5 Tips for Ending a Dream Drought: Increase Your Dream Recall
So, you understand how important our dreams are and you know the immense value we can gain from working with them… BUT there’s just one problem – YOU CAN’T REMEMBER ANY DREAMS!!
Whether you are just going through a short, temporary dream drought or you haven’t remembered any dreams in YEARS – these tips should help you get back on track and start dreaming again, ASAP.
I recently went through a little dream drought myself. About a week or so went by where all I could remember were faint fragments, if anything at all! As you can imagine, as a Dreamworker this makes me extra sad!
BUT I decided it would make for a good teaching moment, so I tried using all of my own advice to get my dreams back. So, without further ado – here are 5 tried and true tips that I JUST used to break my own dream drought:
1) De-Stress – That is, if you ARE stressed in any way. If not, take this tip as a suggestion to just get more in tune with yourself. I was super busy, stressed out and just not giving myself any slack or any breaks - and I think my dreams were suffering for it. On top of that, my dreams are my escape! I LOVE THEM! And I was so frustrated that I wasn’t remembering my dreams that I almost think my frustration was keeping them away even more.
I HAD to slow down. So, I gave myself a break. No phone, no working, no over thinking things. I even tried a breathwork video a friend sent me. And it DID HELP! I prioritized myself and slowed down and it put things back into perspective for me. And this, paired with these other tips, DID ultimately bring my dreams back in full force!
Sometimes it just helps me to realize there is no reason to rush things. Everything happens in its own way, in its own perfect time, and any amount of trying to plan for, or rush things has never panned out for me – so why even put myself through that?! I need to take my own advice sometimes and just stop and smell the roses.
Try some breathwork, meditation, take a NAP, go for a walk – whatever works for you, to tap back into your authentic self. When we tap back in, we get more connected to our dreams as well!
2) Another thing you can do during the day, to bring your dreams back at night, is to play games with the universe: This is the one that I think ultimately did it for me, when combined with the other tips in this video – and it wasn’t even intentional!
Playing games with the Universe helps to remind ourselves that LIFE is also a DREAM, and when we get more in tune with that, our night dreams also tend to step up in a big way! For me, it was all about finding a few pennies in pretty bizarre places!
So, when my grandma passed away, my cousin said she kept finding change everywhere – like in random places (mostly pennies) and she attributed them to my grandma! She said grandma used to give her change all the time while she was alive, and she apparently still was even after she passed! So, finding change became synonymous with gifts from Grandma…
Anyway, I was on an archaeology survey at the time, and I was working up to my neck in poison ivy for three days straight. It was also downpouring two of those days so when I came home I was a soaked, miserable mess and had to get out of my poison ivy clothes immediately.
So, when I got home I ran straight to the basement, threw my clothes in the washer and ran straight to the shower.
When I went to transfer my clothes to the dryer, I saw a single shiny penny at the bottom of the washer! I was surprised, because not only have I not handled actual CHANGE in forever (I always pay by debit card) – but these were my field clothes – that’s ALL that was in their because I didn’t want to wash anything else with my poison ivy clothes – and those particular clothes hardly EVER make it anywhere I would be paying for anything and therefore pick up change. I’m usually out in nature, in the middle of nowhere in those clothes. ALSO, I had turned my pants upside down to get all the dirt out of the pockets before I even put them in the wash. THERE IS JUST NO WAY THAT PENNY WAS IN OR ON OR AROUND MY CLOTHES - where did it come from?!
Immediately when I saw it I said, out loud – HEY A PENNY FROM GRANDMA! THANKS GRANDMA!! And took it and put it under my pillow. I thought hey – its worth a shot. This day dream may help my night dreams – AND IT DID!!!
I remembered a super long and actually emotional dream that night.
The next day I go back to work in the field, and in the second hole I dug, I found a PENNY in my screen!!! I was an archaeologist for a long time and never found any change in any of the thousands of holes I dug. Coincidence??? Or the Universe??
I told my parents about my pennies from Grandma and they said my Grandma LOVED archaeology and maybe she was excited I was back in the field after a long hiatus. A friend also suggested perhaps my grandma was giving me her 2 cents! Either way, I love it, and after connecting with the mystery and wonder of the universe, my dreams have been back in full force 😊
3) Give yourself some dream fuel – Read about dreaming before bed and set the intention to remember your dreams. It doesn’t hurt to have a bedtime routine and stick to it too – basically be kind to yourself and relax with a good book about dreams or the multiverse or something with some FUEL to set off on an awesome night of dreaming. Priming our brains for what we want to experience is key, and if we just want to remember our dreams, prime it with dream fuel! And state the intention to remember!
The last two tips have to do with right when you wake up -
4) Lay still when first waking up – try to lay in different sleeping positions and more does tend to come back
I’m not exactly sure how this works but it does! If you are having a hard time remebering your dreams, try repositioning yourself into your normal sleeping positions. For some reason when I do this, I have dream memories come flooding back! It might be a muscle-memory thing? I’m not sure, but it 100% works for me, so it might work for you too!
5) Work with ANYTHING at all you remember when waking – a song, a feeling, a color, a phrase, an odd-looking dream character. Whatever it is – record it in your dream journal. I find that the simple act of WRITING my dreams down helps me to recall more, AS I’M WRITING. It’s easiest for me to start at the end of my dream and work my way back towards the beginning as well – this is why I bullet point my dreams right away, and then write them out fully.
If you only remember fragments, its ok!! It’s something! I find that those fragments may be all we are remembering because they are the most important part of the dream anyway. Don’t disregard them. Write down ANYthing you remember. You may even find that throughout your day something will trigger a dream memory and you can then look back at the fragments and make more sense of them.
So, there you have it! Those were 5 tips that I JUST USED to get myself out of a dream drought! What works for you? Let me know in the comments below!
If you liked this article, check out the video that goes along with it, and visit www.thedreamworkcoach.com for more tips on dreamwork and information on upcoming workshops.