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Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

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Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#101
post #64

If you're looking for a method to increase dream recall (lucid too) then I recommend Vipassana meditation. Works very well.

I started to meditate in 2007. Only 10-minute sessions. The change I noticed after a month, was that I woke up with a dream almost every day. Before starting meditation, the dreaming was a few times per year. Perhaps the meditation creates a relaxation that is helpful for dreaming?

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#102
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself very fortunate that I have very vivid and often lucid dreams - for 50 years since I was a child. My dreams are like cinematic productions - crazy camera work and all. I dream in color and sound. Many of my dreams have soundtracks. I often wake up in the morning with the soundtrack still playing in my head and I turn on my phone and record. I have dozens of them now. When I was ten years old I had a…

same for me too i remember my dreams in full details, like the stage, lightning, color, cast, interactions, dialogs, etc. but mostly only small part of the whole story music i often hear either when i fall into sleep or wake up, but also when i play it in the dream like a guitar also i dream of pseudo-code yeah, sometimes i wish there was a way to screen-capture my dream, because some of them would make amazing block…

I've often wished for some kind of dream recorder. I have had some very intense dreams, even "inception" style where I fall asleep inside a dream. In these dreams I'll talk to witty people, hear incredible music, see fantastic sights. But once I wake up 90% of the dream is gone and I only remember some highlights.

A weird realization for me is all the events in the dream were produced by me. Yet in real life I'm useless in front of a piano, or a paint brush. It would be great if there was a way to tap into that creativity once awake.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#103

I don't get particularly vivid dreams but I sometimes get dreams of really interesting stories. The dream itself is like a movie, I'm not the main character but I'm just kind of watching it unfold. What's really interesting is that these "dream movies" always have a half-decent plot. IMO a lot of movie plots are really bad and stick to typical tropes and lessons. My dreams don't stick to these tropes and have actual…

I consider myself very fortunate that I have very vivid and often lucid dreams - for 50 years since I was a child. My dreams are like cinematic productions - crazy camera work and all. I dream in color and sound. Many of my dreams have soundtracks. I often wake up in the morning with the soundtrack still playing in my head and I turn on my phone and record. I have dozens of them now. When I was ten years old I had a…

It's just a sign of the times. There was a long period of time when everybody dreamed in black and white, then when color TV was invented everyone started dreaming in color again.

I don't know if it's particularly creative to dream with a sound track just as I don't know if it's particularly creative to dream in black and white. But your brain is definitely influenced by cinema.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#104
post #90
post #85

I've lived with diagnosed type 2 narcolepsy[1] for 11-12 years now (half of my life, thanks Pandemrix), vivid dreams have been par for the course. Lots of nightmare-like dreams. Looks, sounds, smells like a nightmare, but doesn't "feel" like one). Thankfully I have developed/ adapted a way to wake-up whenever. I'd say I am semi-lucid in most of my dreams. I also have a very distinct "dreamscape" where my dreams happe…

Yeah, I've learned to be able to wake up at will too. However, it always comes at a cost. I have to kill myself in the dream, and it always involves being hit or run over by a train. But sometimes it doesn't work entirely as I end up waking up in another dream, which is sometimes freaky, as it's not evident to me at first that I'm in just another dream or if I am awake. But once I figure I'm still dreaming, I can alw…

I too have a similar ability. But lately there's been a creature in my dreams. Every time I see it, I know I'm dreaming and I kill myself immediately. One time it managed to pin me down to stop me from killing myself. I ended up biting on some suicide capsules in the back of my jaw to die and that worked, but I won't always have that prop in the future.. It really depends on the context and the dream whether or not it makes sense for me to have that in my mouth. I can will it into existence but it HAS to make sense in the dream.

I keep running from this creature. It wants to talk to me but somehow I sense malice and that I should avoid talking to it at all costs.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#105

You can improve your dream recall ability. It's not fixed. I did it when I was younger. I was lucky if I could remember one dream per month, and I went to remembering around six per night. Here's how to do it: as soon as you wake up, pay attention to whether you were just dreaming or not. Don't get out of bed and go to the bathroom -- if there was anything to remember from your dreams, you'll lose it by doing this. D…

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.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#106
post #95

I never remember my dreams, to the point that I am not convinced I actually have dreams. I sleep well, wake up refreshed most mornings, but have no recollection of having dreamt. Probably all the caffeine...

By now I'm pretty sure that during a large period of my life I almost didn't dream. I dreamt perhaps once a month, and usually in clusters of a few days. Nowadays, I dream very often, almost every night. I also wake up more often during the night. Unless my brain rewired significantly, I think the conclusion that I simply didn't dream back then is quite likely.

No if you REM you dreamed.

I also don't remember my dreams at all. This is the way it's supposed to be for us.

If you remember your dream it means you were woken up in the middle of it. Something is disrupting your sleep whether it's the brain itself or something else. The waking up in the middle of the night thing could be sleep apnea.

For people like us we're not suppose to remember dreams. But if we do, it means our sleep was disrupted.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#108
Lot of people discuss ways to improve dream recalls, or to have more lucid dreams. Is there a way to do the opposite, to stop remembering dreams or stop dreaming at all? I personally very much dislike the concept of dreaming, it feels like being forced to watch (or participate in) a movie I have no interest in. My best sleep is when I feel I was “turned off”, with no dream or at least no memory or feeling of dreaming. Just going to sleep, and wake up the morning with nothing happening in between, that’s my _dream_ night.

I never met anyone who can relate, so I guess that’s pretty uncommon.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#109

The more I'm interested in my dreams and the more of them I write down the more of them I recall. But since all that writing and analyzing takes a long time, I rarely do it anymore, so I don't recall many dreams, but I'm still pretty creative.

There is no rush in analysis. I've had dreams that finally made sense years after the fact.

its not suppose to make any sense. Any analysis you do is more YOU apoplying meaning to it without realizing it.
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