This article first appeared in Quadrant, 1976, 9, pp. 48-60.

If you have difficulty remembering your dreams, you are in good company.
We all had four to six dreams last night. but few of us remembered a single
one. Don't worry, though, because you can learn to catch your dreams. I can say that because of my own experience and because I've taught many other people how to recall their dreams.

It was with the problem of trying to remember dreams that I was first introduced to their mysterious ways. The extreme difficulty I had with dream recall created within me a certain reverent attitude toward dreams generally. It was with the belief that, somehow, the act itself of remembering the dream was an important bridge of communication between two realities that my approach to getting help from dreams developed. I kept a notebook by my bed for over three months before I remembered my first dream.

Years later, I suddenly remembered a long forgotten memory, bringing back to consciousness a secret, indwelling awareness of the meaning of a certain symbol from that first dream. The symbol had intrigued me for a long time. Discovering its meaning within a memory event further strengthened my belief that the key to getting help from dreams is in how we remember them.

In what follows, I will share with you the secrets I've learned about dream recall, and will explain an attitude toward remembering dreams that leads to a natural approach to receiving their help. If you follow my suggestions, you'll be remembering your dreams in far less time than it took me.

To describe the remembering of dreams as an art is partially a confession of the mystery of the process. Yet in many respects, learning to recall dreams is similar to learning any other skill. It requires motivation, an especially adapted vigilant strategy, an overcoming of possible resistance, and, above all, an attitude of confident patience. It is only when we practice these skills on a high level that the remembering of dreams becomes truly an art.

 

M y first secret is that attitude is more important than technique. At first,
natural curiosity about our dreams should supply enough motivation to make us try to remember them. We may wonder, for instance, what our dreams mean and what role they may play in our lives. By becoming aware of dreams and recognizing their importance we expand the domain of our conscious existence.

Still, once we turn our attention to dreams, they may disappoint us by appearing mundane or trivial and hardly worth the effort required to recall them. Moreover, if we compare ourselves with people who seem to have a natural ease in remembering dreams - dreams that are often more intriguing and imaginative than our own - we may find that curiosity is not enough to sustain our efforts to acquire a proficient memory for dreams.

When casual interest fails, we need a more compelling motive. Take, for example, the case of those people engaged in self-analysis or psychotherapy who have found their dreams to be a source of useful insights. They look to their dreams to find solutions to difficulties, to gain greater self-understanding, and to spark the hope for growth. These people have an intense interest in dreams and this sustains their attempt to remember them. Their example suggests that when dreams are seen as a means to some highly desired goal, there naturally develops sufficient motivation to recall them. The time and effort required to develop a fairly reliable memory for dreams is more willingly given when we hold our dreams in high regard and when we are firmly convinced that dreams are valuable and worth remembering.

 

Unfortunately, it is as difficult to prove scientifically that dreams can be
meaningful or valuable as it is to prove that life itself has any meaning or value. Even though there is growing evidence that the biological aspect of dreaming has vital regulative functions in all mammalian life, dreaming must be approached, for our purposes, on a different level. An appreciation of life's potential worth and meaning can be gained by examining how people have lived their lives. Similarly, we may gain an appreciation of the potential value of dreams by considering how people have found them to contribute, for example, to their creative work.

Many creative persons in history have denied that their own efforts were alone responsible for their achievements. Attributing the fertile germ of their creation to involuntary processes, as if it were a gift from some source of intelligence other than their own, they pay respectful tribute to inspiration. Dreams, often the medium of such inspiration, have enlightened artists, philosophers and scientists.

Mozart, Schumann and Wagner all had dreams which provided some portion of their work. The same can be said of Dante, Voltaire, Tolstoy, Poe and Scott. We know from Goethe that Faust, and from Stevenson that Dr. Jerkily and Mr. Hyde, originated in dreams. But it is not only to literary works that dreams contribute. The essence of Descartes' philosophy came to him in a dream. Dreams were the wellspring of certain important discoveries in the sciences. In physiology it was the discovery of the chemical basis of nerve conductivity. In chemistry it was the formula for the benzene ring. In physics it was the common model for the atom. And Einstein, who himself kept notepaper by his bed to record his dreams, maintained that such intuitions as dreams provide were indispensable for fundamental insights into nature.

We may well ask, what is the source of the evident creative potential of dreams? Perhaps it is that dreams have access to long-forgotten memories and to perceptions which were originally only vaguely noted. Perhaps it is that dreams combine elements of experience in novel fashions, using bizarre imagery and/or powerful symbols. It is not only the especially gifted few, the creative geniuses, who find that they can sometimes be outdone by the dreams. We all have had dreams which seem to surpass our daytime talents. Our experience tells us, then, that dreams bear a creative potential for everyone.

In short, dreams show that we are special, that we are more than we seem to be. By respecting our dreams, we respect an important part of ourselves. Anything that important is certainly worth waiting for, if necessary. So however you can get there, being able to appreciate the value of dreams is the best attitude for getting ready to recall them.

• Be Patient.
• Be Persistent.
• Study books on dreams to keep motivation high. 

Having a positive attitude helps, but even a good attitude needs a practical
pair of shoes to go off on a trek for dreams. Dreams are slippery and they challenge our attempts to learn to remember them. They happen in a different state of consciousness than our ordinary waking frame of mind. They hardly fit through the door of our waking mind as we try to bring them across the threshold into the daylight.

Although the existence of dreams is a psychological reality, they typically defy direct observation. It should come as no surprise that because their reality is characteristically alien to our waking life, our memory for them is particularly fragile. The frequent elusiveness of dreams presents a formidable challenge to our memory.

Dreams seem to elude direct observation because when we are dreaming it is unusual for us to realize that we are doing so. When we do realize, we often respond to these unusual and particularly lucid dreams by an almost reverential appreciation. It is generally believed that by "awakening" to the dream, the dreamer is allowed to explore the mysteries of the dream realm and perhaps attain an enlightening experience of the paradoxical complementarity of reality and illusion. For most of us, however, the occasional realization that "this is only a dream" is quickly followed by awaking up from sleep. Thus, since we usually find dreaming to be incompatible with consciousness of dreaming, we generally have access to our dreams only after they have left us. Consequently, our knowledge of dreams usually comes to us secondhand, from our recollection after awakening.

Awakening from a dream can itself be a rather puzzling experience, for the compelling reality of a vivid dream experience stands in bewildering contrast to the subsequent discovery that we have been actually lying in bed. The psychological reality of our dream experience can oppose the apparent reality of our daytime existence in such a way as to arouse our curiosity. There is a fable that expresses a metaphysical appreciation of this ambiguity.

An adept in the art of Tibetan yoga is said to be able to consciously to experience this transition. He attempts to maintain continuous consciousness while progressing from the state of wakefulness to falling asleep, then to dreaming and finally to re-awakening. Most of us, however, do not experience this underlying unity. We are accustomed to having our conscious existence interrupted by sleep. And when we awaken, we immediately reconnect quite naturally with our daily reality.

As we arise to confront the duties of the day, we can usually dismiss easily any lingering dream fragments as if they were meaningless fancies of a sleeping mind. Dreams invite such neglect for they usually appear discontinuous with each other and alien to our waking life. No wonder, then, that the dream is often rejected as incoherent nonsense and that it slips from our memory as we engage ourselves in the day's activities. Our memory system is not designed to retain nonsense. It has little time to digest the strange forms of dreams, especially when they seem irrelevant to the needs or purposes of the day.

A more technical explanation of how dreams are forgotten is provided by experimental laboratory techniques which have been devised to observe the potential dreamer during sleep. Through the use of electronic instruments which monitor the bodily processes of the sleeper, it has been discovered that sleep passes through cyclical stages. About every ninety minutes the sleeper's brain-wave activity approaches that of wakefulness. The irregularity of the pulse and respiration suggests emotional arousal. Behind closed lids the eyes are moving rapidly as if observing some ongoing action. If the sleeper is awakened at this point, the person will usually report having been dreaming.

The discovery that dreaming occurs periodically through the night and that it is associated with a particular stage of sleep has significantly intensified the investigation of dreams. It is now generally acknowledged that if the sleeper is awakened immediately following the active stage of sleep, the person can usually recall a dream. However, this ability declines rapidly as the awakening is delayed. Consequently, in the morning the dreamer will have some difficulty in recalling the dreams he reported during the previous night. This indicates that we forget dreams not only after we awaken but also while we sleep.

People who complain that they never dream have been invited to sleep in dream laboratories. There the dreams are extracted during the night and in the morning the dreamers are presented with their recorded reports. It is clear, then, that when we awaken in the morning without a dream it is because we have forgotten.

Apparently the mind never sleeps, for when sleepers are awakened from other than the dream state, they will usually report that something was going on in their minds. Sometimes they will report that they were dreaming, but not so frequently as when they are awakened from the dream state of sleep. More often they will say that they were "thinking". This reported thinking activity resembles normal thought and typically relates directly to the sleeper's daytime concerns.

Why is it, then, that although we have been mentally active throughout the night, we experience our awakening as the emergence from unconscious sleep? Why should we be able occasionally to recall some of our dreaming but typically none of our thinking? This discrepancy is puzzling, since during the night we spend much more time thinking than we do dreaming. Moreover, the quality of our nocturnal thinking is perfectly compatible with that of our waking thought, whereas the quality of our dreaming is quite the contrary.

When we look for the factor that favors dreams with some tentative privilege to our memory, we find that it is the activation that is present during the dream stage of sleep. The dream state has been called activated or paradoxical sleep because of its resemblance to a waking state. It is, in some sense, a partial awakening. It is a psychological principle that a certain degree of arousal is necessary if we are to register something into memory. The arousal that occurs during the dream state, absent during the other stages of sleep, is the probable basis for whatever ability we have to remember our dreams.

 

If we wish to remember our dreams, we need more than a conviction of their
value and an awareness of the ease with which our dreams escape us. Vigilance is the basic strategy a vigilance adapted to the peculiar elusiveness of dreams. In such a planned watchfulness, no time of day is unimportant, but let us turn first to the time when we actually dream.

Nocturnal vigilance means more than waiting until morning to try to recall our dreams. We have seen that laboratory investigations indicate that dreams are forgotten while we sleep. Thus, the morning recollection of dreams has inherent limitations. But the dream laboratory has something else to teach us. Experimental subjects have been trained with some success to wake themselves up after each dream. Such training depends both on hypnotic suggestion and also on the experimental conditioning methods in the laboratory. The results attained by these means provide an encouraging example of what it is possible to achieve in a short amount of time but with highly expert personal guidance. Relying on our own resources, we will be able to achieve as much, but for us it may take a bit longer.

Because we have seen that dreaming itself is a partial wakening, it comes as no surprise that we are capable of learning to wake up after a dream. As far as waking up several times during the night is concerned, we often do so, but we fall back to sleep so quickly that we have forgotten the dream by morning. Once we have seriously undertaken the challenge to remember our dreams, we are full of expectancy as we fall asleep at night. Our intention to be on the lookout for dreams and to remember them brings auto-suggestion into play. Our expectancy creates the basis for nocturnal vigilance. Our task, then, is to develop it and use it to our advantage.

Upon falling asleep we may experiment with a meditation from The Tibetan Book of the Dead. If we focus our desire for dreams into a concentrated "glow" in the back of the throat, we may then find that sleep will not erase our intention to notice our dreaming. The yogic phenomenology has an interesting psychophysiological parallel, for it is the stem of the brain that the arousal during the dream state is controlled. Thus, by establishing mental contact with this center before falling asleep, its activation during dreaming may also awaken our intended vigilance.

But in any case, there may be a temporary difficulty. Occasionally we find that the intention to recall our dreams ruins our sleep. During the night we fidget and fuss. We may be anxious about our dreams, afraid that we may fail to remember them, but also perhaps afraid that we may succeed only to have terrible dreams. Given certain popular misconceptions about the nature of dreams, it is natural to experience some anxiety when we begin to try to remember them. More typically, however, it is simply the fact of our heightened expectancy which is to blame for a poor night's sleep. Any form of expectancy - some exciting or distressing event taking place the next day - can interfere with our sleep. But this should be no cause for concern, for we quickly become accustomed to the anticipation of our dreams.

The effects of vigilance during the night will probably first be evident to us in the morning when we awaken. We may recall having dreamed, but remember only that in the dream we reminded ourselves to "remember this dream." Here we have, in fact, taken advantage of a semi-wakefulness accompanying the dream state to alert ourselves to remember the dream. At first it may appear that our vigilance is operating within the dream itself. What may have happened, however, is that we awakened to give ourselves this reminder, but since we awakened only so slightly and returned to sleep very quickly, our reminder subsequently appears to be a part of the dream experience itself.

The next stage in the development begins the night we discover ourselves lying in bed awake only to realize that moments ago we were dreaming. How can we take advantage of this awakening? Ideally, after each dream we would waken ourselves just enough to allow us to remember the dream in the morning, but without inhibiting our immediate return to sleep. This ideal state is best approached gradually, by experimentation, until we find the most efficient use of our vigilance; until, as it were, we can have our dreams and sleep too.

Begin by using the nocturnal awakenings to rehearse the dream and so fix it in memory. A good method is to lie quietly with eyes closed and re-dream the dream in an attempt to memorize it. Then, having reviewed the dream with a confident reminder to recall it in the morning, it is easy to go back to sleep. This procedure can be perfected until we are able to recall dreams in the morning almost as completely as they were rehearsed during the night. But there are typical failings.

Sometimes we will experience an annoying feeling that the dream we recall in the morning does not compare either in clarity or completeness to the dream we remember having had during the night. In fact, there may remain only a disappointing fragment which refuses to yield to even our most patient efforts to expand it. And sometimes in the morning we will awaken to the frustrating discovery that we have a vague but certain memory of having dreamed, but that the dream is beyond recall. Then we realize that while we were rehearsing the dream that night we drifted back to sleep. The nocturnal rehearsal method can fail us, then, either because of the difficulty with which the dream submits to memorization or because of an insufficient degree of wakefulness when we reviewed the dream. If this is the case, we can take another lesson from the laboratory approach and during the night make a written record of the dreams which awaken us.

For a few nights it might be a useful experiment to record in detail whatever dreams awaken us. But, in general, the degree of arousal and effort required to initiate and accomplish this task would leave us wide awake. So rather than abandoning our vigilance, we might do better to make brief notes that we can rely upon to deliver up our dreams in the morning. To do this successfully is probably the most efficient use of our vigilance. As we rehearse a dream that has awakened us, its most vivid aspects will suggest themselves as cues for recalling the entire dream. Notepaper, of course, should be kept conveniently close at hand. To arise, even slightly, from the relatively pleasant experience of rehearsing a dream to pick up a pen and paper to make notes will seem to require heroic moral effort. The physical effort needed to make notes must be minimized. Even a light is not necessary, for it is possible to write in the dark without much trouble. The light fatigue from making these notes and the confident feeling of having secured the dream make it easy to drop back to sleep without further concern.

This approach is probably the most economical use of nocturnal vigilance. As we perfect the notation method, we will probably wake in the morning to discover two or three nocturnal records, but with only a dim recollection of having awakened during the night to make them. Quiet contemplation in the morning, supplemented by notes from the night, can, with practice, deliver on many mornings as many as five dreams.

Once we have embarked on a strategy of planned watchfulness, we must look carefully at the fragile transition between sleep and wakefulness in the morning. Even though we have made notes during the night, the moment of awakening in the morning is the most crucial opportunity to detect dreams. It is also true that at this moment our dreams may be lost. Dream images from the night seem very faint in the strong light of day. The awakening thought, "What do I have to do today?" is their most dangerous enemy. Our first task, then, is to condition ourselves so that when we awaken in the morning our first thought is for our dreams. Sometimes it may be helpful to verbalize our intention before falling asleep, but, in general, we can rely upon our desire to remember our dreams to be a sufficient reminder. Being so prepared, we will often find that our vigilance is rewarded by the discovery that we were dreaming just before we woke up.

Often it is the last part of the dream that lingers in our mind. With careful
attention to this fragment, the entire dream may be retrieved. There is both a technique and an art to allowing a dream fragment to expand into an entire dream. It is of primary importance to avoid distractions which may interfere with detecting the dream. It is also important not to disturb the physical context in which the dream occurred. Therefore, one should remain motionless, in the same position as upon awakening, and keep the eyes closed. Get back in touch with the dream by reexperiencing the part that is recalled. Mull over the feelings evoked by the special mood of the dream as you examine each character and event. As we review a dream in this way, forgotten elements emerge. How this happens is unclear; it can be said only that one element of a dream must somehow remind us of another. But dreams cannot be hurried. We learn that we have to wait for remaining material to come of its own accord. So it is that how we wait becomes part of the art of remembering dreams.

When we try to recount the events of the previous day, our daily routine provides some structure to aid our efforts at reconstruction. But there seems to be no such routine in a dream. We may question the gaps in our memory of the dream but the only way we can fill these gaps is patiently to review the dream - and wait.

On some mornings we shall awaken without a clear feeling of a dream. Though we will probably be tempted to get up, we should, nevertheless, remain quietly in bed and wait. We might discover something to help us remember a dream. We may ask ourselves, "What does it feel like to wake up this morning?" If there is a mood, get in touch with it, savoring its special quality without trying to pin it down with words. Often a flickering fragment will appear which can then serve as a hook to retrieve the whole dream. Or perhaps there is an image or thought which catches our attention because of its unlikely character. This may be a clue to a dream.

But often there is nothing special until the moment comes when we suspect the presence of a hidden dream. It is as if we accidentally stumble upon the right combination of the static of the mind that places us in momentary empathy with the feelings of the dream. Sometimes, too, there appears to be nothing at all, and then suddenly a dream unfolds before us. Such is the mystery of dreams. And that special quality of contemplation which crystallizes dreams dissolved in the hazy fog of the awakening mind also becomes part of the art.

After gleaning whatever dream images arise from our initial efforts, we should not yet give up the hunt. Memory for dreams is to some extent dependent on recreating the physical context in which the dreams occurred. Try moving gently into each of the other positions in which you sleep and await additional dreams. It would seem as if the dream were stored in a code which is most intelligible when we are in the original posture of the dream. It has been found in the laboratory that when people roll over as they are awakened from a dream than when they are motionless upon awakening. Doubters can experiment for themselves by comparing their ability to reexperience a dream in different positions. Trying to recall a dream while in an inappropriate position can feel something like trying to write left-handed. It is useful, therefore, to explore our sleeping postures, for each may contain unique dream memories. Moreover, dreams of the same night are often linked in subtle ways, so that dream images gained in previous positions can be reviewed as lures for other dreams. Still waiting is of the essence.

It is, then, also worthwhile to turn to whatever notes we made during the night and try to get in touch with the dreams they represent. Generally, each of these clues provides an easy recollection of a small aspect of the dream and as each of these is reviewed, the remaining parts of the dream gradually appear. To be thorough, we should carry these dream images also through each of our sleeping positions, for they may attract further dream memories.

Developing the habit of patient, quiet contemplation in the morning is vitally important to our learning to recall dreams. Our experience will show that if we spend some time lying in bed waiting, a hasty assumption that we have remembered no dreams will prove to be incorrect. It is, in fact, during such quiet, meditative efforts that we gradually realize the creativity inherent in the process of retrieving dream memories.

Even after we rise in the morning we should continue to be on the lookout for dreams, for it is not unusual for a dream memory to flash into the mind later in the day. Although the reason for such a sudden appearance is not always clear, it seems that an object or an event similar in some way to an element of the dream, or which evokes a reaction in us similar to a reaction we had in the dream, stimulates our memory. More often, the dream itself does not appear, but instead we encounter a vague feeling of being reminded of something. It is as if a dream were delicately balanced on the edge of the mind, almost about to roll into view. We need utmost care to tease it into consciousness, for it is as if the slightest jerking movement might jar it back into oblivion. Here again we find a use for the art of retrieving such fleeting images, for the phenomenon is so subtle that it is likely that we overlook many interesting instances because of our lack of attention.

It is the kind of attention we pay to our dreams that will determine whether or not we remember them.

A Dream Recal Self-Assessment Questionnaire

The ten factors in the questionnaire below may be among the most
significant for you. This questionnaire gives you a chance to measure some of the variables that contribute to whether or not you remember your dreams. You must decide for yourself how influential each factor is in your own recall habits. Then enter a rating, from 0 to 4, with higher numbers meaning greater influence.

For example, Item 1 is, "Waking up at the right moment." Does the timing of your awakening make much of a difference in whether or not you remember a dream? If it makes little or no difference at all to you, score that item either a 0 or 1. If it is a very important factor, score it either a 3 or 4.

Now evaluate each of the ten questions in terms of your own recall patterns. For each, enter a rating, from 0 to 4.

Vital influence.....                A score of 4

Important influence...        A score of 3

Moderate influence.....        A score of 2

Minor influence....             A score of 1

No influence....                A score of 0

 

• 1. Waking up at the right moment. ______

• 2. How much I sincerely expect to remember my dreams. ______

• 3. How emotional my dream is ______

• 4. Giving myself a bedtime suggestion to remember a dream. ______

• 5. Something the next day reminding me of a dream ______

• 6. Placing my dream diary by my bed at night ______

• 7. Being awakened by an alarm clock ______

• 8. How much morning time I spend trying to remember my dreams ______

• 9. How colorful, extraordinary, vivid, or bizarre my dream is ______

• 10. How much time I have devoted recently to dream study ______

Total up your scores separately for the even and for the odd numbered questions.

Your score for the odd numbered questions reflects how much importance you place on factors outside your control. Your score for the even numbered questions reflects how much importance you place on factors within your control. We'll call your total score on the odd numbered questions your external score, as those factors are external to you, or outside your control. We'll call your total score on the even numbered questions your internal score, as those factors are internal to you, or within your control.

If you don't recall dreams very often, perhaps the results of this little test can give you some clue for what you might change. If your external score is higher than your internal score, then you are too passive with regard to dream recall. You believe more in fate than in your own efforts. You need to take a more active role in remembering dreams.

Rather than allowing external factors to play such a large role in whether or not you remember dreams, try to work on the internal factors.

Can you work to improve, for example, how much of an effect item #2 has on your dream recall? Reading about dreams and making a date with someone to discuss dreams the next day are two ways you might work on "expectancy."

In the sections that follow, there are some more specific hints on how you might pay more attention to these "internal" factors, that are within your control, and learn that your efforts can make a difference in how much dream recall you have. Learn the power of auto-suggestion. Learn how much it helps to stay in bed a few extra moments and write down anything that comes to mind. In these ways you'll learn to redirect your attention to your dreams in a truly effective manner.

A positive attitude about dreams will mean you will plant suggestions within
yourself constantly through the day:

"My dreams are important."

"I'm going to remember my dreams."

As you give yourself these suggestions, visualize yourself waking up in the morning with a dream on your mind. And when you go to bed at night, practice the routine of recalling a dream. Imagine yourself waking up in the morning, lying very still, with your eyes still closed, and recalling a dream. Then reach over to your bedside table and reach for your tablet or dream journal. Practice this sequence in your mind as you get ready to fall asleep.

If you don't have something to write on nearby, then beware! It will be difficult for you to record your dream, and you may forget it--they're slippery! But more important, you may be giving yourself a negative suggestion that you aren't going to remember a dream. Having a tablet within reach, already dated and marked "MY DREAM THIS MORNING" is a good suggestion. It shows you mean business.

Some people tell me they can't remember their dreams. They say they are
blocked. Thinking about blocks comes from what we think we've learned about dream theory and censorship. We fear our dreams may have dark or worrisome secrets to reveal. That worry itself creates a block. Usually the lack of dream recall is not because of any block, but rather reflects the lack of time that has been devoted to trying to remember them.

When I question people who say they can't remember their dreams, I learn that most of them give it only about 15 seconds. If a dream is not immediately there for them, right away, then forget it! And they do.

I've found that for many people, it isn't actually the recall process that's difficult, but taking the time in the morning to let the dream memories appear. It requires patience to fish for dream memories, to wait for the feel of the fish's presence, hook it, and bring it to the surface.

So I've devised this special technique. It's a way to test whether or not there is any kind of blockage or if it's just a matter of spending the time it takes to open the channel of dream recall.

If you're serious about learning to remember your dreams, you would do well to conduct this experiment to see if you past the patience test. Make a commitment to yourself that for one week, every morning when you wake up but before getting out of bed, you'll write a full page of your thoughts. Regardless of whether you believe you remember a dream, write down whatever comes to mind, no matter what it may be. It doesn't matter what you write, just write whatever comes to mind. Write stream of consciousness style.

By writing out your feelings and ideas, you'll be inviting dream memories. You'll also be allowing sufficient time in bed to allow the dream memories to materialize. Everyone I know who has completed this test was writing down dreams before the week ended.

Our desire to encourage spontaneous dream memories is just one of the
reasons that during the day we should not forget or ignore our dreams. An often neglected aspect of developing a memory for dreams is the attitude that we have toward them during the day. The motivation that is necessary to our remembering dreams depends upon our respect for their potential values. If we do not properly value our dreams, our motivation for recalling them will slowly fade away. We must therefore conscientiously maintain an attentive, devoted, curious admiration for our dreams. This particularly fruitful attitude toward our dreams is difficult to express either in theory or action.

Perhaps we might say that it is as if our dreams were the appearance of an elusive, would-be lover. We cannot demand that she do our bidding or conform to our expectations. Even though she may frustrate or disappoint us, we dare not criticize her mysterious ways. So we allow her to come in any manner that she will and we are grateful when she visits us. What other way is there to win such a lover?

Another analogy may be helpful here. Suppose that dreams were utterances of an infant learning to speak. We are delighted at baby's first words. Even though we can only guess at what he might be saying, we do not scorn or ignore him - nor do we doubt his potential future eloquence. Instead, we applaud his efforts, and, by our attention, encourage him to continue speaking. We even take special note of his words and are all too eager to tell our friends about his speech. Thus we should not ignore even the least dream fragment a seemingly insignificant, nor should we disregard our dreams as meaningless even though they may puzzle us. Rather, we should give each one careful attention and with each develop an appreciative familiarity. How else can we expect the child to say even greater things?

Not only do these two metaphors - the elusive lover and the speech of an infant - illustrate an attitude which will support our attempts to learn to remember dreams, they also suggest ways to actualize this attitude and warn us of some common resistances which we may encounter. The basic resistance, and it is one that may take many forms, is the tendency to reject our dreams. Although our reason for rejecting a dream is usually perfectly valid when considered on its own terms, though such rejections our dream recall is nevertheless inhibited. Therefore, we must periodically come to terms with the source of this resistance.

We may, for example, reject a dream outright. Upon awakening in the morning, we may say to ourselves, "Oh, that dream was nothing!" and carelessly toss aside a lingering dream image which otherwise might have provided a memory for a dream. When we are seriously trying to recall our dreams, such judgments are ill-advised. Later in the day a rejected dream fragment may seem to be quite interesting after all, but then we will be disappointed to discover that we can no longer recall the dream.

We may also disregard a dream on the basis that our memory of it is too incomplete or confused. We may fall prey to philosophical doubt concerning the basis for trusting memory itself and we will confuse ourselves with doubts as to whether we dreamed at all. The subjective certainty which typically accompanies the initial, spontaneous recollection of our dream will fade with time and as the dream is scrutinized. Thus, it is better to record the first memory of the dream and let it go at that. There will always be time for later editorial revision and the original evidence will have been preserved.

Another reason for rejecting a dream is that it seems to be disappointingly short and apparently trivial. We may conclude that the dream does not contain much of value. In another instance, a dream may repel us because of its seeming incoherence or absurdity, or perhaps even because its contents offend us. But we should set aside our judgments and remember the dream. Even though our reasons may be valid, our developing ability to recall dreams is jeopardized each time we devalue one of them. Each time we ignore a dream, we reinforce the auto-suggestion that our dreams are not worth remembering - in effect, an instruction to ourselves to forget our dreams.

Still another source of our resistance is fear, a fear of what we may discover in our dreams. As amateur psychoanalysts we often assume that dreams can reveal only our negative qualities and serve only to destroy the convenient illusions we have about ourselves. But we should not allow this preconception to prevent us from considering the positive possibilities as well.

A more typical source of resistance arises from the demands of our daily existence. Our dreams may seem to have little relevance to our immediate concerns and we may feel that the time it takes in the morning to pay proper respect to our dreams interferes with our desire to get a quick start on the day. Therefore, it is important for us to reaffirm the importance of dreams so that they can effectively compete for our attention.

Nevertheless, in spite of our best intentions, there will be periods when we do not remember our dreams. One may speculate as to possible causes for cycles in dream recall. Sometimes a dry spell is the result of a temporary condition, such as the pressures of an external situation, or the need to divert energy from self-preoccupation. But when we are reunited with our dreams, our previous experience in recalling them will make for a speedy recovery.

There are a number of ways to give attention to our dreams. First,
maintaining a dream diary is essential. Having a special book for recording and preserving our dreams is a powerfully symbolic gesture of respect for them. A dream journal has the double advantage of sparing our memory the impossible task of storing all our dreams and at the same time providing us with a space in which to develop, by writing out, our realizations of the meanings in the dreams. As the book grows, it becomes more and more of a reference work. As someone once said, "The best book on dreams in the one you write yourself."

We may further wish to honor our dreams by giving them artistic expression. It is often a good idea when we record our dreams also to include illustrations and diagrams in the diary. Certain dreams or dream images may stimulate the production of a satisfying painting. But even doodles made in the dream journal while musing upon the dream may yield surprising results. It is also possible to create poetry and stories of fantasy from our dreams. Besides providing works of aesthetic value, creative writing from dreams can also promote a greater awareness of the significance of the dreams.

Another important way of giving attention to our dreams is simply to think about them during the day. As we ponder what we dreamed during the night, we will often find it stimulates further dream memories and sometimes new ideas emerge. Thinking about dreams is often a good way to test and develop our memory for them, for we will find it easier to recollect (without aid of our dream diary) the dreams we recalled that morning and on previous mornings, even dreams of the most loosely connected sort.

By keeping our dreams in mind, we invite our daytime experiences to remind us of our dream images. It's no accident when we are reminded of a dream. We gradually discover the natural associative context of our dreams and we find that our past dreams provide us with frequent metaphors for our ongoing experiences. These spontaneous, meaningful coincidences often lead us along a natural path of dream realization.

Another aspect of giving attention to dreams is the practice of occasionally talking over, or simply telling, our dreams with friends. Discussing our dreams helps us to overcome any shyness we may have about them and it also serves to give them an added importance. The opposite can also be true: a dream kept purposefully a secret develops a special value all its own. Yet if we dream of a friend, discussing that dream with the person gives us an opportunity to add a further dimension to our friendship. Although it might be true that we dream mostly of ourselves and that the friend in our dream represents some aspect of ourselves, discussing the dream with the other person may nevertheless yield some surprises.

The care we take to retrieve and reflect upon our dreams pays us rich
rewards. Yet the creative potential in our dream life will develop in reality only to the extent that we take our dreams seriously enough to act upon them. As we gain appreciation for our dreams, they will cease merely to entertain us. They will begin to provide us with a source of hypotheses about ourselves and our environment. But only when we test these hypotheses by daily experimentation can we expect to exhibit the vitality that our dreams require in order to help us most. Like the difference between having an idea and making it work, living the understanding the dream brings is the crucial test in the art of remembering dreams.

The use of the term "art" might seem overdrawn unless we consider the nature of the creative process. Creativity is sometimes described as the ability to combine common elements into novel relationships. It is the ability to suspend for the moment our usual working assumptions so that new thought patterns can form that constitutes the essence of creative functioning. Even though these new patterns appear vague and remote, entering into an empathic relationship with such potential sources of inspiration until they can clearly manifest is itself a creative act.

Creativity is also the process of bringing to light those invisible, autonomous promptings, the daimons of the dark, which normally hold us in their secret sway. Dreams are the daimons playground, and our days are subsequently affected by their nocturnal activity. Remembering your dreams, then, becomes a creative process which offers us the opportunity to participate with increasing consciousness in the drama of life.

Each dream is a creative act. Dreams habitually disregard our everyday logical and typically surprise us with their juxtapositions. It is not only their tendency to dissolve rapidly, but also their alien quality that makes them elude retrieval. Remembering our dreams, commemorating them in our lives, then, is a creative art in which we can all become more or less proficient. It is worth the practice. At the very least, it offers us a way to develop our potential for creative functioning and it may offer us more than that. It has been said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.