gimme the dream pillow. i feel like less of a human than others because i can never remember dreams. like other people have these amazing often lucid fantasy adventures and meaningful psychodrama when they sleep, whereas i just go black inside and then wake back up in ShitWorld with maybe 1 or 2 vague sense/emotion impressions of something that was maybe cool or at least interesting that just piss me off more than if i remembered nothing at all. but alas i need to use weed for PTSD purposes or else i just sit around doing nothing in an executive dysfunction way and thinking depressing thoughts and feeling bad in an existential way all day. and yes i have tried dream journals, but you need to remember something to write it down. i could write 'i maybe had a dream about a house at night or something, there was a window and lights' and that would be like 99% of my dream journal entries. i keep waking up in the middle of the night, not enough to do anything (if i really 'got up' even enough to jot down notes, i wouldn't be able to get back to sleep), saying to myself 'i definitely was just dreaming, i'll definitely remember this well enough in the morning to write it down' and then its gone by the time i'm actually awake if there was anything in the first place and not just vagueness my half-asleep brain convinces itself was anything more than like 2 images and a vibe.

i had like another full paragraph/collection of run-on sentences of trauma dumping typed up here but i'm not posting it due to opsec reasons. you are welcome. be thankful that you are spared further inane whining ramblings of a depressed yet comfortable 30 year old failson/manchild.

[–] sappho@hexbear.net 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

and yes i have tried dream journals, but you need to remember something to write it down. i could write 'i maybe had a dream about a house at night or something, there was a window and lights' and that would be like 99% of my dream journal entries

This is normal for beginning to dream journal. Making entries like that is perfect. I do not know exactly how it works in the brain but I know from my own experience and others that if you consistently write down the little bits you do remember, your brain will gradually start retaining more.

i keep waking up in the middle of the night, not enough to do anything (if i really 'got up' even enough to jot down notes, i wouldn't be able to get back to sleep), saying to myself 'i definitely was just dreaming, i'll definitely remember this well enough in the morning to write it down' and then its gone by the time i'm actually awake

This also happened to me during this process and I think it's an important part. What I did was keep a scratch pad next to my bed. Wake up, do not turn on the lights or move much at all, and just scribble down something illegible. Alternatively turn on your voice recording app and mumble some nonsense. Go back to sleep as soon as your body wants to. It doesn't matter that in the morning you don't understand what you said or wrote. It's something about your brain being shown that it's important information to retain.

I use weed for PTSD too, and it definitely makes remembering dreams more difficult because you just don't have as many with the REM suppression. But since I've made a practice of dream journaling - you really do have to keep at it unfortunately - I still regularly have the sort of "meaningful psychodrama" dreams that I end up discussing in therapy and dissecting to better understand my own feelings.

[–] pastalicious@hexbear.net 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do you by chance sleep very soundly? I find I only remember my dreams much if I slept like shit.

[–] TraumaDumpling@hexbear.net 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

no i wake up multiple times every night. i also have no real control over my schedule, i have to drive friends/roommates to work every day.

edit: not a criticism of them, they just have shitty bosses and shitty jobs. driving them is like the 1 thing i do that makes me feel useful at all.

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Try drinking to the point of severe hangover.