“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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Dream Recall: How to Remember Your Dreams

Seth gave us our first instructions in 1964. The whole idea of deliberate dream recall was new to us. The methods are not new, though we had never heard of them at the time. I’ll paraphrase them here: Simply buy a notebook to be used exclusively for dreams. Keep it with a pencil or pen by your bed. Before you fall to sleep at night, give yourself this suggestion: “I can remember my dreams and write them down in the morning.”

This method is really easy and workable — but it can be sabotaged. One of my students, Gloria, had great difficulty remembering her dreams until I discovered that she was using a clock radio to awaken her in the morning and the news happened to be on. The dreams must be recalled before you become mentally involved with the world’s activities.

If you have remembered only unpleasant dreams in the past, you may have built up a block against recalling any dreams at all. Mrs. Taylor, another student, had this problem. She gave herself the proper suggestions each night but had the greatest difficulty in remembering even one dream. “Maybe you really don’t want to remember any,” I said.

The method of dream recall just given will allow many people to remember more dreams in a month than they previously did in their entire lives. Variations will occur, however. Periods of excellent recall are sometimes followed by poorer ones, and each individual seems to have his own cycle of significant activity.

Ruburt’s dream notebook is coming along very well. In most cases, however, he writes only those dreams which he remembers upon awakening in the morning. Suggestion will allow you both to awaken yourself as soon as a dream is completed.

The number of remembered dreams should be much higher than your present system allows. … I also suggest that the first recalled dream for any given evening be compared with the first recalled dream from other evenings, and that the second recalled dream from any one evening be compared with the second dream from other evenings, and so forth.

People who have always remembered many of their dreams may be less than impressed with the idea of recording dream activities, but others for whom sleep means oblivion will find dream recall a fascinating endeavor and the variety of dream acts almost astonishing. Even those with good dream-memories will find that persistant dream recall experiments are invaluable. As we discovered later, it is the effort required to remember dreams, and the resulting stretching of consciousness that finally opens up dream reality.