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should ideally be recalled, and the extent
to which they
would like their dream recall
to be under personal
control, as opposed to simply habitual. Also
requested
was an estimate of the
degree of personal control
already possessed over various aspects of
memory for
dreams. Participants were then asked to indicate exactly
what type of improvement in dream recall
was needed,
and to note the nature of the evidence
they would look
for at the end
of the project to determine
if that
improvement had actually occurred.
Finally, a questionnaire entitled,
"Identifying Factors
Influencing Dream Recall," contained
a checklist of 72
variables known or suspected to have some influence on
dream recall. A person was asked
to rate each item
numerically for the degree
of influence the person
believed it had on his own dream recall. The purpose
of
this checklist was to
stimulate observation of
the
influences on dream recall during the
project and to
provide information concerning the project's
effect on
the development of self-awareness and control of dream
recall.
The completed questionnaires
were mailed back to
the A.R.E. in the envelope provided. Duplicate copies of
the questionnaires were kept by the participants for later
comparison at the end of the project.
To begin the
28-day dream study period,
the
participant picked the most convenient day of the
week
to be the designated study day.
The participant then
began recording dreams six days in advance of
the first
study day, so that the study days would fall on the eve
of
the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th morning of the project. This
uniform arrangement was requested so we could observe
dream recall fluctuations over
a standardized weekly
cycle.
Each morning of the 28-day period, the
"Dream Recall
Tally Sheet," a specially designed chart
for recording
and measuring dream recall, was completed.
This tally
sheet was designed by a group
of dreamers in a prior
experiment to provide a quick, dreamer-oriented method
of record keeping.(4) The rating system
was based on
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