them as weird. We all read them easily, we translate them and we know we don't have to take them literally. When we say for instance: "I have fallen in love" do we mean that we have fallen flat on our face? No, of course not. But I have just read a dream of a girl whose boyfriend had taken her by the hand and ran off with her. He went too fast so that she fell down while he ran ahead. What do you think that meant? It meant that she was the one who fell for him while he was still steady on his feet and was not at all infatuated like the girl. And speaking of love, why do the school kids talk about 'my CRUSH'? Do they mean that somebody got crushed under a truck? No, of course not, they mean that their disposition has been crushed, that they have lost their cool! So you see, dreams are not weird when you think about it a little.

Here are my 13 points to improve dream recall:

1. First you stop worrying about not having recall.

2. When you wake up stay in the position you are. Do not sit up or get up or turn around.

3. Do NOT ask: "What did I dream?"

4. Instead follow the FEELING you have as you wake

5. Watch what goes on in your head. What is the strongest thought? Follow it.

6. Sleeping-in at the weekend is good training to recall your dreams. When you wake up, go back to sleep and when you wake up again you may well recall a dream.

7. Have a massive drink of water before bed so that you will have to get up in the night. When you wake you will recall a dream; probably a toilet dream. (It’s a start!)

8. During the day say to yourself: "This is a dream. I am dreaming this; in what way will this dream change in the night?”  

9. Put a notebook and pen next to your bed with the intention to write down your dream/s.

10. Read a book on dreams or check out the Internet on dreams before going to sleep. Check the Internet for other answers about your question.

11. Set yourself a really hard problem before going to bed, one that you cannot solve and go to sleep with it. Instead of a problem you may prefer to plan something creative. R. L. Stevenson used to ask for a dream so he could write a new story. What’s your creative flair? Follow it as did Stevenson.

12. We dream every 90 minutes. So set your alarm clock to wake you after 90 minutes. Allow for 5-10 minutes of going to sleep time.

13. If you are totally desperate to have a dream get someone who is prepared to do a night-watch with you; tell them to wake you when your eyes flicker in REM (Rapid Eye Movement) which will be most likely 90 minutes after you have gone to sleep.

Answer 2

It does depend on the person. Some people have very detailed dreams, while others don't. Some people remember them and others don't. It's just like everything else in life; it varries. You might not be remembering them because of the quality of sleep you're recieving. You never know though. And to your question about the dreams you remember...dreams are notoriously weird lol

Answer 3

Dreams are weird because it's your subconciance (probly miss-spelled it) acting up.  Everyone has MULTIPLE dreams every night. So when you remember your dream, you probably remember small parts from each one and think it was all in ONE dream. That is also why it is sooo hard to give a  proper interpretation of our dreams.

You probably don't remember your dreams because they are probably not that important. People usually remeber the scary ones or the really important ones. The rest is usually put back in the back of our memory bank.