Everything Under the Moon

First, I'll start by saying that dreams have always been an important part of my life. Tracing back generations on my mother's side of the family, there are ample stories of dream work. There has been times when we have shared dreams, dreams that have prophesied the coming and going of people in our lives, repeating locations, repeating faces (some which have noted in the dream that we've met before), or just little messages and connections to pay attention to. I have kept a dream journal for over a decade now and I even created my university thesis on dreams way back in the day.

The issue I'm experiencing now is this inability to grab onto the dream details the way I use to. It seems like for the past 2 years now I've been having dreams; I know that I'm dreaming and I even remember cognitive thoughts while dreaming like 'I need to remember this dream' or 'hey, I've been here before!', but the details surrounding that are gone. It's like this feeling like the dream is on the tip of my tongue but I'm unable to spit it out. I know that the location is familiar and somewhere I go to often in my dreams, but I can't seem to map out the layout, specify what each room was used for. I can't remember the actions that happen in the dream or specific conversations. I remember people in the dream, people that feel familiar, but who they are, what they look like and what we discuss is gone.

I wake up with this maddening feeling of being shown a flash card for a second but not long enough to process the image. I carry the feeling that the dream brings with me for the rest of the day. I get smells, or sights or keywords throughout the waking day that triggers that tip of the tongue feeling but no way to expand on it. My dreams have turned into translucent ghosts that haunt me.

I've tried changing up my bedtime ritual with eating earlier, taking relaxing baths, dream recall spells, , mugwort tea, gemstones that help with dreams and dream recall, I've tried logging the blips that I can remember in a book but they are just a Polaroids of a bigger movie.

Lately I've been wondering if there is a reason my subconscious is preventing me from seeing these more clearly. Maybe this repeated location is one that I'm not suppose to remember for some reason beyond me? Maybe I'm not suppose to connect with these people yet outside of my dreams? Or maybe there is something in my waking life preventing me from grabbing these dreams by the metaphorical horn?

Has anyone experienced this and found a way that works for them?

Well, yea, maybe. It's like the info is at that aggravating subliminal level of consciousness. I would go to my astral construct "Place of Power" in meditation & re-play the "recording" so to speak, & tell (or program) my self to remember by using positive affirmations like: I do remember, I allow myself to remember, remembering is wellness & whole-being ... That sort of thing. Remembering comes later over several days, etc., in my experience. I used this with intensive journaling during a project to recover suppressed memories.

The place of power is that imaginary quiet spot of peace & strength that is built by visualizing it, something like the peace garden topic post is the astral construct for EUTM participants.

That's something I haven't tried doing too much of yet, SpritTalker. I need to spend some time meditating. I'm still not the greatest with meditation but I have been working on this so I'll use your suggestion as a starting point with that. Thanks!