How To Achieve PERFECT Dream Recall

In order to achieve a perfect dream recall, the first and most important step is to start a dream diary.

Every morning when you wake up you need to record something about your dreams - even if it is that you can't recall anything! This tells your subconscious mind that remembering dreams is important to you and trains your mind to start paying more attention to your dreams. When your subconscious mind understands that you value your dreams, you will be able to remember far more.

Remember that most dreams fade within 90 seconds of waking so you need to think about your dreams as soon as you wake up. Just lie very still with your eyes shut and try to recall what you were just doing, then make a note of whatever comes to mind. After a few minutes you can switch to a different position, which may trigger more memories of the dream.

The most important thing is to not allow yourself to get distracted by thinking about issues not related to your dreams. You can think about the day ahead after you have written up your dreams!

Try to make a note of as many details as possible. You should include all details including colours, smells, feelings, location, people, sounds... everything and anything! You can even add sketches of any strong images from the dream to help you remember it later.

At first it may be difficult to recall much of your dreams but try to at least describe an emotion, feeling or some kind of fragment of a dream memory. With practice you will be able to recall more and more and you will be well on your way to achieving perfect dream recall. You will then be able to record entire dreams or even multiple dreams in the same night. 

Once you have achieved perfect dream recall you will be able to recall 1-5 dreams every night (far above the average of 1-2 a week). 

How you record our dream/s is up to you; you can keep a pen and notebook by your bed, use a voice recorder or you can use an app. There are pros and cons for each which you can read more about here, but what matters most is that you consistently do it every morning before getting up out of bed.

After a few weeks of keeping a diary you will start to notice things that regularly keep popping up in your dreams. It could be certain people, places, objects, themes, etc. These are what we will refer to as your dream signs. Make a note of these in the front of your dream diary and simply ask yourself upon waking if you saw any of these signs in your recent dreams. This can sometimes prompt you into remembering entire dreams! 

Secondly, your dream signs can be used to help you achieve a lucid dream by acting as a trigger to remind you to perform a reality check.

On mornings where you have written more than usual in your dream journal or achieved lucidity, make sure you add notes about anything you did differently before falling asleep e.g. any food/drink/supplements you took, or techniques you used. This way you can look back and see what works best for you and what doesn't.

Perfect dream recall begins with a great attitude. This means putting in as much effort with all the other steps as possible to show your subconsciousness you are taking this seriously.

If you wake up and think, '"Oh, I can only remember a tiny snippet of a dream; there's no point writing it up my dream journal". Then your subconscious mind thinks you do not value your dreams and you will be less likely to remember them in future.

On the other hand, if you make the effort every morning, make sure to follow all the other steps and really start to take a genuine interest in dreams, then you will find they come to you far more frequently. 

The more you VALUE your dreams, the more you will remember them. 

"Dreams are what you make of them... dream states respond to waking attitudes" - Patricia Garfield (Dream researcher).

New research from the University of Adelaide has found that taking vitamin B6 aids dream recall, which can also help to enable lucid dreaming. The participants in the study took 240mg of vitamin B6 immediately before bed and most reported improvements in dream recall by the end of the study. 

On a personal note, I have found taking vitamin B6 is very effective at improving my own dream recall. My dreams are certainly more vivid and easier to remember after a few nights of taking a dose of B6 vitamins before bed. Vitamin B6 wont give you perfect dream recall just by itself, but used with other techniques, it can certainly be very helpful.

Make sure to use B6 on its own, not B complex. The studies where B complex was used instead of B6 alone did not have them same results. it may be that one of the other vitamins in the group counteracts the effects. Always check with a health care professional before taking anything that may interfere with any medications or supplements you are already taking.

If you want to try this, you should start with 100mg per day and work your way up to find the right dose for you. If you take doses of 200mg or higher, please make sure you only do this for a few days at a time, as high doses taken for long periods can lead to a loss of feeling in your arms and legs know as peripheral neuropathy. 

B6 can also be found naturally in foods including spinach, carrots, red meat, fish (particularly tuna and salmon), peanuts, wheatgerm, milk, eggs and cheese (which is partly the reason why cheese is well known for producing vivid dreams).

Even if you have not heard the term, "prospective memory" before, you will certainly have already used it! When you need to remember something at a later date such as remembering to call somebody back, or remembering to attend an appointment, you are using your prospective memory. 

Prospective memory is the ability to remember to perform a planned action or recall a planned intention at some future point in time.

Your prospective memory can also be used when you want to remember your dreams. You simply need to tell yourself that you want to be able to perfectly recall your dreams, repeat this before falling asleep, and your prospective memory will be set to recall your dreams when you wake up.

When you are ready to fall asleep, just say to yourself,

"My dream recall is perfect" or, "My dream memory is amazing".

Repeat as many times as it takes until you are asleep. Do this every night that you want to remember your dreams.

You can make this technique more powerful by visualising yourself writing tons of details down in your dream diary the next morning and don't forget to imagine how you would feel if you succeeded.

Make sure to have a good lie in every now and then. The longest period of dreaming happens just before we wake, so having a lie in will mean you wake up during that long REM cycle and will be more likely to recall your dreams.

Lying in late also gives you the opportunity to dip in and out of sleep,  meaning you are more likely to remember multiple dreams. Just don't forget to note them all down in your dream journal!