comments:
Great questions! We'll try to answer them one at a time. Targeted dream incubation (Horowitz et al., 2020) is the most effective dream incubation technique that's been tested-- in a 1-hour session, over 90% of participants consistently incorporate the target theme in at least one sleep onset dream (Horowitz et al., 2023; Youngren et al., 2025; Bellaiche et al., 2024). Other dream incubation techniques have mixed efficacy, probably because of the much longer interval between the incubation and subsequent dream report, perhaps as well as the choice of topics (ie. Saredi et al., 1997 found no difference in incubated and non-incubated dreams of personal concerns). In one comprehensive 2x3 factorial design study (Barber et al., 1973), the authors tested 3 suggestion conditions: suggestions were either authoritative (”You will dream of…”), permissive (”I want you to try very hard to think and dream of…”), or no suggestion to think and dream of a specific topic (the death of President Kennedy). The suggestions either were or were not preceded by a hypnotic induction. The authors found that pre-sleep suggestions altered dreams in 25% of subjects, and authoritative suggestions worked best after hypnotic induction whereas permissive suggestions worked best without a hypnotic induction. That's a really interesting point you raise. The hyperassociative nature of dreams is one their most defining features and may be an important part of their function. Nonetheless, one technique you could try to keep your dream focused on your incubation is to visualize your desired dream in detail. Rehearsing the dream throughout the day can increase the likelihood of dreaming of your incubation. This is similar to image rehersal therapy (Krakow & Zadra, 2010). I think autosuggestion and affirmations are very powerful dream techniques. I would recommend Robbert Waggoner's book "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self" which has specific techniques for improving your ability to influence your lucid dreams! Yes, a common technique is to journal "key words" from each dream rather than a full description of everything that happened. Another approach is to use a voice recorder, since it can be faster to speak the dream than write it. Many people don't remember their dreams very often (or at all), but we know that dream recall is a learnable skill. For people who are interested in improving their dream recall, some helpful techniques are to do affermations ("I will remember my dreams tonight"), keep a dream journal next to your bed, and lay still when you wake up before journaling any memories from the night each morning.