Memory and Dreams

are they related?

I am thinking of writing a book based on memory. A series of events. Remembering is key but it is not easy.
It is hard to cover each birthday with a single event from memory. Training the mind to remember is also an important exercise.
Is it possible that dreams occur in order to reinforce memory and vice versa. That the more we dream the more we jog memory?
Any ideas are most welcome.

And have you written something out of memory?

I keep forgetting my dreams. I would like to remember them more, but what I wake up thinking often sets my morning. Both dreams and memory must have some neurological component although it may act more as a filter than a source.

How do you train your mind to remember? I have tried mantra recitation to calm the mind. That seems to be effective in slowing the mind down.

Peace be on you.

Here are few lines as two copy-pastes, for insight from a book 'Revelation Rationality Knowledge and Truth':

(1) Related to Dream:

" In 1865 a German chemist, Friedrich August Kekule, was struggling to solve a problem in chemistry that had baffled all researchers. One night Kekule had a dream in which he saw a snake with its tail held in its mouth. This dream instantly put him on the right track leading to the solution of the perplexing question. Thus was unravelled the secret of the molecular behaviour in certain organic compounds, a discovery which created a revolution in the understanding of organic chemistry. He interpreted this dream to mean that in the benzene molecule, carbon atoms bond together to form a ring structure. This knowledge gave birth to the huge and highly developed field of synthetic organic chemistry producing a vast new range of synthetic materials. The contemporary pharmaceutical industry has become growingly dependent on synthetic drugs. Mankind is indeed indebted to that one dream through which Kekule resolved that problem."

Reference
http://www.alislam.org/library/books...section_1.html


(2)Related to Memory:

"The mind is the ultimate seat of consciousness. Deductive logic is the most amazing faculty of mind. Even when there are no facts fed to it, it may continue to operate with hypothetical data. It can also operate by ruminating over the previously stored data. All decision making is done at the level of the mind, while the brain is merely a material hardware, a storehouse of memory. Moreover, the mind has the power to contemplate upon metaphysical and conceptual issues like infinity and eternity. It endeavours to resolve the enigma of a seemingly endless chain of cause and effect. Where did a certain thing begin and what lies beyond every beginning? Was there a first cause preceding all other causes? If so, was that first cause living and conscious, or was it dead and mindless? The only rational conclusion the mind can draw is that the first cause could not be unconscious and dead."

Reference http://www.alislam.org/library/books...section_3.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YALASH

Moreover, the mind has the power to contemplate upon metaphysical and conceptual issues like infinity and eternity. It endeavours to resolve the enigma of a seemingly endless chain of cause and effect. Where did a certain thing begin and what lies beyond every beginning? Was there a first cause preceding all other causes? If so, was that first cause living and conscious, or was it dead and mindless? The only rational conclusion the mind can draw is that the first cause could not be unconscious and dead."

---

I agree with that conclusion and I like the way it was expressed as a negative so as not to immediately equate the first cause with what we experience as consciousness and life.

I've toyed with the idea of keeping a dream journal, but never quite summoned the energy for it. I dream often, and they're usually pretty crazy...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YesNo

I keep forgetting my dreams. I would like to remember them more, but what I wake up thinking often sets my morning. Both dreams and memory must have some neurological component although it may act more as a filter than a source.

How do you train your mind to remember? I have tried mantra recitation to calm the mind. That seems to be effective in slowing the mind down.

---

Hi YesNo. How to train the mind is intricate and not enough research is made I don't think about it. I was just contemplating the idea that the more often we dream and the more memory is reinforced.
I sometime dream something then for forget but then something happens in real life which triggers it. I am trying to write a book using my past events ie remembering event from each birthday and I have to say it has not been easy,

In fact memories and dreams are storehouses of imagination and the birth of a piece of literature and art can happen by jugging the memory lane. Imagine man is not endowed with memories or imaginations or dreams. We would not have this forum and man could have been greatly likened to animals and would have lived through animal instincts. We are what we are today, the rational animal just because we can dream, imagine and remember things done, felt, experienced at different points in the past.

Imagine we have forgotten we have loved somebody or made love. Or we have no affinity with the one we stayed in each other's clasp.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cacian

Hi YesNo. How to train the mind is intricate and not enough research is made I don't think about it. I was just contemplating the idea that the more often we dream and the more memory is reinforced.
I sometime dream something then for forget but then something happens in real life which triggers it. I am trying to write a book using my past events ie remembering event from each birthday and I have to say it has not been easy,

---

Using birthdays sounds like a good, basic structure for a book. I see why you are trying to remember. This may not work, but it is what I would try doing: pay attention to the present moment with the intention of remembering the past and then wait for something to come to consciousness. That seems to work for me when I need to get something done and don't know how to achieve it.