Complete Absence of Dream Memory

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Hi

I have a complete absence of any dream memory....ever. If I were asked if I dreamed I would say no although I probably do. Does anyone else experience this?

I rarely remember my dreams and if I do it's just a snippet that stood out.

No, I have a vivid dream life.

But my mother-in-law used to say that she never remembered dreams. Recalling dreams seemed to be a rather alien thing to her. I've heard of others too that don't recall dreams.

If you seem to get enough refreshing sleep, and if you try different methods of recalling them, you might start to remember them. It's not that you don't dream (everyone dreams), it's just that you don't remember. When I'm stressed or have insomnia or get wakened too suddenly by things that distract me from recalling my dreams, I don't remember them. Sometimes there seems no reason for not remembering them, and still I don't. Right now I average about 5 to 10 remembered dreams per month. But it has varied quite a lot over my life time. Sometimes I go for a spell when I have clear memories of detailed, complex dreams nearly every night. It can actually get a little overwhelming during those times, because I like to keep a diary of dreams and try to interpret them (Jungian special interest).

There's a very narrow window between waking and the loss of the opportunity to recall a dream. Also if you get wakened out of a very deep sleep you won't recall them. The dreaming portion of sleep is more active than deep, dreamless sleep. So, for instance, if you tend to waken feeling confused and groggy, you're likely waking from too deep a sleep state to have a dream fresh in your memory. If you tend to be active and engaged with waking life matters as soon as you wake up, you're getting your mind involved in other things too quickly to capture dream memories.

If I can legitimately sleep later in the morning and stay in bed without pressure to get up and start doing something, I then have a higher percentage chance of remembering my dreams.

recently I have been obsessed with lucid dreaming, which is when you can realize you are dreaming and start to control your surroundings. I do it because it is the closest thing I can get to a world that makes sense. I don't have to be under the pressure of others and I can produce pleasure as I please. Lucid dreaming is a good way of coping with depression, because I can experience a world where I make the rules.

I understand that you don't have a sense of dream recall, but there are many ways to build it up. I used to not remember any dreams.

In recent years I haven't been remembering much of my dreams at all. When I was a kid I used to have-and remember-all sorts of crazy dreams.

Yes, I rarely remember my dreams. When I do sort-of remember something after waking usually it is something boring and realistic: like doing the laundry, going to work, or shopping, cleaning etc.
Apparently, a lot of people have fantasy type dreams--I can't relate. I actually woke up two days thinking I was doing my laundry (for a split second) then I woke up.

Rare, very rare. But the ones I do. Amusement park on another planet. Real flat world waking up after that.

I am the same way. I even went online a few years ago, and read that this is common among people who are not visual learners. I test as an extreme left brain, verbal type and have poor visual attention and memory, so this likely explains it. I used to think I was missing out on a lot, but this is who I am, as well as you and others. I am sure some mental health types will try to convince you that this is a sign of some inner disturbance, although at least I don't believe so. Don't try to be like them - just be yourself !

I do not remember any dreams at all. I used to believe that I did not dream, until I began to wake in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, heart racing, and abject terror with no indentifiable cause. Still no memories of any of the dreams, but I cannot deny the evidence of their existence.

These incidents began happening the night after an incident involving being detained by the police for 6 hours after a traffic stop where I had forgotten to bring my driver's license. My car was searched by drug dogs, I was denied a phone call (apparently you don't have the right to a phoone call unless you are arrested, not detained), and was questioned at great length about what I was trying to hide.

I also now have trouble in waking life being outside of the house and seeing police/police cars. Even security guards have the potential to cause shortness of breath and panic.

I preferred it when I didn't think I was capable of dreaming.

I have excellent dream recall. I remember at least 1 dream every night and sometimes 3. There was one time I could remember at least a clip of 7 different dreams but I only remembered 3 in detail. The 4 flash memories seemed like they would've come from different dreams but maybe 1 or 2 of them were from one of the 5 other dreams. Three dreams is still the largest number of dreams I can realistically expect to remember and 1 is the smallest realistic number.

When I was a kid I didn't remember my dreams at all. I didn't even know what dreaming was. I thought that when I closed my eyes and I visualized things I was dreaming even though I was still awake and I was just consciously using my imagination. I didn't start remembering my dreams until I was older.

If you really want to remember a dream, you can get somebody to watch you while you sleep. When they see your eyes flicking back and forth under the eyelids, that's REM sleep, and that's when you're most likely to dream. If you're woken up then, you'll probably remember at least a scrap of a dream. They do that in sleep studies, except of course they have little monitors that track your eye movement so they don't have to have some poor grad student sitting in there and staring at you.

I routinely remember my dreams. If I bother to try, I can usually remember more than one a night. I can even estimate how long I've been asleep by how many dreams I've had.

I mostly remember dreams.

Not only do I remember most dreams after I wake up, but I dream in color.

Lately, it used to be I only had sight and sound when dreaming. Now, it seems I'm experiencing all the senses during the dream state.

My dreams usually involve hectic environments. Not only ''hectic'' meaning ''too many noise and people'', but also meaning things like not getting tasks done or being late to somewhere, and lots and lots of panic. My dreams mostly consist of my fears, anxieties, and emotions.


Also, (I don't know if anyone else gets this) most nights I wake up once, convinced somehow that I have seen a spider in my room (even though I wasn't dreaming of anything at all), and I sometimes act on it, like rushing up to switch the light on just to make sure, or hitting my bed with a pillow to ''get rid'' of the spider. Then I lie back down thinking ''how silly of me, there wasn't any spiders at all, and even if there was I wouldn't know because it's pitch dark.'' I don't know why I do this. Must be my fear of spiders overpowering me.

Also, almost every night I half-wake up thinking I am not in my room, I am sleeping somewhere unknown with no clothes on, and I sit up thinking, ''oh s**t, I've got to make my way home naked, that is going to be frightfully embarrassing, whatever do I do???'' Then I realise I am in my own room, and I heave a sigh of relief and go straight back to sleep. I really don't know why I do this so often either.