Holding on to Bizarre Dreams

I often find myself waking up just as I fall to sleep with the most bizarre dreams. This is usually the only way I can remember them. I'll live in societies of objects with entirely different societal norms, or I'll have extremely abstract dreams that I can't hold onto for a split second except for feelings of extreme confusion when I snap back to reality. I've never once remembered a dream where I was going about doing every day things. I've always had trouble remembering dreams, even when practicing reality checks, dream reminders, getting plenty of sleep, using apps, etc. I just want to remember my dreams, but lucid dreaming would be a bonus. Could the fact that I have such confusing dreams contribute to this? Nothing to ground myself in, and so no way to remember reality checks? I know dreams are weird, but I've been trying to remember them for so long. I just don't know what else it could be. Please help.

By societies of objects, I mean everyone will be like matchsticks or balls of energy.

>>636 I'd say what helps the best is not physically getting up, that seems to be what kind of gets rid of the dream from your short term memory. Keep a dream journal on your nightstand. As long as you get SOMETHING down you're good.

>>638 I have a journal sitting right next to my head at all times. I will try writing down whatever I can get, even if it's nothing but confusion.

Something odd happened last night. One of the nonsensical things happened, but it came from me, and I was lucid dreaming. I was flying, and I started naming chemical compositions in the ground below me. This was a complete nonsequitor - I have no interest in chemistry, and I have never. My dream had nothing to do with chemistry. I'm worried that this stuff just comes from my head now. I've been worried about getting "automatic thoughts" more frequently and getting schizophrenia, since I smoked a lot of weed as a teenager. Maybe I get automatic thoughts in dreams. But likely I'm projecting my worries onto my dreams and I'm misremembering it. I'll keep posting here, because it seems to help me remember them.

>>641 I should also mention there was no reason for me to name different chemical compositions below me - it was all just snow, and I didn't actually know what chemicals were inside. I know that talking in this thread has helped me dream, but I've been down that road before and it has diminishing returns. My tolerance increases and I stop dreaming again. I also had another abstract dream in manga style, which I don't read. I don't know how I would lucid dream in that case, but I should be able to remember it. Maybe my dreams aren't that weird.

>>642 It's easy enough to come up with something like a chemical composition if you can recognize what ones looks like (see Na2H2xU4Xe for some nonsense I just made up). Maybe you wondered what snow was made of and your mind ran with it. It is getting colder in the Northern Hemisphere. Not too odd.