A multilevel phase change optical recording medium comprises first to N-th (N≧2) phase change optical recording layers, wherein an i-th recording layer and a j-th recording layer, which are two recording layers arbitrarily selected from the first to N-th recording layers, meet the conditions of Ti>Tmi and &tgr;wi &tgr;xj, with respect to a particular recording laser beam selected from recording laser beams having different power levels, where T is the maximum temperature of the recording layer in a recording operation, Tm is the melting point of the recording layer, Tx is the crystallizing temperature of the recording layer, &tgr;w is a time required for the recording layer to be cooled down from Tm to Tx after the laser beam irradiation, and &tgr;x is the crystallizing time of the recording layer.