As usual, had no trouble falling asleep. Before I know it, I’m walking around in the inside of some huge office building that is rather sterile looking. windowless, whitewalls. At one point, I see a girl I used to have a WAY MAJOR crush on, in junior school. I’ll call her “A”, since I haven’t seen her in years, and I’m not certain she’d want to have her real name published here.

Anyway, “A” is standing outside one of the many offices, and this one seems to be the only one that has any people in it. She is standing at a desk that is outside the office. I walk up to her, and say “Wow, ‘A’! Is that you? I haven’t seen you in years! How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine,” she says, “How have YOU been Bill?” (it’s at this point that I start to get that feeling that something isn’t quite right, because, thought she was always nice to me, she never returned my feelings, and usually talked to me only in passing).

Then I ask her, “Are you married?”

“Yep, expecting 2 kids in a few months.” (More of the uneasy pre-lucid feeling).

I start to ask her another question, then I wake up. Of course, as soon as I woke up, I was thinking, “NO! I want to get back into that dream and see how she’s doing!”.

So, I closed my eyes, and used a technique similiar to that Erin Pavlina uses to continue dreams.

Since I had just woken up, it was fairly easy. I closed my eyes immediately and remembered all I could about right where the dream ended and remembered how I felt. I fell asleep and, while maintaining my consciousness went directly back into the dream. I was lucid this time, and was right back in the same building, in the same hallway. The desk is there. The funny thing, though? The office is now empty, as if nobody had ever been in there, “A” is not there, the desk, which was previously cluttered with papers, is not barren. Nobody at all to be found. Once again, I am alone in a lucid dream. This seems to be a pattern with me. I start walking through the building, but quickly lose lucidity, because I really lost interest, since “A” isn’t there to talk to anymore.

What is my brain trying to tell me?

There are several methods to remembering your dreams more. Here are three:

• Simply intend to remember more of your dreams
• Keep a dream journal
• Get really good at describing your surroundings (one of my favorites)

Intend to remember more of your dreams

This is so simple it is often overlooked. By simply holding the intent to remember more of your dreams, your chances of remembering dreams is greatly enhanced. I suspect this may just be some sort of pre-programming yourself as you fall asleep to remember more dreams. It works.

Keep a Dream Journal

This is one of the most often recommended techniques to boosting your dream recall. I think this ties in with the above mentioned step of intending to remember dreams. Each and every time I’ve started a dream journal (I’ve fallen off the wagon several times before), I noticed a virtually instant boost in my dream recall. The intent is there. Keep a notebook by your bed, under your pillow, wherever you want, as long as you can reach it without moving around too much upon waking up.

When you write in the dream journal, simply write down what happened in the dream. Don’t try to interpret the dream itself. This usually kills the effect of remembering.

‘Tis best to try and stay in the same emotional state you are in when you first wake up. Feelings and emotions seem to carry over from the dream into waking life. If you can keep that emotional state going as you write down the dream’s events, you will remember a LOT more.

Remember, don’t try and figure the dream out as you write. Save the interpretation for when you are in a lucid dream, so you can just ask your subconscious mind directly about it

Get really good at describing your surroundings

This is something to do while awake. This method is beautiful because it can be done literally ANYWHERE.

As an example, assume you are walking on a busy crowded downtown street during lunch hour. As you are walking, just start describing aloud (it works best, if you can ignore the occasional stares from passers-by) what you are perceiving. Keep it in the present tense. You might say “I see a bunch of buildings, many of which are lined with glass”, and so on.

Sometimes, it might help to take along a tape recorder or recording device of some sort. This way, you can listen to it later on in privacy, with eyes closed, and attempt to remember in as much detail the experience of the walk itself.

Just remember to keep the descriptions in the present tense. The power of this method is that you will eventually be in a dream state, describing what you are perceiving, and you will suddenly start to describe the flock of birds (or are those pigs?) flying in circles. And then, it will hit you…PIGS (or are they birds?) DON’T FLY!

Each of these methods are powerful alone. Now, imagine making a successful habit of doing all three together.

That is basically all there is to boosting your own dream recall.

Dream on!