How to Remember Your Dreams | Jim Kwik

We'll probably spend like 20 years of our life sleeping, maybe 3 to 5 full years dreaming. Yes, you're right. You could, you could meet anyone you want to meet. You could learn anything you want to learn. You could live out every single fantasy. Everything's in this, you know, in this matrix of your mind. Here are 6 quick tips to remember your dreams. When you learn or study all day, or you work on your business, Your brain doesn't shut off at night. It's actually more active. And it's— what is it doing? It's consolidating your short to long-term memory. It's integrating all the things that you've learned. And it's coming up with ideas, like these gems. Like when you dream, we'll probably spend like 20 years of our life sleeping, maybe 3 to 5 full years dreaming. 3 to 5 years. That's a lot of time, right? So insane to think about. Yeah, exactly. 20 years knocked out. That's so— it is, right? And so 3 to 5 years dreaming, And you're dreaming like I mentioned this like last night that Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein in her dream. Yeah. Paul McCartney came up with the song Yesterday in his dream. Yeah. You know, Elias Howe created the sewing machine in his dream. A chemist created the periodic table in his dream. What are we dreaming about? And so sometimes I dream and I bomb on stage. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not finding my masterpiece at all. You're not finding that? I'm just going, I got to not do that joke. But imagine like using that same intention of waking up at a certain time and you do it. Just kind of program, maybe like, I don't know, program is a weird word, but just asking yourself a question that you really wanna know the solution for and let your brain work on it throughout the night. Love it. And maybe you happen to dream about those things. So that's what I do. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do actually is remember my dreams. I feel like that I just, if my dreams are there, I just have right by my nightstand, I'm curious what you have by your nightstand. It's like I have a glass of water, a book, a fiction reading book that I read sometimes before I go to bed, 'cause I don't wanna read anything like Real heady and get my executive brain, but fiction is a nice way of decompressing. And I have like a little journal, like nothing fancy, a little notebook, but I just write my dreams in there each morning. So why would you want to remember your dreams? I'll give you 2 reasons. Number one, it takes time of your life, you know, doing this activity. We dream on average about 4 to 7 dreams a night, about 1 or 2 hours total each night. That's about 6 years of time spent Dreaming. That's more than a couple thousand days in dream world. And it's interesting because everyone dreams. Just because you don't remember your dreams yet doesn't mean you didn't dream. The number 2 reason I would say in terms of motivation about why you want to remember your dreams is problem solving. What do I mean by that? While we sleep, our subconscious minds continue to work on problems that our unconscious minds have failed to solve. Most people have struggled with a challenge, from a life situation to something at work, something with their family, their health, or they're doing a crossword puzzle, only to find the answer easily after sleeping on the problem. Now, when people say sleep on it, it actually does help. Sleeping on it actually has led to major discoveries in music, in art, in literature, in science, in invention, because the subconscious mind is very powerful, provided the conscious mind absorbs plenty of data while it's awake. using these kinds of methods, you could process and make sense of the data while you sleep. So now here are 6 quick tips to remember your dreams. And I want you to remember the word dreams. The D in dreams stands for decide, decide, decide that you're going to remember your dreams. Because Ralph Waldo Emerson said, once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. So the night before you sleep, make a conscious choice that you will recall your dreams. Number 2, the R in DREAMS stands for record. You want to record your dreams because the act of recording trains your mind to be more sensitized to your dreams and to start paying attention to them. So keep a pen and paper by your bedside to record any lingering remembrance for when you wake. Better yet, use a dedicated dream journal. If you can't see at night, go on to online and get one of those pen lights to help you to be able to write and see in the dark. You could also use an audio or phone recorder, anything to help you remember. Now, the E in DREAMS stands for your eyes. Your eyes. And what I mean by that is keep your eyes shut. Dreams can disappear within minutes of waking up. If you keep your eyes closed, it'll help you to be able to reflect and not distract yourself with what's going on in your environment. The A in DREAMS stands for affirm. Affirm. Meaning affirm that you will remember. Set the intention before you sleep by saying out loud multiple times, I will recall my dreams. I will remember my dreams. Have you ever had to wake up? This is a good point. Have you ever had to wake up at a certain time the next morning? Let's say it was 5:30 or 6:00 AM and you had that intention. You affirmed that you're going to wake up at that time and you actually wake up a couple minutes before your alarm goes off. That intention, that affirmation is important. The M in DREAMS stands for manage. And what are you managing? You're managing your sleep. It's important to get deep rest, deep sleep, to be able to have your dreams. So rest and clear your mind before bedtime. Get plenty of sleep. Establish regular sleep routines and hygiene. We're going to do a whole episode in the future on the best tips on quick, deep, restful sleep. And finally, the S in DREAMS stands for share. Share. And you're sharing your dreams. Talk about your dreams with others. The more that you acknowledge your dreams and bring them to the surface, the easier it's going to be to remember them. Now, like all memory training we do, whether it's remembering names and faces and numbers and speeches and foreign languages, etc., the ability to recall your dreams is a skill, and you can learn it through practice and persistence. I highly recommend, if you want to go deep in this, to take our Kwik Recall Masterclass. It is the most advanced online memory training system in the world. 12 weeks of memory training. You can find out more information at kwikrecall.com/masterclass. I want you to teach people how to lucid dream. What is— yeah, teach us those skills. Yeah, I'll learn this. Because that's cool, because then you could dream and then you could do whatever you want. Like, Justin could just eat cheese the whole time. Oh my God. In your mind. The possibilities. I mean, the idea is, you're right, you could, you could meet anyone you want to meet, you could learn anything you want to learn, you could live out every single fantasy. Everything's in this, you know, in this matrix of your mind, right? And you could— you can— then if you retain it and remember it, you know, combining, then you're, then you're in great shape. So One of the techniques, and there are a number of them, is first of all, just being aware, right? That's the hard part is first of all, most people aren't aware that they're dreaming. So you have to train yourself. Have you ever indulged in something all day and all of a sudden you start dreaming about that thing at night? Yeah. Because that's the integration. So what if you had a practice every single day to trigger yourself to ask yourself if you're dreaming? In fact, even this inner talk that we have, what if you asked yourself 100 times a day, trained yourself, put on your phone, have an alarm go off or a trigger. Every time you get in an elevator or you walk through a doorway, ask, am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? Because what'll eventually happen when you're dreaming is you'll ask that question. Oh, yeah. And the first time the answer is yes, then you're lucid dreaming, right? People have these other exercises where they'll just train themselves to look at their hand. They'll like train themselves to look at their hand or a piece of writing or something like that. And they say certain things you don't see in a dream state, like writing or words the same way, or your fingerprints when you look at your hand. And then you train yourself to look at your hand, but the first time you're looking at your hand and it looks different, Because it never looks exactly like what it looks like in reality, if you will, then you're like, oh, then you alert yourself as like, this is a dream. Well, first of all, people listening to this, that might be seeming like really weird. Yeah, experience this. They call it lucid dreaming. This is not common? People don't— No, it's, it is common for some people, but not often for a lot. Really? They never experienced. So lucid means you're aware. And so lucid dreaming is you're aware that you're asleep and dreaming. And some people do it naturally, right? And for those who don't do it naturally, like anything else, you could train yourself to be able to do it. And it's wonderful because if you're spending 3 to 5 years of your life dreaming, then you could pick up that time and, you know, what can you do? You can live out fantasies, you can meet people, you can learn things, you go on adventures, do all these things. Yes. And still get the restorative benefit of sleep, right? So it's wonderful. And one of the tricks that we talk about to lucid dream I did a podcast episode on this, is just train yourself throughout the day, ask yourself this simple question, is this a dream? So simple, right? Is this a dream? You ask yourself 100 times a day, and then the first time the answer is yes, then you're lucid dreaming, right? 'Cause remember you obsess about something throughout the day and you start dreaming about it? Yeah, yeah. What if you start asking yourself that question? Or you start looking at your hand and just like every time you look at your hand, just think about your dreams. And then when you look at your hand, when you're in a dream, it just reminds you of that. This goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway, but you can't have really amazing and rich dreams if you're not sleeping. We talked about the quick tips on how to get better sleep in our quest, but a couple of them right now are things like get off the screens late at night because screens create blue light, which inhibit melatonin production, which you need to have to help you to be able to relax. Another quick tip to be able to manage your sleep is make sure you're sleeping in a room that's completely dark. Have blackout curtains, get rid of, put little tape maybe on anything that creates any external light sources because your body even has these photoreceptor cells and it'll keep you awake because any ambient light could keep you awake. And one of my favorite quick tips on managing your sleep is to meditate right before you go to sleep. Hi, Kwik Brain, it's your brain coach. I wanna thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number one, make sure you share this 'cause when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number two, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing. Because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing: if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: three one zero two nine nine. 9362. Did you remember that number? 310-299-9362. Shoot me a text and we'll stay in touch. Ask me your burning question. And I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of love, lots of laughter, and always lots of learning. I'll see you in our next video.