Why Can't I Remember My Dreams.....

.... in totality? I can remember bits & pieces sometimes but for the most part I never remember the entire dream. For me, the only recollection I ever have is for a dream that occurs just prior to waking up. 

For example, the other night flying back home from Vancouver I dreamt of a song with lyrics and music I had never heard before. When I awakened at this point I caught myself singing the song while the music played in my mind. Luckily I had my iPad on my lap, so I decided to write the lyrics down before I forgot them. I did pretty well with that and filled in any forgotten/missing words the best I could. I knew I couldn't write or record the music at that point and resigned myself to try and remember later on. Naturally I've forgotten the tune but at least I have the words. My bro composes so I'll pass it on to him and see what he can do with it. I have some idea of how the music went but I know I don't have it right. By the way, I have a tin ear and music is not my cup of tea.

I have read where some people remember dreams better than others, so we're all different in that regard. I've also heard that lucid dreaming is much easier to recall and that one can train themselves to remember their lucid dreams but I couldn't tell you if it's true. 

One question I have regards the conscious mind. Am I conscious during a dream? I ask because I tend to think that once I'm fully conscious, the memory of a dream fades fast. It almost seems like I need to be unconscious(asleep) to dream and conscious to forget it. It's kind of bizarre when I think about it.

Yeah, you can train yourself to lucid dream, and thus remember more of them. You have to place pen and paper next to your bed, and fall sleep telling yourself that you will wake up in the middle of the night, remember you dream, and write it down. Practicing this will increase lucid dreaming.

The main problem with remembering dreams seems to be the fact that you have nothing in waking life that connects the two. Your physical reality does not reinforce the dream, so the mind seems to discount it as irrelevant. Writing dreams down seems to provide an anchor to your waking reality.

(Mar 15, 2018 05:17 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: .... in totality? I can remember bits & pieces sometimes but for the most part I never remember the entire dream. For me, the only recollection I ever have is for a dream that occurs just prior to waking up. 

A dream avatar is prone to either amnesia or inaccuracies about the waking-self and its world, and so the reverse barrier shouldn't be too surprising. Evolutionary developments wouldn't cater to storage space for the brain's long-term memories being devoured by those countless dream episodes. Which are utterly trivial compared to the importance of retaining information about the waking world's events (survival). Also, the avatar's own memory cache allotted for its highly mutable virtual-life is extremely fragile / vulnerable to begin with; because that oneirological past has to be susceptible to intermittent revisions as one "story" blends into another or when inconsistencies becoming too glaring.

People who by nature are partially roused off and on throughout the entire sleep period tend to better recall fragments from most of their dream sessions rather than just the final session before the alarm goes off. Since dream environments are invented on the fly, their oneirological past is merely floating around in working memory and by default such doesn't receive special status for being permanently recorded on a figurative DVD+R or a computer's hard-drive disc. It requires deliberate intervention and interest on the part of the waking-self to recondition that default setting.

Quote:I've also heard that lucid dreaming is much easier to recall and that one can train themselves to remember their lucid dreams but I couldn't tell you if it's true.

I often had them when younger; not so much these days. In a lucid dream, there's middling to total awareness that you are dreaming, and thereby you can with varying success control circumstances as if a thaumaturge or god (i.e., Neo slash Keanu Reeves). Depending again on the degree and rate that those retcons try to conceal inconsistencies that might enlighten the avatar that it is dreaming, and can persistently keep trying to fuzz-out the power of revelatory awareness even after it occurs via those tactical revisions in both its personal memories and the background world. Lucid dreams may have incredible high resolution, as well as the objects exhibiting bright colors. I was frankly staggered by the meticulous detail of some of them.

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If you can see your hands in a dream* (try) then it takes (you can take) your dreams to a whole new realm.

*This is Carlos Castaneda bunkum, but...

(Mar 15, 2018 05:17 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: My bro composes so I'll pass it on to him and see what he can do with it.

Ah, dang it! Come on, give us a piece of it at least.

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(Mar 15, 2018 05:41 PM)Syne Wrote: Yeah, you can train yourself to lucid dream, and thus remember more of them.

Lucid dreams are what I’d call a hypercube matrix. Dreaming that you’re dreaming. That happens to me all the time. I used to sleepwalk when I was young but misplaced objects would always wake me up. I had nightmare once and my mom came in to comfort me. We both fell back asleep, and a few minutes later, she woke up the whole house screaming because I had convinced her that there was a giant spider on her. I was so convinced that it was real. I didn’t realize that I was dreaming until everyone came running into my room and my mother was standing there stark naked. She had stripped off all her cloths to rid herself of the spider. My dad was mad because he had to work in the morning. I confessed after he went back to bed and then we kept everyone up because we couldn’t stop laughing.

Good times-good times!

Knowing that you're dreaming (lucid dreaming) is not the same as dreaming that you're dreaming (or a dream within a dream).

I once woke up suddenly in my bed convinced there was a snake crawling underneath my comforter. I flew out of that bed and hit the light switch to find nothing there!

(Mar 16, 2018 01:24 AM)Syne Wrote: Knowing that you're dreaming (lucid dreaming) is not the same as dreaming that you're dreaming (or a dream within a dream).

Well, it feels like it to me.  I’m aware that I’m dreaming but I’m not fully awake.  Do how I know this? Because I’m still dreaming, duh.  

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(Mar 16, 2018 02:11 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: I once woke up suddenly in my bed convinced there was a snake crawling underneath my comforter. I flew out of that bed and hit the light switch to find nothing there!

Maybe it was one of those one eyed snakes? They’re sneaky little critters. You gotta watch out for 'em. Their venom is potent. Made my stomach bloat.

LMAO!!!

(Mar 16, 2018 02:15 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote:

(Mar 16, 2018 01:24 AM)Syne Wrote: Knowing that you're dreaming (lucid dreaming) is not the same as dreaming that you're dreaming (or a dream within a dream).

Well, it feels like it to me.  I’m aware that I’m dreaming but I’m not fully awake.  Do how I know this? Because I’m still dreaming, duh.  

So you think being aware of dreaming is dreaming that you're dreaming?
I doubt you'll ever sort out why I would ask.