Memory development is one of the largest hurdles to recalling your dreams and developing the ability to have lucid dreams. If you cannot remember to ask the question, "Am I dreaming?" you will not be able to develop the skill to dream lucidly. Many of us go on automatic pilot as we go about our day and forget to ask ourselves if we are dreaming. Most of us do not have a mental environment of always being in the mode of observing our reality. So here is an exercise to help you develop the mental environment of observance of your reality. Below are some examples that you can use to develop your memory and your ability to be attentive in your reality, always looking for dreamsigns and checking your reality to see if you are dreaming. You may find that these particular triggers show up in your dreams as well, so you can very well program yourself to look for these items and events as dreamsigns to trigger yourself to lucidity after you have experienced them as triggers in your daily life. These are common occurrences that you are turning into dreamsigns so that your mind has even more to choose from as lucidity triggers than just those things that are out of the ordinary.

According to Webster's dictionary, mnemonic as a verb means "to remember, or be mindful." As a noun it is the "art of improving efficiency of the memory." The exercise described in the next article is a mnemonic exercise. It is called the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams, and this term was coined by the Lucidity Institute, as are some of the other terms pertaining to lucid dreaming.