I never got deep into the "REM state" of study so to
speak*tongue emoticon*just yet - but I like to study things
after I experience them and then go backwards for the
explanations.
I studied lucid dreaming when I was like 13 years old. I spent a
short time checking out New Age stuff (my grandmother was into
Edgar Cayce and all that), and tried out a lot of the tricks
they show you in those books.
So lucid dreaming isn't difficult, OOBE isn't difficult. Fun
stuff.*
You can train yourself to remember dreams simply by telling
yourself to the night before as you go to sleep. Keep paper and
pen nearby or your phone charged up and you can start to capture
bits and pieces of them.
The memories fade VERY VERY quickly but the more you capture
what you remember, the better you get at it. It's a speed game.
It's hard because they WON'T make sense at first.
My CogPsych study of dreams start from "What are all of those
images that pop up as I am waking up?" and I went backwards from
there until I was satisfied understanding the systems involved.
A generic overview didn't matter as much to me ; I needed to be
able to relate it directly to my experience so that it "made
sense" to me as it was happening as I was waking up.
This also helps in dream recall because I'm aware of the
metaphorical manners of the mind and I expect dreams to seem
strange.
