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fburnaby comments on People who "don't rationalize"? [Help Rationality Group figure it out] - Less Wrong
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I haven't remembered a dream in years. There are three that I have had in my life which I can recount even a bit of (all of which were nightmares, interestingly). I'm pretty sure that I have them all the time because I sometimes wake up with strange images in my head. But these images disappear very quickly and I can't tell someone what I was dreaming about even minutes after waking.
I notice that I sometimes catch myself rationalizing in simple ways, like offering some justification for a shortcoming that I have. But I notice also that I can only think of one example in my life where I've done this... Yet I have an impression that I do it all the time.
I wonder if there's... something in common there? How many people don't tend to remember their dreams?
Experiment: Bring a pen and paper to your bed, and when you wake up, the first thing you do (seriously the first; a minute of delay can make a huge difference) write what you remember. If you don't remember the beginning, just quickly start writing from the part you remember. If any idea comes to your head during writing, just make a small note (two-three words) and continue writing. Do this every day, at least 5 days in sequence.
Why do I suggest this? My case may be different, but after I wake up and think about something else, I usually forget what my dream was, even forget that I had a dream at all. I would swear that I rarely dream, but when I did this experiment, I had a dream every night (and if I woke up many times during the night, there was a different dream each time). Without the writing I wouldn't even notice. Even the written record seems suspicious -- I read about a dream, and I remember "yeah, I had a dream like this maybe a month ago", then I look at the date and see it was yesterday! So my experience is that my memory is absolutely unreliable in this area. Also, this may be a coincidence, but when I remember a dream, it is usually a bad dream, because it makes me think about it when I wake up.
EDIT: Now I realized a similar experiment with rationalization could be useful. :D
In my experience, a recorder works better than pen and paper... it takes long enough for me to get focused enough to write legibly that I lose stuff.
Yes, I agree that this seems like a good thing to try for both dreaming and rationalization! I've recently gotten myself a notebook for at home, just for doodling ideas about the things I'm reading. It might be a good idea just to try and expand that to dreaming, rationalization and other things too, just to see what comes out. To provide myself more reliable access to an "outside view" of myself.