Another important
concept for building strong dream recall is positive affirmation.
Positive affirmation is used in psychotherapy and hypnosis to help
the mind adopt a new idea, and is simply a statement of what one
wants to occur that is repeated over and over. As those who have read
some of my other articles may already know, one of the stages the
mind passes through on the way to sleep is very similar to hypnosis,
a state where your subconscious mind is very receptive to your
conscious wishes.
Your subconscious
mind is a repository of information about everything you have
ever experienced, though so disorganized by conscious standards that
most of the information is very difficult to access. During sleep,
the subconscious sorts through the day's experiences and adds new
information to its memory database. While this goes on, you
experience dreams. Since the subconscious is the source of dreams,
getting it on your side can only be helpful.
In this case, positive
affirmation should be used for two purposes - to improve recall while
one is developing dream memory, and to improve sleeping
consciousness, the knowledge that one is asleep, while developing
dream lucidity. Repeating a simple phrase like "In the
morning, I will remember every detail of my dreams" is
sufficient to the first purpose. Repeat it ten to twenty times,
either in your mind or aloud, while you are lying in bed. If you have
to get up to do anything else, repeat the process when you lie down
again. The goal is to make your affirmation the last thing you think
of consciously before you are asleep.