to learn how to use dreams as a guide to diet and health.
Others were interested in psychological matters, such as
personal and family guidance. There was also a
significant interest in more esoteric possibilities, such as
developing memory for past lives, learning to prophesy,
and encouraging soul development, in the dream state.
      Yet the most commonly expressed desire was a basic
one— to learn how to remember dreams! Ranking second
was a desire to learn to attend regularly to dreams and
to make dream study a more natural part of the day's
activity. Also very common was the desire to learn how
to interpret dreams.
      I wanted to design our dream project to be responsive
primarily to these most commonly expressed basic
needs. With regard to these basics, I had some
observations and questions that served to guide me in
designing the project.
      First, I had observed in my previous work that people
who wanted to improve their dream recall often already
had more dream memories than they initially acknow-
ledged. Frequently, however, dream material was
rejected as being incomplete, and was not considered as
a dream. If these people would accept and write down
what they did recall, then they would either experience
an improvement in dream recall, or else they would
discover a conflict which had been inhibiting the recall of
their dreams. I wondered, therefore, how much dream
recall would occur simply by having people make
systematic records of even their most fragmentary
dream memories. Would such attention to dreams in
itself improve dream recall, or would further instruction
still be necessary?
      Second, I suspected that many people have established
unrealistic standards as to what constitutes an adequate
level of dream recall. When people really begin trying to
remember their dreams, they often encounter more
dream material than they can effectively cope with.
What constitutes an adequate amount of dream recall?
Some answers to this question might provide support for
people who have difficulty appreciating their dreams

29