# Sleep and Dreams > Beyond Dreaming >  >  Shared Dreaming Debate

## Baron Samedi

NO AD HOMINEM ATTACKS

If you don't know what that means, please learn.

Learn some rules of debate, too, and debate tactics, so you can see through bullshit better.

PHWEET GO!

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## XeL

I think there should be another option:

"I might've experienced it"

That's what I'd vote for.

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## Mancon

> I think there should be another option:
> 
> "I might've experienced it"
> 
> That's what I'd vote for.



Same here.

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## Bobblehat

WakingNomad, is there a place on here I can go to see the evidence?

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## Marm

Might be possible with aid of technology; an incredibly advanced one. 

Can someone give me an actual definition of "shared dreaming" because I typed it into Google and it just comes up with "Inception"

*Facepalm*

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## Solarflare

i voted 'i need to experence it'

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## JussiKala

I cannot make such a broad statement as "I need to experience it", so I chose the one below it.

I would believe it if I would  experience it myself, but only if it was _incredibly_ accurate. As in, if I found out I had a shared dream with someone, and they could tell me in detail everything that happened without errors. And due to the short nature of most of my dreams,  maybe a more than a couple of times too. One or two _somewhat_ relating dreams wouldn't be enough to convince me. Don't tell me I'm not being open minded, I am technically. Everything I currently think I know just goes against the very aspect of shared dreaming as people like wakingnomad put it, so I need the appropriate proof of its existance before I consider it "the most probably explonation".

Basically, I currently think that it's quite unlikely. But a couple of good experiences would push me in a position where I wouldn't know what to believe. In that situation, I would probably try to do experimentation and see where that leads me.

But the last thing I would ever even think of doing is try to explain it away with some pseudo-science and shove it in other peoples faces. No. I am not an expert on any subject fit to this matter, so I don't find myself worthy of even a say in _how_ it all would work.

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## MischiefManaged

Voted for "Yes, because I have experienced it."

I'm lucky, because if I had any doubts on this matter, it would eat me up.

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## Baron Samedi

> WakingNomad, is there a place on here I can go to see the evidence?



Shared Dream FAQ > shared dream Journals





> Might be possible with aid of technology; an incredibly advanced one. 
> 
> Can someone give me an actual definition of "shared dreaming" because I typed it into Google and it just comes up with "Inception"
> 
> *Facepalm*



Sharing a dream with someone else. Having the same dream as someone else.

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## Bobblehat

Sorry WakingNomad, my crystal ball is missing. Where do I find Shared Dream FAQ? I looked at the FAQ menu up the top, I looked in the DJs and I looked in Beyond Dreaming. Where is it?

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## Robo

I personally believe in shared dreaming. a long time ago, I was playing some online game. I met someone there who was interested in shared dreaming when I talked about it. If I remember correctly, our dreams synced up by the second time we tried it, and worked at least twice more before we fell out of contact.

Edit: I also have apparently had several appearances in nomad's old dream journal, although I did not remember any of it.

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## Baron Samedi

> Sorry WakingNomad, my crystal ball is missing. Where do I find Shared Dream FAQ? I looked at the FAQ menu up the top, I looked in the DJs and I looked in Beyond Dreaming. Where is it?



It's all around you.





> Oh... then IMO:
> 
> Sharing a dream with someone else => Impossible.
> 
> Having the same dream with someone else => Coincidence.



What is the difference between sharing a dream and with someone else and having the same dream with someone else to you?

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## Robo

How many times does something need to be able to be able to be reproduced before it is no longer coincidence? for me, I've repeated shared dreaming enough to prove to myself that there is more than just coincidence going on.

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## Baron Samedi

> How many times does something need to be able to be able to be reproduced before it is no longer coincidence? for me, I've repeated shared dreaming enough to prove to myself that there is more than just coincidence going on.







It's a coincidence that I see this video and the author has zzz zzz in his username. It's a coincidence that 222 keeps reappearing in my life. Another coincidence yesterday, is when I was talking about UFO's to my family last might, my uncle awoke from a dream, and said, "I just had a dream about big silvery ball in the ground. I was on a construction team, and we were trying to get it out of the soil. A big silver orb thing."

Coincidence means 2 things coinciding. My life is one big giant coincidence. It's a coincidence that after 22, 222, and 2222 keep reappearing in my life I find out I was conceived on November 22, 1974. It's a coincidence that my mom is a twin, and I was conceived on her birthday. It's also a coincidence that my ascendant birth sign is Gemini. It's a coincidence that my mom and my aunt both have four children, the first from one father, the last three from another. That's a coincidence. 

Coincidences happen to me all the time, all around me. When people hang out with me, coincidences always happen, and then they nervously laugh. I laugh madly and tell them I am magic.

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## Moto

> I would believe it if I would experience it myself, but only if it was incredibly accurate. As in, if I found out I had a shared dream with someone, and they could tell me in detail everything that happened without errors. And due to the short nature of most of my dreams, maybe a more than a couple of times too. One or two somewhat relating dreams wouldn't be enough to convince me. Don't tell me I'm not being open minded, I am technically. Everything I currently think I know just goes against the very aspect of shared dreaming as people like wakingnomad put it, so I need the appropriate proof of its existance before I consider it "the most probably explonation".



Yo, Im not trying to criticize you at all...but I this is what I want you to think about.  Drink 4 shots back to back with a friend, then go to the movies, then out to dinner, 2 more shots, then walk around in the forest for a while, then walk back home.  2 days later I want you to ask them what they remember of the experience, NO ERRORS.  If they can't remember 3 out of the 5 things that happened in perfect detail, the experience didn't exist, because you guys didn't agree on the details.  Thats basically what you are telling me with that comment.  Its not that you are not being open minded, you aren't just thinking it through.  If a person can't tell you the details when they are fully awake of an experience 2 days later, what makes you think they will remember something the next day when they are half asleep?  And a short one at that.  Remember exactly what happened yesterday at 3:30 pm.  Exactly, no errors, remember?  I mean think about it...if you can, then lets share a dream( something which I don't normally do, I hate people close to me when I sleep, physically and mentally).  In any case, something to think about.

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## Marm

To say shared dreaming is possible is to say that transmission of information between 2 or more minds is possible. Since we have no knowledge at all about how this is even remotely possible, we can set up a controlled experiment whereby a dreamer is assigned the task of sending a distinct and random message to another dreamer also under the same conditions. An empirical experiment like this is a simple way of obtaining the relevant information regarding the validity of shared dreaming. Under these particular settings, no dream practitioner have been able to produce the desired results.

Of course these sorts of experiments are by no means definitive because it may just turn out that shared dreaming is very much possible. There are still vast areas of the human brain that we haven't the faintest idea what purpose or function they serve. It could be one of those things where we think it exists, but just do not have the means to prove it.

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## Robo

skip to 7:40, if you don't want to watch the whole thing. 

Apparently, if I'm interpreting this correctly, there is some evidence that thoughts can go from mind to mind.

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## Baron Samedi

> To say shared dreaming is possible is to say that transmission of information between 2 or more minds is possible. Since we have no knowledge at all about how this is even remotely possible, we can set up a controlled experiment whereby a dreamer is assigned the task of sending a distinct and random message to another dreamer also under the same conditions. An empirical experiment like this is a simple way of obtaining the relevant information regarding the validity of shared dreaming. Under these particular settings, no dream practitioner have been able to produce the desired results.
> 
> Of course these sorts of experiments are by no means definitive because it may just turn out that shared dreaming is very much possible. There are still vast areas of the human brain that we haven't the faintest idea what purpose or function they serve. It could be one of those things where we think it exists, but just do not have the means to prove it.



What is the difference between "sharing a dream and with someone else" and "having the same dream with someone else" mean to you?

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## Baron Samedi

> skip to 7:40, if you don't want to watch the whole thing. 
> 
> Apparently, if I'm interpreting this correctly, there is some evidence that thoughts can go from mind to mind.



it's also a coicidence that 333 appears here, which is another number that keeps appearing to me.

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## Robo

I'm not sure what you are trying to say Nomad, why are you pointing out the numbers? 
I admit I didn't notice that one, but when I do notice things like that I usually take it as something I should pay attention to.

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## Baron Samedi

> I'm not sure what you are trying to say Nomad, why are you pointing out the numbers? 
> I admit I didn't notice that one, but when I do notice things like that I usually take it as something I should pay attention to.



Because it's an interesting coincidence.

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## Puffin

I've had two possible shared-dreaming experiences. I'm not sure if this might count for something, but the same person I had these two dreams with, both of us came up with the same idea at around the same time.

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## Atras

Ive had many posible ones, Ive had two confirmed.

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## XeL

> Yo, Im not trying to criticize you at all...but I this is what I want you to think about.  Drink 4 shots back to back with a friend, then go to the movies, then out to dinner, 2 more shots, then walk around in the forest for a while, then walk back home.  2 days later I want you to ask them what they remember of the experience, NO ERRORS.  If they can't remember 3 out of the 5 things that happened in perfect detail, the experience didn't exist, because you guys didn't agree on the details.  Thats basically what you are telling me with that comment.  Its not that you are not being open minded, you aren't just thinking it through.  If a person can't tell you the details when they are fully awake of an experience 2 days later, what makes you think they will remember something the next day when they are half asleep?  And a short one at that.  Remember exactly what happened yesterday at 3:30 pm.  Exactly, no errors, remember?  I mean think about it...if you can, then lets share a dream( something which I don't normally do, I hate people close to me when I sleep, physically and mentally).  In any case, something to think about.



I really agree with this. I once went to see a trial with my society studies teacher, and I was extremely surprised by how different the witnesses stories were, despite the fact that they'd all been at the exact same place, experiencing the same event. I've said this many times and I'll say it again: Subjective reality is a fact.

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## Oneironaut Zero

As a kid, I vaguely remember having 'shared dreaming' experiences with my best friend - in that we would talk about having similar experiences in dreams. Being older, though, I wonder how much of those accounts were identical, and how much of it might have just been two kids happily corroborating each others' stories. 

I still find the subject interesting, but I know that - in such a topic - it is so easy to be fooled by one's own mind, and people tend to forget how vulnerable to suggestion and faith that we really are. It is for this reason, that I chose the "maybe, but it must be scientifically proven." Now, you must understand that this does not mean that a mainstream, scientific community must _officially_ sign off on the concept. It means, at the very least, that _I_ have to have proven it to myself, through some pretty rigorous testing. Personally, at this time, I don't have a _belief_ that information can travel from mind to mind, although I'm quite familiar with some of the more plausible theories as to how it could, and I remain open-minded.

In the past, I have dabbled in trying to accomplish metaphysical goals while lucid (placing cards around in waking life, face down, and trying to read them while I'm lucid to see if I could guess them right; etc.). So far, I've never been able to confirm anything as statistically significant. Granted, it wasn't a rigorous, prolonged practice, but I just haven't seen anything enough to convince me that it's physically possible, yet.

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## Darkmatters

O, you just reminded me of a possible shared dream I had once in high school. 

I had dreamed that I was walking with a friend through a public square and we saw a woman pushing a baby carriage. A couple of people walked up to peer at the baby and ooo and aaah at it, but suddenly a rattle struck them from under the baby's blanket and they died horribly (don't remember details after so many years). The baby's head came up into view and it was an adult-sized skull with a leering grin. It was Death, and its weapon was it's Death Rattle. I knew that a single touch of it meant the end, and now it was staring straight at me and my friend. It threw the rattle at us, and thinking fast I jumped up onto a slide that deflected it upwards, and I used some kind of scarf or cloth to sort of catch it without slowing it and swing it around sling-style so it was now flying straight back at Baby Death. It struck him and he imploded or something. 

Well, this felt like an "important" dream, and I jumped on my bike and pedalled over to his house as fast as I could. When I got there, he was standing in the driveway talking to another friend and telling him about a dream he had had that me and him had killed death... !!  ::shock:: 

Wha... ?

Hardly able to contain myself, I listened. His dream was very different from mine though... it was more of a swords and sorcery adventure taking place in an old stone tower and we fought a traditional Grim Reaper with swords. Still, it's an amazing coincidence. I thought long and hard about things we had seen on TV the few days previous, conversations we had that might have provoked such a dream, but I never came up with anything feasible.

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## ThePreserver

Yeah, I agree with the others who said "I might have experienced it."  Because I had a dream the same night as one of my best friends with many similar features (we were both in a car, it was raining, driving down a dark road lined by trees...) but the dreams diverged later on.

The coincidences are very... coincidental.  I'd need to experience it lucid and have confirmation though.  But yeah... I won't forget that dream or the conversation we had afterwards.

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## Solarflare

i might have had one before as well. There was a baby that took part in 4 dreams in 1 night, and he had an inexplainable presence to him unlike other DCs

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## fOrceez

Voted for "Yes, because I have experienced it."

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## EbbTide000

Look at my Avatar

One day, when you want to have a short nap, look at my Avatar for a minute or so. Then as you drop-off notice any hipnagogic imagery. When you wake, note any dream snippets and post them.

I will go to the beach where the Mandala is. I wiil look around for anything that sync's with your hipnagogs and dream snippets.

This is the beggining.

Once it (the remote viewing) happens, you will begin to trust the Avatar mandala. 

When you trust the Mandala it will not just be a remote viewing camera to where i am, (Adelaide, South Australia) but it will become a portal that you are welcome to step into.

The Mandala will gently teleport you onto the beach between the Henley Beach Jetty and the Grange Jetty. Then you will have 100% verifiable shared dreams.

The mandala IS the expecto-petronum charm, so every dark thing will be satiated and float-away blissfully and harmlessly.

So

Nothing will harm you and nothing will be harmed.

Love DebraJaneDixon
It is 8:18pm now here.

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## Ctharlhie

Maybe the 'collective consciousness' could account for the dream/astral plane?

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## Arch

I voted for "Maybe, I am yet to experience it".

It would be very difficult to prove, hence people call it coincidence. I think what Nomad is saying is at what amount of coincidences does it no longer become a coincidence? Big fat grey area that is.
Go check out the results, but like I said, it's a personal decision on what is a coincidence and what isn't.
Hell yeah I hope so.

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## nito89

*I also voted for "Maybe, but id have to experience it" and believe me, I am planning on trying.

Ive read through the Dj entries of WakingNomad and RavenKnight, MoSH and others and find the entire thing absolutely fascinating. I'd love to believe in this being real, but the only way to find out is to try. Im not an amazing LD'er and am still fairly new to the whole concept but when I increase my LD count, control etc i will be attempting it xD*

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## Atras

http://www.dreamviews.com/f144/results-119299/

Are some of them coincidences?  Probably, but they can't all be.

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## nito89

*





 Originally Posted by Atras


http://www.dreamviews.com/f144/results-119299/

Are some of them coincidences?  Probably, but they can't all be.



I've read through all of those too, Atras. And yeah you right, some/most of them COULD be coincidences but after a while it seems there are just too many for it to be random. Like I said though im rather stubborn and will have to experience it. I plan to try, im just not good enough at general LD'ing yet  xD*

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## Atras

> I've read through all of those too, Atras. And yeah you right, some/most of them COULD be coincidences but after a while it seems there are just too many for it to be random. Like I said though im rather stubborn and will have to experience it. I plan to try, im just not good enough at general LD'ing yet  xD



For sure, experience is really the only proof you get.

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## labyrint

I'm voting: maybe you should start to realise you're allredy experiencing it.

Liked nomad's answer to teh comment: "where's the shared dreaming faq" - "it's all around you" (in this facebookverse likes are what count. If you say it's unlikely, you're really meaning it's unliked  :;-): 

This is a short version of lucid dreaming faq:
The Matrix Of Illusion - YouTube

so stay lucid also when you're in the dominion of time, and i don't mean the dreams when time is chaotic, but observe it when it acts like clockwork. Good wendesday to you all. It's the next realm you're most likely to experince

and before you flame me, remember to do it outside beyond dreaming

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## Baron Samedi

> For sure, experience is really the only proof you get.



Yes. You want proof? try it yourself. No one can prove anything to you.

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## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by WakingNomad


What is the difference between sharing a dream and with someone else and having the same dream with someone else to you?



If I could actually "share" a dream with someone else, then I could completely crash the communications industry, espionage, revolutionize warfare, and become a multibillionaire overnight.

Having a similar or even the same dream is not the same the same thing -- it could merely be a coincidence brought on by environmental circumstances or pre-dream suggestions.  Or we may both be reinterpreting our dreams after we wake up.  "I thought I saw a loaf of bread."...  "Oh... so that's what that brown dot was... yeah I guess I saw a loaf of bread, too."_

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## Baron Samedi

> If I could actually "share" a dream with someone else, then I could completely crash the communications industry, espionage, revolutionize warfare, and become a multibillionaire overnight.



How could you do that through shared dreaming?

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## TwoCrystalCups

I voted 1st one. It is recurringly happening to me, with a guy i used to know in school. It's all in my DJs  :smiley:

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## TwoCrystalCups

::thumbdown:: 



> WakingNomad, is there a place on here I can go to see the evidence?

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## TwoCrystalCups

> Sorry WakingNomad, my crystal ball is missing. Where do I find Shared Dream FAQ? I looked at the FAQ menu up the top, I looked in the DJs and I looked in Beyond Dreaming. Where is it?



 ::imslow::   ::withstupid::   ::hijack::   ::thumbdown2::   ::blahblahblah:: 

Did you actually read what wakingnomad said on his Thread? I feel you are skeptic to actually want evidence and a Faq. 





> NO AD HOMINEM ATTACKS
> 
> If you don't know what that means, please learn.
> 
> Learn some rules of debate, too, and debate tactics, so you can see through bullshit better.

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## Linkzelda

I chose the first one because I had a pretty good emotional bond with my shared dreaming partner. Though I didn't find her, she found me, and the environment was the same.

A school designed like a mall, and there was another attempt where I was at some pet school waiting for someone, but didn't know it was her until I read her DJ entry.

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## Sageous

Sooo, when does the debate start?

Aside from a couple of tepid posts that essentially say. "maybe shared dreaming can't exist," this entire thread is far more echo chamber than an exchange of opposing ideas and opinions (aka: debate).

I personally can't argue honestly against it because I want to believe that shared-dreaming exists, and have a feeling I have experienced it many times.  To be fair: though I've never argued _against_ its existence, I have argued for empirical proof _for_ that existence -- which I think matters, but also feel is not the subject set for debate here. 

But it would be nice if _someone_ came on to prod us into thinking of reasons why shared dreaming exists (other than "Because I said so," or "Because WakingNomad said so"), and how communication between minds using energy that is neither electromagnetic or responsive to known laws of physics _and_ can be directed to and understood by specifically targeted minds is even possible.  

And then there are the potentials of shared dreaming, were it to become commonplace or at least readily doable ... Aside from Mindraker's post above that went pretty much ignored, not much debate there, either.  Why discuss a thing if its definition must stop at simply "something" getting communicated between two dreamers?

*tl;dr: This thread doesn't speak so much of a debate as a pro-shared-dreaming echo chamber.  Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but is it really what you wanted, Nomad?*

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## shadowofwind

> I am a bigger skeptic than all of you. I doubt all but my personal experience.
> 
> I see a bunch of people stating their opinions as fact. This is not being skeptical.







> Sooo, when does the debate start?



This seems to me to highlight a worthwhile point.  A person's beliefs strongly determine their personal experience, not merely their interpretation of experience, and this is particularly clear with dreams.  Looking _entirely_ to one's own experience as the only useful evidence would be tantamount to basing one's 'facts' entirely on personal opinion.  Everyone tends to get stuck in their own echo chamber.  To fertilize it with new ideas requires going outside of that and considering other perspectives that are not yet confirmed by one's own experience.  That happens in internet discussions, and, ironically, also in shared dreams.  For myself both arenas are linked, and the process is largely the same in both cases.

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## Linkzelda

EDIT: 

Never mind, what I said isn't going to help anything xP

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## fennecgirl

I think it would be awesome if shared dreaming was real, but I don't believe in it. Dreams exist within the subconscious. How is shared dreaming possible, then? You're supposed to somehow leave your mind and enter someone else's subconscious? Impossible.

I'd be convinced if there was scientific evidence or I experienced a definite shared dream myself (as in, we can both recall the same conversation and events in detail, to make sure it's not just a coincidence), but I still voted no because I believe that it's impossible and there never will be solid proof.

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## Linkzelda

> I think it would be awesome if shared dreaming was real, but I don't believe in it. Dreams exist within the subconscious. How is shared dreaming possible, then? You're supposed to somehow leave your mind and enter someone else's subconscious? Impossible.



You don't have to necessarily "invade" or enter someone's mind to try and have a shared dreaming attempt. 

If you think about the dreaming dimension/plane as a medium where two or more people who can pick up on each others' dream signature or frequency instead of one going into a person's mind, then it can be somewhat more rational than thinking dreams exists only within the subconscious.

Of course, I can just say that there's more to dreaming than just the unconscious linking with the subconscious to manifest repressed thoughts, etc., but that won't be enough.

You said you would be convinced if you both recalled the same conversation and events in detail, that is possible. It depends on your shared dreaming partner's invitation for you to see certain portrayals of their subconscious to you that would normally be filtered out. 

You also have to consider that by having a bond (doesn't have to be intimate) with your partner to try and find the frequency, or energy signature to find each other, it can help with finding them faster, which is why certain projects like the IOSDP focus on understanding certain qualities of participants to find them on the dreaming plane.

I don't know if you are open to the possibility of the dreaming plane and others, and only believe that dreams are only confined in the subconscious, but a connection with the partner is not required, but it helps a lot.

Think of it as being in a void, all you feel is emptiness, being saturated by repressed thoughts that are slowly portraying themselves to you. And to find that person you're looking for, you can either try to imagine what it would feel like to be around them, or think of it as turning the knob on the radio to find their frequency, because if you don't tune in to the right channel, you most likely will not receive feedback.

I know the analogy isn't unique, but I believe that it's more of an intuition endeavor rather than logic, based on that intuition itself helps with understanding your true self. And by understanding your true self, whether you think it's the superconscious or something else, you will realize that the potential for shared dreaming being real isn't so far-fetched if you change how and where dreaming can exist.

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## dutchraptor

I like to believe that it might exist, I also like to argue the possible means as to how it could exist and how it operates. In the end this is because I think its a cool idea and not because it might be within the realms of science. It is no more justified than arguing the possibility of aliens landing on earth. None the less it is still interesting to imagine the possibilities it could open.

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## TwoCrystalCups

> I think it would be awesome if shared dreaming was real, but I don't believe in it. Dreams exist within the subconscious. How is shared dreaming possible, then? You're supposed to somehow leave your mind and enter someone else's subconscious? Impossible.
> 
> I'd be convinced if there was scientific evidence or I experienced a definite shared dream myself (as in, we can both recall the same conversation and events in detail, to make sure it's not just a coincidence), but I still voted no because I believe that it's impossible and there never will be solid proof.



I think you don't study, what telepathy really is if you think "to leave your mind to enter someone elses subconscious" is considering impossible. Actually being in someones mind is possible. Do this in dreams and it can lead to shared dreaming. One thing leads to the next like a chain reaction. And never say never, because scientists proved lucid dreaming, and i think shared dreaming is next, now that i am seeing more experiments going on at the internet and promoting it, also needing people to volunteer. Google "shared dreaming experiments" and you'll see.

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## Empedocles

> It's a coincidence that 222 keeps reappearing in my life. Another coincidence yesterday, is when I was talking about UFO's to my family last might, my uncle awoke from a dream, and said, "I just had a dream about big silvery ball in the ground. I was on a construction team, and we were trying to get it out of the soil. A big silver orb thing."
> 
> Coincidence means 2 things coinciding. My life is one big giant coincidence. It's a coincidence that after 22, 222, and 2222 keep reappearing in my life I find out I was conceived on November 22, 1974. It's a coincidence that my mom is a twin, and I was conceived on her birthday. It's also a coincidence that my ascendant birth sign is Gemini. It's a coincidence that my mom and my aunt both have four children, the first from one father, the last three from another. That's a coincidence.



Or you may be trying very hard to find "patterns" in your life, and that way you are much more likely to notice 22, 222, and 2222 appearing, than to notice 0, 239, 4938, or 239819. 

On a more serious note:

Honestly, no I don't believe in shared dreaming. And if it does exist, I think it would be *extremely* rare, limited only to individuals with extraordinary telepathic/ESP abilities. These two "shared dreamers" would also have to be in REM sleep at the same time in order for it to work. I am not saying it cannot exist, I am simply saying I don't see any evidence for it's existence at this time. So many studies have been done on dreams, by Celia Green, Stephen LaBerge, etc., and there is no study which confirms this supposed phenomenon. It's also a bit funny to me to see all these threads on DreamViews, with people claiming they have shared dreams. Some people on DV are even claiming that they're having it on a regular basis. Something like this would actually be easy to prove if it did exist, and it would be a potential candidate for a succesful victory at the James Randi Foundation (google "randi challenge" for more info). Here's the setup:

*1.) Find two experienced shared dreamers (there are supposedly many here on DreamViews).
2.) Arrange a setting where they can't communicate with one another, and make sure they fall asleep approximately at the same time, in order to be in REM around the same time.
3.) Tell subject A, to give a certain password to subject B, once they are together lucid in the dream state.*

End of story. If they are for real, they'll be able to give information to one another from the dream state. So what are the shared dreamers waiting for? James Randi will give them one million dollars if they can prove it.

I don't mean to sound arrogant, since I actually believe in ESP and many other things which are "out there", so I am not a "skeptic" at all. The thing is, this shared dreaming thing annoys me very much, just because I see so many threads with people claiming they experienced it, and others claiming it's easy to experience it, and others supposedly having it on a regular basis.

I am simply being as honest as I can be. I am _very_ annoyed when I see threads on this forum such as "The Etiquette of Shared Dreaming."

It makes me really angry. No offense intended.

Jakob

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## shadowofwind

Hi Jacob,

You might be less angry if you got some more background on the discussion first.  About once every two weeks someone comes in and posts the same 'test' that you did.  Then people explain why it doesn't apply to what they're talking about when they speak of shared dreaming.  Then a couple of weeks later it comes up again with someone else, ad nauseum.  OutlawPig is the last example before you.  (Though I see you've been registered for longer than me.  Maybe you usually read different threads.)

There are also a number of problems with the Randi challenge, except as a device for feeling smugly superior to superstitious people.  For instance, to avoid having people randomly try stuff until they get lucky and win the reward, the confidence criteria are extremely high, much higher than for most scientific studies.  That's understandable, but it precludes the demonstration of difficult phenomena.  You can google for other criticisms, or maybe someone less lazy than me can repost links that have been posted here before.   

Also I don't understand your outrage about shared dreaming if you accept the possibility of ESP.  For me that's all it is, the only difference is in the 'shared dreaming' case you're generating images from your imagination instead of from what is coming through your sense organs.  Granted not everybody interprets shared dreaming in the same way, but there does seem to be some general agreement about this.

Regarding your critique of WakingNomad's pattern recognition....Your criticism here is typical also.  Yes, many people aren't objective about how they recognize patterns in things.  But other people are aware of the possible fallacies, and they look at them and weigh them carefully.  For example, I'm not at all into numerology, but my son pointed out that my cell phone number starts with the same four digits as my address, then when I got a new job a few months later, my 5 digit employee ID matched the phone number, with two of the phone digits added/sandwiched into the middle of it.  These are issued sequentially, so that's pretty hard to do.  If this was the only thing like that had ever happened, then I'd attribute it to random luck.  But if numerology is your thing, and you have a moderate degree of psychic development, this sort of thing can happen a lot, as in nearly every day.  So although I have significant disagreements about WakingNomad about dream interpretation, and would probably disagree with WakingNomad about the significance of 2's in his life, I see no reason to doubt the claim.

Of course, its reasonable for you to doubt it if it doesn't fit with your experience and if the only people you've ever met who make such claims are objectively lying or deluded.  A lot of what people are going to claim about paranormal experience is just fabrications.  Unfortunately, there is good deal of overlap between the fabricators and the real psychics, because the absence of self-doubt makes the phenomena a lot easier.

If you believe that shared dreaming might be real, but that some people are twisting or exaggerating their tales of it for self-aggrandizement, maybe we should refocus the discussion on that. Maybe this is what bothers Sageous about the topic also.

----------


## dutchraptor

> *1.) Find two experienced shared dreamers (there are supposedly many here on DreamViews).
> 2.) Arrange a setting where they can't communicate with one another, and make sure they fall asleep approximately at the same time, in order to be in REM around the same time.
> 3.) Tell subject A, to give a certain password to subject B, once they are together lucid in the dream state.*



Unfortunately that would be extremely ineffective as we would have no idea ass to how both dreamers will interpret the dream and the password. Here is a more appropriate test
*1.) Find two experienced shared dreamers
2.) Tell that once they communicate in the dream they must both perform a particular eye-movement.* 

If both dreamers simultaneously did the eye signal there is evidece of its existence.

----------


## Baron Samedi

> Dreams exist within the subconscious.



This is a cultural belief.

----------


## Baron Samedi

> *tl;dr: This thread doesn't speak so much of a debate as a pro-shared-dreaming echo chamber.  Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but is it really what you wanted, Nomad?*



It's probably because the people that absolutely do not believe in shared dreaming are in the minority.

----------


## Empedocles

> It's probably because the people that absolutely do not believe in shared dreaming are in the minority.



Actually, the correct statement would be: The people *on DreamViews* that absolutely do not believe in shared dreaming are in the minority.

----------


## dutchraptor

I think the real reason is that here on dreamviews when someone new pops in they decide to express their heart and soul as to how they believe that dream sharing is impossible. Over time they realise that denying its existence is just as ingnorant as stating its existence without evidence. Therefore unlike in the spirituality section we have all come to a general agreement. We are rarely trying to convince others here that their views on the subject are wrong. On the other hand go the the R/S section and the debates will never stop because no one wants to admit they are wrong.

----------


## Empedocles

> Unfortunately that would be extremely ineffective as we would have no idea ass to how both dreamers will interpret the dream and the password. Here is a more appropriate test
> *1.) Find two experienced shared dreamers
> 2.) Tell that once they communicate in the dream they must both perform a particular eye-movement.* 
> 
> If both dreamers simultaneously did the eye signal there is evidece of its existence.



This is nonsense. There is nothing to "interpret" if one is given a simple assignment to remember a word and write it down after waking up.

They meet in the dream, and the rest is a piece of cake:

Subject A:   There you are! Awesome, we're both lucid now.
Subject B:    Ok, here we go. Let's prove it to them. What's the password he gave you?
Subject A:    The password is "Buckchaser".
Subject B:    Buckchaser, buckchaser, buckchaser... alright.
Subject A:    See ya later.
Subject B:    Bye bye.

And that's it. The experiment can be repeated once more, but the "other way around", so that the _other_ subject has the password this time, but it isn't necessary. This would be enough for the James Randi Challenge, so I don't understand why these hundreds if not thousands of shared dreamers do not want to be rich.

In any case, similar eye-movements can be written off as coincidences, but if the two dreamers can transfer passwords such as (for example) "Buckchaser", or "Fox 88" or "Dream 97", then this is 100% proof.

Jakob

----------


## Patrick

> Actually, the correct statement would be: The people *on DreamViews* that absolutely do not believe in shared dreaming are in the minority.



Exactly! To be honest, I would expect almost all serious neuroscientists to find the idea very very implausible.

----------


## Empedocles

> I think the real reason is that here on dreamviews when someone new pops in they decide to express their heart and soul as to how they believe that dream sharing is impossible. Over time they realise that denying its existence is just as ingnorant as stating its existence without evidence. Therefore unlike in the spirituality section we have all come to a general agreement. We are rarely trying to convince others here that their views on the subject are wrong. On the other hand go the the R/S section and the debates will never stop because no one wants to admit they are wrong.



Oh please. It is on the shared dreamers to prove their case and show evidence for it's existence. A simple "me and my friend did it a million times" or "we gave passwords to one another" isn't good enough. The fact of the matter is: There is no study in the world, not by Celia Green, or Stephen LaBerge, or any other respected dream/lucid dream researcher, which has shown evidence for the existence of shared dreaming.

No one is saying it "cannot" exist. At least I'm not saying that. I am simply saying: At this time there is no evidence for it, except claims on internet forums.

Jakob

----------


## dutchraptor

> This is nonsense. There is nothing to "interpret" if one is given a simple assignment to remember a word and write it down after waking up.
> 
> They meet in the dream, and the rest is a piece of cake:
> 
> Subject A:   There you are! Awesome, we're both lucid now.
> Subject B:    Ok, here we go. Let's prove it to them. What's the password he gave you?
> Subject A:    The password is "Buckchaser".
> Subject B:    Buckchaser, buckchaser, buckchaser... alright.
> Subject A:    See ya later.
> ...



Your knowledge on the subject is obviously minute, firstly by stating that both dreamers will interpret the dream exactly the same you are stating that you as a disbeliever know exactly how the brain forms dreams and how it would go about sharing. If two people in a room both hear a sound they will probably interpret it differently in their dream. Who or what is telling you that this is different in a dream. How do you know how much control we would have in a shared dream. You act like your some kind of scholar on the subject but you really have no opinion on why or why not this could even work. Were here to assess different ways in which dream sharing could be possible not to listen to some ignorant idiot who has no idea about the complexity of neuroscience.

----------


## Empedocles

> Hi Jacob,
> 
> You might be less angry if you got some more background on the discussion first.  About once every two weeks someone comes in and posts the same 'test' that you did.  Then people explain why it doesn't apply to what they're talking about when they speak of shared dreaming.  Then a couple of weeks later it comes up again with someone else, ad nauseum.  OutlawPig is the last example before you.  (Though I see you've been registered for longer than me.  Maybe you usually read different threads.)



This is ridiculous. People on an internet forum claiming they exchanged "passwords" in a dream is not the same as a controlled study. I can't believe you are making this comparison.





> There are also a number of problems with the Randi challenge, except as a device for feeling smugly superior to superstitious people.



If I were psychic, or a shared dreamer (which is essentially the same thing), I'd be the first in line to prove those a$$holes wrong.





> For instance, to avoid having people randomly try stuff until they get lucky and win the reward, the confidence criteria are extremely high, much higher than for most scientific studies.  That's understandable, but it precludes the demonstration of difficult phenomena.  You can google for other criticisms, or maybe someone less lazy than me can repost links that have been posted here before.



Someone who has psychic abilities won't have any problem meeting the challenge. If you have the slightest telekinetic power to move a psi-wheel in a controlled setting, you will win the money. The same goes for remote reading, telepathy, and so on and so forth.





> Also I don't understand your outrage about shared dreaming if you accept the possibility of ESP.



The outrage is in the fact that there is no evidence for shared dreaming at this time. No studies have confirmed this phenomenon that supposedly every 3rd or 4th DreamViews poster can induce at will.

On the other hand, there have been controlled studies in which telekinetic abilities have been demonstrated. These people (for example: Nina Kulagina), aren't alive today to meet the Randi Challenge.





> For me that's all it is, the only difference is in the 'shared dreaming' case you're generating images from your imagination instead of from what is coming through your sense organs.  Granted not everybody interprets shared dreaming in the same way, but there does seem to be some general agreement about this.



Pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo that has little value. First we need controlled studies which support it's existence, and then you can tell me about "how it works."

In other words: We need to see that it does work in the first place. And simple claims about doing it aren't good enough.





> Regarding your critique of WakingNomad's pattern recognition....Your criticism here is typical also.  Yes, many people aren't objective about how they recognize patterns in things.  But other people are aware of the possible fallacies, and they look at them and weigh them carefully.  For example, I'm not at all into numerology, but my son pointed out that my cell phone number starts with the same four digits as my address, then when I got a new job a few months later, my 5 digit employee ID matched the phone number, with two of the phone digits added/sandwiched into the middle of it.  These are issued sequentially, so that's pretty hard to do.  If this was the only thing like that had ever happened, then I'd attribute it to random luck.  But if numerology is your thing, and you have a moderate degree of psychic development, this sort of thing can happen a lot, as in nearly every day.  So although I have significant disagreements about WakingNomad about dream interpretation, and would probably disagree with WakingNomad about the significance of 2's in his life, I see no reason to doubt the claim.



Are you saying these patterns are evidence of psychic abilities?





> Of course, its reasonable for you to doubt it if it doesn't fit with your experience and if the only people you've ever met who make such claims are objectively lying or deluded.  A lot of what people are going to claim about paranormal experience is just fabrications.  Unfortunately, there is good deal of overlap between the fabricators and the real psychics, because the absence of self-doubt makes the phenomena a lot easier.



I believe in the paranormal. Lots of it. I also believe shared dreaming _might_ exist.

I just don't see an evidence for it at this time. Forum posts with people claiming they have it are really meaningless to me.





> If you believe that shared dreaming might be real, but that some people are twisting or exaggerating their tales of it for self-aggrandizement, maybe we should refocus the discussion on that. Maybe this is what bothers Sageous about the topic also.



Yeah, I believe it might be real. I already said that. But until I see a good study on it, I refuse to believe these tons of DreamViews users who are writing spectacular tales of shared dreaming adventures.

Best wishes,
Jakob

----------


## Empedocles

> Your knowledge on the subject is obviously minute, firstly by stating that both dreamers will interpret the dream exactly the same you are stating that you as a disbeliever know exactly how the brain forms dreams and how it would go about sharing. If two people in a room both hear a sound they will probably interpret it differently in their dream. Who or what is telling you that this is different in a dream. How do you know how much control we would have in a shared dream. You act like your some kind of scholar on the subject but you really have no opinion on why or why not this could even work. Were here to assess different ways in which dream sharing could be possible not to listen to some ignorant idiot who has no idea about the complexity of neuroscience.



I had to laugh after reading this. Really.  ::D:  If Subject A is unable to pass one single word to Subject B in a dream, then it is very unlikely that they are sharing one and the same dream. They are most likely simply dreaming of one another. I am able to recall clear conversations I have with dream characters, sometimes even word for word, and I'm not the only one, yet you are telling me it would be difficult for the shared dreamers to remember one single password? What an excuse, oh my God.  ::roll:: 

Because what you are doing now basically, is redefining what shared dreaming really is, in an attempt to make it "real", yet "unsuitable" for a controlled study. I do accept the fact that there could be minor differences between the two dreamer's stories, such as Subject A sees a blue wall instead of a purple wall, or Subject A sees stormy clouds and Subject B sees normal clouds, or Subject A's dream is more "vivid" than Subject B's dream, or Subject A hears sounds clearer than Subject B, but overall, passing one simple word to the other person shouldn't be a problem. Even if Subject A hears "*Buckchanger*" instead of "*Buckchaser*", it would still show evidence for shared dreaming. 

What you are doing, on the other hand, is redefining shared dreaming. You are basically saying the two subjects can dream of each other in different ways, without the ability to exchange information. You want to take a normal dream where Subject A dreams *of* Subject B, and slap the "shared dream" label on it. I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable.

If he can't remember a simple word, then at least their stories should be able to match one another at least 90%, in terms of dream setting. But then again, as I said earlier, if I can recall clear sentences and conversations I've had with many dream characters, then shared dreamers shouldn't have difficulties recalling one single word. If he says he heard "Buck_changer_" instead of "Buck_chaser_", that's fine with me. If he says he heard "*Bugcatcher*", I'd probably accept that as well. But if he says he heard "*Tomato*", then we have a problem. 

People can recall dreams in the highest detail, recall pictures they see on a wall, recall sentences/words they read, and remember *lenghty* conversations word for word, yet your two shared dreaming subjects won't be able to recall *one single word*, because of... "_complex neuroscience_" ?  ::roll:: 

The excuses are just too lame. And resorting to ad-hominem attacks ("ignorant idiot") doesn't help your case either.

Jakob

----------


## dutchraptor

> I had to laugh after reading this. Really.  If Subject A is unable to pass one single word to Subject B in a dream, then it is very unlikely that they are sharing one and the same dream. They are most likely simply dreaming of one another. I am able to recall clear conversations I have with dream characters, sometimes even word for word, and I'm not the only one, yet you are telling me it would be difficult for the shared dreamers to remember one single password? What an excuse, oh my God. 
> 
> Because what you are doing now basically, is redefining what shared dreaming really is, in an attempt to make it "real", yet "unsuitable" for a controlled study. I do accept the fact that there could be minor differences between the two dreamer's stories, such as Subject A sees a blue wall instead of a purple wall, or Subject A sees stormy clouds and Subject B sees normal clouds, or Subject A's dream is more "vivid" than Subject B's dream, or Subject A hears sounds clearer than Subject B, but overall, passing one simple word to the other person shouldn't be a problem. Even if Subject A hears "*Buckchanger*" instead of "*Buckchaser*", it would still show evidence for shared dreaming. 
> 
> What you are doing, on the other hand, is redefining shared dreaming. You are basically saying the two subjects can dream of each other in different ways, without the ability to exchange information. You want to take a normal dream where Subject A dreams *of* Subject B, and slap the "shared dream" label on it. I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable.
> 
> If he can't remember a simple word, then at least their stories should be able to match one another at least 90%, in terms of dream setting. But then again, as I said earlier, if I can recall clear sentences and conversations I've had with many dream characters, then shared dreamers shouldn't have difficulties recalling one single word. If he says he heard "Buck_changer_" instead of "Buck_chaser_", that's fine with me. If he says he heard "*Bugcatcher*", I'd probably accept that as well. But if he says he heard "*Tomato*", then we have a problem. 
> 
> People can recall dreams in the highest detail, recall pictures they see on a wall, recall sentences/words they read, and remember *lenghty* conversations word for word, yet your two shared dreaming subjects won't be able to recall *one single word*, because of... "_complex neuroscience_" ? 
> ...



And yet you completely fail to see the point being made. Wether it is unlikely or not we have no idea of how dream sharing could possibly work. We don't know if the dreamers can communicate, wether they interpret the dream the same, where the shared dream is held etc etc. 
I actually don't believe that dream sharing is possible but I don't act like I know because no one does. You consistently act like you know how it works but none of us really do. How can you say for sure that if both dreamers don't hear the same word the dream was not shared. 
I really don't give a crap wether you believe in it or not but don't insult the opinions of others that do by posting a solution to prove one possible way out of hundreds wether dream sharing is possible. Even if your test supposedly worked it wouldn't prove that dream sharing exists, it would just indicate that there is a high possibility.

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## Empedocles

> And yet you completely fail to see the point being made. Wether it is unlikely or not we have no idea of how dream sharing could possibly work. We don't know if the dreamers can communicate, wether they interpret the dream the same, where the shared dream is held etc etc. 
> I actually don't believe that dream sharing is possible but I don't act like I know because no one does. You consistently act like you know how it works but none of us really do. How can you say for sure that if both dreamers don't hear the same word the dream was not shared. 
> I really don't give a crap wether you believe in it or not but don't insult the opinions of others that do by posting a solution to prove one possible way out of hundreds wether dream sharing is possible. Even if your test supposedly worked it wouldn't prove that dream sharing exists, it would just indicate that there is a high possibility.



First we need to know if it is possible at all, and then worry about the "how". My study would actually show evidence for it beyond a reasonable doubt. A study in which two people, separated from one another with no physical means of communication, recall the same dream, and recall a password. This would confirm the existence of shared dreaming, if not the existence of extraordinary telepathic ability.

On the other hand, your definition for shared dreaming seems a little... odd, to say the least.

You say: _"We don't know if the dreamers can communicate, wether they interpret the dream the same, where the shared dream is held etc etc."_

Which essentially means: Shared dreaming can exist with the two dreamers recalling different dream settings, recalling different activities, and not being able to communicate.

*What you are describing my friend, is a regular, completely normal dream!* There is absolutely nothing that's "shared" in the scenario that you describe, aside from the fact that Subject A "sees" Subject B, and vice versa. They are simply dreaming *of* one another, not "sharing" anything. 

That's hilarious.

Jakob

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## dutchraptor

Let me ask you this, why are you here?. What difference does it make discussing if it is real or not. You came here to justify your own idea and not to discuss at all. Currently we are on an internet forum discussing a phenonemon that is hardly going to be proved due to our opinions. With that in mind, knowing that you have made no contribution to the topic surely you can see that these threads are never about discussing if its true or not ( because we just *don't* know) but about discussing the how. Indeed these threads are essentially useless, what is more useless is your posts trying to convince people it should be easy to prove while you or I know nothing about it.

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## Sageous

^^ Before the pissing contest and resume flinging begins:

Jakob, I think what Duthraptor might have been saying was that two people could be in the same dream, but their individual sets of perception may not be able to sync.

For instance, Subject A sees herself on a vast green pasture, peppered with orange cows and giant turtles.  She sees one of the turtles approach a cow and shout, over and over, "Nafterschlipot."  It makes no sense, and she puzzles about the turtle for a moment, perhaps even wondering if it's the subject B she's supposed to meet.  Then she moves on, waiting for someone who looks like subject B to appear.

Subject B, meanwhile, is in a crowded 19th century ballroom, wading through unoccupied but dancing dresses and suits trying to find subject A.  He begins to think the experiment has failed, but won't give up, choosing to shout "Buckchaser" at all the suits and dresses in the hopes that Subject A is one of them.

Absurd, maybe, but here is a case where a shared dream physically _did_ happen, but the dreamers never knew it because their perception and individual dreaming minds do not speak the same language.  

I think that actually being able to incorporate a recognizable avatar of your dreaming partner into your dream, and vise-versa, is the greatest hurdle of shared-dreaming.  Communication cannot happen if we are incapable by nature to understand each other.

Also, none of this has to do with dream recall, and shouldn't -- which is why Dutchraptor's (and LaBerge's) suggestion of making similar movements is important.

----------


## Empedocles

> ^^ Before the pissing contest and resume flinging begins:
> 
> Jakob, I think what Duthraptor might have been saying was that two people could be in the same dream, but their individual sets of perception may not be able to sync.
> 
> For instance, Subject A sees herself on a vast green pasture, peppered with orange cows and giant turtles.  She sees one of the turtles approach a cow and shout, over and over, "Nafterschlipot."  It makes no sense, and she puzzles about the turtle for a moment, perhaps even wondering if it's the subject B she's supposed to meet.  Then she moves on, waiting for someone who looks like subject B to appear.
> 
> Subject B, meanwhile, is in a crowded 19th century ballroom, wading through unoccupied but dancing dresses and suits trying to find subject A.  He begins to think the experiment has failed, but won't give up, choosing to shout "Buckchaser" at all the suits and dresses in the hopes that Subject A is one of them.
> 
> Absurd, maybe, but here is a case where a shared dream physically _did_ happen, but the dreamers never knew it because their perception and individual dreaming minds do not speak the same language.



Very well, but this type of scenario is something entirely different from the descriptions of shared dreams that DreamViews members are putting out. When I am reading about shared dreaming adventures on this forum, they are supposedly "shared" in the true sense of the word.





> I think that actually being able to incorporate a recognizable avatar of your dreaming partner into your dream, and vise-versa, is the greatest hurdle of shared-dreaming.  Communication cannot happen if we are incapable by nature to understand each other.
> 
> Also, none of this has to do with dream recall, and shouldn't -- which is why Dutchraptor's (and LaBerge's) suggestion of making similar movements is important.



How about eye-movements AND a password? Subject A says the password to Subject B. Subject B repeats it, and then they both proceed to do the eye-movement thing. If the dream is really being shared, there would be no problems showing it in a study, using these two methods.

Jakob

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## Empedocles

BTW, "Nafterschlipot" is an awesome word, I swear. 

How'd you come up with it?  ::D:

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## Empedocles

> Let me ask you this, why are you here?. What difference does it make discussing if it is real or not. You came here to justify your own idea and not to discuss at all. Currently we are on an internet forum discussing a phenonemon that is hardly going to be proved due to our opinions. With that in mind, knowing that you have made no contribution to the topic surely you can see that these threads are never about discussing if its true or not ( because we just *don't* know) but about discussing the how. Indeed these threads are essentially useless, what is more useless is your posts trying to convince people it should be easy to prove while you or I know nothing about it.



I apologize. Please, go ahead and discuss "how" shared dreaming exists, without having any evidence for it's existence in the first place.  ::roll::

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## Sageous

> BTW, "Nafterschlipot" is an awesome word, I swear. 
> 
> How'd you come up with it?



Stream of consciousness, no more ... maybe I remember it from a dream, when a mailbox was frantically shouting it to get my attention?   :wink2:

----------


## Sageous

> Very well, but this type of scenario is something entirely different from the descriptions of shared dreams that DreamViews members are putting out. When I am reading about shared dreaming adventures on this forum, they are supposedly "shared" in the true sense of the word.



Yes, the actual condition of the shared dream, including perception, is often left out of the DV formula. Also getting little play are ideas like the possibility that we could all be sharing dreams all the time, but simply cannot recognize each other (and by extension shared dreaming becomes a much simpler act of paying attention, rather than a special mystical power),   I've grown used to it, though I (and a few others, like Shadowofwind) will insert this stuff when I get a chance.  I'm not sure if anyone notices, but what the hell, I tried!






> How about eye-movements AND a password? Subject A says the password to Subject B. Subject B repeats it, and then they both proceed to do the eye-movement thing. If the dream is really being shared, there would be no problems showing it in a study, using these two methods.



That's not a terrible idea.  The test would still be simple, and the problem of recall and reporting would be diminished.

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## Empedocles

> That's not a terrible idea.  The test would still be simple, and the problem of recall and reporting would be diminished.



I agree.

----------


## Fechtel

I have been sharing dreams with family members since I was a little girl! It usually involved my dad, but my mom and brother were sometimes there, too. As I grew older these shared dreams diminished, although I do have some precognitive dreams every now and then.

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## Empedocles

> I have been sharing dreams with family members since I was a little girl! It usually involved my dad, but my mom and brother were sometimes there, too. As I grew older these shared dreams diminished, although I do have some precognitive dreams every now and then.



LOL!!!

I have no doubt that you were dreaming *of* your family members. Nothing more than that.

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## TwoCrystalCups

> LOL!!!
> 
> I have no doubt that you were dreaming *of* your family members. Nothing more than that.



 ::thumbdown::  ::withstupid::  Ok buddy, you think shared dreaming "might" exist, so wth are you  ::blahblahblah:: 'ing about??? You and your other sidekick  ::thumbup:: agreeing to each others posts look like this >  ::lolxtreme::

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## Fechtel

He never experienced it and therefore thinks it can't be real. 

Me and my dad used to have the same dreams, EVERY SINGLE DETAIL! This happened many times when I was a little girl. In the morning I would start telling my dad what I dreamt about, and he would just be amazed and complete my sentences, basically describing my dream from beginning to end! There was a repetitive dream in which me and my dad took revenge on our neighbors. We were in bad relations with them in real life, because the neighbor's son (Harold) was an idiot. He used to break our windows (on purpose), steal our belongings, and also tried to poison our dog! His dad was always jealous of my dad, because he had a bigger house and a better job. So in this dream, me and my dad decided to take revenge.

We broke into their house with weapons, and did anything and everything that we could think of.  ::lol::  My dad recalled everything I recalled, and the other way around. This proves that our dreams were shared dreams indeed!

Neither of us was lucid in these dreams, but nonetheless they were amazing experiences. I wish I could re-create these shared dreams, but as I said, they diminished when I got a little older. I also had a couple of shared dreams with my mom and my brother, but they weren't that intense.

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## Empedocles

> He never experienced it and therefore thinks it can't be real.



Nonsense. I never said it can't be real. I only said I haven't seen evidence for it's existence at this time.





> Me and my dad used to have the same dreams, EVERY SINGLE DETAIL! This happened many times when I was a little girl. In the morning I would start telling my dad what I dreamt about, and he would just be amazed and complete my sentences, basically describing my dream from beginning to end!



I have a problem believing what you say. How old were you, if I may ask? Did your dad simply say "I dreamt the same thing!" or did he actually complete your sentences?





> We broke into their house with weapons, and did anything and everything that we could think of.



What exactly do you mean?  ::shock::  What was the "anything" and "everything" ?

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

> Nonsense. I never said it can't be real. I only said I haven't seen evidence for it's existence at this time.
> 
> 
> I have a problem believing what you say. How old were you, if I may ask? Did your dad simply say "I dreamt the same thing!" or did he actually complete your sentences?
> 
> 
> What exactly do you mean?  What was the "anything" and "everything" ?



 ::blahblahblah::  ::blahblahblah::  ::blahblahblah::  ::blahblahblah::  ::blahblahblah::  ::blahblahblah::  ::blahblahblah::  ::blahblahblah::  ::blahblahblah::

----------


## Empedocles

> 



Wtf?  ::roll::

----------


## Sageous

> Ok buddy, you think shared dreaming "might" exist, so wth are you 'ing about??? You and your other sidekick agreeing to each others posts look like this >



Please tell me, Hathor, that you're not thinking I'm his sidekick.

If you are, then not only are you amazingly wrong, your snap judgment was more than a little offensive.  

Attempting to maintain a conversation that doesn't come to cyber-blows, or simply being polite, should not label a person as a sidekick.

Hopefully you were referring to someone else, and if you were, please name them so they have a chance to respond to your reprehensible behavior.

----------


## shadowofwind

Wow....

----------


## Chimpertainment

When two people see the same car accident, they will tell two different stories...Supposedly, its the same car accident, and yet the details seem different depending whom you speak with. 
To understand shared dreaming and dreaming in general, looking outside of your own perspective is helpful. Dreams are much deeper than the imagery involved. The actual experience varies from person to person so shared dreaming may never be "scientific" as interpreted using the scientific method. What is possible is long term observation of patterns. 
It seems most people look for a smoking gun like they would actually believe if they saw. Truth be told, they will look for an explanation against any unusual claim rather than accept the given evidence. That is why science proves itself wrong time and time again. It tries to find the holy grail of truth when we are all experiencing life subjectively. This "objective reality" science likes to fantasize about is ruled out simply with philosophical reasoning.
So is shared dreaming real? Only if you experience it, otherwise you will still believe there is no man behind the curtain. That really is the truth of science though. Those things we can experience are true. Ironically, experiments are usually conducted when there is at least minimal certainty a conclusion might be reached. 
At any rate, even mapping out the mechanics of shared dreaming would take a massive perspective change for most people. Observing the unconscious is like watching the ocean; for every moment of time, there is a new ocean. Every second brings a new wave with new shapes and lines. How can science hope to repeat an observation of a snowflake or a cloud? 
No skeptics, take your limited minds back to the rain forest. Your security blanket is waiting.




> Nonsense. I never said it can't be real. I only said I haven't seen evidence for it's existence at this time.



Personal testimony isn't evidence? That is all science has ever been. The only check or balance in science is the personal observation of others; aka peer review, which is exactly what we are involved in here right now. The only way to convince you is to bring our experience into your reality. Of course, you actually have to imagine these people are interpreting their experience correctly. If you are not willing to trust yourself and empathize, sharing dreaming or reality with anyone will be very difficult for you.





> If you are, then not only are you amazingly wrong, your snap judgment was more than a little offensive.



I'll be your sidekick sageous, then we can make snap judgments about people making snap judgments together!  :smiley: 

btw...shared dreaming is bullshit...or something...it doesnt really matter what we say does it.

----------


## Empedocles

> Personal testimony isn't evidence? That is all science has ever been. The only check or balance in science is the personal observation of others; aka peer review, which is exactly what we are involved in here right now. The only way to convince you is to bring our experience into your reality. Of course, you actually have to imagine these people are interpreting their experience correctly. If you are not willing to trust yourself and empathize, sharing dreaming or reality with anyone will be very difficult for you.



Nonsense. Personal testimony is just that -- a story someone is telling. A controlled study is something completely different.

People claim they have visions of Christ. People claim they talk to God. People claim God answers back. People claim lots of things. 

Do you accept all these claims as "science"?





> I'll be your sidekick sageous, then we can make snap judgments about people making snap judgments together! 
> 
> btw...shared dreaming is bullshit...or something...it doesnt really matter what we say does it.



You condemn people for believing in God because of lack of scientific evidence, yet for shared dreaming the evidence is irrelevant. We should just all accept it as fact, simply because people on an internet forum say they experience it.

Hypocrisy at it's finest.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Sorry i wasn't mentioning you but nice try  :smiley:  keep guessing 




> Please tell me, Hathor, that you're not thinking I'm his sidekick.
> 
> If you are, then not only are you amazingly wrong, your snap judgment was more than a little offensive.  
> 
> Attempting to maintain a conversation that doesn't come to cyber-blows, or simply being polite, should not label a person as a sidekick.
> 
> Hopefully you were referring to someone else, and if you were, please name them so they have a chance to respond to your reprehensible behavior.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

WHY THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RELIGION AND SCIENCE??! IF YOU DIDN'T KNOOOOW? THOSE 2 CAN'T BE MIXED WELL IN DEBATING! YOU ARE MAKING YOURSELF LOOK STUPID AND MAKING THIS DEBATE GOING TOWARDS>  :Off topic: 




> Nonsense. Personal testimony is just that -- a story someone is telling. A controlled study is something completely different.
> 
> People claim they have visions of Christ. People claim they talk to God. People claim God answers back. People claim lots of things. 
> 
> Do you accept all these claims as "science"?
> 
> 
> You condemn people for believing in God because of lack of scientific evidence, yet for shared dreaming the evidence is irrelevant. We should just all accept it as fact, simply because people on an internet forum say they experience it.
> 
> Hypocrisy at it's finest.

----------


## fennecgirl

> 



Wow, real mature. -_-

----------


## dutchraptor

The whole concept behind discussing whether Dream Sharing is possible is completely useless, yet everyone persists. Can we not just all agree that it may be possible and drop the bullshit. I hope this thread matures and we can continue to hear experiences, and discuss the possible means by which dream sharing could be made possible.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Yet another fool comes in and saves the day how sweet.




> Wow, real mature. -_-

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Some people can't be bothered with, and i can tell you once those who don't agree and keep talking after my last post here now? They will look even more ignorant and just want to continue with off topic posts. People just want to show off here and have no back up in what they are saying. 
Anyways happy debating, while i just watch Jakob and his other back ups look stupid  :smiley:  :Shades wink: 




> The whole concept behind discussing whether Dream Sharing is possible is completely useless, yet everyone persists. Can we not just all agree that it may be possible and drop the bullshit. I hope this thread matures and we can continue to hear experiences, and discuss the possible means by which dream sharing could be made possible.








> "@Hathor28: I'm sorry, but you're contributing nothing to this conversation. This thread is for mature debate about shared dreaming. If you're just going to insult anybody who disagrees with you without even listening to what they have to say, then please get out. You're not debating; you're just being immature and ruining the debate for everyone."



     ^Keep telling yourself that  :smiley: 
Btw, read my post at 2nd page, see why i voted and for what, seems like YOU are not listening or actually care what this debate is for honey. 
Why didn't you debate on when i quoted you on page 3 top post? Fennecgirl? Is it because you don't know what i am talking about? I'm sure, because you obviously don't know what you are talking about and actually debating about. It does look very bad in your book.
Why would i have to repeat my experiences to people like you who don't believe in this and actually will try and insult?
 I am not stupid to explain these things to stupid ignorant people. 
Keep up with YOUR insults and Jakobs. I love to see foolish people look bad.

----------


## fennecgirl

@Hathor28: I'm sorry, but you're contributing nothing to this conversation. This thread is for mature debate about shared dreaming. If you're just going to insult anybody who disagrees with you without even listening to what they have to say, then please get out. You're not debating; you're just being immature and ruining the debate for everyone.

----------


## Chimpertainment

> Nonsense. Personal testimony is just that -- a story someone is telling. A controlled study is something completely different.
> 
> People claim they have visions of Christ. People claim they talk to God. People claim God answers back. People claim lots of things. 
> 
> Do you accept all these claims as "science"?
> 
> 
> You condemn people for believing in God because of lack of scientific evidence, yet for shared dreaming the evidence is irrelevant. We should just all accept it as fact, simply because people on an internet forum say they experience it.
> 
> Hypocrisy at it's finest.



You call them "claims". I call them experiences. The experience is valid because it has been experienced. However, the interpretation of that experience is where people get tripped up. For instance, when someone thinks only mainstream science should be accepted as fact without leaving room for any independent thought. 
Isaac Newton invented calculus, by himself. His own personal experience led him to construct a mathematical portrait of gravity and physics. The point is truth comes from experience, not accepting a "fact" because it was found using the scientific method. On the other hand, there are many people smarter than us and in that, humility is a big part of accepting truth. 
I accept repeated observation of specific experiential phenomena as science. 
Interestingly enough, strict evidence based science led us to believe we had explained everything in nature by the year 1900. Many people claimed we were done mapping out the universe. If all you want to accept is what is being fed through your 5 physical senses, you are missing out. There is a lot of of me than you cannot see. 
Also, saying "nonsense" as if you are dismissing everything I say out of hand is just as "hypocritical", geez.
Another also: I believe in god and im not sure when I condemned anyone for that belief. I certainly dont believe in any religious god but im not sure you would understand that point of view either.

Overall, I accept everything as truth and lie simultaneously. I am not perceptive enough to know any "objective reality". The truest truth I know of is the ever pervading love that fills the universe and I try to go from there. Accepting others experience rather than rejecting it off hand because it wasnt yours is very important. Being afraid of other's opinions will lead you deeper into your own fear.

You are saying we should take our limitless experience of the unconscious and subject that to "controlled" scientific study. Yeah, good luck with that.

----------


## Jdeadevil

With what I've read and experienced, I'm perfectly convinced it's possible. At heart I do believe dreams and lucid dreams both take place in the astral realm, and the look and feel of normal day-to-day life is just an illusion hence dream control is possible with practice. With that I am inclined to think that one can possibly walk right into another's dream depending on how conscious they are, and if they're both conscious then it's likely a shared dream will be remembered. I've heard multiple scenarios in the past about the event happening, and each time they both have a good amount of dream recall under their belt, they have described the same things. This isn't much of a powerful example but once me and my then-girlfriend woke up one morning and I told her that I had a dream about being surrounded by a SWAT team, I had a machine gun in my arms to imply that I was killing people with it, the over-all dream felt like I was anyway. In the dream, there was a metal transparent staircase leading to a higher floor but it didn't seem that important, it was just there. When I told her about this dream she asked me if I was being arrested, because she came down a staircase at the end of her dream and saw me getting surrounded by a SWAT team. If this dream was the same, then neither of us can remember what happened before or after.

----------


## Ezrael

I once Had what I believed to be a dream share,

The atmosphere of the dream was quite different than any other I have experienced at the time I thought it was a premonition of sorts. I was in this apartment parking lot. it seemed it was in south florida, the buildings were three stories high and off white. I'm standing in the parking lot with another person, I believe it is my boyfriend but I never look directly at him in the dream. A black lady in a cop uniform holding a bag of groceries comes up to us we start having a conversation with her.
Suddenly we hear someone screaming and theres a guy on the top story dragging this woman out of a room by her hair, he's holding a gun.
He now is holding her by the hair over the railing of the balcony, then he drops her and shes dead. Then he is downstairs suddenly in the parking lot with us and pointing the gun at us. the cop is doing the same at him, then he starts shooting he shoots the cop first then she shoots him as he shoots me. I'm unsure if my boyfriend was shot in the dream. I fade out, then I'm looking in a mirror at the holes in my belly there are 9 shots exactly. Then I wake up and I have this pain in my stomach.
This was about 3 months ago. I told my boyfriend about this and he said He had the same dream ( at this time we were separated by about 4 hours) but the cop was male, the person with the gun was female and had thrown a baby over the railing instead.
Thought it was very profound.

----------


## Chimpertainment

> I once Had what I believed to be a dream share,
> 
> The atmosphere of the dream was quite different than any other I have experienced at the time I thought it was a premonition of sorts. I was in this apartment parking lot. it seemed it was in south florida, the buildings were three stories high and off white. I'm standing in the parking lot with another person, I believe it is my boyfriend but I never look directly at him in the dream. A black lady in a cop uniform holding a bag of groceries comes up to us we start having a conversation with her.
> Suddenly we hear someone screaming and theres a guy on the top story dragging this woman out of a room by her hair, he's holding a gun.
> He now is holding her by the hair over the railing of the balcony, then he drops her and shes dead. Then he is downstairs suddenly in the parking lot with us and pointing the gun at us. the cop is doing the same at him, then he starts shooting he shoots the cop first then she shoots him as he shoots me. I'm unsure if my boyfriend was shot in the dream. I fade out, then I'm looking in a mirror at the holes in my belly there are 9 shots exactly. Then I wake up and I have this pain in my stomach.
> This was about 3 months ago. I told my boyfriend about this and he said He had the same dream ( at this time we were separated by about 4 hours) but the cop was male, the person with the gun was female and had thrown a baby over the railing instead.
> Thought it was very profound.



Very cool. Its a good example of how two people can have differing metaphorical imagery and yet retain similar meaning. props yo.

----------


## Empedocles

> You call them "claims". I call them experiences. The experience is valid because it has been experienced. However, the interpretation of that experience is where people get tripped up. For instance, when someone thinks only mainstream science should be accepted as fact without leaving room for any independent thought. 
> Isaac Newton invented calculus, by himself. His own personal experience led him to construct a mathematical portrait of gravity and physics. The point is truth comes from experience, not accepting a "fact" because it was found using the scientific method. On the other hand, there are many people smarter than us and in that, humility is a big part of accepting truth. 
> I accept repeated observation of specific experiential phenomena as science.



But here we have nothing to hold on to except "talk". Lucid dreaming was proven in a controlled study by LaBerge using specific eye-movements during REM sleep. The same could easily be done for shared dreaming, but for some reason, after all these years, it hasn't been done.





> Interestingly enough, strict evidence based science led us to believe we had explained everything in nature by the year 1900. Many people claimed we were done mapping out the universe. If all you want to accept is what is being fed through your 5 physical senses, you are missing out. There is a lot of of me than you cannot see. 
> Also, saying "nonsense" as if you are dismissing everything I say out of hand is just as "hypocritical", geez.
> Another also: I believe in god and im not sure when I condemned anyone for that belief. I certainly dont believe in any religious god but im not sure you would understand that point of view either.



So you believe in the existence of God, but at the same time that all religions are false. I can understand that.





> Overall, I accept everything as truth and lie simultaneously.



Hmm. I'm not sure how that would work. Believing in Hinduism and Christianity at the same time would be very irrational, seeing how one religion completely contradicts the other. Therefore I don't see how someone can accept everything as truth. It is illogical.





> I am not perceptive enough to know any "objective reality". The truest truth I know of is the ever pervading love that fills the universe and I try to go from there. Accepting others experience rather than rejecting it off hand because it wasnt yours is very important. Being afraid of other's opinions will lead you deeper into your own fear.
> 
> You are saying we should take our limitless experience of the unconscious and subject that to "controlled" scientific study. Yeah, good luck with that.



I am talking about shared dreaming in a controlled study. A simple password along with eye-movements is all it takes. What is the problem with that? LaBerge has done it with simple lucid dreaming, now why not take it one step further when two individuals supposedly "meet" in a lucid dream?

The only issue here is this: You all want to make shared dreaming "unsuitable" for a study, and make up tons of excuses why it wouldn't work in a study. The only reason is to justify the fact that all these years of research hasn't shown a shred of evidence for shared dreaming.

Yet the same people who believe in shared dreaming despite the lack of scientific evidence are most of the time the same people who mock Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc., for believing in God and the after-life. It truly is hypocrisy.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

> Yet the same people who believe in shared dreaming despite the lack of scientific evidence are most of the time the same people who mock Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc., for believing in God and the after-life. It truly is hypocrisy.



Ok i said i wouldn't post anymore here due to stupid people like you, but excuse me?! YOU don't know me and my beliefs! STOP assuming crap! And your debates are now getting PERSONAL! LIKE I SAID STOP GOING OFF TOPIC!....I'm done with this stupidity you are giving out, like dealing with a 5 year old!

----------


## Fechtel

> I have a problem believing what you say. How old were you, if I may ask?



I was around 12 years old. Why is this important?





> Did your dad simply say "I dreamt the same thing!" or did he actually complete your sentences?



He completed my sentences. He would also tell me about parts of the dream I accidentally left out, and also describe all the details I've seen. It all matched.





> What exactly do you mean?  What was the "anything" and "everything" ?



Basically we did gross stuff to his family... NC-17 type of stuff. BUT... it was a dream, so calm down.  ::lol::

----------


## Ezrael

I believe dream share can be possible, but as my previous post presented how our dreams were similar but different. The way someone's minds perceives something is completely different than how another mind is perceiving. 
I think the basic meaning of many dreams can be the same, as there is always a subconscious reference to what is being projected from someone. Then depending on the persons personal imagination and the things they think about, what they surround themselves with is what tends to appear in their dreams.  So really you could be having the same distinct message as many other people out there, but your specific  perception really decides how the dream appears to you.   I can see having alike dreams if its with some one who thinks very similarly to your own thoughts and you are around them often, or even if you happen to be dealing with a situation thats affecting your minds the same.

----------


## Fechtel

> I believe dream share can be possible, but as my previous post presented how our dreams were similar but different. The way someone's minds perceives something is completely different than how another mind is perceiving. 
> I think the basic meaning of many dreams can be the same, as there is always a subconscious reference to what is being projected from someone. Then depending on the persons personal imagination and the things they think about, what they surround themselves with is what tends to appear in their dreams.  So really you could be having the same distinct message as many other people out there, but your specific  perception really decides how the dream appears to you.   I can see having alike dreams if its with some one who thinks very similarly to your own thoughts and you are around them often, or even if you happen to be dealing with a situation thats affecting your minds the same.



My reply has nothing to do with your post.

I just wanted to say that I love your username.  ::lol::

----------


## Ezrael

> My reply has nothing to do with your post.
> 
> I just wanted to say that I love your username.



Thanks lol, I like yours as well.   That name actually was spoken to me in a ayahausca ceremony, then I looked it up found out it was an archangels name.

----------


## dutchraptor

> Yet the same people who believe in shared dreaming despite the lack of scientific evidence are most of the time the same people who mock Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc., for believing in God and the after-life. It truly is hypocrisy.



how did you come to this conclusion, last time I checked most people in the beyond dreaming section actually do believe in a higher force or creative energy. Anyways comparing shared dreaming to religions is impossible, other than lack of scientific evidence they share barely any similarities. The only reason a controlled test has never been undertaken is because it seems like such an uncredible idea. How many certified scientists would want to risk losing their reputation and time trying to prove something like this.

----------


## MindGames

> Yet the same people who believe in shared dreaming despite the lack of scientific evidence are most of the time the same people who mock Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc., for believing in God and the after-life. It truly is hypocrisy.



Except there's a difference between believing in shared dreaming and believing in God and an afterlife. The former doesn't require blind faith, assuming you've experienced it for yourself. So what you're basically saying then is that anyone who has experienced it for themselves is a hypocrite because of the lack of formal scientific evidence. Whether they're mistaken or not has yet to be proven, but you're kind of jumping the gun by calling everyone who believes in it a hypocrite without having made the effort to even find out the truth for yourself. So, who's the real hypocrite here?

----------


## Empedocles

> how did you come to this conclusion, last time I checked most people in the beyond dreaming section actually do believe in a higher force or creative energy. Anyways comparing shared dreaming to religions is impossible, other than lack of scientific evidence they share barely any similarities. The only reason a controlled test has never been undertaken is because it seems like such an uncredible idea. How many certified scientists would want to risk losing their reputation and time trying to prove something like this.



LaBerge certainly didn't risk his reputation by trying to prove Lucid Dreaming, and he did it successfully. A long time ago I had a PhD professor tell me that "lucid dreaming is bogus." Then after reading LaBerge's book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, he started believing in it, then began practicing, and now he's in love with it.

So why not take it one step further and do a study on shared dreaming? Because the outcome would most likely be negative.

----------


## Empedocles

> Except there's a difference between believing in shared dreaming and believing in God and an afterlife. The former doesn't require blind faith, assuming you've experienced it for yourself.



Nonsense. There is no blind faith for the person who experienced something extraordinary. You easily dismiss other people's personal experiences as far as religion/God is concerned, yet somehow shared dreaming experiences have a higher value.





> So what you're basically saying then is that anyone who has experienced it for themselves is a hypocrite because of the lack of formal scientific evidence.



Not even close. I am saying that 1.) it might exist, 2.) i have never experienced it, and 3.) i have not seen one single study confirming it.

I have never ruled out it's existence.





> Whether they're mistaken or not has yet to be proven, but you're kind of jumping the gun by calling everyone who believes in it a hypocrite without having made the effort to even find out the truth for yourself. So, who's the real hypocrite here?



You are, sir. You are quick to jump and label religious people as idiots with "blind faith", easily dismissing the personal experiences that made them into believers.

Then you want others to not demand evidence for shared dreaming, but simply accept someone's stories without any doubt.

Jakob

----------


## dutchraptor

You should stop begining every single argument without "nonsense".

----------


## Fechtel

> Thanks lol, I like yours as well.   That name actually was spoken to me in a ayahausca ceremony, then I looked it up found out it was an archangels name.



The archangel is actually spelled Azrael.

But either way, I love your name because it sounds like Israel.

----------


## MindGames

> Nonsense. There is no blind faith for the person who experienced something extraordinary. You easily dismiss other people's personal experiences as far as religion/God is concerned, yet somehow shared dreaming experiences have a higher value.



The difference between religious experiences and shared dreaming is that the latter can be confirmed or disproved since there are two or more people involved.





> Not even close. I am saying that 1.) it might exist, 2.) i have never experienced it, and 3.) i have not seen one single study confirming it.
> 
> I have never ruled out it's existence.



Then we're in agreement.





> You are, sir. You are quick to jump and label religious people as idiots with "blind faith", easily dismissing the personal experiences that made them into believers.



Quit putting words into my mouth, I never called religious people idiots. I don't deny the possibility of the existence of God or an afterlife, but there is a difference between religious experiences and shared dreaming experiences which can be confirmed between two people.





> Then you want others to not demand evidence for shared dreaming, but simply accept someone's stories without any doubt.
> 
> Jakob



I never said that. Where are you getting this from? I don't believe in shared dreaming, but I think it's possible and I'm open to be convinced either way. I'm just not going to immediately rule out the possibility of shared dreaming.

----------


## MindGames

And to clarify on this post:




> Except there's a difference between believing in shared dreaming and believing in God and an afterlife. The former doesn't require blind faith, assuming you've experienced it for yourself. So what you're basically saying then is that anyone who has experienced it for themselves is a hypocrite because of the lack of formal scientific evidence. Whether they're mistaken or not has yet to be proven, but you're kind of jumping the gun by calling everyone who believes in it a hypocrite without having made the effort to even find out the truth for yourself. So, who's the real hypocrite here?



My point, Jakob, is that you were calling everybody who believes in shared dreaming hypocrites regardless of whether or not they've been convinced of it for themselves through personal experience, basically equating believing in shared dreaming to blind faith when it is not the same thing as believing in a God. There is a major difference between believing in a God and believing in shared dreaming. It's possible to prove it by doing it yourself and talking about the shared dream afterward.

----------


## Empedocles

> The difference between religious experiences and shared dreaming is that the latter can be confirmed or disproved since there are two or more people involved.



That doesn't make the religious experiences of any lower value. You also ignore the fact that there are religious experiences that involve close friends and/or family members, which makes the experience mutual.





> Quit putting words into my mouth, I never called religious people idiots.



Well, maybe not you, but you did use the term blind faith, which is a very sort of dismissive thing.





> I don't deny the possibility of the existence of God or an afterlife, but there is a difference between religious experiences and shared dreaming experiences which can be confirmed between two people.



As I just pointed out to you, really there is no difference. You have to look at it from an objective, unbiased point of view. But sometimes, this is difficult to do.





> I never said that. Where are you getting this from? I don't believe in shared dreaming, but I think it's possible and I'm open to be convinced either way. I'm just not going to immediately rule out the possibility of shared dreaming.



I never ruled out the possibility either. I just want to see something other than "me and my friend do it on a regular basis."

And just to be clear: If I personally experienced shared dreaming with someone, then I wouldn't give a rat's ass about scientific evidence.

----------


## Empedocles

> My point, Jakob, is that you were calling everybody who believes in shared dreaming hypocrites regardless of whether or not they've been convinced of it for themselves through personal experience,



I didn't call all shared dreamers hypocrites, but only those who mock religious experiences, and at the same time want others to ignore the lack of scientific evidence for shared dreaming. 

They proudly declare "Prove to me that God exists!", "You have no evidence!", "You have blind faith!", etc., etc., yet when someone demands scientific evidence for shared dreaming, they get all pissed off.

Not all are like this, but there are many. At least in my experience it has been so, through internet discussion.





> basically equating believing in shared dreaming to blind faith when it is not the same thing as believing in a God. There is a major difference between believing in a God and believing in shared dreaming. It's possible to prove it by doing it yourself and talking about the shared dream afterward.



I strongly, strongly disagree. As I said earlier, there are religious "paranormal" experiences that sometimes involve more than one person.

And even if only one person is involved, I find it sad that people jump so quickly to label someone's faith as "blind". To someone who has had visions of God accompanied with an otherworldly feeling of happiness, in combination with an extraordinarily high number of prayers answered, etc., his faith in God is all but blind to him. I am not that person, but I am simply giving you an example.

So if you can't respect someone's religious beliefs, and why they believe in God without "scientific proof", then you also shouldn't demand that people accept shared dreaming without scientific proof either.

Because doing so would be hypocritical.

Jakob

----------


## Empedocles

Now I don't want this thread to turn into a "atheism is better than theism" debate, or "does God exist". I made my points clear in regards to shared dreaming. Here it is again:

1.) I have never experienced it.
2.) I have not seen one single study confirming it's existence.
3.) I have honestly having doubts about so many DreamViews users having shared dreams.
4.) I am not ruling out the possibility of it's existence.
5.) I would absolutely love to see a study, such as the one I proposed (password + eye movements).

Yeah, that would be it.

----------


## gab

OK, guys, a couple of things.

1. Please don't shout.
2. There is way too many smileys of the non-smiling kind in here. Excessive smileys are discouraged.
3. Absolutely no personal attacks are allowed.
4. If you find some opinions offensive and you can't handle them, please don't participate. 
and
5. Stay on topic.

Thank you.

----------


## MindGames

I see. For clarification, what I was referring to as blind faith was believing in God and the afterlife without having any reason other than indoctrination to believe so. In which case it would be blind faith. That would be different from believing in shared dreaming if you've experienced it for yourself. In that case, you wouldn't need scientific evidence to back up your experiences.





> So if you can't respect someone's religious beliefs, and why they believe in God without "scientific proof", then you also shouldn't demand that people accept shared dreaming without scientific proof either.
> 
> Because doing so would be hypocritical.



I don't think people should accept shared dreaming without scientific proof. Personal experiences that have been confirmed between two people "scientifically" also count as scientific proof, by the way. The problem with religious experiences is that you can't really have them and confirm them the same way that you can with shared dreaming.

----------


## Chimpertainment

> But here we have nothing to hold on to except "talk". Lucid dreaming was proven in a controlled study by LaBerge using specific eye-movements during REM sleep. The same could easily be done for shared dreaming, but for some reason, after all these years, it hasn't been done.



I am not intimately familiar with studies done about anything since ive never personally been involved with one. However, I have read Laberge's book and other books whose authors underwent in depth study in their respective subject. The problem with studying shared dreaming is that no institution in their right mind would approve of such a study at this point in time. The accepted view of science as it stands cannot accept the idea of shared dreaming, let alone actually supporting serious research on the topic. That is why, in my view studying shared dreaming like Laberge studied lucid dreaming is nearly impossible. 
Of course, people here on dream views and other "unofficial" groups have formulated shared dreaming experiments but that has no backing by any serious educational institution.
I think replicating Laberge's study with shared dreaming would be an excellent idea. The amusing part would be to watch someone try to convince the general populace that they actually proved shared dreaming assuming they collected the necessary evidence. 




> So you believe in the existence of God, but at the same time that all religions are false. I can understand that.







> Hmm. I'm not sure how that would work. Believing in Hinduism and Christianity at the same time would be very irrational, seeing how one religion completely contradicts the other. Therefore I don't see how someone can accept everything as truth. It is illogical.



This perspective comes from viewing the world from a "big picture" perspective. Nothing is true and everything is permitted. This is because as humans we cannot truly know an objective reality because our sensory perception is limited. On the other hand, our experience is all we have, therefore every experience must be true simply by its existence. If you were to reduce all religions to their most basic elements, you would see they all strive for the same goal. All the crap that gets piled on top is generally considered "dogma".





> The only issue here is this: You all want to make shared dreaming "unsuitable" for a study, and make up tons of excuses why it wouldn't work in a study. The only reason is to justify the fact that all these years of research hasn't shown a shred of evidence for shared dreaming.



We are not making it unsuitable for study, we discuss and study this phenomena at length. Unfortunately, the intellectual powers that be *have* made this topic unsuitable for study in any serious setting. I hope this changes in the future but that requires a paradigm shift in respect to how people view unconscious reality.

It is not just my personal experience which may explain. It is also running that experience through a fact filter to see if what is experienced is legitimate. Here are a few facts that were in times past considered ridiculous. 

1. One can be conscious inside a dream (lucid dreaming)
2. Everyone is connected through an invisible(to us) energy field that permeates the entire universe. There are no boundaries between matter.
3. Human beings communicate unconsciously on a daily basis in waking life through body language, social cues, tonal inflection, and other very subtle forms of communication.

The more we as humans observe the world, the more we realize how connected we really are. To say it is not possible is simply willful ignorance. 

There was a thread about a year ago on these forums that cited a study about shared dreaming in which subjects shared up to 30% dream material while attempting shared dreaming as opposed to 5% shared material when not attempting. 

There are many people who have looked into the subject and they deserve serious consideration. It seems though, that you are more serious about proving yourself correct than actually finding any proof. That is probably why you have received the "trying to find ways to make shared dreaming unsuitable for study" response.

In other news, you got me interested in this and I am gonna track down some legitimate shared dreaming research in case anyone really wants to research this. I'll post that on a different thread in the beyond dreaming forum...it will probably take me a few hours... ::banana::

----------


## zombiesarebad

if shared dreaming were shown to exist, the implications would be huge.  It would mean that there are channels through which information/energy can flow that we don't yet know about.  I've seen comments here that no scientist would stake his reputation on studying such a thing, but if you looked into it you'd find that this sort of thing has had the shit studied out of it.  So far, there is no real evidence in support of it.  And it seems (to me) that if it existed it would have been proven by now.  Kind of like ghosts, bigfoot... whatever.  If it's out there and you simply have to observe it under controlled conditions, it should have been done long ago.

You can say that two people can prove it between themselves, but that's called anecdotal evidence.  For something to be scientifically proven it has to be repeated a number of times, recorded, and verified through outside sources.  This has never been accomplished with shared dreaming or any similar phenomenon.

and the burden of proof lies on those making the claim, not the other way around.

----------


## Fechtel

deleted

----------


## MindGames

> "MindGames" is not an atheist but actually an anti-theist. His hate for religion sometimes prevents him from writing coherent sentences.
> 
> He posts on freeratio.org under the username "jonJ".



...if that was a joke, it wasn't very funny. Why the sudden personal attack?

e: And no, I'm actually agnostic.

----------


## MindGames

Thanks, by the way, you're about the fourth person on this site today to treat me badly. (Not talking about anybody else on this thread) Definitely feeling the love on here. I suppose you get your good morals from your religion?

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

I saw this coming a mile away, and i don't need to know who started it, i already made my decision not to deal with kids here changing topics to cause havoc here. And i bet this very person is happy now for doing such a thing. (we all know who i am talking about)




> Thanks, by the way, you're about the fourth person on this site today to treat me badly. (Not talking about anybody else on this thread) Definitely feeling the love on here. I suppose you get your good morals from your religion?

----------


## Empedocles

> if shared dreaming were shown to exist, the implications would be huge.  It would mean that there are channels through which information/energy can flow that we don't yet know about.  I've seen comments here that no scientist would stake his reputation on studying such a thing, but if you looked into it you'd find that this sort of thing has had the shit studied out of it.  So far, there is no real evidence in support of it.  And it seems (to me) that if it existed it would have been proven by now.  Kind of like ghosts, bigfoot... whatever.  If it's out there and you simply have to observe it under controlled conditions, it should have been done long ago.
> 
> You can say that two people can prove it between themselves, but that's called anecdotal evidence.  For something to be scientifically proven it has to be repeated a number of times, recorded, and verified through outside sources.  This has never been accomplished with shared dreaming or any similar phenomenon.
> 
> and the burden of proof lies on those making the claim, not the other way around.



I am not asking for the study to be repeated a large number of times etc.

One time would be enough, as long as it's successful.

----------


## Empedocles

> I saw this coming a mile away, and i don't need to know who started it, i already made my decision not to deal with kids here changing topics to cause havoc here. And i bet this very person is happy now for doing such a thing. (we all know who i am talking about)



I hope you are not talking about me.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by WakingNomad


How could you do that through shared dreaming?



If you can make the claim that you can share information with another person on the other side of the world in a shared dream, then my god, why am I spending money on a cable connection or a telephone monthly plan?
All I have to do is get my mom to connect to my dream and... I no longer have to use Facebook.
If I were a military leader, all I need is a spy behind enemy lines, and I no longer have to use electronic means of communication to get secrets back home to me.
Communication would be instant, cost-free, and untraceable.
Of course, this isn't being done... which leads me to think it *isn't real*._

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## TwoCrystalCups

> If you can make the claim that you can share information with another person on the other side of the world in a shared dream, then my god, why am I spending money on a cable connection or a telephone monthly plan?
> All I have to do is get my mom to connect to my dream and... I no longer have to use Facebook.
> If I were a military leader, all I need is a spy behind enemy lines, and I no longer have to use electronic means of communication to get secrets back home to me.
> Communication would be instant, cost-free, and untraceable.
> Of course, this isn't being done... which leads me to think it *isn't real*.



 It don't mean if it isn't being done that it isn't real. There are things being done in secret service that we don't know. Media really has a knack for hiding stuff too, are you really believing the crap on TV and media? Most people do. But i don't. Technology taking over is only benefit for the market and a selling product, corporations don't care about our questions for science they only care for what they do to make money. Science does make money, once they catch that shared dreaming is possible, do you know how much they will get? Once making a product just for this will make billions of dollars, or more. I wouldn't be surprised if they did find out secretly and then hit us with a "wow" one day in the future.
A product is now made for controlling your dreams better what's next right?

----------


## shadowofwind

> It don't mean if it isn't being done that it isn't real. There are things being done in secret service that we don't know.



Having recently held and above top secret clearance, and having worked in a building supposedly containing alien artifacts (from what I see on the internet), I say with a fair degree of confidence that secret government agencies don't know anything about this sort of thing.  Its not at all glamorous like how Hollywood portrays such things.  It would be like expecting the guys at the Department of Motor Vehicles to have superhuman powers.  Some agencies like the CIA add a homicidal element to the mix, but aside from that its same ass-covering careerism that you'd find in any complacent, aging corporation.

I agree the post you were responding to was idiotic though.  If you roll down your window when you're driving, and pay attention, you can hear the sound of your car engine and tire noise bouncing off of objects you pass, and can get some sense of what's near the road that way.  But using exactly the same argument, the continued utility of eyes proves that this form of sonar doesn't exist.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

How about technology? And if you were actually working in that building and know a fair degree of things there, i thought you guys weren't suppose to talk about it, let alone bring it up? It suppose to be secret right?




> Having recently held and above top secret clearance, and having worked in a building supposedly containing alien artifacts (from what I see on the internet), I say with a fair degree of confidence that secret government agencies don't know anything about this sort of thing.  Its not at all glamorous like how Hollywood portrays such things.  It would be like expecting the guys at the Department of Motor Vehicles to have superhuman powers.  Some agencies like the CIA add a homicidal element to the mix, but aside from that its same ass-covering careerism that you'd find in any complacent, aging corporation.
> 
> I agree the post you were responding to was idiotic though.  If you roll down your window when you're driving, and pay attention, you can hear the sound of your car engine and tire noise bouncing off of objects you pass, and can get some sense of what's near the road that way.  But using exactly the same argument, the continued utility of eyes proves that this form of sonar doesn't exist.

----------


## shadowofwind

In theory I shouldn't mention my clearance level, though in actuality 'above top secret' doesn't mean much, and is glamorous only in movies.  I'm not exposing any state secrets to say the alien and paranormal ops stories are made up, and don't fit into that world as it actually is.

Government research is not currently at the forefront of technology, it lags behind a little.  In that respect what is shown on TV dramas isn't real either.

----------


## Empedocles

Am I the only one who thinks that this thread is really a very good one? It has lots of great discussions, different points of view, and nice suggestions.

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## Chimpertainment

> if shared dreaming were shown to exist, the implications would be huge.  It would mean that there are channels through which information/energy can flow that we don't yet know about.  I've seen comments here that no scientist would stake his reputation on studying such a thing, but if you looked into it you'd find that this sort of thing has had the shit studied out of it.  So far, there is no real evidence in support of it.  *And it seems (to me) that if it existed it would have been proven by now*.  Kind of like ghosts, bigfoot... whatever.  If it's out there and you simply have to observe it under controlled conditions, it should have been done long ago.
> 
> You can say that two people can prove it between themselves, but that's called anecdotal evidence.  For something to be scientifically proven it has to be repeated a number of times, recorded, and verified through outside sources.  This has never been accomplished with shared dreaming or any similar phenomenon.
> 
> and the burden of proof lies on those making the claim, not the other way around.



Agreed...except for one thing...

If it existed, it would have been proven by now....Thats probably putting a little too much faith in mainstream science. There is as much politics in science as there is anywhere else. If the culture doesnt want to know something, it will remove those attempting to spread that knowledge. Case in point: Galileo. And dont think people have changed since the church threatened his life for thinking and speaking differently. They may not kill you now, but they will certainly tar and feather you metaphorically. 

At any rate, even if there was serious study done, the conclusions would be speculative at best. Dreams vary so much from person to person that identifying shared information by scientific standards would be a horrendous task. Not that it cannot be done. Personally, I have a few ideas that could bring us closer to the truth of the topic and I hope to carry out those ideas throughout the coming years. 
The first step is exactly what we are doing here. Talk about what we are experiencing and attempting to construct some basis for collective observation. woot.

----------


## Chimpertainment

> In theory I shouldn't mention my clearance level, though in actuality 'above top secret' doesn't mean much, and is glamorous only in movies.  I'm not exposing any state secrets to say the alien and paranormal ops stories are made up, and don't fit into that world as it actually is.
> 
> Government research is not currently at the forefront of technology, it lags behind a little.  In that respect what is shown on TV dramas isn't real either.



You have heard of DARPA right?

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Yes i know it's not like in movies etc, i was just wondering what you can or can't unclose from your job. 




> In theory I shouldn't mention my clearance level, though in actuality 'above top secret' doesn't mean much, and is glamorous only in movies.  I'm not exposing any state secrets to say the alien and paranormal ops stories are made up, and don't fit into that world as it actually is.
> 
> Government research is not currently at the forefront of technology, it lags behind a little.  In that respect what is shown on TV dramas isn't real either.

----------


## zombiesarebad

going to have to disagree that this sort of thing isn't studied.  I'm only a Biology BA, so it's not like i'm rubbing elbows with Stephen Hawking or anything, but I have been around plenty of people involved in research and I can tell you that you will not be tarred and feathered (not even figuratively) for curiosity.  As long as the scientific method is applied, it's looked at as legitimate in the eyes of many.  You're probably not going to get a bajillion dollar grant to study shared dreaming, but it shouldn't take that.  Compelling evidence for it, if it exists, should be pretty easily obtainable without tons of money or equipment.

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## Chimpertainment

I would be very interested to see some sponsored studies on shared dreaming. There is plenty of this being researched ya, but not in the mainstream like lucid dreaming or other sleep phenomena.

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## Empedocles

> going to have to disagree that this sort of thing isn't studied.  I'm only a Biology BA, so it's not like i'm rubbing elbows with Stephen Hawkings or anything, but I have been around plenty of people involved in research and I can tell you that you will not be tarred and feathered (not even figuratively) for curiosity.  As long as the scientific method is applied, it's looked at as legitimate in the eyes of many.  You're probably not going to get a bajillion dollar grant to study shared dreaming, but it shouldn't take that.  Compelling evidence for it, if it exists, should be pretty easily obtainable without tons of money or equipment.



I agree entirely. People are just making excuses to justify the fact that there is not one study which confirms shared dreaming. 

All that's needed are experiences/talented shared dreamers (supposedly there are many on DV), equipment to monitor REM, and people who will assign signals/passwords, as well as monitor the equipment. All of this could be easily documented, and wouldn't cost alot of money. The only thing that's missing: shared dreamers who are willing to engage in this sort of experiment.

Falling asleep around the same time also shouldn't be much of a problem, seeing how 25 mg of "Doxylamine succinate" knocks you out like a baby.

----------


## zombiesarebad

> I would be very interested to see some sponsored studies on shared dreaming. There is plenty of this being researched ya, but not in the mainstream like lucid dreaming or other sleep phenomena.



why would it need to be sponsored?  If two individuals were ever able to wake up and report the same (or strikingly similar) dream, isolated from each other in a controlled environment, financial backing would be easy to get.  But nobody has ever been able to do that.

----------


## Ezrael

> The archangel is actually spelled Azrael.
> 
> But either way, I love your name because it sounds like Israel.



There are multiple spellings to that name, Azrael is the most commonly used and it was already taken.

----------


## Empedocles

> why would it need to be sponsored?  If two individuals were ever able to wake up and report the same (or strikingly similar) dream, isolated from each other in a controlled environment, financial backing would be easy to get.  But nobody has ever been able to do that.



Exactly right, and that's what I've been saying all along. If I had these shared dreaming abilities as many DV users claim they do, then I'd be the first in line, together with me fellow shared dreaming companion, to prove it.

And if someone offered me a huge amount of money for it like James Randi does, then that would give me much more motivation to do it.

Then we get the excuses, "I don't want to prove it, I don't need the money, etc."

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## TwoCrystalCups

Ok, i am going to give a challenge to all the disagreeing people here, because really you guys are not challenging us with proof to why you are disagreeing of shared dreaming. You tell us we need proof, now i tell you give us proof that an actual real scientist actually says "shared dreaming" is impossible, doesn't exist or is made up.  :smiley:  
If none of you can give this proof from a true 100% legit scientific website in the end of today? Then it's best you be on your way back to your so called "religious" forums where you came from thank you!

----------


## Empedocles

> Ok, i am going to give a challenge to all the disagreeing people here, because really you guys are not challenging us with proof to why you are disagreeing of shared dreaming. You tell us we need proof, now i tell you give us proof that an actual real scientist actually says "shared dreaming" is impossible, doesn't exist or is made up.  
> If none of you can give this proof from a true 100% legit scientific website in the end of today? Then it's best you be on your way back to your so called "religious" forums where you came from thank you!



This is ridiculous, and I'm disappointed that a very intelligent person like Sageous actually gave a "like" for your post.

Now I direct you both to a very good reply by zombiesarebad:





> You can say that two people can prove it between themselves, but that's called anecdotal evidence.  For something to be scientifically proven it has to be repeated a number of times, recorded, and verified through outside sources.  This has never been accomplished with shared dreaming or any similar phenomenon.
> 
> *and the burden of proof lies on those making the claim, not the other way around.*



On another note, you are once again falsely assuming that I am claiming shared dreams cannot exist. I have not once on this forum said this. I only said that there is no study that confirms it, which is true.

How many times do I need to repeat myself by saying I am not ruling out it's existence? It seems like this has become like a mantra I have to repeat over and over again in order for some people to "get it".

----------


## Sageous

> This is ridiculous, and I'm disappointed that a very intelligent person like Sageous actually gave a "like" for your post.



.... I knew you were going to notice my "like", and say that! I was going to "unlike" just because of that, but I figured what the hell.  :smiley: 

Is it that ridiculous, really?  Think about it. Yes, Hathor is effectively asking us to prove a negative, which is never a good thing, but I think her point is a good one. 

There are thousands of attempted scientific "studies," from perpetual motion to phrenology to cold fusion, that were looked into by actual scientists and recorded in the books as impossible or, at best, unlikely (I still hold out hope for cold fusion).  Given that the actual empirical study for dream-sharing is quite simple on paper, and that the idea of dream-sharing has been around as long as humans have been dreaming, wouldn't it make sense that _someone_ would have tested it, or tried to, and _somewhere_ out there is evidence of the scientific community saying either "We tried that in the '50's, and it doesn't work," or "a century of psychiatric study and sleep lab results have revealed no provable trace of dream-sharing."  You'd think there would be.

And you'd think, given that we all now have the world at our fingertips (some of us can even access university and government websites as well), somebody here could use their search skills to find just one scientist or psychologist (they are different) confirming or denying the existence of provable dream-sharing.  Wouldn't you?

----------


## MindGames

There are some studies, actually, I looked up a couple last night. There are some having to do with telepathy. One example is "Psychology and anomalous observations: The question of ESP in dreams.
Child, Irvin L.": (http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1986-13291-001), which has been disputed. You might be able to find the study free to read somewhere else. The problem is that it's not that cut-and-dried. You could probably find studies that show both results and non-results.

----------


## Chimpertainment

Its nice to see we all have moved a least somewhat on this topic concerning our opinions.

There are studies that claim it is true with evidence to back up that opinion. Im in the middle of compiling a butt-load of info to post on the forum to that effect. And once again I will say, you wont see mainstream scientific research attempting to verify shared dreaming. 
However, we will see the response my research garners. The assumptions we all hold land us on either side of opinion yet we rarely question our own assumptions...

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## TwoCrystalCups

:laugh: 




> This is ridiculous, and I'm disappointed that a very intelligent person like Sageous actually gave a "like" for your post.

----------


## MindGames

> why would it need to be sponsored?  If two individuals were ever able to wake up and report the same (or strikingly similar) dream, isolated from each other in a controlled environment, financial backing would be easy to get.  But nobody has ever been able to do that.



Do you even know of any studies that have been done that had negative results like what you're asserting? Just curious.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Now we are getting somewhere with this debating!  :smiley: 
And to my knowledge, Jakob? You don't have to repeat yourself about making yourself clear about you never saying shared dreaming doesn't exist, i think some people here know this already from you, but we are actually getting mixed signals from you. Seems like when you are repeating yourself you just want attention or someone to even "quote" you back to alter another argument that won't go no where. Btw i didn't think zombiesarebad was even quoting you directly or even mentioned you in his post when you quoted him about the existence thing.

----------


## shadowofwind

> The only thing that's missing: shared dreamers who are willing to engage in this sort of experiment.



No that's not the part that's missing.  I've e-mailed dream academics and haven't even gotten a response.  And WakingNomad has done a fair amount of that also.

Its an easy thing to study in terms of cost of equipment, but it does require a significant investment of time and professional risk, for reasons that have been discussed at length elsewhere.  It doesn't appear to me that most of you have worked in a research environment and had to find funding for your projects and get approval by the institution you work in.

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## Empedocles

> Do you even know of any studies that have been done that had negative results like what you're asserting? Just curious.



Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Excuse me i am going to laugh now... >  ::laughtillhurts::

----------


## Empedocles

Go right ahead. The only thing that you could laugh about are your arguments, or lack thereof. Basically your entire argument for shared dreaming is a variation of "show me a study which disproves shared dreaming", and "show me a scientist who says it's impossible".

Very weak indeed.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by hathor28


Ok, i am going to give a challenge to all the disagreeing people here, because really you guys are not challenging us with proof to why you are disagreeing of shared dreaming. You tell us we need proof, now i tell you give us proof that an actual real scientist actually says "shared dreaming" is impossible, doesn't exist or is made up.  
If none of you can give this proof from a true 100% legit scientific website in the end of today? Then it's best you be on your way back to your so called "religious" forums where you came from thank you!



The reason why I am disagreeing with shared dreaming is quite simple:  You have a hypothesis ("shared dreaming is possible...").  But you've already concluded that this hypothesis is true, and you want others (like myself) to believe that this hypothesis is true, without having some kind of scientifically verifiable method to prove that your hypothesis is true.

Remember, the burden is on you to be able to prove your claim.  It is not on me to disprove your hypothesis, even though I've already cast more than enough reasonable doubt upon it.

Look, if I were in your shoes, this is what I would do.  I'd take several volunteers, split into two groups, hooked up to a EEG (electroencephalogram) while they are asleep in the same environment.  I would monitor their brain activity while they are asleep.  One group would attempt to perform dream sharing, the other would not.  I would then compare the EEG results.

If I could see that the EEG graph showed remarkable coincidences between my volunteers in Group 1 that didn't show up in Group 2, then I would have an arguable case that dream sharing might be possible._

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Look who's talking, you want evidence as well, so what's the point of even bringing this up? You are actually beating yourself UP.  ::lol:: 




> Go right ahead. The only thing that you could laugh about are your arguments, or lack thereof. Basically your entire argument for shared dreaming is a variation of "show me a study which disproves shared dreaming", and "show me a scientist who says it's impossible".
> 
> Very weak indeed.












> LaBerge certainly didn't risk his reputation by trying to prove Lucid Dreaming, and he did it successfully. A long time ago I had a PhD professor tell me that "lucid dreaming is bogus." Then after reading LaBerge's book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, he started believing in it, then began practicing, and now he's in love with it.
> 
> So why not take it one step further and do a study on shared dreaming? Because the outcome would most likely be negative.



 And you want proof of this study right? Look it up! Stop talking and give me links about shared dreaming is impossible or made up.
 Do i have to bring up your past quotes to remind you what you were talking about?





> Or you may be trying very hard to find "patterns" in your life, and that way you are much more likely to notice 22, 222, and 2222 appearing, than to notice 0, 239, 4938, or 239819. 
> 
> On a more serious note:
> 
> Honestly, no I don't believe in shared dreaming. And if it does exist, I think it would be *extremely* rare, limited only to individuals with extraordinary telepathic/ESP abilities. These two "shared dreamers" would also have to be in REM sleep at the same time in order for it to work. I am not saying it cannot exist, I am simply saying I don't see any evidence for it's existence at this time. So many studies have been done on dreams, by Celia Green, Stephen LaBerge, etc., and there is no study which confirms this supposed phenomenon. It's also a bit funny to me to see all these threads on DreamViews, with people claiming they have shared dreams. Some people on DV are even claiming that they're having it on a regular basis. Something like this would actually be easy to prove if it did exist, and it would be a potential candidate for a succesful victory at the James Randi Foundation (google "randi challenge" for more info). Here's the setup:
> 
> *1.) Find two experienced shared dreamers (there are supposedly many here on DreamViews).
> 2.) Arrange a setting where they can't communicate with one another, and make sure they fall asleep approximately at the same time, in order to be in REM around the same time.
> 3.) Tell subject A, to give a certain password to subject B, once they are together lucid in the dream state.*
> ...



Reminder why i ask for proof of shared dreaming if it's impossible or made up, go find negative links to prove that shared dreaming won't work if you think that. If not then wait in the future for such studies! Btw i do have those rare abilities you talk about, so i guess you have to stop judging people here because you never know if one of them have those abilities aka esp. I am actually one step ahead of you and know what you are trying to do. nice try though.

----------


## MindGames

> Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence.



You can't really make that claim if you don't know of any studies that have been done on it. I'm happy to take a look at any studies which show that there's no evidence for the existence of shared dreaming, though.

And my original post was directed at zombiesarebad anyway, since he's making the claim that nobody's ever been able to have a shared dream in a controlled environment. In which case he needs to back that up by providing some studies where this was done.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

I do not have lack of arguments, ALL of my posts i have said here is 100% true and real, don't want to accept that i share dream and have telepathic abilities? That's fine with me, but i "don't have to" prove these things (once again i am saying) to stupid ignorant people who come here and start debating what they don't know and actually act like they know. <THIS angers me.
And your anger Jakob is not wanted here in this thread, as for what you just said when i quoted you, you said you get really angry seeing threads like these. Stop spreading your negative energy, it is obvious for me to know it and i do not respond to anger well.

----------


## Empedocles

> The reason why I am disagreeing with shared dreaming is quite simple:  You have a hypothesis ("shared dreaming is possible...").  But you've already concluded that this hypothesis is true, and you want others (like myself) to believe that this hypothesis is true, without having some kind of scientifically verifiable method to prove that your hypothesis is true.
> 
> Remember, the burden is on you to be able to prove your claim.  It is not on me to disprove your hypothesis, even though I've already cast more than enough reasonable doubt upon it.
> 
> Look, if I were in your shoes, this is what I would do.  I'd take several volunteers, split into two groups, hooked up to a EEG (electroencephalogram) while they are asleep in the same environment.  I would monitor their brain activity while they are asleep.  One group would attempt to perform dream sharing, the other would not.  I would then compare the EEG results.
> 
> If I could see that the EEG graph showed remarkable coincidences between my volunteers in Group 1 that didn't show up in Group 2, then I would have an arguable case that dream sharing might be possible.



But why leave out the assignment of a password along with coordinated eye movements? If the EEG graph showed "remarkable coincidences", that simply isn't good enough. It is not in any way comparable to having a password that's been given from one dreamer to another, and matching eye movements to go with it.

That would prove shared dreaming beyond a doubt.

----------


## Empedocles

> And you want proof of this study right? Look it up! Stop talking and give me links about shared dreaming is impossible or made up.
>  Do i have to bring up your past quotes to remind you what you were talking about?



With all due respect, I have problems understanding your posts, because you are somewhat incoherent.

I am saying that shared dreaming might exist, or it might not exist. Get it? I'm really not sure you are getting it. 

I am not ruling out the existence of shared dreaming (for the 684531457523th time), but simply pointing out that I would believe in strongly if 1.) i experienced it, or 2.) i've seen a study by a good dream researcher which shows evidence for it (such as the study i suggested).

You on the other hand, are rambling on and on with incoherent assertions, and you demand that I show you evidence of it's nonexistence, which is pretty much pathetic (to say the least). 

I suggest you take a class in logic and critical thinking.

Jakob

----------


## shadowofwind

> Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence.



But in your case its evidence of ignorance, because there is evidence but you won't consider it.

Was there no knowledge in the world prior to peer reviewed studies?  Where do you think scientific knowledge came from?  People looked at stuff first, then it was rigorously demonstrated and explained much later.

----------


## Empedocles

> But in your case its evidence of ignorance, because there is evidence but you won't consider it.



Show me the evidence. Show me a controlled study which covers this subject.





> Was there no knowledge in the world prior to peer reviewed studies?  Where do you think scientific knowledge came from?  People looked at stuff first, then it was rigorously demonstrated and explained much later.



I think it is pathetic to claim the following:

There are no studies which _disprove_ shared dreaming.
Therefore, there is a high likelihood it *does* indeed exist, and we should believe all the fantastic tales from DV members who share dreams every night.  ::D: 

That is basically what hathor28 is putting forth. My reasoning, on the other hand, is this:

I have seen no documented studies on shared dreaming so far.
Therefore, I doubt it's existence, but I am not ruling it out.

Jakob

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Like i said last post, wait for future studies, why are you acting so dumb really? You said there should be studies of this and yet you ask for evidence? You make no sense. 
And so far you are actually doing this on purpose to get under peoples skin. This isn't debating what you are doing, it is causing an uproar in this thread only because you are angered by threads like these. Which looks very low and lame.




> Show me the evidence. Show me a controlled study which covers this subject.
> 
> 
> I think it is pathetic to claim the following:
> 
> There are no studies which _disprove_ shared dreaming.
> Therefore, there is a high likelihood it *does* indeed exist, and we should believe all the fantastic tales from DV members who share dreams every night. 
> 
> That is basically what hathor28 is putting forth. My reasoning, on the other hand, is this:
> ...

----------


## Empedocles

> Like i said last post, wait for future studies, why are you acting so dumb really? You said there should be studies of this and yet you ask for evidence? You make no sense. 
> And so far you are actually doing this on purpose to get under peoples skin. This isn't debating what you are doing, it is causing an uproar in this thread only because you are angered by threads like these. Which looks very low and lame.



 :Comedy Gold: 

I have no idea what you are talking about.

The sad thing is, you probably have no idea either.  ::chuckle::

----------


## shadowofwind

You say you won't believe in something unless it has been demonstrated by a controlled study.  But you came in here saying not just that you are agnostic about shared dreaming, which would be perfectly reasonable, but that you are angry that other people talk as if shared dreaming is real.  Apparently, you want other people to use the same standard of evidence that you use, and furthermore disregard their own experience if there is not yet a study supporting it.  Without first attempting to hear and understand what their experiences are, you immediately speculate about their experiences and tell them what you think they experienced.  Your speculations about possible fallacies that lead people to believe in shared dreaming completely fail to explain my experiences, but you can't know that, because you don't know what my experiences are, and don't even care.  That's what makes you ignorant.  Its OK to not care about what other people experience.  But then when you make judgments about things you don't care to know about, you don't know what you're talking about.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

> I think it is pathetic to claim the following:
> There are no studies which _disprove_ shared dreaming.
> Therefore, there is a high likelihood it *does* indeed exist, and we should believe all the fantastic tales from DV members who share dreams every night. 
> I have seen no documented studies on shared dreaming so far.
> Therefore, I doubt it's existence, but I am not ruling it out.
> Jakob



Yet you mock DV members who shares dreams? OK bye.  :poof: 





> Mindraker >Shared dreaming is scientifically impossible







> Jakob>That, I disagree with.  After seeing many studies which fail to prove it, only then I might be able to say something like that.
> But until that happens, I can't rule out it's existence, although I am doubtful of it.



 ::laughtillhurts::

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Jakob


But why leave out the assignment of a password along with coordinated eye movements? If the EEG graph showed "remarkable coincidences", that simply isn't good enough. It is not in any way comparable to having a password that's been given from one dreamer to another, and matching eye movements to go with it.

That would prove shared dreaming beyond a doubt.



Frankly, I really don't care HOW they attempt to prove that shared dreaming is real, as long as they give me SOMETHING.  Right now, they're not giving me _anything_  credible, verifiable, or tangible, which tells me that I can crumple this up and throw it away without losing any sleep (pun intended).

Yes, a password shared dream test would be nice, but it would take incredible discipline on all parties involved.  The problem with a password dream test is that it already puts a suggestion into people's heads what the dream is supposed to be about:  passwords.

As we've said before, the duty is on the person who makes the claim to prove whether his/her claim is right.  And we're just not seeing it happen.  We're beating this thread to death.  Shared dreaming is scientifically impossible._

----------


## Empedocles

> Shared dreaming is scientifically impossible.



That, I must disagree with. After seeing many studies which fail to prove it, only _then_ I might be able to say something like that.

But until that happens, I can't rule out it's existence, although I am doubtful of it.

----------


## shadowofwind

> As we've said before, the duty is on the person who makes the claim to prove whether his/her claim is right.



You came to a forum where people talk to each other about what they experience.  They have no duty to try to convince you of anything.

----------


## fennecgirl

I know I probably shouldn't keep getting involved in this against someone who clearly doesn't understand what a debate is, but I do have a few more points to make.





> I do not have lack of arguments



Oh really? I beg to differ; your "arguments" all seem to be either along the lines of "give me scientific proof shared dreaming doesn't exist" or simply just making fun of things other people, mainly Jakob, have said (which, by the way, doesn't make anybody look bad but you).





> ALL of my posts i have said here is 100% true and real



If your posts are all "100% true", like you insist, then you must have proof, correct?





> Stop spreading your negative energy



Jakob isn't spreading any negative energy. He is simply bringing up logical counter-arguments, which you apparently don't want to address. You, on the other hand, ARE spreading negative energy with your constant insults and attacks directed toward him. Just because you disagree with someone is no excuse to act like a jerk toward them, especially in what is supposed to be a civilized debate.





> I think it is pathetic to claim the following:
> 
> There are no studies which _disprove_ shared dreaming.
> Therefore, there is a high likelihood it *does* indeed exist, and we should believe all the fantastic tales from DV members who share dreams every night. 
> 
> That is basically what hathor28 is putting forth. My reasoning, on the other hand, is this:
> 
> I have seen no documented studies on shared dreaming so far.
> Therefore, I doubt it's existence, but I am not ruling it out.
> ...



This. Right here. You can't just assume shared dreaming exists because it hasn't been disproved. Well, you can, but you can't expect others to believe you just because you say so and call them ignorant and dumb.

----------


## MindGames

> As we've said before, the duty is on the person who makes the claim to prove whether his/her claim is right.  And we're just not seeing it happen.  We're beating this thread to death.  Shared dreaming is scientifically improbable.



Fixed this for you. It's fine to be skeptical; I am too, but you can't make the claim that it's impossible. Then you would carry the burden of proof.

----------


## Empedocles

> Yet you mock DV members who shares dreams? OK bye.



I mocked them where? I just don't believe most of their stories. Sorry for being as honest as I could possibly be.

Do you believe everyone who claims they can do telekinesis?
Do you believe everyone who claims they can talk to God, and God talks to them?
Do you believe everyone who claims they can summon ghosts and talk to them?

You don't.

So please don't expect me to do the same for shared dreaming.

----------


## Empedocles

> You came to a forum where people talk to each other about what they experience.  They have no duty to try to convince you of anything.



Duty is the wrong word. He shouldn't have used it.

Of course no one has a duty to prove or disprove anything to anybody. But we are talking about evidence, specifically scientific evidence which can be demonstrated through a simple study, and the burden of proof lies on those who are making the claim that shared dreaming exists. Why is this so difficult to understand?

----------


## shadowofwind

> This. Right here. You can't just assume shared dreaming exists because it hasn't been disproved. Well, you can, but you can't expect others to believe you just because you say so and call them ignorant and dumb.



Jakob isn't debating.  He's cherry picking what appear to him to be the weakest arguments from the thread and arguing those, while ignoring everything he doesn't have an answer for.  He is also responding to people's statements without first trying to understand what they were saying.  That's not debating either.

----------


## fennecgirl

> Jakob isn't debating.  He's cherry picking what appear to him to be the weakest arguments from the thread and arguing those, while ignoring everything he doesn't have an answer for.  He is also responding to people's statements without first trying to understand what they were saying.  That's not debating either.



While hathor28 is ignoring pretty much everything.

----------


## Empedocles

> Jakob isn't debating.  He's cherry picking what appear to him to be the weakest arguments from the thread and arguing those, while ignoring everything he doesn't have an answer for.



This is complete bull. Show me what I haven't addressed. How about addressing my replies to you? Here: http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/shared...ml#post1918149





> He is also responding to people's statements without first trying to understand what they were saying.  That's not debating either.



LOL, what an incoherent ramble. You guys really seem to be desperate with this shared dreaming thing.

----------


## shadowofwind

> Of course no one has a duty to prove or disprove anything to anybody. But we are talking about evidence, specifically scientific evidence which can be demonstrated through a simple study, and the burden of proof lies on those who are making the claim that shared dreaming exists. Why is this so difficult to understand?



Shared dreaming, if real, can not be easily demonstrated through a scientific study.  I understand why and I have previously explained why.  The 'proof' of a phenomena has to be appropriate for what the claimed phenomena actually is, not for some other phenomena which is not being claimed.  Is that hard to understand?

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

There you go again thinking that you know me and what i believe in, jakob you are looking very bad here to bring things like this up when it's obvious off topic, you are a run around kind of person and jumps to other things when the others don't come up with religion, ghosts and telekinesis. 
And yes you just mocked this thread and who ever believes in shared dreaming. You and your friend is really pathetic bunch of people here just to start problems. we all know this but i am the only one bringing out honesty and talking it out. Good luck on more debating here which will lead no where with you and fennecgirl. all she does is like posts and respond in wrong times, like when i was done with this she comes along and starts it all over again, honey keep posted, stop coming late in this debate because seems like you are just coming here to help out your little jakob. I am not responding to anymore people who quotes me as of now. 




> I mocked them where? I just don't believe most of their stories. Sorry for being as honest as I could possibly be.
> 
> Do you believe everyone who claims they can do telekinesis?
> Do you believe everyone who claims they can talk to God, and God talks to them?
> Do you believe everyone who claims they can summon ghosts and talk to them?
> 
> You don't.
> 
> So please don't expect me to do the same for shared dreaming.

----------


## Empedocles

It's very late, 04:34 AM, and I'm going to bed. 

We'll continue this tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure I'll be faced with the same material: Shadowofwind and hathor28 will go around in circles, demanding scientific proof of the non-existence of shared dreaming.  ::D: 

Goodnight y'all!

----------


## Sageous

^^ 'Night!

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

No you won't see me here debating with jakob and fennecgirl tomorrow or after that, i rather lurk and laugh at those 2.  Calling us desperate about this shared dreaming stuff doesn't help too.
Do not reply or quote me, you twos, it will look even worse for you.

----------


## shadowofwind

Jacob,

I didn't respond to your earlier reply because everything you said ignored what I actually said.  It seemed pointless.  I've got a couple of hours to waste now though.






> This is ridiculous. People on an internet forum claiming they exchanged "passwords" in a dream is not the same as a controlled study. I can't believe you are making this comparison.



I never said that any of the claims made here amounted to a controlled study.  





> If I were psychic, or a shared dreamer (which is essentially the same thing), I'd be the first in line to prove those a$$holes wrong.



If you were a psychic, you would understand your own abilities well enough to see that the Randi challenge is set up in a way that precludes a demonstration of those abilities.  But OK, I'm reaching out to dream researchers again through e-mail to see if I can get any interest in collaboration on a study.  No luck in the past. 





> Someone who has psychic abilities won't have any problem meeting the challenge. If you have the slightest telekinetic power to move a psi-wheel in a controlled setting, you will win the money. The same goes for remote reading, telepathy, and so on and so forth.



No.  I'm not even remotely that well controlled.  Here's an idea I have for a study.  The dream researcher at the respected institution finds some other people who are emotionally intelligent or developed and have an interest in personal growth.  He gets one of them to give him a question about something they're trying to understand that they care about.  They can't just make up any test question, it has to be something they actually care about at a fairly deep level.  The next day I write down what I dreamed and send it to the researcher.  Then he tries the next person, and I dream the next night.  If he does more than one subject at a time I'll get confused, and I'll get confused anyway because all of the subjects already have those questions before they share them with him.  But I might have images in the dreams that connect to the other individuals in convincingly specific ways.  Or I might not.  This works with only about half the people I try it with, and I haven't tried it in the context of a third party study that is trying to prove the phenomena.  That's a different situation, because then the thoughts of the researcher and all the people who will read and be impacted by the study results are involved also.  I'm willing to try it though.





> The outrage is in the fact that there is no evidence for shared dreaming at this time. No studies have confirmed this phenomenon that supposedly every 3rd or 4th DreamViews poster can induce at will.



I can't induce it at will.  Every 3rd or 4th means half of posters, who are you referring to?  Even someone who can induce it at will with a friend or lover won't necessarily be able to do much in a controlled study.





> On the other hand, there have been controlled studies in which telekinetic abilities have been demonstrated. These people (for example: Nina Kulagina), aren't alive today to meet the Randi Challenge.



OK.  I've only had one experience with moving an object, but it was partially involuntary, and I interpreted it as changing the history of where the object had been, in a manner inconsistent with the history of other objects, rather than applying a force that moves it.  I don't have an opinion on what other people may have done with that in the past.  I think they might have had trouble with the Randi challenge though, because of the modern thought climate, the need to be endorsed by a university expert before being accepted for the challenge, etc.  Plus a lot of those guys were charlatans, and I don't know about any of them specifically.





> Pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo that has little value. First we need controlled studies which support it's existence, and then you can tell me about "how it works."



OK, we agree at least that the 'how it works' explanations are all pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and not worth paying attention to.  I understand physics theory well enough though to know that it doesn't contradict currently theory, even though it doesn't fall inside the current theory either.  That explanation can remove a mental barrier for some people that then makes these other demonstrations easier.





> In other words: We need to see that it does work in the first place. And simple claims about doing it aren't good enough.



OK.  Not good enough for you.  I can produce some evidence.  For example I have an e-mail that I sent a few hours before the Hudson river water landing a couple of years ago that mirrors that event.  Its in close metaphor, not like a literal film of it.  For instance in the dream the 'engine' is a building about that same size with an opening and a metal contraption inside that vibrates and self destructs after a bird-sized blob is thrown into it.  And the fuselage is a long, adjacent building with water on the floor.  But of course that's subject to some interpretation, and I could forge the e-mail.  Even a study controlled by respected scientists can be faked also, and sadly often are (clinical studies in particular).  The fact that you didn't even ask about this sort of thing, but just responded with a bunch of assertions about things neither of us believe is why I didn't bother saying more.  





> Are you saying these patterns are evidence of psychic abilities?



  Not the patterns I mentioned.  Similar patterns can accompany psychic development though.  As you being being more aware of the weak influence you have on your environment, you try to organize that influence into some kind of coherent scheme.  Anything scheme that you cook up or try to work with such as numerology then starts working a lot better than it had previously.





> I believe in the paranormal. Lots of it. I also believe shared dreaming _might_ exist.
> 
> I just don't see an evidence for it at this time. Forum posts with people claiming they have it are really meaningless to me.



Not so meaningless as to prevent you from replying at length though.  I blew you off as incorrigible after you ignored the main points in my first response to you.  Then I got back into it since you were so enthusiastically fighting with Hathnor and suggesting her arguments are illogical and unscientific.  If you want scientific, engage with the scientist here.  Otherwise you're just posturing.  Maybe your responses to my posts have just been a matter of unfortunate assumptions and poor communication on my part.  If so, I'm willing to try some more.





> Yeah, I believe it might be real. I already said that. But until I see a good study on it, I refuse to believe these tons of DreamViews users who are writing spectacular tales of shared dreaming adventures.



OK already, I understood that from the start.  Nobody is asking you to believe, or certainly I'm not.  Personally I think its better for you not to believe in things you have no evidence of, and I agree that the word of other people very often can't be trusted.  But when you attack other people's personal beliefs as being irrational, when they have evidence which you personally lack, you're not being rational.  Two hundred years ago almost nothing had been proved by scientific study.  Had I lived then, I nevertheless would have believed many things, at least as working hypotheses.  Now more things are known, and you're deciding to draw the line and say OK, only what has been rigorously established is what you believe.  That may be fine for you, but for me it leaves out too much of my experience, things I have to deal with and make choices about almost every day.  You came here not just to share what you think makes sense, but angry about the perspectives of other people who you don't know and obviously do not understand at all well.  I've tried to explain something of where these other people are coming from.  But so far it seems you don't want to understand.  If you are interested, then its a misunderstanding, and let's continue.  If you're not interested, then what are you doing here?

----------


## shadowofwind

> We'll continue this tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure I'll be faced with the same material: Shadowofwind and hathor28 will go around in circles, demanding scientific proof of the non-existence of shared dreaming.



Nowhere did I ever say anything even similar to asking for proof of the non-existence of shared dreaming.  You've demonstrated fairly conclusively right here that you're just a troll, or at the very least have very poor reading comprehension.

----------


## zombiesarebad

i've been doing a bit of research on my university database thingy (because, as i expected, a simple google search only brings up fantastical and obviously biased "studies" on this.)  I will admit that there's not as much published as i expected there to be, but there's some good stuff.   There's a pretty even split of studies that showed no evidence for dream sharing/dream telepathy, and the ones that say there is some evidence but further study is required.  And of those, they unfailingly have slightly higher success rates that are barely statistically significant.  I wish i could link to them, but they're on the U of Maine intranet.  I was able to find one on the regular internet:  

http://www.keithhearne.com/wp-conten...-TELEPATHY.pdf

I realize it's not specifically about shared dreams, but it does deal with the dreaming mind supposedly having some sort of "link" to information being sent.

----------


## Rybread34

OK OK. Haven't been to this site (or at least haven't posted) in awhile. But I just discovered this "debate" thread and it looked like a fun time to start posting again.
I voted for "_Maybe, but it has to be scientifically proven._".  
Just like everything else that should be accepted as reality, there needs to be evidence, and I haven't seen any up to this point. Feel free to present me with some. (I've seen this posted in this thread like 1000 times already but I just thought I'd make my stance clear.)

----------


## melanieb

Hi, just popping in to make sure no one is being called a dick and that people are disagreeing without resorting to name calling. I'm sure everyone here can behave themselves, right?

Good.   :smiley:

----------


## shadowofwind

> i've been doing a bit of research on my university database thingy (because, as i expected, a simple google search only brings up fantastical and obviously biased "studies" on this.)  I will admit that there's not as much published as i expected there to be, but there's some good stuff.   There's a pretty even split of studies that showed no evidence for dream sharing/dream telepathy, and the ones that say there is some evidence but further study is required.  And of those, they unfailingly have slightly higher success rates that are barely statistically significant.  I wish i could link to them, but they're on the U of Maine intranet.  I was able to find one on the regular internet:  
> 
> http://www.keithhearne.com/wp-conten...-TELEPATHY.pdf
> 
> I realize it's not specifically about shared dreams, but it does deal with the dreaming mind supposedly having some sort of "link" to information being sent.



If you run across any that look like they're still interested in studying it, I'd appreciate it if you send me the author's names or contact info.

That 1987 one is way too old to be useful probably.

Here are a couple references on precognition.  I haven't looked at them to see if they're any good.  All of my precognitive experiences are at least partially shared, and most of my shared experiences are at least partially precognitive.

Bem, D. L. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 407-425.
Ullman, M., Krippner, S., & Vaughan, A. (1989). Dream telepathy: Experiments in nocturnal ESP (2nd ed.). Jefferson, NC US: McFarland & Co.

Oh hey, an actual link to the paper:

http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf

Here's one against precognitive dreaming.  Skimming it quickly, I think their methodology unsound though, that the conclusions they draw from their results only follow if several unexamined assumptions are true.

http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2000/Precog%20Dreams.htm

----------


## hermine_hesse

On the Randi challenge: 

The Relentless Hypocrisy Of James Randi

Seriously.  This guy is a _stage magician_, not a scientist.  Besides, isn't science supposed to be objective?  With something as fickle as and misunderstood as psychic phenomenon, don't you think going in with the stance of attempting to disprove it could _affect_ the results?  Plus, he demands 100% success rate in the preliminary testing.  This far exceeds what any reasonable scientist would demand.  Most would consider merely 3 or 4% over chance significant.  Imagine if you had a very skilled archer shooting a bulls eye at a distance of a hundred meters.  No laws of physics preclude this from happening, but it takes someone of great skill and training to accomplish it.  You ask the archer to demonstrate his ability, but with the stipulation that if he does not have an 100% success in hitting the bulls eye, you will denounce his ability to shoot at a great distance a fraud.  In fact a success rate of only 50% would be sufficient to demonstrate his ability.

I think a good dose of skepticism is healthy.  I think we absolutely should question experiences and seek objective proof.  I am also all for debunking fraudulent psychics, mediums, and anything else of that nature, since they obscure the real truth about these phenomenon.  But, completely closing your mind to the possibility of something is as foolish as blindly believing in something.  I think most people here aren't trying to have everyone blindly accept their claims of shared dreaming, they merely wish to convey their experiences and have others keep an open mind.  The world quantum physics postulates is much stranger than we could have imagined; why not at least be open to the idea that there are things we don't yet understand that could be possible?

I often wonder how people so close minded as I see in these threads even ventured into lucid dreaming in the first place.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by shadowofwind


If you run across any that look like they're still interested in studying it, I'd appreciate it if you send me the author's names or contact info.

That 1987 one is way too old to be useful probably.

Here are a couple references on precognition.  I haven't looked at them to see if they're any good.  All of my precognitive experiences are at least partially shared, and most of my shared experiences are at least partially precognitive.

Bem, D. L. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 407-425.
Ullman, M., Krippner, S., & Vaughan, A. (1989). Dream telepathy: Experiments in nocturnal ESP (2nd ed.). Jefferson, NC US: McFarland & Co.

Oh hey, an actual link to the paper:

http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf

Here's one against precognitive dreaming.  Skimming it quickly, I think their methodology unsound though, that the conclusions they draw from their results only follow if several unexamined assumptions are true.

Precognitive Dreams: Bifurcations Due to Tolerance of Ambiguity and Dream Frequency



The first paper is about ESP and isn't even about dreaming at all.

The second paper is about precognitive dreaming, and not about telepathic dreaming._

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by shadowofwind


Shared dreaming, if real, can not be easily demonstrated through a scientific study.



  I think I'll make this my sig._

----------


## Empedocles

> OK OK. Haven't been to this site (or at least haven't posted) in awhile. But I just discovered this "debate" thread and it looked like a fun time to start posting again.
> I voted for "_Maybe, but it has to be scientifically proven._".  
> Just like everything else that should be accepted as reality, there needs to be evidence, and I haven't seen any up to this point. Feel free to present me with some. (I've seen this posted in this thread like 1000 times already but I just thought I'd make my stance clear.)



This isn't a debate thread. This is a "prove to us that shared dreaming _doesn't_ exist" thread.

----------


## Empedocles

> Nowhere did I ever say anything even similar to asking for proof of the non-existence of shared dreaming.  You've demonstrated fairly conclusively right here that you're just a troll, or at the very least have very poor reading comprehension.



Fair enough, but you seemed to lean toward his points of view in regards to shared dreaming, so I assumed you were his sidekick. 

Now if there is anyone with poor reading comprehension in this thread, then that is hathor28. No doubt about it.

----------


## Empedocles

> I didn't respond to your earlier reply because everything you said ignored what I actually said.  It seemed pointless.  I've got a couple of hours to waste now though.



It didn't ignore what you said. It only ignored the same things I have to reply to over and over and over again, and I'm sick of writing the same thing 20 times.





> I never said that any of the claims made here amounted to a controlled study.



You didn't say it directly, but I got the impression that you wanted to equate them as having the same worth.





> If you were a psychic, you would understand your own abilities well enough to see that the Randi challenge is set up in a way that precludes a demonstration of those abilities.



No, that's just a cop out. If I could move a psi-wheel in my living room, or bedroom, or basement, I could also do it in a controlled setting with James Randi watching me. That is, if I wasn't a charlatain of course.





> But OK, I'm reaching out to dream researchers again through e-mail to see if I can get any interest in collaboration on a study.  No luck in the past.



I sincerely hope you're able to reach them and get something started.





> No.  I'm not even remotely that well controlled.  Here's an idea I have for a study.  The dream researcher at the respected institution finds some other people who are emotionally intelligent or developed and have an interest in personal growth.  He gets one of them to give him a question about something they're trying to understand that they care about.  They can't just make up any test question, it has to be something they actually care about at a fairly deep level.  The next day I write down what I dreamed and send it to the researcher.  Then he tries the next person, and I dream the next night.  If he does more than one subject at a time I'll get confused, and I'll get confused anyway because all of the subjects already have those questions before they share them with him.  But I might have images in the dreams that connect to the other individuals in convincingly specific ways.  Or I might not.  This works with only about half the people I try it with, and I haven't tried it in the context of a third party study that is trying to prove the phenomena.  That's a different situation, because then the thoughts of the researcher and all the people who will read and be impacted by the study results are involved also.  I'm willing to try it though.



It's "alright", but..... really... why is almost every believer in shared dreaming avoiding a much simpler study using just one freaking password in combination with coordinated eye movements!?





> I can't induce it at will.  Every 3rd or 4th means half of posters, who are you referring to?  Even someone who can induce it at will with a friend or lover won't necessarily be able to do much in a controlled study.



Let's just say there are *too many* posts, with people claiming they can shared dream. I don't see why someone who is very experienced with it wouldn't able to do it in a controlled study. Maybe not the first time, but after several attempts it absolutely has to work. Again, "it works in private but not in a study" seems to be just another copout.





> OK.  I've only had one experience with moving an object, but it was partially involuntary, and I interpreted it as changing the history of where the object had been, in a manner inconsistent with the history of other objects, rather than applying a force that moves it.  I don't have an opinion on what other people may have done with that in the past.  I think they might have had trouble with the Randi challenge though, because of the modern thought climate, the need to be endorsed by a university expert before being accepted for the challenge, etc.  Plus a lot of those guys were charlatans, and I don't know about any of them specifically.



Nina Kulagina was controlled in several studies and they found nothing on her. Too bad, because back then there was no James Randi challenge, or anything similar. FYI, I believe in telekinesis, just so you know you're not talking to a hardcore skeptic here. I'm just sick of "everyone" doing TK, "everyone" doing astral projection, "everyone" shared dreaming, blah blah blah. By everyone I don't mean literally everyone, but tons of people on various internet forums (not only this one, but many others).





> OK, we agree at least that the 'how it works' explanations are all pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and not worth paying attention to.  I understand physics theory well enough though to know that it doesn't contradict currently theory, even though it doesn't fall inside the current theory either.  That explanation can remove a mental barrier for some people that then makes these other demonstrations easier.



And that's why I've been saying the entire time (and once again I have to repeat it, unfortunately), that I am not ruling out the possibility/existence of shared dreaming. *If* it works, there are several ways it *could* work, perhaps if there is an astral plane those two people are meeting there, or if there is a strong telepathic connection between the two, the shared dreaming could simply be this connection manifasted through a dream, etc.

But until I'm certain it _does_ work, meaning until I experience it for myself, or see a good study on it, I do not want to work about *how* it works.





> OK.  Not good enough for you.  I can produce some evidence.  For example I have an e-mail that I sent a few hours before the Hudson river water landing a couple of years ago that mirrors that event.  Its in close metaphor, not like a literal film of it.  For instance in the dream the 'engine' is a building about that same size with an opening and a metal contraption inside that vibrates and self destructs after a bird-sized blob is thrown into it.  And the fuselage is a long, adjacent building with water on the floor.  But of course that's subject to some interpretation, and I could forge the e-mail.  Even a study controlled by respected scientists can be faked also, and sadly often are (clinical studies in particular).  The fact that you didn't even ask about this sort of thing, but just responded with a bunch of assertions about things neither of us believe is why I didn't bother saying more.



I have no problems believing you with this dream, but isn't this a precognitive dream of sorts? I thought we're discussing shared dreaming. I see a difference there.





> Not the patterns I mentioned.  Similar patterns can accompany psychic development though.  As you being being more aware of the weak influence you have on your environment, you try to organize that influence into some kind of coherent scheme.  Anything scheme that you cook up or try to work with such as numerology then starts working a lot better than it had previously.



But some people are paying way too much attention to numbers, wouldn't you agree?





> Not so meaningless as to prevent you from replying at length though.  I blew you off as incorrigible after you ignored the main points in my first response to you.



I didn't ignore anything I didn't talk about before. As I said, I was just tired of repeating the same things many times.  





> Then I got back into it since you were so enthusiastically fighting with Hathnor and suggesting her arguments are illogical and unscientific.



Of course her arguments are illogical. They are not only illogical, but absolutely ridiculous. She is basically stating, that because there is no study which fails to demonstrat shared dreaming, there is a high likelihood for it's existence. 





> If you want scientific, engage with the scientist here.  Otherwise you're just posturing.  Maybe your responses to my posts have just been a matter of unfortunate assumptions and poor communication on my part.  If so, I'm willing to try some more.



Hmm, ok?  :smiley: 





> OK already, I understood that from the start.  Nobody is asking you to believe, or certainly I'm not.  Personally I think its better for you not to believe in things you have no evidence of, and I agree that the word of other people very often can't be trusted.



I said this once before in this thread: if I experienced shared dreaming personally, I wouldn't give a rat's a$$ about scientific evidence.

FYI, I voted "Maybe, but I have to experience it for myself."





> But when you attack other people's personal beliefs as being irrational, when they have evidence which you personally lack, you're not being rational.



I am being very rational, as believing someone's claims without evidence would actually be irrational. Someone saying he has an ability isn't evidence for me. With all due respect, someone claiming he/she can communicate telepathically with someone, isn't evidence for me, it's just a claim.





> Two hundred years ago almost nothing had been proved by scientific study.  Had I lived then, I nevertheless would have believed many things, at least as working hypotheses.  Now more things are known, and you're deciding to draw the line and say OK, only what has been rigorously established is what you believe.  That may be fine for you, but for me it leaves out too much of my experience, things I have to deal with and make choices about almost every day.



But have all the scientific tools today which are necessary to prove a concept like shared dreaming, if it really exists. All we need is two people who transfer information from one another in a dream, and are able to recall it after waking up. A setting in which these people are separated from one another, REM-monitoring equipment, and people overlooking the experiment. That's all we need.

If LaBerge "proved" Lucid Dreaming through REM-monitoring and coordinated eye-movements, why run away from a similar study in which two experienced shared dreamers engage with one another in a dream world?





> You came here not just to share what you think makes sense, but angry about the perspectives of other people who you don't know and obviously do not understand at all well.  I've tried to explain something of where these other people are coming from.



I don't blindly believe everything I read. That's the only issue.





> But so far it seems you don't want to understand.  If you are interested, then its a misunderstanding, and let's continue.  If you're not interested, then what are you doing here?



I have written in detail about what I "understand" and what I "don't understand", so I'm tired of typing everything again and again. I am a believer in the paranormal, but I don't accept simple claims that easily. To me, someone on an internet forum writing about his experiences of shared dreaming isn't enough to make me believe. Sorry, that's just the way it is, and *I believe I am being completely rational when I say this*.

Jakob

----------


## shadowofwind

> The first paper is about ESP and isn't even about dreaming at all.
> 
> The second paper is about _precognitive_ dreaming, and not about _telepathic_ dreaming.



As I've described elsewhere, for me precognitive dreams all have a shared element, and most dreams with shared thought are partially precognitive, and it's the same process as waking ESP.  Yes the papers aren't perfectly relevant, and I don't claim they're any good, I just posted them because they're the closest things I found in a quick search.

----------


## shadowofwind

Jakob,  You keep repeating the same point over and over again, as if people somehow aren't understanding that point.  You interpreted nearly everything I said as if it were an attempted rebuttal of that point, rather than reading what I actually said.  Nobody is expecting you to believe in shared dreaming.  That's not what anyone is trying to say here.

----------


## hermine_hesse

shadowofwind,
This Jakob guy is not worth your time or energy debating - he is just trolling you.  Notice he didn't even respond to my post.  If he was truly interested in science or at least a consensus of understanding (which in my opinion is what debate should be about, not hammering someone with your ideas) he wouldn't have quietly ignored my criticisms of the Randi challenge.

I normally don't even get sucked into such vitriolic threads, but using the Randi challenge as an argument just really irks me.

----------


## Sageous

> I often wonder how people so close minded as I see in these threads even ventured into lucid dreaming in the first place.



Bravo!

----------


## Empedocles

> shadowofwind,
> This Jakob guy is not worth your time or energy debating - he is just trolling you.  Notice he didn't even respond to my post.  If he was truly interested in science or at least a consensus of understanding (which in my opinion is what debate should be about, not hammering someone with your ideas) he wouldn't have quietly ignored my criticisms of the Randi challenge.
> 
> I normally don't even get sucked into such vitriolic threads, but using the Randi challenge as an argument just really irks me.



I am not an associate of James Randi and therefore I felt no need to reply to your post. You didn't even direct the post toward me, or did you? I don't see my name anywhere in your post.

And I generally hate forum discussions where people start to post links to articles on the internet to prove their point. The article you posted points out only one single person who James Randi didn't want to deal with, and for obvious reasons. Claiming to be able to live only on water and air is... well, make up your own mind about it. 

But since you posted a link, let me post one too:

"Psychic" James Van Praagh Demurs James Randi's $1,000,000 Offer | Suite101.com

If you take a look at "The people who James Randi declined" vs. "The people who declined James Randi's challenge", the picture becomes very clear.

----------


## Sageous

> Let's just say there are *too many* posts, with people claiming they can shared dream. I don't see why someone who is very experienced with it wouldn't able to do it in a controlled study. Maybe not the first time, but after several attempts it absolutely has to work. Again, "it works in private but not in a study" seems to be just another copout.



Here's a thought, and maybe an attempt to go back to a debate:

What if _nobody_ can shared-dream on purpose, but we can _all_ shared dream by accident? 

In other words, what if, as I mentioned earlier, shared-dreaming were a normal part of everyone's dreamlife, but we are simply not programmed to notice we're doing it, or remember that we did it?  What if, also, the "unnatural" action of lucid dreaming has allowed a lucky few of us to notice (in addition to folks like Shadowofwind, who already did) that this phenomenon is happening?

That would make it very hard to prove scientifically.

----------


## Empedocles

> Here's a thought, and maybe an attempt to go back to a debate:
> 
> What if _nobody_ can shared-dream on purpose, but we can _all_ shared dream by accident? 
> 
> In other words, what if, as I mentioned earlier, shared-dreaming were a normal part of everyone's dreamlife, but we are simply not programmed to notice we're doing it, or remember that we did it?  What if, also, the "unnatural" action of lucid dreaming has allowed a lucky few of us to notice (in addition to folks like Shadowofwind, who already did) that this phenomenon is happening?
> 
> That would make it very hard to prove scientifically.



Sure, I accept the fact that there could be shared dreaming which go by unnoticed, but those are not the type of shared dreams that are being discussed on DV. Here is an example of the "Dreamviews" type of shared dreams:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f32/i-shar...sister-133599/

In that thread above, we have three shared dreamers. The OP and her twin sister, and the person who replied.

----------


## shadowofwind

> You didn't say it directly, but I got the impression that you wanted to equate them as having the same worth.



In my reading, your impressions haven't  been a very reliable reflection of what people have been trying to say.





> No, that's just a cop out. If I could move a psi-wheel in my living room, or bedroom, or basement, I could also do it in a controlled setting with James Randi watching me.



I didn't say anything about hypothetical people who can move psi-wheels every time they try.  I was talking about the abilities that people actually have.





> I sincerely hope you're able to reach them and get something started.



Thanks.  Two no's back so far.





> It's "alright", but..... really... why is almost every believer in shared dreaming avoiding a much simpler study using just one freaking password in combination with coordinated eye movements!?



Because this experiment is trying to test a type of shared dreaming that isn't what anyone I'm aware of is actually doing.  My shared dreams, such as they are, aren't even synchronous.





> Let's just say there are *too many* posts, with people claiming they can shared dream. I don't see why someone who is very experienced with it wouldn't able to do it in a controlled study. Maybe not the first time, but after several attempts it absolutely has to work. Again, "it works in private but not in a study" seems to be just another copout.



If you become interested in what people are actually claiming to do, then you'll understand why its hard to do in a controlled study.  Also, to get published, the controlled study needs an 'expert' who does dream research at a university or hospital to referee, and nobody has been able to find one who is interested.  And not for lack of trying.  





> Nina Kulagina was controlled in several studies and they found nothing on her. Too bad, because back then there was no James Randi challenge, or anything similar. FYI, I believe in telekinesis, just so you know you're not talking to a hardcore skeptic here. I'm just sick of "everyone" doing TK, "everyone" doing astral projection, "everyone" shared dreaming, blah blah blah. By everyone I don't mean literally everyone, but tons of people on various internet forums (not only this one, but many others).



For a great many people astral projection is not that hard.  I think its way easier than a fully lucid shared dream would be.  If it bothers you that people post about compelling things that they've experienced, and that there seem to be more of those people than you think there should be, I don't really get that.  It almost seems motivated by jealously.  Some people are showing off and not entirely honest, and nobody's motives are utterly pure.  But you seem to be painting with a very broad brush.





> And that's why I've been saying the entire time (and once again I have to repeat it, unfortunately), that I am not ruling out the possibility/existence of shared dreaming.



Yes we all understand that, you don't have to keep repeating it, you're only imagining that we don't understand that.





> But until I'm certain it _does_ work, meaning until I experience it for myself, or see a good study on it, I do not want to work about *how* it works.



Yes we understand that too.





> I have no problems believing you with this dream, but isn't this a precognitive dream of sorts? I thought we're discussing shared dreaming. I see a difference there.



Its not a precognition of something in my own future experience, there's a shared element for me to be in that place and have that experience.  That dream was several years ago obviously;  more recently the shared element has been more pronounced and the precognitive element less so.  As I have said previously, all of my 'shared' dreams are partially precognitive.  When I experience the other person's mind, it sort of stands outside of the present moment, and the metaphorical images that get pulled in to support the experience come from future as well as past experience.





> But some people are paying way too much attention to numbers, wouldn't you agree?



Sure.  People make themselves nuts with it.  





> I didn't ignore anything I didn't talk about before. As I said, I was just tired of repeating the same things many times.



You've ignored things you haven't spoken to squarely even once, and instead repeated the same things many times.  





> Of course her arguments are illogical. They are not only illogical, but absolutely ridiculous. She is basically stating, that because there is no study which fails to demonstrat shared dreaming, there is a high likelihood for it's existence.



No she didn't say that at all.  She doesn't believe that, and it wasn't her point.  You just twisted what she said into that, instead of trying to understand what she was trying to say.  Her point was not that anyone should believe in shared dreaming on account of the lack of a study disproving it.  Her point was that if someone believes in shared dreaming based on their own personal experimentation, then the absence of scientific studies proving shared dreaming does not affirm or discredit that experience any more than the absence of scientific studies disproving shared dreaming would.  






> I said this once before in this thread: if I experienced shared dreaming personally, I wouldn't give a rat's a$$ about scientific evidence.



And yet somehow you fault everyone else for making the same choice, to the point where their talking about their personal experiences makes you 'angry'.





> I am being very rational, as believing someone's claims without evidence would actually be irrational. Someone saying he has an ability isn't evidence for me. With all due respect, someone claiming he/she can communicate telepathically with someone, isn't evidence for me, it's just a claim.



Yes, once again, we all understand that.  We have understood that from the very beginning.





> But have all the scientific tools today which are necessary to prove a concept like shared dreaming, if it really exists. All we need is two people who transfer information from one another in a dream, and are able to recall it after waking up. A setting in which these people are separated from one another, REM-monitoring equipment, and people overlooking the experiment. That's all we need.



You are still not paying attention to what people are saying they are doing when they shared dream.  No that experiment will fail utterly.





> If LaBerge "proved" Lucid Dreaming through REM-monitoring and coordinated eye-movements, why run away from a similar study in which two experienced shared dreamers engage with one another in a dream world?



Nobody that I'm aware of is running away from an opportunity to demonstrate what they actually do, which is not quite the same as what you keep insisting they're claiming to do.

If I could directly move objects around with my mind once a week or so when conditions were ripe, that would be a real ability.  Still it wouldn't be demonstrable by the type of test you propose.  Nobody that I'm aware of is that well controlled.  Yet you keep proposing the same kinds of tests anyway, apparently without any interest in understanding what the necessary conditions are.





> I don't blindly believe everything I read. That's the only issue.



The only issue to anyone else is that you don't try to understand what you read, you project other things into it, then keep saying the same things over and over as if nobody understood you the first time.  





> I have written in detail about what I "understand" and what I "don't understand", so I'm tired of typing everything again and again. I am a believer in the paranormal, but I don't accept simple claims that easily. To me, someone on an internet forum writing about his experiences of shared dreaming isn't enough to make me believe.



Yes we are tired of it too.





> Sorry, that's just the way it is, and *I believe I am being completely rational when I say this*.



What makes you irrational isn't your disbelief in shared dreaming.  Its the way you attribute thoughts to other people which they neither have nor expressed, and don't listen to them when they try to clarify what they meant.  Your earlier statement about me demanding proof of the non-existence of shared dreaming was a good example of this, though far, far from the only one.

I will work now.

----------


## hermine_hesse

Jakob,
No, I didn't address you directly in the post, I suppose I should have.  

Did you read the rest of the post at all?  Again, _Randi is not a scientist_ and demands 100% success rate, which is ludicrous.  Also, requiring someone to front all of the cost of the preliminary round seems a barrier as well to less famous and fortunate people of paranormal ability.  Of course it is very likely that many (if not most) celebrity psychics are frauds, and like a said I'm all for debunking them.  I am also quite suspicious of anyone who does this sort of thing for money and fame.    

But, using the Randi challenge as an argument that _no_ psychic phenomenon exists is beyond the bounds of reason.

Anyway, I don't enjoy debates that are pissing contest.  I enjoy debates that result in an increased understanding for both parties.  I completely realize some of my beliefs and ideas are radical, and am more than open to _rational_ skepticism and criticism.  In the same way, I expect to the skeptic to at least be _open_ to radical ideas.  I don't expect you to have an open, honest exchange in regards to what I am posting.  The reasons I jumped in on this thread is so that others reading don't buy into the Randi challenge without having a critical look at the other side of the coin.  Also, I guess don't like seeing shadowofwind drawn needlessly into close minded negativity, but that is his decision anyway.

I'm going to quote Wolfwood, as his stance is what I'm trying to convey as wish more people of a skeptical nature would understand: 




> As you can see, I am skeptical; however, open to it being a slim possibility. I won't outright refuse its possibility -- that is seemingly ridiculous. There are those who follow (those who wait until there are published studies of, say, lucid dreaming, before believing and attempting it), and those who lead/experiment (those who design, implement experiments, and try it; they publish the studies demonstrating its possibility). If everyone was the latter, we'd get much more done.

----------


## Empedocles

> Did you read the rest of the post at all?  Again, _Randi is not a scientist_ and demands 100% success rate, which is ludicrous.  Also, requiring someone to front all of the cost of the preliminary round seems a barrier as well to less famous and fortunate people of paranormal ability.  Of course it is very likely that many (if not most) celebrity psychics are frauds, and like a said I'm all for debunking them.  I am also quite suspicious of anyone who does this sort of thing for money and fame.
> 
> But, using the Randi challenge as an argument that _no_ psychic phenomenon exists is beyond the bounds of reason.



When you start off wrong, nothing right will follow.

Where have I ever said that I believe psychic phenomena don't exist? *I clearly stated several times that I believe in psychic phenomena.* I only said that I believe them to exist in a much much smaller number than people presume.





> Anyway, I don't enjoy debates that are pissing contest.  I enjoy debates that result in an increased understanding for both parties.  I completely realize some of my beliefs and ideas are radical, and am more than open to _rational_ skepticism and criticism.  In the same way, I expect to the skeptic to at least be _open_ to radical ideas.  I don't expect you to have an open, honest exchange in regards to what I am posting.  The reasons I jumped in on this thread is so that others reading don't buy into the Randi challenge without having a critical look at the other side of the coin.  Also, I guess don't like seeing shadowofwind drawn needlessly into close minded negativity, but that is his decision anyway.



I am looking at both sides of the coin. Right now as far as shared dreaming is concerned (the type of shared dreaming proposed on DV), I see extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. Actually, without *any* evidence.





> I'm going to quote Wolfwood, as his stance is what I'm trying to convey as wish more people of a skeptical nature would understand:



Find me a skeptic who believes in God, Extraterrestrials, and Psychic Phenomena.

Because that's me.

And it's a good thing that you edited out the last sentence of your post about walking away from this thread. It would have been pretty rude.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

This was his first post i read, and already when i read it, i knew i wasn't going to like you, and i don't know you.  All the energy and reading from this made me interact in a way he is to this thread. Also talking about telepathy that he believes in it yet he just said now that he need evidence that i have this ability to read minds and people and energy.
Yet he comes to me and asks about religion and some sort that does not have anything to do with telepathy and esp.  I do not like the way he is approaching this and mocking this thread with his anger. 
The best bet is to ignore him and once he quotes you and it "feels" like his usual run around then just don't talk back, because all he wants is attention and more havoc once his attention is noticed. And if he does say that we are desperate and have no proof etc then so be it let him down play without attention. Thanks for reading this.




> Or you may be trying very hard to find "patterns" in your life, and that way you are much more likely to notice 22, 222, and 2222 appearing, than to notice 0, 239, 4938, or 239819. 
> 
> On a more serious note:
> 
> Honestly, no I don't believe in shared dreaming. And if it does exist, I think it would be *extremely* rare, limited only to individuals with extraordinary telepathic/ESP abilities. These two "shared dreamers" would also have to be in REM sleep at the same time in order for it to work. I am not saying it cannot exist, I am simply saying I don't see any evidence for it's existence at this time. So many studies have been done on dreams, by Celia Green, Stephen LaBerge, etc., and there is no study which confirms this supposed phenomenon. It's also a bit funny to me to see all these threads on DreamViews, with people claiming they have shared dreams. Some people on DV are even claiming that they're having it on a regular basis. Something like this would actually be easy to prove if it did exist, and it would be a potential candidate for a succesful victory at the James Randi Foundation (google "randi challenge" for more info). Here's the setup:
> 
> *1.) Find two experienced shared dreamers (there are supposedly many here on DreamViews).
> 2.) Arrange a setting where they can't communicate with one another, and make sure they fall asleep approximately at the same time, in order to be in REM around the same time.
> 3.) Tell subject A, to give a certain password to subject B, once they are together lucid in the dream state.*
> ...

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by shadowofwind


As I've described elsewhere, for me precognitive dreams all have a shared element, and most dreams with shared thought are partially precognitive, and it's the same process as waking ESP.  Yes the papers aren't perfectly relevant, and I don't claim they're any good, I just posted them because they're the closest things I found in a quick search.



Wrong way, man...  if you want MORE credibility, you don't add MORE fringe to your beliefs.  ESP?  No.  Wrong way.

Scientific method.  Come back to earth.  You've lost me._

----------


## Empedocles

> In my reading, your impressions haven't  been a very reliable reflection of what people have been trying to say.



Or it may be your faulty interpretation/understanding of my posts.





> I didn't say anything about hypothetical people who can move psi-wheels every time they try.  I was talking about the abilities that people actually have.



And yet many, many people they can not only move psi-wheels, but bend spoons, and also levitate objects with ease. Ever hear of PsiPog? That was a website with probably the biggest discussion forum about psychic abilities, and it had hundreds of users claiming they can levitate objects, spin pencils, some even claiming to be able to move large objects such as chairs. You can still visit PsiPog, but it is inactive. There are no updates to the website anymore, and the forum is shut down.

My point: these extraordinary claims indeed require extraordinary evidence, because after all, a video clip posted on YouTube means nothing. And with this many "telekinetics", "remote viewers" and "shared dreamers" who claim to do it at such ease, we really have nothing except their claims to hold on to???





> Thanks.  Two no's back so far.



Keep trying, I hope you succeed.





> Because this experiment is trying to test a type of shared dreaming that isn't what anyone I'm aware of is actually doing.  My shared dreams, such as they are, aren't even synchronous.



Maybe not yours, but: http://www.dreamviews.com/f32/i-shar...sister-133599/

And the person who replied to that thread is also one of those.

Not to mention the numerous other threads with people making these claims. To some it happens spontaneously, and to others they can do it at will. I am talking about those who can do it at will. Those can prove shared dreaming via the study I suggested. It couldn't be simpler.





> If you become interested in what people are actually claiming to do, then you'll understand why its hard to do in a controlled study.  Also, to get published, the controlled study needs an 'expert' who does dream research at a university or hospital to referee, and nobody has been able to find one who is interested.  And not for lack of trying.



LaBerge could do it. Celia Green could do it. Many others could. But why don't they?

Let's not underestimate LaBerge. He did so many years of studying lucid dreaming, and yet he speaks very little of shared dreaming. Why do you think that is?





> For a great many people astral projection is not that hard.  I think its way easier than a fully lucid shared dream would be.



Oh please!! Let's not start about astral projection. I believed I was astral projecting, until I did several reality checks, and the time on my digital clock behaved just like in a lucid dream.

In fact... everything behaved like a lucid dream.

I'm not ruling out the existence of true astral projection, but again, the majority of cases are nothing more than lucid dreams.





> If it bothers you that people post about compelling things that they've experienced, and that there seem to be more of those people than you think there should be, I don't really get that.  It almost seems motivated by jealously.  Some people are showing off and not entirely honest, and nobody's motives are utterly pure.  But you seem to be painting with a very broad brush.



I experienced compelling things in my life as well. Paranormal things. But I don't ask other people to believe it if I don't have any evidence I could show them. That is the difference between me, and some other people in this thread. The others want me to not to demand evidence, but simply swallow what they say.





> Yes we all understand that, you don't have to keep repeating it, you're only imagining that we don't understand that.



I'm really not sure that you do.





> Yes we understand that too.



I hope so.





> Its not a precognition of something in my own future experience, there's a shared element for me to be in that place and have that experience.  That dream was several years ago obviously;  more recently the shared element has been more pronounced and the precognitive element less so.  As I have said previously, all of my 'shared' dreams are partially precognitive.  When I experience the other person's mind, it sort of stands outside of the present moment, and the metaphorical images that get pulled in to support the experience come from future as well as past experience.



Then we should split shared dreaming into several types of shared dreams, and that it's easier for people to know what exactly is being discussed.

When I think about shared dreaming, I think about the scenario most DV users post about. The one similar to the twin sisters thread I posted earlier.





> Sure.  People make themselves nuts with it.



And sometimes there is no pattern other than the person obsessing with a certain number. Would you agree this happens?





> You've ignored things you haven't spoken to squarely even once, and instead repeated the same things many times.



LOL, now I really don't understand what you're saying.





> No she didn't say that at all.  She doesn't believe that, and it wasn't her point.  You just twisted what she said into that, instead of trying to understand what she was trying to say.  Her point was not that anyone should believe in shared dreaming on account of the lack of a study disproving it.  Her point was that if someone believes in shared dreaming based on their own personal experimentation, then the absence of scientific studies proving shared dreaming does not affirm or discredit that experience any more than the absence of scientific studies disproving shared dreaming would.



No, she clearly demanded that I show her a study which disproves shared dreaming, or a scientist who says that shared dreaming is impossible. Do I really need to go back and quote her?





> And yet somehow you fault everyone else for making the same choice, to the point where their talking about their personal experiences makes you 'angry'.



It's their attitude that makes me angry, and not their supposed experiences. 

"If you don't believe I can shared dream, you're irrational."

That's basically it.





> Yes, once again, we all understand that.  We have understood that from the very beginning.



Maybe now you do, after me expressing these thoughts a million times. Earlier it didn't seem you understood it exactly.





> You are still not paying attention to what people are saying they are doing when they shared dream.  No that experiment will fail utterly.



Absolute nonsense, and rubbish. The twin sisters thread is not the only shared dreaming thread with people claiming such abilities.

If someone truly has these abilities, the chances of that experiment failing are next to none.





> Nobody that I'm aware of is running away from an opportunity to demonstrate what they actually do, which is not quite the same as what you keep insisting they're claiming to do.
> 
> If I could directly move objects around with my mind once a week or so when conditions were ripe, that would be a real ability.  Still it wouldn't be demonstrable by the type of test you propose.  Nobody that I'm aware of is that well controlled.  Yet you keep proposing the same kinds of tests anyway, apparently without any interest in understanding what the necessary conditions are.



If you can move a psi-wheel once a week, and you could demonstrate this ability 2 or 3 times (one time each week), why on earth do you think the study would fail?

And about the "well controlled" part, I direct you to PsiPog, where people can levitate pocket knives.  ::D: 





> The only issue to anyone else is that you don't try to understand what you read, you project other things into it, then keep saying the same things over and over as if nobody understood you the first time.



Nope. Try again.





> Yes we are tired of it too.



I don't think so. Or else you wouldn't ask the same questions.





> What makes you irrational isn't your disbelief in shared dreaming.  Its the way you attribute thoughts to other people which they neither have nor expressed, and don't listen to them when they try to clarify what they meant.



I could say the same thing about you, and hathor28.  





> Your earlier statement about me demanding proof of the non-existence of shared dreaming was a good example of this, though far, far from the only one.



That is actually the *only* example, and there is a very simple reason for that one little mistake. You were defending hathor28, so I assumed you were her sidekick. That's why I thought you had the same ridiculous ideas as her.





> I will work now.



Best wishes.

Jakob

----------


## Empedocles

> This was his first post i read, and already when i read it, i knew i wasn't going to like you, and i don't know you.  All the energy and reading from this made me interact in a way he is to this thread. Also talking about telepathy that he believes in it yet he just said now that he need evidence that i have this ability to read minds and people and energy.
> Yet he comes to me and asks about religion and some sort that does not have anything to do with telepathy and esp.  I do not like the way he is approaching this and mocking this thread with his anger. 
> The best bet is to ignore him and once he quotes you and it "feels" like his usual run around then just don't talk back, because all he wants is attention and more havoc once his attention is noticed. And if he does say that we are desperate and have no proof etc then so be it let him down play without attention. Thanks for reading this.



I am seriously debating with myself right now whether or not to ignore each and every one of your nonsense posts.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Never say that you believe in ESP and yet question shared dreaming, those 2 go together in perfect harmony. 
ESP is telepathy they are both one in the same thing they are all under the same category. I will not speak to someone well once they say they believe in esp and not shared dreaming fully, that is just a crock and it is someone that doesn't know anything but yet tells me i don't got understanding on what this debate is. 
Btw my posts are not nonsense, who ever states what i just posted now and before is nonsense just wants to be right all the time and don't want to accept the truth about ESP and shared dreaming goes together perfectly.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

> Where have I ever said that I believe psychic phenomena don't exist? I clearly stated several times that I believe in psychic phenomena. I only said that I believe them to exist in a much much smaller number than people presume.



You said you believe in ESP Extrasensory perception - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology

Extrasensory perception (ESP) involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Frederic Myers,[1] and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and clairvoyance, and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition. ESP is also sometimes casually referred to as a sixth sense, gut instinct or hunch, which are historical English idioms. It is also sometimes referred to as intuition. The term implies acquisition of information by means external to the basic limiting assumptions of science, such as that organisms can only receive information from the past to the present.
-Parapsychologists study a number of ostensible paranormal phenomena, including telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation and apparitional experiences.

~"Which means you also believe in psychic, telepathy, clairaudience,clairvoyance and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition. Psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation and apparitional experiences." Yet you question shared dreaming.  ::lol:: 

Don't say that you believe in ESP and you don't know the full definition of it. Yet you say you believe psychic phenomena to exist in a much much smaller number than people presume. Which means you don't believe in ESP fully. SO why say you believe in it? It's either you believe it or not.
Which this leads to shared dreaming. You don't believe in it fully. Like i said it's either you believe in it or not, and why debate on something you're quite not sure of? or better yet, understand?

 ::thumbup:: -I liked my own post because this is how true it can ever be, now if he comes and denounces this? then he doesn't know what he is talking about!  ::whyme::

----------


## hermine_hesse

> When you start off wrong, nothing right will follow.
> 
> Where have I ever said that I believe psychic phenomena don't exist? *I clearly stated several times that I believe in psychic phenomena.* I only said that I believe them to exist in a much much smaller number than people presume.
> 
> 
> I am looking at both sides of the coin. Right now as far as shared dreaming is concerned (the type of shared dreaming proposed on DV), I see extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. Actually, without *any* evidence.
> 
> 
> Find me a skeptic who believes in God, Extraterrestrials, and Psychic Phenomena.
> ...



I'm sorry for misunderstanding you, then, because I actually agree that claims of psychic phenomenon are over inflated.  Perhaps we are on the same page, at least in this case.

If you agree that psychic phenomenon is possible, then why do you continually bring up the Randi challenge?  I'm sorry, but I don't understand what your stance is, then.  I see now that you wrote that you do believe shared dreaming is possible.  It seems its the over-exaggeration of claims that is getting under your skin.  (Please correct me if I am wrong here.)  If this is true, why does it bother you so much?  Why not bring the discussion back to the _possibility_  of shared dreaming and how that might work rather than focusing on specific claims?  I think that would be much more interesting in any case.

Maybe some people are over estimating their experience with shared dreaming.  But, who knows, maybe we are all under estimating it as well.

And, I edited out the last sentence because afterwards I saw a post by Sageous I wanted to respond to later.  I am not trying to antagonize, and I realize that I may have responded a bit emotionally myself.  I originally wrote that because I would rather walk away from a discussion where I feel my emotion is interfering with true understanding than continue to prolong a back and forth of aggression.  

Granted this may only be my perception of the matter, but I sense a tone of attack in your posts.  I am happen to continue the discussion if this is not the case.  I apologize for any part I may have had in contributing to the tone of aggressiveness I see overall in this thread.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

"Extrasensory perception (ESP) involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Frederic Myers,[1] and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and clairvoyance, and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition."





> I clearly stated several times that I believe in psychic phenomena. I only said that I believe them to exist in a much much smaller number than people presume.







> I don't mean to sound arrogant, since I actually believe in ESP and many other things which are "out there", so I am not a "skeptic" at all. The thing is, this shared dreaming thing annoys me very much, just because I see so many threads with people claiming they experienced it, and others claiming it's easy to experience it, and others supposedly having it on a regular basis.







> Find me a skeptic who believes in God, Extraterrestrials, and Psychic Phenomena.
> 
> Because that's me.



You sir are busted.  ::goodjob2::  You are a skeptic yet you said you aren't at all. You actually IS and always WAS playing with this thread and with the people here debating. I don't waste my time on skeptics. You are actually a crock! And a con, goodbye! ::D:

----------


## dutchraptor

I fail to see how this debate has progressed at all.
Here's a synopsis of the thread.
1) Three or four user's believe that it *could* exist but they want a controlled scientific study.
2) Many users state that they agree that this would work but that they believe because they have experienced it themselves.

The argument has barely changed for the past three pages. I mean I've read the same argument coming from both sides about 4 or 5 times now, it seems like an agreement has already been reached but certain users just keep replying an going over the same information.

----------


## shadowofwind

> No, she clearly demanded that I show her a study which disproves shared dreaming, or a scientist who says that shared dreaming is impossible. Do I really need to go back and quote her?



She said that, but not at all with the point you claim she was making.  I explained the point, as I understood it.  But since you still repeat your assertion without actually addressing what I said, this tends to confirm that you are misunderstanding people on purpose.





> That is actually the *only* example, and there is a very simple reason for that one little mistake. You were defending hathor28, so I assumed you were her sidekick.



Most of your other assumptions are wrong also, and also insincere, by all appearances.  If you can't tell the truth about Hathnor's statement, and engage honestly with my attempted clarification, there's no point in discussing anything else.  That example is as good as any.

----------


## Sageous

Ah, Nomad, what hath thou wrought?

... at least I attempted to change/redirect the subject; sorry I failed!

----------


## Lion

Ignore her, Jakob. I know it's hard to do and the urge to have the last word is overpowering sometimes, but you just have to let it go. You shouldn't have to prove yourself to her, and it's not bringing any progress to the thread.

----------


## hermine_hesse

^^ I'm off to work now, Sageous, but I will reply your earlier post when I get home tonight!

I'm down to change/redirect the subject, too.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Jakob is a skeptic. He proved it himself. Nothing else to talk or respond to him about,  because i know who he is and never liked his reaction and explanation in his first post. 
He is a very odd skeptic that believes in certain things, but not fully. Which means it is useless to debate with such a person.

----------


## Lion

Ah yes, because partial-skeptism doesn't exist.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

No, because it is impossible to debate with. And this debate that just happened here is proof it will only lead to circles. Plus Jakob might be intentionally misunderstanding things or leading things to worsen the debate which is not etiquette to do in debating.

----------


## Chimpertainment

So...Is anyone going to talk about the actual feasibility of shared dreaming? We  aren't really talking about shared dreaming. The "skeptics" have us distracted in an epistemological circle jerk.

Its fine to "believe" or "doubt" but lets talk about experiences. Lets talk about physics, and the mechanics of this phenomena.

What about shared dreaming is real? Why would it exist in the first place? What spiritual experiences share some attributes with shared dreaming?

It seems we have more to talk about then burden of proof, believable evidence, or case studies. We all have personal spiritual/psychic experiences to draw from, how about that? 
I see a lot of court room terminology, yet the defendant is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. As usual, this perception is flipped because we lack the ability to empathize with others experiences.

You don't have to believe yourself to accept another persons experience. To say it doesnt exist at all until you experience it would be a very unfortunate way to live. Imagination is so much more important than knowledge. (paraphrasing Einstein)

----------


## dutchraptor

I agree, how about we discuss what seems to be the most common type of experiences with shared dreaming. I believe the main agreement to go around is that it does not work through some kind of conventional method of communication I.E it is not transmitted through anything in the electro-magnetic spectrum. So what are your experiences, do you believe to actually link to another dimension/ realm, do you think it works through some form of advanced science or do you believe that everyone is connected by a spiritual link. Share your ideas  :smiley:

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

> Lets talk about physics, and the mechanics of this phenomena.
> What about shared dreaming is real? Why would it exist in the first place? What spiritual experiences share some attributes with shared dreaming?



Actually that was what i was explaining to jakob just now about ESP and how it attributes and is somehow similar to shared dreaming. Also parapsychology. lol

----------


## Lion

> Why would shared dreaming exist in the first place?



This poses an interesting question, perhaps as an alternate means to communication? Then again their is no 'natural' means of communication, so perhaps this would be that means provided for us? Maybe the reason we don't have many shared dreams is that simply we don't have many, if not any shared dreamers that actively practice and refine methods.

----------


## zombiesarebad

wow!  I wish i could quit my job so that i could keep up with this thread.

so last night- even though it made me feel like an idiot- i tried focusing really hard on a picture of a passenger jet and sending the image to my wife while she was asleep.  Not that this is shared dreaming per se, but i wanted to just test the idea that a dreaming mind could somehow be receptive to such things.  The second i was finished i woke her up and asked her what she was dreaming about, and she said "i think i was at an airport."  My heart skipped a beat.  But she went about how there was a Target there and she was shopping for makeup.  I asked her if she saw any airplanes and she said no... and not to wake her up ever again.

People say skeptic like it's a dirty word, but having a properly functioning bullshit detector is a very important thing in life.  I'm sure you agree.  It would have been easy- without skepticism- to say "well, she was dreaming about an airport, so that's close enough."  But you can't deny that the simplest explanation is also the most probable.  It was a coincidence.  If i were to do that every night, and she were to come up with something different but related (i.e. i am "sending" her a picture of a bowling ball and she is dreaming about bowling) the chances of it being a coincidence decrease.  And by the way, i plan to keep trying it whether she likes it or not.  (For the record, i come down firmly on the side of dream sharing and like phenomena being impossible.  But one's own beliefs have to be challenged, or they're unfounded.)

I guess what i'm slowly working towards saying is:  if shared dreaming were common, it would be pretty well known and accepted ("hey, what did you think of that dream we had last night?").  If it's rare, it is in my opinion much more attributable to coincidence than some sort of paranormal occurrence.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

You should've asked her that in the morning when all is awake, not during sleep and you wake her up. You just disrupted her dreaming which means you didn't give it time to let her fully dream. She was in an airport but didn't see planes, only because you probably woke her up at a wrong time and you didn't let your message go through fully. You are not doing it right your not suppose to interrupt someones dreaming while asleep. PLUS you don't see this as a good side that you actually read her mind at the time you were trying to send a message. 
You are unaware that you just read her mind but still want to do this "sending a message" thing, you are not focus on other possible things like ESP. My advice is first test telepathy, then you can try sending a message to someones dreams. Focus on both not just one ok?




> wow!  I wish i could quit my job so that i could keep up with this thread.
> 
> so last night- even though it made me feel like an idiot- i tried focusing really hard on a picture of a passenger jet and sending the image to my wife while she was asleep.  Not that this is shared dreaming per se, but i wanted to just test the idea that a dreaming mind could somehow be receptive to such things.  The second i was finished i woke her up and asked her what she was dreaming about, and she said "i think i was at an airport."  My heart skipped a beat.  But she went about how there was a Target there and she was shopping for makeup.  I asked here if she saw any airplanes and she said no... and not to wake her up ever again.
> 
> People say skeptic like it's a dirty word, but having a properly functioning bullshit detector is a very important thing in life.  I'm sure you agree.  It would have been easy- without skepticism- to say "well, she was dreaming about an airport, so that's close enough."  But you can't deny that the simplest explanation is also the most probable.  It was a coincidence.  If i were to do that every night, and she were to come up with something different but related (i.e. i am "sending" her a picture of a bowling ball and she is dreaming about bowling) the chances of it being a coincidence decrease.  And by the way, i plan to keep trying it whether she likes it or not.  (For the record, i come down firmly on the side of dream sharing and like phenomena being impossible.  But one's own beliefs have to be challenged, or they're unfounded.)
> 
> I guess what i'm slowly working towards saying is:  if shared dreaming were common, it would be pretty well known and accepted ("hey, what did you think of that dream we had last night?").  If it's rare, it is in my opinion much more attributable to coincidence than some sort of paranormal occurrence.

----------


## Lion

I'm thinking that maybe it could be trained and refined as a talent, although zombiesarebad's experience seems much the same as a 'pro' like WalkingNomad. His shared dreams are often fuzzy and the other user has only a closely or loosely-related dream as him, although his lucid experiences have turned out much better, though recall seems harder from what I read from his DJ. I'd actually like to hear more from him on this subject, since he's one of the driving forces pushing it forward in the forums, not to mention the creator of this thread.

----------


## zombiesarebad

sorry, but how did i read her mind?  And how am i not doing it right?  I don't think there is an instruction manual for this sort of thing.

----------


## Lion

> sorry, but how did i read her mind?  And how am i not doing it right?  I don't think there is an instruction manual for this sort of thing.



In other words her opinion is that the only way you can share a dream is by telepathy, which could easily be incorrect because their is no theory that I know of behind dream sharing that everyone strongly agrees to. She's trying to make her opinions fact, unfortunately.

----------


## Empedocles

> Actually that was what i was explaining to jakob just now about ESP and how it attributes and is somehow similar to shared dreaming. Also parapsychology. lol



Seeing how Jakob actually doesn't rule out the existence of ESP and has said that repeatedly, it would be pretty irrational to criticize Jakob for not believing in ESP.  ::roll:: 

I still don't know whether I should start ignoring you. You're amusing sometimes. Unintentionally, of course.

----------


## Empedocles

> Jakob is a skeptic. He proved it himself. Nothing else to talk or respond to him about,  *because i know who he is* and never liked his reaction and explanation in his first post. 
> He is a very odd skeptic that believes in certain things, but not fully. Which means it is useless to debate with such a person.



You know who I am?  ::D: 

Is this Fechtel/Carera I'm talking to!?  ::D: 

Am I someone from the middle east?

Rofl

----------


## Empedocles

> Ignore her, Jakob. I know it's hard to do and the urge to have the last word is overpowering sometimes, but you just have to let it go. You shouldn't have to prove yourself to her, and it's not bringing any progress to the thread.



You're probably right.

Thanks for your advice.

----------


## Empedocles

> I'm sorry for misunderstanding you, then, because I actually agree that claims of psychic phenomenon are over inflated.  Perhaps we are on the same page, at least in this case.



If that's what you believe also, then yeah.





> If you agree that psychic phenomenon is possible, then why do you continually bring up the Randi challenge?  I'm sorry, but I don't understand what your stance is, then.



My stance is, that whoever posesses psychic ability (which he can reproduce in a controlled environment) should have a strong motivation to prove skeptics such as James Randi wrong. It would not only make him rich, but he would shut the mouths of 95% of skeptics out there. The fact that no one has done it so far doesn't mean to me that psychic phenomena don't exist. It means that these phenomena occur at a much lower number than people assume, and that they might not be reproducable that easily. This fact that they might not be always reproducable makes them hard to test in a study.

Shared dreaming on the other hand, at least the DV-type of shared dreaming (discussed this a million times), is easy to reproduce. Why? Because the stories I've read on the internet make it seem as if it's a piece of cake (for those people who allegedly practice it). Therefore, it is a perfect candidate for the Randi challenge.

I hope you understood me now.





> I see now that you wrote that you do believe shared dreaming is possible.  It seems its the over-exaggeration of claims that is getting under your skin.  (Please correct me if I am wrong here.)



No you're not wrong at all.





> If this is true, why does it bother you so much?  Why not bring the discussion back to the _possibility_  of shared dreaming and how that might work rather than focusing on specific claims?  I think that would be much more interesting in any case.



Well, the OP didn't say anything about what was allowed/not allowed in this discussion. I simply pointed out that it is much more important to me to prove _if_ it _does_ work at all, and then worry about _how_ it works. People then started responding to my comments, and it went on from there.





> Maybe some people are over estimating their experience with shared dreaming.  But, who knows, maybe we are all under estimating it as well.



I honestly don't think so. I'm trying to be as honest as I possible. I believe over 90% of the dream sharing tales I've read on the internet are made up. What evidence have you or anyone else given me to believe otherwise?

No offense intended, but when tons of dream researchers who can LD easily haven't dedicated 0.01% of their books/articles to the concept of shared dreaming, and over a span of many years haven't reported that they have had one single shared dream, then I won't easily believe a kid on the internet who says he has one every week.

Stephen LaBerge is an expert in this field who can lucid dream at will every night, and after all these years he doesn't claim he can do dream sharing. Sure, maybe it's a special gift given only to some people, but I was a teenager, and I have gotten the urge sometimes to make up things to get attention and be "special."

Again, honesty.





> And, I edited out the last sentence because afterwards I saw a post by Sageous I wanted to respond to later.  I am not trying to antagonize, and I realize that I may have responded a bit emotionally myself.  I originally wrote that because I would rather walk away from a discussion where I feel my emotion is interfering with true understanding than continue to prolong a back and forth of aggression. 
> 
> Granted this may only be my perception of the matter, but I sense a tone of attack in your posts.  I am happen to continue the discussion if this is not the case.  I apologize for any part I may have had in contributing to the tone of aggressiveness I see overall in this thread.



Well, I don't notice the aggressiveness coming from my side. Oh well.

----------


## Empedocles

Here we go: http://www.dreamviews.com/f32/passwo...riment-134237/

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

> sorry, but how did i read her mind?  And how am i not doing it right?  I don't think there is an instruction manual for this sort of thing.



Hello? you woke her up, she was probably dreaming at the time. And people who are not used to reading minds don't actually know they are at the moment because they don't channel it often, or people just don't know how to do it.  Are all skeptics this dumb to understand? i guess so, so this is why explaining is useless. I am seeing lots of skeptics here now popping up so enjoy this thread. I am not going to explain experiences that happens to me because it really is useless.

----------


## zombiesarebad

i guess i am "this dumb to understand."  I grabbed her shoulder, shook her, and asked her what she was just dreaming about.  If that's telepathy i guess i do believe.

(?!?!?!?!?!)

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

No that's not telepathy, when you pictured an airplane is when telepathy began. You actually caught this image that was similar to what your wife was dreaming which was an airport.  In that case airport & airplanes go together right? it matches. 
And you shouldn't have woke her up. Ask her after you both actually wake up from your night sleep.




> i guess i am "this dumb to understand."  I grabbed her shoulder, shook her, and asked her what she was just dreaming about.  If that's telepathy i guess i do believe.
> 
> (?!?!?!?!?!)

----------


## Sageous

What's the matter with "fuzzy and loosely related?"

When I read Zombies' post I was amazed that his wife spotted something so incredibly closely related to a passenger jet.

He'll, if she reported seeing a Tylenol with butterfly wings (for you _Airplane!_ fans out there), I'd have been impressed.

The vast separation in perceptual context between two dreamers implies, to me at least, that it would be very difficult to see an image even similar to that being sent, and next to impossible to see exactly the same thing.  Sure, it could've been coincidence and is an easy target for skepticism (and yeah, that skeptic might be right -- oh,, the irony!), but I think Zombie's wife did an excellent dream-catching job ... If that is what she did!

----------


## zombiesarebad

@ hathor

i disagree.  If i hadn't woken her, it's unlikely that she would have remembered the dream at all.

if you believe that the best explanation for what happened is telepathy, i don't really know what to say to you.  It's not like she actually "got" the "message" i was "sending," it was something loosely related.  I wasn't thinking about airports at all, i was thinking about a blue and white passenger jet in flight.  Also, that was only one instance; best explained by coincidence.  Why are some people so quick to dismiss the most likely explanation and embrace the improbable? Like i said, i mean to keep doing it... if it keeps happening, THEN i will believe it's more than coincidence.

p.s., don't call me dumb again.  If you can't learn to be polite, you should learn to be quiet while the big people are talking.

----------


## Sageous

Here's another goofy question:

Are dream-sharing and telepathy necessarily that different, phenominologically speaking?  Seriously, dismissing one for the other is to me like changing two fives for a ten and then saying there's a new amount.

Or did I miss something again?

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Well then if you HAVE to wake her up to know this, then your message will never get across because you disturbed her dream. enough said. First of all you consciously do not know that you are receiving this image because you are not easily inclined to telepathy. And i know you was thinking of airplanes! omg! what's with people today? are people just skipping what i write here?




> @ hathor
> 
> i disagree.  If i hadn't woken her, it's unlikely that she would have remembered the dream at all.
> 
> if you believe that the best explanation for what happened is telepathy, i don't really know what to say to you.  It's not like she actually "got" the "message" i was "sending," it was something loosely related.  I wasn't thinking about airports at all, i was thinking about a blue and white passenger jet in flight.  Also, that was only one instance; best explained by coincidence.  Why are some people so quick to dismiss the most likely explanation and embrace the improbable? Like i said, i mean to keep doing it... if it keeps happening, THEN i will believe it's more than coincidence.
> 
> p.s., don't call me dumb again.  If you can't learn to be polite, you should learn to be quiet while the big people are talking.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Yes you are missing something, i said before that ESP (telepathy) is similar to dream sharing. I am not dismissing any of those two. 
To my knowledge dream sharing needs ESP, because once you dream share reading minds helps a lot with the experience




> Here's another goofy question:
> 
> Are dream-sharing and telepathy necessarily that different, phenominologically speaking?  Seriously, dismissing one for the other is to me like changing two fives for a ten and then saying there's a new amount.
> 
> Or did I miss something again?

----------


## zombiesarebad

> Well then if you HAVE to wake her up to know this, then your message will never get across because you disturbed her dream. enough said. First of all you consciously do not know that you are receiving this image because you are not easily inclined to telepathy. And i know you was thinking of airplanes! omg! what's with people today? are people just skipping what i write here?



i am not skipping what you are writing.  But i think it might be a good idea to start....

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Right, when you just discovered you can't send a message due to interruption of a dream/sleep state got you a bit sour now.  :smiley:  Which is true you can't just interrupt a dream when you sent a message to someone elses dream which you just woken up.




> i am not skipping what you are writing.  But i think it might be a good idea to start....

----------


## zombiesarebad

absolutely right.  You got me.  Nailed me to the wall.

----------


## Empedocles

> absolutely right.  You got me.  Nailed me to the wall.



rofl!

----------


## OpheliaBlue

I voted "no, it's impossible" but I love reading about what other folks have to say about this kind of thing. It's a very interesting topic, regardless of how much flak it gets.

----------


## Empedocles

> I voted "no, it's impossible" but I love reading about what other folks have to say about this kind of thing. It's a very interesting topic, regardless of how much flak it gets.



Hallo Ophelia! Wenn ich fragen darf, wieso denkst du eigentlich dass es unmöglich ist?

----------


## OpheliaBlue

> Hallo Ophelia! Wenn ich fragen darf, wieso denkst du eigentlich dass es unmöglich ist?



because I said so  :wink2:  and I'm the boss

----------


## Empedocles

> because I said so  and I'm the boss



Fair enough. Shared dreaming is impossible because the boss says it is.  :wink2:

----------


## Darkmatters

> Hallo Ophelia! Wenn ich fragen darf, wieso denkst du eigentlich d*ass* es unmöglich ist?

----------


## hermine_hesse

zombiesarebad,
I agree w/ Sageous that it was pretty incredible that your wife picked up on the "airplane" symbol at all!  I think it would be interesting if you continued this experiment with a different symbol every night (as you mentioned earlier).  If you do, please post results.   :smiley: 

Personally, I wouldn't dare try the same technique as you on girlfriend, she would kill me if I woke her up in the middle of the night!

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Lol! 




>

----------


## Lion

> Hello? you woke her up, she was probably dreaming at the time. And people who are not used to reading minds don't actually know they are at the moment because they don't channel it often, or people just don't know how to do it.  Are all skeptics this dumb to understand? i guess so, so this is why explaining is useless. I am seeing lots of skeptics here now popping up so enjoy this thread. I am not going to explain experiences that happens to me because it really is useless.



Then however can we understand? You want to prove something to us, yes? If you don't share your experiences we aren't going to make any progress in this debate, so I encourage you to do so.

EDIT: And whatever you think, you're not always right. I look forward to the day when you're proven wrong and it finally hits you in the face that everything coming out of your mouth isn't as true as you'd like to think. Sorry for that hate, but you're seriously grinding my gears with your constant affirmations that this is right and we're all wrong.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Okay then, everyone was right in this thread, there was no one here that was wrong.  :smiley:

----------


## BgRdDragon

Voted for maybe, I'd have to experience it.. As for as coincidences go, the happen to me
 alot cant tell you how many times Ill learn a new word, fact, etc. and have it appear the
 next day again.. However I would also say that when you pin yourself to something like 
"The number 333 has been appearing in my life a lot lately" would make one more likely
 to pick up on occurrences.

----------


## zombiesarebad

> zombiesarebad,
> I agree w/ Sageous that it was pretty incredible that your wife picked up on the "airplane" symbol at all!  I think it would be interesting if you continued this experiment with a different symbol every night (as you mentioned earlier).  If you do, please post results.  
> 
> Personally, I wouldn't dare try the same technique as you on girlfriend, she would kill me if I woke her up in the middle of the night!



i do plan to keep trying this.  My wife, by the way, is a firm believer in ESP (not to mention every other unproven phenomenon ever dreamed up) so it didn't take much convincing to get her on board.  

What i do is find a random picture on the internet, focus as hard as i can on it while she's asleep, and try to "force" it into her mind while mentally repeating her name and encouraging her to "see" it.

no luck last night by the way.  It was a picture of a sword, and she said that she wasn't dreaming anything at all at the time i woke her up.  

i will keep you guys updated if you really are interested.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Yes i am interested in seeing this work while waking up the person during sleep after you sent certain images and repeating her name. Maybe you need to start a thread here about this experiment you are trying to do. And keep us updated. 




> i do plan to keep trying this.  My wife, by the way, is a firm believer in ESP (not to mention every other unproven phenomenon ever dreamed up) so it didn't take much convincing to get her on board.  
> 
> What i do is find a random picture on the internet, focus as hard as i can on it while she's asleep, and try to "force" it into her mind while mentally repeating her name and encouraging her to "see" it.
> 
> no luck last night by the way.  It was a picture of a sword, and she said that she wasn't dreaming anything at all at the time i woke her up.  
> 
> i will keep you guys updated if you really are interested.

----------


## hermine_hesse

> Here's another goofy question:
> 
> Are dream-sharing and telepathy necessarily that different, phenominologically speaking?  Seriously, dismissing one for the other is to me like changing two fives for a ten and then saying there's a new amount.
> 
> Or did I miss something again?



Not a goofy question.  It seems not everyone totally equates the two.  I certainly think the same mechanism is at work for both.

I definitely think intentional shared dreaming would be much harder to achieve.  Intentional telepathy would only require the transmission and receiving (or sharing) of a thought, while intentional shared dreaming would require at least one party to become lucid, have dream good control, and both parties to have good dream recall.

*I want to write more on this, but I just worked an 11 hour day on 5 hours of sleep, so off to bed now!

----------


## Sageous

^^ So, same energy, but different wiring, with shared dreaming being the more complex circuit.  Makes sense to me, and I think I agree.

I hope your sleep was rich with dreams and rest; 11 hrs is way too long!

----------


## Sivason

> Wrong way, man...  if you want MORE credibility, you don't add MORE fringe to your beliefs.  ESP?  No.  Wrong way.
> 
> Scientific method.  Come back to earth.  You've lost me.





Hmm, what makes it all about scientific method? I finished my O. Chem. classes and what not, why should the rest of my life be governed by scientific method? Not being hostile here. I am just wondering why anything in the life of anyone who is not conducting an experiment should be limited by the ideas of class room or lab studies? Embrace science, it is freakin awesome. However, no one I know of suggests that the daily belief system of said scientist should be governed by those principles. Life is full of many things that can be wonderful, like love, that can not and need not be viewed through the light of science. Just my opinion. If you happen to be a college professor or even high school lab teacher, than it makes sense to require the students to look at science through that lense, but why limit life out side the lab? The charactors Spock and Data come to mind when I read your post. Are those charectors suppossed to be emulated or are they models of extreamism?


I also wonder why the emphasis on proving anything? Does God exist? I feel that I know it does, but why the heck should i care if my neighbor thinks so? My neighbor wanting proof of God is no concern of mine, as my beliefs make me happy, and I have a life to live. Same thing here. A person can claim to believe they have experienced something, and 'no' the burden of proof is not on them. It is not, because why should they care if anyone else believes. I claim to have had a few hundred LDs that appear to me to have been detailed interaction with entities in a shared dream astral type realm. Good for me. Burden of proof? Why? It is just friendly conversation, I could care less who believes.

----------


## Sivason

> Maybe not yours, but: http://www.dreamviews.com/f32/i-shar...sister-133599/
> 
> And the person who replied to that thread is also one of those.
> 
> Not to mention the numerous other threads with people making these claims. To some it happens spontaneously, and to others they can do it at will. I am talking about those who can do it at will. Those can prove shared dreaming via the study I suggested. It couldn't be simpler.



The thread that you linked to is by a new member who has something like 4 posts. It is not even that extreme of a claim as her sister never confirmed a belief in it and no information was exchanged. I have not seen all these claims you are refering to. Are there a lot of members claiming to share dreams with real people who they know and confirm the dream with?  I may have missed the threads so if you want to share any real radical ones, please post a link. I may find the crazy ones you refer to as entertaining.

Most of the claims I am hearing are 1) from me, who claims to interact with entities from a totally differant reality I barely understand, with the occassional unidentified DC who claims to be another dreamer. 2) from Hathor, who like me claims contact with an entity 3) from shadowofwind who claims to have interesting mind expanding phenomina in his dreams that leads him to believe he has contacted others.   I have not seen claims from regular members (not 4 posts) that they can share dreams with another individual at will. The claims that when they were young they had the same dreams as the father, is not a claim to an ability that can be harnessed. as an example.

So, for all of our entertainment i invite any of you to post links to what you feel are crazy claims of a reliable ability. It should be fun to see what threads you are talking about. certainly not every 3rd or 4th member makes that claim? Maybe 1 in 100? Anyways, here is a real thought I want to add. When a radical event is claimed to have happened you should look at the credability of the person. In any field where one can simply claim to have an ability or experience fakers and actors will jump up and claim they can do it for attention. Those individuals will likely seem radical, because face it, why are they making crazy stuff up  in the first place? Mental illness, perhaps, or drug abuse? The existance of a rash of fakers, makes people think all the claims are BS, but that is not a very scientific take on it. I can have a pile of 100 dollars, of which the first 30 tested are poor counterfits, but I can not at that point make the claim that all the bills are fake.

If the person making the claim comes off a seriously mentally ill, or an inmature dramatist, or a blatent drud abuser, then maybe it is safe to shake your head and assume they are full of it. However, I would love to see you come up with the name of two members who claim to have the ability to share dreams reliably with another real individual. Keep in mind that said individuals should have some aire of respectablity, so that we can assume they may be for real. Avoid the members who also state that they smoke 5 types of psycodelic plants, or that make public out  bursts that would lead us to the conclusion they are dramatists.

If you can come up with two members who a)seem normal and b)make the claims you refer to, then the argument that they could be tested will hold more weight with me.

----------


## Empedocles

> I also wonder why the emphasis on proving anything? Does God exist? I feel that I know it does, but why the heck should i care if my neighbor thinks so?



That's not the issue here. The issue is with people who want others to believe, and who want others not to demand evidence.





> My neighbor wanting proof of God is no concern of mine, as my beliefs make me happy, and I have a life to live. Same thing here. A person can claim to believe they have experienced something, and 'no' the burden of proof is not on them. It is not, because why should they care if anyone else believes. I claim to have had a few hundred LDs that appear to me to have been detailed interaction with entities in a shared dream astral type realm. Good for me. Burden of proof? Why? It is just friendly conversation, I could care less who believes.



But if it's a debate whether or not these things exist, then the burden of proof is indeed on you guys.

Friendly conversation is something entirely different.

----------


## Empedocles

> Most of the claims I am hearing are 1) from me, who claims to interact with entities from a totally differant reality I barely understand, with the occassional unidentified DC who claims to be another dreamer.



May I ask, what leads you to believe that your dreams aren't normal dreams, and that these entities aren't just regular dream characters?

What makes you believe that all of that isn't just a product of your mind?

----------


## Sivason

> May I ask, what leads you to believe that your dreams aren't normal dreams, and that these entities aren't just regular dream characters?
> 
> What makes you believe that all of that isn't just a product of your mind?




There is the possability that the dreams are a product of my mind. The reason I think they are mostly what they appear requires an explaination.

It starts off 20ish years ago. I was happily doing my best to master LDing and was about 5 years into it. I got very intense about discapline and really honed skills in a serious and devoted way. My very first encounter was when I had been having a great LD, but I got bored with responsable training, so I decided to make it a sex dream. That should not be a problem as it is my own brain. I summoned up a woman and massage table by knowing that I would see it if I went around a corner. Yep, there she was. I went closer when I felt something new and weird that made me look behind me. A scary tough guy was there. He had an energy about him that was unlike anything I can explian. It was like a new sense that I had never experienced. Somehow I could feel that he was entirely differant from anything else. He knocked me down for being a pervert and held me down with his knee. I could not uncreate him, so I had to end the dream and intentionaly wake up. This had me scared and freaked out.
For a few months following, I had the feeling of people wtching me and following me in my LDs. I could never catch them and assumed it must be weird paranoia. I had the feeling of being weighed and judged, and that seemed parinoid also, but I decided that it would be a good idea to not act violently or creepy, just incase.
One day I was in an LD and decided to make it another sex dream. I summoned an old friend and took her to a nearby shed. I had her start something when suddenly she was gone and a figure appeared. It had the same weird energy that overwhelmed me and screamed to me 'watch out! this is not part of YOUR dream!.' The figure was of a Greek goddess in toga about 60 years old and very authorarian looking. She was glowing and started raging at me for being such a damb pervert. She went on about how much potential I had and why should she put up with me acting like a stupid prev. *I ran for my life!* Everything in me told me she was some kind of real creature that had somehow got into my dream. I created a church and ran inside and grabbed a crucifix. Nothing happened. I waited 3 or 4 minutes in the church. As I left a guy was on the porch who also glowed and had the weird energy. I ran for my life again and could not force the dream to end. Finally a 3rd man, the same man who had knocked me down (months before) was in front of me and stopped me with some trick that paralysed me. All three of them came close and examined me, I could not move and it felt like alien abduction stories. 
I awoke on my grandma's couch, but it was a false awakening. I realized it was a FA. My grandma was there ballancing some throw pillows in her arms. I told her it was a dream, and she denied it. I pointed out her pillows floated an inch above her arm. She transformed back into the violent male and he paralysed me agian. I could not move or wake. They examined me again, then I woke for real.
That story alone would only be weird, except that it was followed up by more dreams. It was always the same 3 DCs. She was the boss, and the other 2 were always with her. Over about 20 more dreams, she would force me to behave and was always watching me. I finally had a dream were I had decided not to run or freak out. She actually calmly talked to me and told me her name. She was willing to help me learn what was going on and train me. I then had many dozens of LDs spread out over years with the same 3 people. They always had an energy I could detect and it made it clear they were not of my dream. The day she told me her name was the first time the other 2 were missing. I looked around and spotted two cats. The cats glowed with the same energy, and I realized it was them. She then trained me to be abvle to detect them even when they transformed and hid behind buildings. The training went on for years. She spent a lot of time helping me walk through walls, and so on.
The story goes on. It turns out that there was a city that existed somewhere (astral) and I was slowly introduced to other entities. I was eventually, after many years, allowed to go there alone and explore. I even got in trouble there and had to spend time in a detention facility. That lasted for about 20 dreams. I would appear in a caged area and an entity who liked me would visit. 
This goes on and on... I could write a book, as it involves well over 200 encounters with them over 20ish years. The DCs were always the same 3, plus some new ones. 
I even attended the wedding reception of the woman and the tough guy. I learned that the place was in a shell that kept it solid. It was created by a powerful being. The nature of such a being is beyond my understanding. It also turned out that other shells exist in a chaos if some kind. The nicer man was once human, but claimed to have lived there after his death for 40 years. He taught me (I am still begining to learn it) how to travel to other shells, each having its own people and rules.
The chain of events has now taken 20 years and hundreds of LDs. The things they taught me actually made sense and lead to me being able to do the thing taught. The rules of how things work, have built on themselves, and the stability of the DCs, physical laws, and places has been consitant for the whole time. There's more, but that gives you an idea.


So, I am faced with deciding if it is real. I am convinced, but will leave the possability that it is all in my head. If it is all in my head, it seems like an amazingly elaborate practicle joke my brain has pulled on me for 2 decades running. To me it seems like a clear case of, I may as well believe.

About me, I am 41 and highly educated, with no police record (not even a speeding ticket). By most peoples standards I am the model of success and good behavior.

I am not however one who claims to share dreams with anyone I have met. On occasion, I am intruduced to DCs who claim to be dreamers like me.

There you have it, make what you will of it. I however, do not actually care if anyone believes any thing in paticular. My life is happy, and this weird stuff has been a blessing. If anyone wants to follow the path I did, I will try to help them in the Dream Yoga class, but other than wanting to be helpful, the beliefs of others are of little concern to me.












> That's not the issue here. The issue is with people who want others to believe, and who want others not to demand evidence.
> 
> 
> But if it's a debate whether or not these things exist, then the burden of proof is indeed on you guys.
> 
> Friendly conversation is something entirely different.




Hmmm, you have a point. He titled the thread with the word debate. I guess to some minds, that means argue agressively until the opponent is crushed or gives up. That is one valid way to look at debate. I however, perfer an exchange of knowledge, and for debaters to refrain from emotions and attacks. That is just my own take on debate. This thread will mostly just go back and forth between "you can not prove it" and "how can you disprove it" which is a useless time killer. I will probably bow out now, as the competitive concept of debate does little to intrest me.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

I also have some dreams, that feels like i am not in my "usual" dreams, i feel out of line and the dream feels odd, yet i find myself not capable of controlling anything in the dream. Which usually i do have good dream control and i totally understand your point about feeling a different sense about a DC or a certain place you are in. 
Which means you are totally out of your own realm/dream world.




> There is the possability that the dreams are a product of my mind. The reason I think they are mostly what they appear requires an explaination.
> 
> It starts off 20ish years ago. I was happily doing my best to master LDing and was about 5 years into it. I got very intense about discapline and really honed skills in a serious and devoted way. My very first encounter was when I had been having a great LD, but I got bored with responsable training, so I decided to make it a sex dream. That should not be a problem as it is my own brain. I summoned up a woman and massage table by knowing that I would see it if I went around a corner. Yep, there she was. I went closer when I felt something new and weird that made me look behind me. A scary tough guy was there. He had an energy about him that was unlike anything I can explian. It was like a new sense that I had never experienced. Somehow I could feel that he was entirely differant from anything else. He knocked me down for being a pervert and held me down with his knee. I could not uncreate him, so I had to end the dream and intentionaly wake up. This had me scared and freaked out.
> For a few months following, I had the feeling of people wtching me and following me in my LDs. I could never catch them and assumed it must be weird paranoia. I had the feeling of being weighed and judged, and that seemed parinoid also, but I decided that it would be a good idea to not act violently or creepy, just incase.
> One day I was in an LD and decided to make it another sex dream. I summoned an old friend and took her to a nearby shed. I had her start something when suddenly she was gone and a figure appeared. It had the same weird energy that overwhelmed me and screamed to me 'watch out! this is not part of YOUR dream!.' The figure was of a Greek goddess in toga about 60 years old and very authorarian looking. She was glowing and started raging at me for being such a damb pervert. She went on about how much potential I had and why should she put up with me acting like a stupid prev. *I ran for my life!* Everything in me told me she was some kind of real creature that had somehow got into my dream. I created a church and ran inside and grabbed a crucifix. Nothing happened. I waited 3 or 4 minutes in the church. As I left a guy was on the porch who also glowed and had the weird energy. I ran for my life again and could not force the dream to end. Finally a 3rd man, the same man who had knocked me down (months before) was in front of me and stopped me with some trick that paralysed me. All three of them came close and examined me, I could not move and it felt like alien abduction stories. 
> I awoke on my grandma's couch, but it was a false awakening. I realized it was a FA. My grandma was there ballancing some throw pillows in her arms. I told her it was a dream, and she denied it. I pointed out her pillows floated an inch above her arm. She transformed back into the violent male and he paralysed me agian. I could not move or wake. They examined me again, then I woke for real.
> That story alone would only be weird, except that it was followed up by more dreams. It was always the same 3 DCs. She was the boss, and the other 2 were always with her. Over about 20 more dreams, she would force me to behave and was always watching me. I finally had a dream were I had decided not to run or freak out. She actually calmly talked to me and told me her name. She was willing to help me learn what was going on and train me. I then had many dozens of LDs spread out over years with the same 3 people. They always had an energy I could detect and it made it clear they were not of my dream. The day she told me her name was the first time the other 2 were missing. I looked around and spotted two cats. The cats glowed with the same energy, and I realized it was them. She then trained me to be abvle to detect them even when they transformed and hid behind buildings. The training went on for years. She spent a lot of time helping me walk through walls, and so on.
> The story goes on. It turns out that there was a city that existed somewhere (astral) and I was slowly introduced to other entities. I was eventually, after many years, allowed to go there alone and explore. I even got in trouble there and had to spend time in a detention facility. That lasted for about 20 dreams. I would appear in a caged area and an entity who liked me would visit. 
> This goes on and on... I could write a book, as it involves well over 200 encounters with them over 20ish years. The DCs were always the same 3, plus some new ones. 
> ...

----------


## Chimpertainment

> That's not the issue here. The issue is with people who want others to believe, and who want others not to demand evidence.
> 
> 
> But if it's a debate whether or not these things exist, then the burden of proof is indeed on you guys.
> 
> Friendly conversation is something entirely different.



To me, there is a problem with this argument. Naturally, we want to all agree on what is real and fake. However, if you continually demand proof on existence, this essentially stonewalls any discussion on what is actually happening. What I mean by actually happening is the individual's experience. This is purely a philosophical debate for me and like Sivason, I could care less who believes.

What seems to be happening is quite usual; we are identifying a certain "type" in others as a precedent for communication. In other words, what is being said is: "If we can't agree on this, then there is no need for discussion". This idea is used often in the argument for the literal interpretation of sacred texts (the bible, koran, torah etc.). 

We are attempting to establish who views the world like us, then push out any point of view that disagrees with our group ideal. 

Someone says: "Dude, check out this awesome shared dream I had"...other person reads it and says: "How do you prove it is real?"

Well my friends, all this person is asking is for you to empathize with their experience, not proof read their metaphorical paper. The debate with shared dreaming isn't about proof. That does not exist in the world of dreams; the metaphorical images in your mind don't follow the same rules you are accustomed to in waking life. 
Indeed, Lucid Dreaming and Shared Dreaming are completely different in that way. Lucidly, one can verify experience, whereas in Shared Dreaming, information is very much shared. One person lets the other try on their shirt. It changes one piece of the outfit, not the whole thing...and yet, the whole picture has changed. An astute dreamer knows what signs to look for, and what dream images are typical for them.

We are all asking for studies of this when the experience, IF it exists lies inside of each of us. Personally, I have experienced enough of the dream world to accept the reality of Shared Dreams. There are other things/creatures you can communicate through dreams as well. And certainly, if I accept communicating with animals, or "inert material" in dream, I don't think humans would be all that difficult. It seems also, intentionality would be essential since humans have natural defenses attached to just about everything in site.

Anyways, Im a wind bag, or a bag of wind mixed with light....Gettin things mixed down there for a day or ten. 

Light travels at 186,000 Miles PER SECOND..........I'm beginning to think the joke is on us...The atom is pure energy. There is stuff much smaller than atoms and its all held together by invisible opposing forces of magnetism. It has been proven that brains respond emotionally to changes in certain electromagnetic frequencies. If I remember, we operate at 6hz or 8hz, something like that. It has also been proven the human body maintains a bio-magnetic field of energy surrounding the body. These are just examples of invisible energy which humans utilize and interact with on a daily basis. 

Everything is connected.

Some wonder why knowledge and study hasn't already occurred. The scientific revolution is barely a child in terms of human existence. We have existed as we are for 100,000 years on this planet. Science has existed less than half a millennium. Yet if it exists, we surely should have found it by now! Look at our vast amounts of knowledge!! We collect it like a mad man, obsessed with treasures of the mind. 
Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, developed the basis for Shared Dreaming. He called it the collective unconscious. The man was pure genius, and was for a time Freud's best student before they parted ways. Jung collected dreams of his own patients and patients of his students and colleges. He spent decades collecting dreams.
There is a lot of material on Jung and his works. Yet, he is not taught in a public high school text book in my hometown. Freud, with his laughable theories, is revered as the father of psychology. The same happened to Nikola Tesla, whose discoveries in the physical world were met with disbelief and outrage. 
Do some research surrounding these men, and Shared Dreaming will seem simplistic amidst the mosaic of the big picture.

----------


## Sageous

Well said, Chimpertainment, save that last bit.

When Jung talked about collective unconsciousness, he was not being literal.  He was not saying that we all share an unconscious mind collectively, but that we all operate under the same psychic rules, referencing the same archetypes when interpreting our reality.  There was no shared-dreaming going on.

That said, from what I understand, I think that if you mentioned shared-dreaming to Jung (or Freud, for that matter), he likely would have had no problem with its existence, especially toward the end of his life... But Jung, Freud, and even Tesla's "big picture" never included shared-dreaming. That is not what Jung was talking about.

Sorry for being nit-picky; I always react this way when Jung's concept of gestalt gets turned into something magical.

Aside from that, though, you are right on the money; it _would_ be awfully nice if we could toss aside, for just a few posts, the whole "Prove it!" "Prove it isn't!" pissing contest and actually debate the condition of shared dreaming, and what it's reality would imply...

----------


## Empedocles

Sivason, even though I don't really see anything in that story of yours that makes me believe it's anything more than "complex" dreams (but still dreams, nonetheless), I enjoyed reading it very much. 

It's very interesting, and I appreciate you taking the time to write that much text.

----------


## Chimpertainment

Yes Sageous, I added my own idea..and people would find that out when they research his ideas  :smiley: 

Yet, without the collective unconscious, would shared dreaming be possible? I dare say it would be the basis of such interactions. Once again, my own added idea, and I suppose I should have said as much for Jung's sake...so there it is.

Jung witnessed shared dreaming himself but of course drawing conclusions would have been difficult.

----------


## Sageous

> Yes Sageous, I added my own idea..and people would find that out when they research his ideas



Fair enough!





> ... without the collective unconscious, would shared dreaming be possible?



Not a chance.  Given that the universe doesn't speak our language, and perception varies from person to person, the universal archetypes, the collective unconscious, that Jung speaks about_ must_ exist in order for us to understand each other when we're in each other's dreams (or in the same room with them in waking life, for that matter!).

If dreamers meet without some symbols or metaphor they can share, communication, or perhaps _even the knowledge that they met_, would be impossible.

Which gets me thinking:  what if those archetypes _aren't_ as universal as Jung, or we, assume?  

Could it be that those few who do grasp the archetypes while dreaming, or rather while lucid, are the only ones who understand that there are other people in their dreams, and can potentially communicate with their (the other people's) avatars? And maybe those few are also the ones who claim, without question, that shared dreaming is possible?

And_ then_ shared dreaming might just be a product of cognitive evolution, currently enjoyed by just a few of us naturally, but potentially available to all, provided we choose to pay attention to the archetypes ... that might also explain why it's a relatively new addition to our cognitive history!

Or I'm losing my sanity for the evening.

----------


## Chimpertainment

a sweet link I have found on the entarwebs...

Mutual Dreaming: Is Group Dreaming Possible?

Sageous, you are onto something  :smiley: 

Jung described archetypes as visual representations of specific naturally occurring elements within the human psyche. While experiencing dream elements, typically energy will be interpreted into "sensory inputs" that we experience in waking life. Within the dream world however, the elements of the dream go beyond imagery, sound, touch, smell, etc...There is a fundamental energy present within the dream which brings about the existence of the image or metaphor. 
If we then extrapolate this "assumption" shall we say; when shared dreaming occurs, individual specific energy would be communicated to the other through archetypal imagery. Then as awareness of that world increases, so also the perception of the archetypal images would also shift and change. The possibilities seem endless already, and we haven't yet scratched the surface. 

All of this to me is still hypothetical since my experience is very limited. One task I am setting myself to is to lucidly travel to Thomas Square to meet with Waking Nomad. It is time in my life that I make a change and changing my world at the same time. 

Change is what we are, my friends...

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## hermine_hesse

> a sweet link I have found on the entarwebs...
> 
> Mutual Dreaming: Is Group Dreaming Possible?



Thanks for posting this link.   :smiley:   I like how the article distinguishes between the two types of shared dreams, _meshing dreams_, which everyone can agree are possible, and _meeting dreams_ .

Here's a few questions: For those who have had shared dreaming experiences, do you think of them as meshing dreams (where two people dream about the same content, but may not actually be sharing a dreamspace) or meeting dreams.

For those who believe in shared dreaming do you think shared dreaming is possible because the dream plane is a real place where people can meet, or that shared dreaming is possible because we are capable of telepathic communication?

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## Sivason

> Thanks for posting this link.    I like how the article distinguishes between the two types of shared dreams, _meshing dreams_, which everyone can agree are possible, and _meeting dreams_ .
> 
> Here's a few questions: For those who have had shared dreaming experiences, do you think of them as meshing dreams (where two people dream about the same content, but may not actually be sharing a dreamspace) or meeting dreams.
> 
> For those who believe in shared dreaming do you think shared dreaming is possible because the dream plane is a real place where people can meet, or that shared dreaming is possible because we are capable of telepathic communication?




You can probably guess that I feel there is a dream realm that exists outside off our selves. I also believe we each have a private dream area that is inside our head. It is also possable that some types of shared dreams are due to telepathic communication, but that is outside my own personal realm of knowledge. my experience has lead me to believe dreams can be a door way to what I will call astral realms, simply for lack of a better term.

Sageous and Chimpertainment, I like your line of thought on archetypes. It seems to mesh with what I believe I understand. The idea of a distinct energy signature for each person, which is then interperated through archetype imagery feels right somehow. It makes me think of the woman's companions I mentioned. Eventually I could recognize them no matter their form or if dream imagery walls were in the way. It is like I read some kind of energy signature, that specifiaclly identified the individuals, even when the images changed. Great line of thought!

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## [email protected]

Haven't seen this thread actually.... So I voted yes, I have experienced it. 
I don't wanna debate about Sding, I would rather practice Sding to gain more experience and skills, and then study to prove it somehow. 

It was so much fun reading all posts here - took an hour - I love you all DV people! ^.^






> Everything is connected.



Lol! Look at my user title  ::D:

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## Sageous

> Sageous, you are onto something 
> 
> Jung described archetypes as visual representations of specific naturally occurring elements within the human psyche. While experiencing dream elements, typically energy will be interpreted into "sensory inputs" that we experience in waking life. Within the dream world however, the elements of the dream go beyond imagery, sound, touch, smell, etc...There is a fundamental energy present within the dream which brings about the existence of the image or metaphor. 
> 
> If we then extrapolate this "assumption" shall we say; when shared dreaming occurs, individual specific energy would be communicated to the other through archetypal imagery. Then as awareness of that world increases, so also the perception of the archetypal images would also shift and change. The possibilities seem endless already, and we haven't yet scratched the surface.



I may be on to something, Chimpertainment, but it sure sounds better when _you_ describe it!

That something still has a major flaw, though, which occurred to me after I posted. Though the potential for archetypical communication is both interesting and, I think, critical, the potential for _missed_ communication is as high as ever.  This is because even though energy is being exchanged, the chaos of dreaming allows a dreamer to completely ignore the _significance_ of that exchange ... which is why I am always reticent to harm DC's, as the pain I inflict might be felt (archetypically as well, but don't ask me how) by a_ real_ person for whom the DC is standing as avatar. 

In other words, even for serendipitous dream-sharing, both dreamers must be paying serious attention to the events, symbols, and DC's of their dreams, and must possess a natural knack or well-founded expectation to recognize things in the dream that might not be theirs, and therefore could be sourced in another soul.  As I think I said above (too lazy to look), we could all be immersed in a _crowd_ of other dreamers, but most if not all of us lack the mental wiring to notice.  

Of course, you'd think the mere act of talking or reading about it might make us finally able to notice but:





> All of this to me is still hypothetical since my experience is very limited. One task I am setting myself to is to lucidly travel to Thomas Square to meet with Waking Nomad. It is time in my life that I make a change and changing my world at the same time.



I've been to Thomas Square a half-dozen times already, and haven't seen hide nor hair of WakingNomad; the place is usually deserted, or at best sparsely staffed with stereotypical "park people" who just look at me funny when I ask about Mr. Nomad.  But it could be that I simply _couldn't_ notice, or my avatar -- however i appeared -- went unnoticed my him; the opportunity for archetypical energy exchange simply could not happen for lack of mutual attention.  _Or else I was never actually there_...Perhaps I'll try again someday -- I usually do so when Nomad makes a post that makes me think (or pisses me off).

... That last bit just made me think of something else:  all archetypical stuff aside, there is_ still_ the problem of finding a specific person with whom to share a dream, because their "energy signature" is unique and therefore cannot have an recognizable archetype attached to it.  Given the 7 billion souls that we know of in this world, finding a specific person on purpose seems akin to shooting a spitball from the top of Mt Everest and having it land dead center in a thimble placed in a cave at the base of K2 -- all the while planning to hit just that thimble..  That difficulty might be assuaged a bit, though, by navigational aids like Nomad's Thomas Square and some clever timing, though...

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## TwoCrystalCups

> Thanks for posting this link.    I like how the article distinguishes between the two types of shared dreams, _meshing dreams_, which everyone can agree are possible, and _meeting dreams_ .
> 
> Here's a few questions: For those who have had shared dreaming experiences, do you think of them as meshing dreams (where two people dream about the same content, but may not actually be sharing a dreamspace) or meeting dreams.
> 
> For those who believe in shared dreaming do you think shared dreaming is possible because the dream plane is a real place where people can meet, or that shared dreaming is possible because we are capable of telepathic communication?



 Telepathic  :smiley:

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## Sageous

^^ Telepathic.  Though I respect Sivason's opinion and experience, I was never much of a fan of astral realms.

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## Sageous

I had another thought that might negate my negative Everest analogy above:  While thinking about the daunting task of finding another person in the vast sea of dreaming minds, I realized that maybe you don't need to go to such lengths.

Why?

Well, I got to thinking of the "wave" description someone on one of the many recent dream-sharing threads (perhaps this one?) gave of the possible shape of the energy that enables dream-sharing.  And then I thought about the anecdotal evidence that implied this energy defies the known laws of physics -- outrunning light, and perhaps ignoring time.  I put the two thoughts together, and came up with this:

What if the thought energy produced by a dreamer _were_ transmitted in wave form?  Wouldn't it then be emitted in all directions at the same time, then?  And, given that time & space have no sway on this energy, wouldn't it be "everywhere" instantly? Maybe not, but  I hope the actual scientists out there hold of their arguments and assume for a moment that this could be the case.  

So what do we have?  Instead of a dreamer searching one point at a time in the hopes of finding his target, we have the dreamer _projecting_ his thought energy, in this case the context of his dream or perhaps just confirmation of his presence (some sort of archetypical shout of "I am here!" without, of course, useless words).  So, in an instant, his personal "signature" is everywhere.  Instead of looking for his target, he has placed himself everywhere, guaranteeing that his target will be touched by his presence. 

Trouble is, everyone else on the planet is doing the same thing, though usually by the accident of normal dreaming, and not with the intention of communication.  So the dreamer's target is still fully bathed in the energy of billions of dreamers, but, just like we are always bathed in the energy of uncounted microwave transmission but our phone will only ring when it recognizes a specific wave meant only for it, perhaps the dreamer's target can single out the sender's signal because his signature is the one for which he is looking.

So there is no impossible targeting at all; we're all in touch all the time, and sharing is simply a matter of allowing our dreaming selves to listen for one specific signature.  There is still a catch, given that the sender's signature, though unique, is not clearly labeled, so there would need to be a novel method of ID indeed.  But there is that thought on evolution I had earlier, plus the equally novel and perhaps more flexible condition of LD'ing, as well as the "homing" metaphor suggested by WakingNomad's Thomas Square challenge. Put all that together, and there might just be a way to find another person in the vast sea of souls, and, given the nature of this thought energy, that person can be found at an physical distance with possibly no concern for time.

Oh, and for what it's worth, this also works for Sivason's dreaming plane collective, because in a sense that is a metaphoric shape that all these transmissions might form, conceptually.

This is likely all just incorrect, incomprehensible babble that stands insane physics-wise, or just obvious stuff that you guys all know about. But it seems to cover all the troubling bases and gives us a little clay to play with while we're forming what's actually going on in dream-sharing. But it wouldn't leave my head so it seemed only fair to put into yours as well. Plus there's no need now to climb Everest to launch a spitball into a thimble!  :wink2:

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## Linkzelda

@Sageous, I don't know if you know this or not, but Teal Scott goes into great depth of mentioning things like thought energy and such. I actually made a post here related to thought energy, and how it can help with changing one's beliefs (especially with the complex ambitions on both sides of skeptics and believers), but I figured I was just talking to myself in the tl;dr post I edited out.

She has some interesting videos on YouTube related to things like that, and much more. She's called "Spiritual Catalyst" on Youtube.

I'm sorry, I just wanted to mention that if you're interested.  :smiley:  

And as for the personal "signature," I personally agree with this, as one's own allowance of being open to things such as this, having an ambition that wants to find the answers, the greater the thought energy will be.

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## hermine_hesse

> Well, I got to thinking of the "wave" description someone on one of the many recent dream-sharing threads (perhaps this one?) gave of the possible shape of the energy that enables dream-sharing.  And then I thought about the anecdotal evidence that implied this energy defies the known laws of physics -- outrunning light, and perhaps ignoring time.  I put the two thoughts together, and came up with this:
> 
> What if the thought energy produced by a dreamer _were_ transmitted in wave form?  Wouldn't it then be emitted in all directions at the same time, then?  And, given that time & space have no sway on this energy, wouldn't it be "everywhere" instantly? Maybe not, but  I hope the actual scientists out there hold of their arguments and assume for a moment that this could be the case.



This is exactly what I think is going on.  I've been watching this show called "Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman."  The show explores concept of consciousness and existence such as time, how dimensions we have, what happens when we die etc.  Although many of the concepts might seem like fringe science, the guests sharing their ideas and experiments are reputable scientists.  Anyway, I saw two experiments relevant to shared dreaming.  

There have already been experiments showing that a person sitting next to a Random Number Generator (RNG) can affect the outcome with their thoughts.  Roger Nelson decided to take it one step further and established The Global Consciousness Project.  This project places RNG's throughout the world to see if significant emotional events can affect them.  The data from events like September 11 and President Obama's victory speech seem to indicate they do.  If this is true, human thoughts and emotions must be transmitted in a way that can affect quantum particles.

In the second experiment, the scientist believed that our thoughts/emotions/experiences are connected through earth's magnetic field.  To test this, he placed a device on the heads of two participates that would create an identical magnetic field around each.  One participant was placed in a room with a light flashing occasionally on either the right or left side of his head and in varying brightness.  The second participant was placed in a dark room.  Both participant's brains were monitored during the experiment.  The person in the dark room showed brain activity when light was being flashed to the first person.  When asked we she experienced, the person in the dark room described experiencing a flashing light sometimes to her right or left side.  To me, this suggests are thoughts/experiences are somehow immersed in earths magnetic field and are transmitted through that medium.  (I think this would also cover a wide range of psychic phenomenon, if true.)

I agree with the rest of your post as well, Sageous.  I've seen some members of the IOSDP use a method like tuning a radio dial to find your target's energy signature, which would fit with what you are describing as well.





> Haven't seen this thread actually.... So I voted yes, I have experienced it. 
> I don't wanna debate about Sding, I would rather practice Sding to gain more experience and skills, and then study to prove it somehow. 
> 
> It was so much fun reading all posts here - took an hour - I love you all DV people! ^.^



Hi there, Windhover!  It's nice to see someone from IOSDP on this thread.  I think (for the moment at least) we have moved past debate into an open discussion of experiences and ideas.  I would love to hear your experiences and your thoughts on what mechanisms might be at work that make shared dreaming possible.

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## Chimpertainment

I think we might be able to unlock some answers through examining memory as well. The hippocampus seems to be the seat of memory yet some scientists have proven memories are present even in muscles.
If you look at the brain/body as one side of the human and mind as the other, the matter based operation of the human body can be viewed as a mechanism for the mind to interact with the material world. Memories travel through the hippocampus, then to the frontal lobe and all over the body. There is a lot of work being done on the hippocampus since its operation is still quite a mystery. 
I read yesterday that a scientist was able to activate memories through stimulating the hippocampus with light. Perhaps memory and thought in general is transmitted using light energy or a variation of sorts?
If that were the case, thought would indeed travel as a wave and particle just as light does.

How deep does the rabbit hole go? lol

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## Sageous

> @Sageous, I don't know if you know this or not, but Teal Scott goes into great depth of mentioning things like thought energy and such. I actually made a post here related to thought energy, and how it can help with changing one's beliefs (especially with the complex ambitions on both sides of skeptics and believers), but I figured I was just talking to myself in the tl;dr post I edited out.
> 
> And as for the personal "signature," I personally agree with this, as one's own allowance of being open to things such as this, having an ambition that wants to find the answers, the greater the thought energy will be.



That'll teach you to delete a post you just spent an hour putting up!  :smiley: 

You point out here the one really interesting thought I was having throughout these posts:  shared dreaming is almost a symptom, or perhaps a usable tool, of a much greater pool of energy and potential that this "thought energy" might represent!  Too bad we're not discussing that, because thought energy, in my mind, is the real story...

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## Sageous

> I agree with the rest of your post as well, Sageous.  I've seen some members of the IOSDP use a method like tuning a radio dial to find your target's energy signature, which would fit with what you are describing as well.



Though it is pretty clever, I'm not sure that the IOSPD were on the right track with a method like tuning a radio.  Though it seems to fit with what I said, the trouble here is that you're yes, you're tuning a dial, and that makes logical sense, but what's on the dial, other than "frequencies" for signatures that conform to your definitions, and not your target's. You'd wind up just spinning a knob with a bunch of meaningless numbers or names on it, because the metaphor you're transmitting by doing this means nothing to your targets, even if they're receptive.  

No, I think the metaphors needed to make a connection would need to defy simple logic like that -- since there is no language in the aether, including number systems, you'll likely do better to key in on an emotion, personality trait/demeanor, or even something visually simple like a color or shape that both you and the recipient find significant.  In the end it might not be that difficult, especially if the sharers know each other, but the route of the connection likely will not be through something that "looks" like a frequency.  I'm guessing the IOSDP folks didn't have much luck with this tactic? 

I guess where I'm going here, Hermine, is that the actual connection -- the moment of a dreamer's attention falling on the specific thoughts transmitted by their partner -- is tied much more to attention and familiarity than it is technique.  You can't invent a way to communicate; you almost have to already be able to make the connection before you can even try it.  I hope that made sense!

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## Sageous

> I think we might be able to unlock some answers through examining memory as well. The hippocampus seems to be the seat of memory yet some scientists have proven memories are present even in muscles.
> If you look at the brain/body as one side of the human and mind as the other, the matter based operation of the human body can be viewed as a mechanism for the mind to interact with the material world. Memories travel through the hippocampus, then to the frontal lobe and all over the body. There is a lot of work being done on the hippocampus since its operation is still quite a mystery. 
> I read yesterday that a scientist was able to activate memories through stimulating the hippocampus with light.* Perhaps memory and thought in general is transmitted using light energy or a variation of sorts?
> If that were the case, thought would indeed travel as a wave and particle just as light does.*
> 
> How deep does the rabbit hole go? lol



But it can't be electromagnetic in nature, can it?  The traditional energy the brain produces is simply to low to allow for the transmission over distances of a few inches, much less many miles and the curve of the horizon itself, as shared-dreaming testimonials imply is often the case.  I think we must be resigned to talking about a unique energy source/transmission here, or else the rest of shared-dreaming simply won't work.

This rabbit hole may have no bottom...

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## Linkzelda

I know the video may be long, but listening to the concepts she puts out, just like the radio dial, etc., I think the examples she gives helps a lot with understanding the metaphysics. I know the Akashic Records do not relate to this, but the idea of thought energy, frequency, radio dialing analogies, etc. is something that might be worth watching the video.

Her way of words may trigger the reality filter for most, but just want to put this out there.

This is just part 2, part 1 was just what the Records are in general, and I didn't want to post that because part 2 explaining the process had some association with how one may channel themselves to dreaming elements.

She also talks about dimensions as well, but I'm not sure if that's included in this part or the first.

Anyway, I'll just go back to watching other people's beliefs and opinions.

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## Sivason

> What if the thought energy produced by a dreamer _were_ transmitted in wave form?  Wouldn't it then be emitted in all directions at the same time, then?  And, given that time & space have no sway on this energy, wouldn't it be "everywhere" instantly? Maybe not, but  I hope the actual scientists out there hold of their arguments and assume for a moment that this could be the case.  
> 
> So what do we have?  Instead of a dreamer searching one point at a time in the hopes of finding his target, we have the dreamer _projecting_ his thought energy, in this case the context of his dream or perhaps just confirmation of his presence (some sort of archetypical shout of "I am here!" without, of course, useless words).  So, in an instant, his personal "signature" is everywhere.  Instead of looking for his target, he has placed himself everywhere, guaranteeing that his target will be touched by his presence. 
> 
> Trouble is, everyone else on the planet is doing the same thing, though usually by the accident of normal dreaming, and not with the intention of communication.  So the dreamer's target is still fully bathed in the energy of billions of dreamers, but, just like we are always bathed in the energy of uncounted microwave transmission but our phone will only ring when it recognizes a specific wave meant only for it, perhaps the dreamer's target can single out the sender's signal because his signature is the one for which he is looking.




This seems to match what I have been taught to some degree. The concept was a little different but had the same idea. I was taught (and believe) that on the level of spirit or whatever, there is no distance between any two points, distance being a concept of the physical world. I was taught that you do not send out energy across vast distance until it reaches another point, instead  you know and believe that in this kind of thing, distance is an unnessecary illusion. I guess that is a bit different, and the stuff i am refering to did not haave to do with shared dreams,  but with ESP and similar skills. I certainly can not say that my teacher knew for a fact that it was an issue of no distance, instead of Sageous' idea that the energy appears everywhere at one time, because how could he or I tell the difference as the end result would be the same.

Here is a weird side thought. here is a link to my DJ from a couple days back. Dream Guide Lectures on Subject I Can not Understand! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views I was confused during the dream. First he kept trying to explain a type of dream 'that begins with S" and then expressed the lesson entirely through inducing energy feelings in me with no words. As the entry reads I was very confused, but it just dawned on me that it should have been freaking obvious what he ment by dreams that begin with S! It is hard to communicate with him on advanced topics as we do not actually speak the same langue, or something. Dreams that begin with S? Well, hell, what have we all been talking about? How blind of me, at the time. If he does not write me off as a twit, maybe he will give me a second chance and some of it may make enough sense in waking life for me to share. I am not sure what he was showing me can be put in words, but I will pay attention and see what comes up.

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## dutchraptor

I myself have no idea how our brain could affect gravitational forces or use quantum fluctuations (mainly because or brain is to small to have any effect on these) but I do know that there are still many parts about memory unkown to mankind, for instance just last week they found out that would seemed like just a "wire" turned out to be able to hold and influence memories. They barely know how memories are truly processed whats to say something else isn't going on.

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## Sageous

Perhaps the energy caused by forming conscious thoughts is just _different_ enough to have a real effect on the "natural" laws of physics.  Think, for instance, about the power a humble pin wields over a tautly inflated balloon. Thought energy may be minuscule, but it also has the mighty power of being able to exceed light's speed limit and ignore time.  Influence can be very effective.  

Again, remember that the energy we're discussing should not be confused with brain waves or any other measurable electromagnetic phenomenon;  we've already stepped beyond that for the sake of argument.

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## dutchraptor

I understand that we are no longer discussing qithin he electromagnetic spectrum, I am speculating how our brain could affect things like ripples in space time without using an exotic matter. An interesting explanation is that we can effect gravitational waves through converting energy. I reference in particular Heim theory who states that when a huge amount of electromagnetic energy is created it is partially converted into anti-gravitational forces through 2 different extra dimesions. The problem is off course that we are not creating huge amounts of electromagnetic energy, not to mention that more scientists understand the m-theory than heim theory but none the less it shows that their is a possibility that we can influence other energy forms (couldn't think of the right word).

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## Sageous

^^ You might not be accounting enough the supreme novelty of thought energy/thought forms.  

Thought energy does not exist in nature, period (it likely doesn not exist at all, aside from the need dream-sharing has of it's existence).  It is from its very disregard for all the laws and theories you cite that thought energy gets its power.  By defying or disregarding the "rules," by popping the balloon of assigned physical expectation, thought energy may be able to exert extreme power. 

If it exists, don't sell thought energy short and above all don't look to what the physicists have defined for a description of thought energy; they simply are not there yet!

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## dutchraptor

> It is from its very disregard for all the laws and theories you cite that thought energy gets its power.



Why would it disregard these theories, out of all possible places to look we should start here. These theories have the potential to explain the phenomenon, not to mention the fact the we don't know how this "thought energy" operates so assuming it disregards our laws and theories is not a valid thought. Before we look and presume it is outside our reach we should see if we have anything that fits the picture.

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## Sageous

^^ You _must_ disregard existing theories/laws of physics, Dutchraptor, if you are going to assume that dream-sharing exists as described in these forums.  Not only do the existing theories fail completely to explain dream-sharing, they are an outstanding tool for "proving" the physical impossibility of dream-sharing ... Didn't we already cover this problem?

Thought energy, thought forms, prana, or whatever it cares to be called, has been around as a "theory" for millennia (I did not invent it), and its structure, even if controversial or downright fictitious, offers decent support and theoretical space for dream-sharing.  If you can offer up another "force" or condition that enables dream-sharing, then go for it.  But don't lean on existing scientific knowledge, because doing so will only attract those pesky skeptics who will have proof in hand for why science can't work... And then we'll be back in that very unfun place we were a couple pages ago -- you know: the "Is too!" "Is not!" section.  Do you really want to return to that?

If I could have used existing theory to explain or understand dream-sharing, trust me, I would have.  That would have made life much easier!

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## [email protected]

> Hi there, Windhover!  It's nice to see someone from IOSDP on this thread.  I think (for the moment at least) we have moved past debate into an open discussion of experiences and ideas.  I would love to hear your experiences and your thoughts on what mechanisms might be at work that make shared dreaming possible.



Hai Hermine!!!!!  ::D:  ah I thought there was still skepticism going on here  :Cheeky: 
Nope I don't wanna debate about the existence of Sding, but I would LOVE to discuss about mechanism behind it.  :smiley: 

Now, I have to read potato posts... Beginning on category 10... Please hold on for minutes... I will tell you my experiences and opinions... Might find answers! 
Before we start real shared dream project in iosdp next week I will dedicate my time to discuss here.

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## shadowofwind

> ^^ You _must_ disregard existing theories/laws of physics, Dutchraptor, if you are going to assume that dream-sharing exists as described in these forums.



Stating the obvious maybe....Some of us consider it definitively established that shared dreaming is outside of current theory, and get frustrated that we keep going over the same ground repeatedly.  But not everybody has had time to do this for themselves, or has an adequate physics background to judge, and they have to go through whatever process they have to go through.  





> Thought energy, thought forms, prana, or whatever it cares to be called, has been around as a "theory" for millennia



Another possibly obvious point, which I've made elsewhere....The religious ideas about this sort of thing, while its fair to call them theories, are so sketchy and undeveloped compared to present day physics theories that we really need two different words for them. 

On your earlier thought about the thoughts being wavelike.  I had a dream about this a few months ago.  Of course, the dream could just be a representation of someone's thought about this, so it doesn't mean its true.  But I think there's probably at least some element of truth in it.  In the dream, something subtle impinged upon everyone, being interpreted expressed in different ways by different people.  These 'shared thoughts' aren't merely shared between we who are thinking about each other, at the same time people who we don't even know are having other related experiences.  Even the fact that it even occurs to us to ask certain questions and 'share' certain thoughts is a part of the larger pattern.  This larger pattern, call it meta-thought maybe, gets qualified by different people into specific thoughts, and those can be very different.  Sort of like what you said a couple of days ago about how ideas might be different to different people.

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## Sageous

> Stating the obvious maybe....Some of us consider it definitively established that shared dreaming is outside of current theory, and get frustrated that we keep going over the same ground repeatedly.  But not everybody has had time to do this for themselves, or has an adequate physics background to judge, and they have to go through whatever process they have to go through.



  True, true ... figured it was worth stating anyway, just in an attempt to avoid going over that same ground again --- we're doing so well!





> Another possibly obvious point, which I've made elsewhere....The religious ideas about this sort of thing, while its fair to call them theories, are so sketchy and undeveloped compared to present day physics theories that we really need two different words for them.



Agreed.  But maybe once they _were_ sound theories, before the religions dogmafied (I'm trademarking that one!) them into the hazy masses they are now.  I'd like to think that and, given that I don't attach any religious meaning to any of it, I like to think I can see the stuff that inspired the religions to clamp on to the notion of thought energy before others caught on.  That core, ancient theory there might lack math (that I know of) to describe it, but I think it still might be loosely forgiven to be called theory.





> On your earlier thought about the thoughts being wavelike.  I had a dream about this a few months ago.  Of course, the dream could just be a representation of someone's thought about this, so it doesn't mean its true.  But I think there's probably at least some element of truth in it.  In the dream, something subtle impinged upon everyone, being interpreted expressed in different ways by different people.  These 'shared thoughts' aren't merely shared between we who are thinking about each other, at the same time people who we don't even know are having other related experiences.  Even the fact that it even occurs to us to ask certain questions and 'share' certain thoughts is a part of the larger pattern.  This larger pattern, call it meta-thought maybe, gets qualified by different people into specific thoughts, and those can be very different.  Sort of like what you said a couple of days ago about how ideas might be different to different people.



Agreed, and nicely stated.  Keep in mind that, from what I've read, your experience in this department is (laudably) uniquely advanced, yet even you still could but sense the meta-thought without being able to identify its sender, or even confirm that it was even "sent;" though it sure sounds to me like you and "those" around you might have encountered a wave of thought energy washing over you.  It is that difficult to make any associations, much less correct ones.  Hopefully we'll figure out a way soon, perhaps with the aid of the awareness and attention that accompany LD'ing.

I just read what I wrote, then what you wrote, and realize I may have done it again and misunderstood you completely.  If I did, please correct!

----------


## [email protected]

All right, finished reading. So here it goes.*

First of all, I am surprised that you folks came up with telepathy theory that would be the key for the shared dream mechanism because, few months ago there was a discussion in korean LD forum about how SD(shared dream, from now on I'll abbreviate like this) works - they concluded that telepathy might be the mechanism for SDing. The Korean forum and dv did not communicate each other about this nor did I tell here about it.... Well, is this a pure coincidence?

So I'll share my SD stories.*
My first 'real' SD was the one with my dream partner involving. (we werent lucid though) I think this happened in last fall/ winter. I'll post my dj here*10/8 - Shared Dream!! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
So long story short, I was a robot flying outside of tall office building and Katsuno was inside that building with many people. I shot at people with huge sniper (lol) making loud bam sound, and Katsuno described the exact same bam sound thru pm.*
I drew a robot that I recognized in my head (I didn't 'see' myself as a robot, I just 'recognized' that I was a robot) from my memory - i drew the exact features I recognized inside my head the best I could- to Katsuno thru pm.... He said the robot he saw was exactly the same!!!*He also described that the building was kind of huge office building.*
When I confirmed SD with Katsuno that day I was excited as hell. So this is the fun of Sding... I thought  ::D: 

So... Katsuno lives in Germany and I live in New York... DISTANCE DOESN'T MATTER for SDing!

Here's another example for distance factor. But I'm not sure I had a SD...
One time my friend in Korea and I decided to have SD. We were really far away (on the other side of earth) so I tried to visit her when I took a day nap, while she was sleeping at night there.*
I 'tuned' into her mind and suddenly I saw a typical Korean tutor building. I think I even saw a teacher and students in the building thru a window. Shortly then I woke up.*

After napping I wrote her a pm asking about her dream. Then the next day she wrote 'I dreamed of being a tutor teacher, not a school teacher because the background wasn't school... It was rather some kind of office building, telling kids to arrange desks.'
I was like wtf!!!!! My heart nearly skipped. Maybe I picked her energy signature on the dream plane.*

So I thought that SDing has nothing to do with brain wave - since its wave energy cannot go even further than few inches - therefore it must be about telepathy.*

How could I have SD with my friend in such a long distance?*
It's not appropriate(?) to make dare assumption about dreaming... Because you'll never know how long the rabbit hole will be, but my belief is that dream per se doesn't really take place in our heads - the dream takes outside of our heads and that the dream plane theory of Nomad is true.*
I'm not arguing that the dream doesn't entirely happens in our brains. I think brains act as 'translators' for allowing us to travel to dream/ astral realm IMHO *(that is why I believe that the memory exists outside our heads from an... English doctor's theory.... Muah! I can't remember his name. I'll find a link to the article about memory existing outside of brains, it's really interesting you guys might like it  :smiley:  )

So if dream occurs in our brains, then what about shared dreaming?*

Your argument is invalid.*

From my experience - I EXPERIENCED shared dream so it is REAL to me at least - I don't understand that dream solely happens in our brains.*

So SD 'exists' and it must also have existed very long time ago.*

Telepathy it seems, for mechanism behind Sding. For practicing a year I had learned that the 'bond' is also important to feel the connection from the desired partner.*
In order to have telepathy to work, the sense of positive emotion; love is needed. (I've read this from telepathy article)

But....! Something extraordinary happened. I'll share another SD story.*

I know a friend, not a best friend in a class. He's all right, it's not that I like him or hate him. He just doesn't match with me personally.*
So one day I dreamed of visiting a prison and suddenly right in front of me there were 2 guys at about my age fighting and people around them cheering. I was really close to them so I got hurt a little but I could see their faces - there was that my not-best-friend-friend and my other classmate who has a name starts with J. I said stop fighting J! Then I woke up.*
So the next day I walked into a class as usual... And this friend (not-best-friend-friend) said 'I had a fight dream.' and I was like huh? So I said 'let me guess, did you fight with J?' and he said '?! How did you know?!!!?' 'I was right in front of you! Oh...' I realized that I was actually a Norwegian boy for some reason, so he didn't recognize me. And then I asked J about this but he dreamed of different thing....*
Hmm so is bond really important? Maybe I was unconsciously linked with him? Or maybe even though he and I are not that close, we always see each other often in school... So that might have made us a connection?

Woah time to go to bed! Thanks for reading a long post. Here's a potato... O  <- potato
I'll continue tomorrow  ::D: 







Okay why do I have * at the end of every paragraph. Please ignore. I actually wrote it on the notepad on my iPhone so... Something like bug happened when I pasted it here  :tongue2:

----------


## Chimpertainment

Speaking of thought energy reminds me of some work done by Rupert Sheldrake. He has a theory of the universe in which thought energy produces what he calls "morphogenetic fields". Essentially, all the energy we emit and everything else for that matter goes somewhere. This is definitely not an exact reproduction of his theory but its the basic idea. 
Everything is made of vibrating energy at some frequency. These loops of vibrating energy form and combine to infinite. This might be where the alternative universe math comes from. Anyways, energy of similar type tends to coalesce into large bodies of energy. This principle is easily observed in the material world i.e. planets, asteroid belts. It is a basic function of the two opposing forces of the universe.

This perspective seems slightly hindered by the idea of space, yet the level at which these energies operate are infinitesimal to begin with. Honestly, there is so much to my subconscious, im not really sure I can even observe consciously what is really going on with my mind and body. Perhaps this can be explored within dreams? This is something I aspire to study.

We are all the ocean, yet each individual drops of water. That is my metaphor for how I think it works because I cant seem to gather adequate verbiage.

The problem with Newtonian understanding of the world is that it only explains motion within a certain range of size. Once you get extremely small or large, the laws of physics start to change. In that, I think we will have to learn how to combine all these perspectives on physics eventually, and for now they should be given their own significance for what they are. I think the reason why light is both wave and particle is because of the nature of the invisible. Magnetic forces act on light and indeed are the producers of light to begin with. 

Think about northern lights. They cascade in large sheets of light. It is invisible radiation colliding with particles in the atmosphere, ionizing them and creating light. The excitement of energy seems to create light. Our brains use electrochemical mechanisms to operate. Thought however, still seems a mystery from the purist mechanistic point of view. Personally, I think our brains interact with our energy body electrically and produce chemical reactions within the brain that communicates with the rest of the body. 
For some reason, I am compelled to analyze the mechanics of planetary bodies to explain brain function. Looking at the macro often leads to deeper understanding of the micro.

This has been an eye opening discussion guys! Its really motivating and I am excited to start working on some of this study and research.

Cheers!  ::banana::

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

> All right, finished reading. So here it goes.*
> 
> First of all, I am surprised that you folks came up with telepathy theory that would be the key for the shared dream mechanism because, few months ago there was a discussion in korean LD forum about how SD(shared dream, from now on I'll abbreviate like this) works - they concluded that telepathy might be the mechanism for SDing. The Korean forum and dv did not communicate each other about this nor did I tell here about it.... Well, is this a pure coincidence?
>  I thought that SDing has nothing to do with brain wave - since its wave energy cannot go even further than few inches - therefore it must be about telepathy.*
> 
> Telepathy it seems, for mechanism behind Sding. For practicing a year I had learned that the 'bond' is also important to feel the connection from the desired partner.*
> In order to have telepathy to work, the sense of positive emotion; love is needed. (I've read this from telepathy article)



I agree with you 100% on the telepathy part, actually i was the one that started this telepathy topic experience by trying to tell some skeptic here that you need telepathy with SD in order to work properly, and it's two things that go well together. I also agree that distance doesn't defeat the purpose of SD.
The reason why i believe the 2 are good together is because i have some telepathy ability as well and have had SDs in most of my Dream journals. It is with someone i have a bond with for many years, and have been having recurring dreams of many years. Only recently i know we are SDing, and all those years i have not known about SD i could have been SDing with this person without knowing the knowledge behind it.

----------


## [email protected]

> Speaking of thought energy reminds me of some work done by Rupert Sheldrake. He has a theory of the universe in which thought energy produces what he calls "morphogenetic fields". Essentially, all the energy we emit and everything else for that matter goes somewhere. This is definitely not an exact reproduction of his theory but its the basic idea. 
> Everything is made of vibrating energy at some frequency. These loops of vibrating energy form and combine to infinite. This might be where the alternative universe math comes from. Anyways, energy of similar type tends to coalesce into large bodies of energy. This principle is easily observed in the material world i.e. planets, asteroid belts. It is a basic function of the two opposing forces of the universe.
> 
> This perspective seems slightly hindered by the idea of space, yet the level at which these energies operate are infinitesimal to begin with. Honestly, there is so much to my subconscious, im not really sure I can even observe consciously what is really going on with my mind and body. Perhaps this can be explored within dreams? This is something I aspire to study.
> 
> We are all the ocean, yet each individual drops of water. That is my metaphor for how I think it works because I cant seem to gather adequate verbiage.
> 
> The problem with Newtonian understanding of the world is that it only explains motion within a certain range of size. Once you get extremely small or large, the laws of physics start to change. In that, I think we will have to learn how to combine all these perspectives on physics eventually, and for now they should be given their own significance for what they are. I think the reason why light is both wave and particle is because of the nature of the invisible. Magnetic forces act on light and indeed are the producers of light to begin with. 
> 
> ...



Very interesting! I like your metaphor of ocean becoming the pool of spirits. I always thought like that! I really didn't research about thought-energy or something related (except thought form; Tulpa), but from my experience I think thought can emit great mysterious energy.
I think thought has some kind of gravity/ anti-gravity force. I think that's why telekinesis is real. I tried to move a tissue piece and it moved about 2 inches. (no trolling)
So basically I think it's like this: Earth has gravity itself based on its huge mass. So... thought has a mass too, but it's really reallyyy tiny. Although it's tiny, there is still a gravity force. again this would be also tiny. BUT there still is!
A thought combine with emotion emits the greatest power IMO. I was practicing a wall run (parkour), trying to step 2 times with my feet on a wall...but it never worked until I used the new mindset. (I could only touched the wall on the second step, never jumped)
So this new mindset - I believed that I was a professional for wall run, and I felt the happiness succeeding the 2 steps. I ran forward the wall with the belief....and I stepped 3 times on the wall! I jumped so high (maybe about 3m) I fell on the ground hurting myself lol






> I agree with you 100% on the telepathy part, actually i was the one that started this telepathy topic experience by trying to tell some skeptic here that you need telepathy with SD in order to work properly, and it's two things that go well together. I also agree that distance doesn't defeat the purpose of SD.
> The reason why i believe the 2 are good together is because i have some telepathy ability as well and have had SDs in most of my Dream journals. It is with someone i have a bond with for many years, and have been having recurring dreams of many years. Only recently i know we are SDing, and all those years i have not known about SD i could have been SDing with this person without knowing the knowledge behind it.



Yes I totally agree too. I think the basic key for SDing is the telepathy, as well as the bond. Lucidity might help us to find a specific person, but without the telepathic ability, it will not work properly....
I think just 'wanting' to have SD with this person makes the telepathy between us. Maybe just thought-energy itself, combined with emotion, makes the powerful connection between men, that doesn't take place in physical world, rather really...in the other realm!

----------


## [email protected]

Before continuing my story I found the doctor's name, Rupert Sheldrake, who stated that memory exists outside of our heads.  here's a link Articles and Papers - Scientific Papers - Morphic Resonance - Morphic Fields
I believe this is true - it still is a theory, but it's not even proven that where the memory is stored....so... it would be worth taking a look at it!

So.... I think I shared enough SD stories with you.

I have to share the telepathy experiment I had myself with my dream partner Katsuno since Zombiesarebad did something here similar to the one I did.
Katsuno was 5 hours away distance from me so I thought it would be great chance to send telepathy onto him. So one night (I think I did the experiment a month ago) when Katsuno was sleeping, I just lied on my bed, trying to get comfortable, thinking of a image I want to send. I simply 'decided' to send Katsuno telepathy. There's no word behind it... I really felt that I sent him the telepathy. First I imagined of playing a small snare drum. Then it reminded me of a rock song - the image turned into a full rock band playing an epic song, crowd going wild.
The next day I didn't tell Katsuno about my telepathy experiment. When Katsuno posted his DJ on IOSDP forum.... I was so shocked!
He wrote that he dreamed of being SpongeBob on a concert show with other characters as a band. Patrick made a cool drum sound and they played altogether. The crowd went wild. His DJ is right here Spongebob Squarepants, Trap House and Tricking - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

So was this a coincidence.......??
Hmm. but why bother. I believe this was not a coincidence. That makes me happy  :smiley: 

Then Katsuno took his turn to send me a telepathy. Once I dreamed of practicing a flip for some reason. That morning Katsuno told me that he sent me praciting parkour and flipping stuff.

For praciticing LD/SDing with Katsuno for a year, pming everyday to each other, we realized that coincidences are not coincidences. Coincidences happen because we're all connected.
On the first night when Katsuno and I became dream partners, I remember we both had stomachache during night and trouble sleeping. coincidence?
We went to our own friend's house for sleep over on the same day. Coincidence?
We both had had throat ache. Coincidence?
I remember one time at school in the morning just randomly thinking of dying my hair blond. Katsuno told me that he dreamed of meeting a impressive blond woman. Coincidence?
One time I dreamed of meeting Lord of the Ring characters. Katsuno told me that that last night he was talking about LOTR with his friends. Coincidence?
I think there's hundreds of coincidence we've had more but right now I can't think more...

Coincidence coincidence everywhere.  :Oh noes:  because everyone's connected!

----------


## Chimpertainment

There are no coincidences, we all chose to be here. Getting here was no accident. And that makes me very happy and confident about what we are sharing.  :smiley:

----------


## Caradon

I once had a dream that I was at party with a girl I worked with. And in this dream this girl started doing a strip dance for me.  The next day at work she came up to me and told me that she had had a dream that she was at a party with me, and that she had done strip dance for me. 

You can imagine my surprise. And I never even told her I had the same dream.

----------


## EbbTide000

Shadowofwind opened a thread called:

The presence of the past by Rupert Sheldrake

At the end of post #8 a pet parrot does something *higher* than mere shared dreaming. Here is post #8:





> 4nd post Rupert Sheldrake Telepathy 1 of 3 
> 
> (6:00 to 7:26)
> 
> But, after my book, *Dogs that know when their owners are coming home* was published I got hundreds, thousands of letters from pet owners all over the world with yet more cases. And the new phenomenon that came to my attention, I had not really focussed on it much when I was doing my earlier work, concerned *Parrots.*
> 
> It turns out Parrots can be extraordinarily telepathic with their owners.
> 
> Many people who have parrots, particularly African Greys, have found they seem to read their minds and pick-up their thoughts. And the most remarkable cases come in language using parrot, parrots that speak. With dogs and cate people say, *If only they could talk* , well a lot of parrots can and what happens then is truly remarkable.
> ...



Goto Shadowofwind's profile then click "find all started threads" it is 16 threads down at the momemt.

----------


## Baron Samedi

thanks everyone for contributing to this interesting debate/discussion.

----------


## shadowofwind

> thanks everyone for contributing to this interesting debate/discussion.



Thank you for starting it.

----------


## Sageous

> thanks everyone for contributing to this interesting debate/discussion.



And thank you, Nomad, for firing up the kiln in the first place!

----------


## Sivason

I have had a few LDs in the last few days that represent the type of dreams I have that make me think dream sharing is real. I figure I will post the links to my DJ so any one who cares can  peak at them. They do  not represent dream sharing with other dreamers, however. They involve interaction with entities in a dream realm. Maybe some one will find it interesting.

Dream Guide Lectures on Subject I Can not Understand! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

07/31/12 DG teachs how to pass certain energy barriers. - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views


08/01/12 DG teach on creating energy barriers. - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

08/01/12 Astral City, a Pleasant Walk with the Two Daughters. - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

----------


## Empedocles

> I have had a few LDs in the last few days that represent the type of dreams I have that make me think dream sharing is real. I figure I will post the links to my DJ so any one who cares can  peak at them. They do  not represent dream sharing with other dreamers, however. They involve interaction with entities in a dream realm. Maybe some one will find it interesting.



I've just read all four of them, and they are interesting. 

However, as you said, they do not represent dream sharing with other dreamers.

----------


## Chimpertainment

Gills, your blind determination is inspiring  :smiley:

----------


## Empedocles

> Gills, your blind determination is inspiring



Blind? It would be stupid to believe in something (in this case, shared dreaming) just because someone says it's true.

Wouldn't it?

----------


## Sageous

Is this the point where we re-raise the subject of religion, or blind faith, as it were?  You know:  where umbrage is taken by all who choose to simply believe?  

I can't remember.  Sometimes the view from my carousel horse is confusing, what with the number of times it's gone round and round and round...

----------


## Empedocles

I was simply pointing out that there is nothing "blind" in my determination. I simply refuse to "blindly" accept extraordinary claims.

----------


## Chimpertainment

It is your blindness to the truth. Not that shared dreaming is real, but that people will believe themselves over another person any day of the week. You keep beating this horse as if you have the power to control the perceptions of humanity. Its like someone flaying at a pinata that doesnt exist.

----------


## Sivason

Aw, now what was that famous L.A. riot quote? "Can't we all just get along."

I respect Gills' right to question. All of my experiences could be made up, or simply something I have miss understood, and I understand why anyone would think that. I know many members respect and trust me, but my word is just the word of a disembodied personality on the internet. God bless everyone, and their right to question. To Gills' credit he did not say he thought it sounded made up, he just restated that this type of dream is not really the same as a confirable "shared dream" and I think we all see it is not. What it is is interesting, and maybe something to make people question and wonder just what the heck Sivason's experience may actually be.



Oh, here is another weird dream  I just had. http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/siva...memeber-36769/ I can't decide what to make out of it, but it was so odd I journaled it and maay as well let you all take a look.

----------


## Sivason

> Is this the point where we re-raise the subject of religion, or blind faith, as it were?  You know:  where umbrage is taken by all who choose to simply believe?  
> 
> I can't remember.  Sometimes the view from my carousel horse is confusing, what with the number of times it's gone round and round and round...



I love it! Well done, my friend, well done.

----------


## Linkzelda

At least no one has declared that it's merely apophenia, now that....would be hilarious.  ::lol:: 

*runs*

----------


## melanieb

> Blind? It would be stupid to believe in something (in this case, shared dreaming) just because someone says it's true.
> 
> Wouldn't it?




Would you believe the concept if you experienced it for yourself?

I know that proof of the experience would prove difficult but if it did present itself to you...would you believe the experience?


I tend to be skeptical and it's not a bad thing to have a cautious view of a lot of unexplained things. Clearly people have had a lot of weird ideas about what was true over the last several thousand years.

I find that it's easier for me to accept the concept of shared dreaming than it is for me to accept some all-powerful deity worrying about every one of my actions while he sits quietly on a cloud allowing all the other bad shit in the world.

And yet sometimes I wonder...where did all this 'Universe' come from?

And maybe...just maybe...there's more to this Universe than meets the eye.

Blindly accepting the concept would be irresponsible. Evidence of all kinds of strange ocurrences appears all the time. What matters is you're openness to new ideas and finding out if the concept, no matter how far-fetched, could be real.

And on that note it's time for a midnight snack.    :smiley:

----------


## Sivason

> Blind? It would be stupid to believe in something (in this case, shared dreaming) just because someone says it's true.
> 
> Wouldn't it?



Funny story. I got in trouble during 7th grade science, because i questioned why I should believe that the Earth went around the sun, when to my point of view, it appears the other way. Boy, the teacher got so mad!!! I was not trying to cause trouble, but  thought (insert your quote here). So I found out how the observations worked and paid attention, until I had seen the evidence. The evidence was there and I moved on. However, by the point they were telling me (Sophmore college year) the way to create a stable double bond between carbons with both hydrogens lined up, was to place the carbon chain on a sheet of platinum and pour acid over it,,, well,,, I decided at that point to just go ahead and believe it, what the heck, why not.
I am just being funny, though the story is true.  This subject is not the same, because no scientific evidence is available. Maybe I just shared it because I am half asleep. If even one member grins, then it was worth it.  :smiley:

----------


## Empedocles

> This subject is not the same, because no scientific evidence is available.



 ::thumbup::

----------


## Empedocles

First you say:





> It is your blindness to *the truth*.



And then:





> Not that shared dreaming is real...



What is the truth then?

Or are you simply being incoherent?

----------


## Empedocles

> Would you believe the concept if you experienced it for yourself?



Yes I would, and I said that a million times. But I wouldn't want to shove my experience down someone's throat and present shared dreaming as a fact. 

I also wouldn't be mad for someone not believing me.





> I know that proof of the experience would prove difficult but if it did present itself to you...would you believe the experience?



It wouldn't prove difficult at all. The person I shared the dream with would be able to recall several dream events which I recall also.

Of course I would believe the experience, *because it is a mutual experience*.

That's why it is easily verifiable (if it indeed occurred).





> I tend to be skeptical and it's not a bad thing to have a cautious view of a lot of unexplained things. Clearly people have had a lot of weird ideas about what was true over the last several thousand years.



Very true.





> I find that it's easier for me to accept the concept of shared dreaming than it is for me to accept some all-powerful deity worrying about every one of my actions while he sits quietly on a cloud allowing all the other bad shit in the world.
> 
> And yet sometimes I wonder...where did all this 'Universe' come from?
> 
> And maybe...just maybe...there's more to this Universe than meets the eye.
> 
> Blindly accepting the concept would be irresponsible. Evidence of all kinds of strange ocurrences appears all the time. What matters is you're openness to new ideas and finding out if the concept, no matter how far-fetched, could be real.



Who said it couldn't be real? Huh? What?  ::shock:: 

I never, ever, not once, ruled out the possibility that shared dreaming might exist. Read my posts on this forum, I made this very clear.

----------


## hermine_hesse

> Yes I would, and I said that a million times. But I wouldn't want to shove my experience down someone's throat and present shared dreaming as a fact. 
> 
> I also wouldn't be mad for someone not believing me.



Ugh.  Are we _back_ to this part of the debate?  No one is shoving anything down anyone's throat.  No one is presenting shared dreaming as a fact.  From what I see, people are discussing and sharing experiences they see as valid.  

I could care less who believes in shared dreaming and who doesn't, but I do find it interesting to read other people's experiences and theories (whether the theories are pro or con).

...on another note
Sivason, 
Thanks for sharing that story, it did make me chuckle.  In Chemistry II, senior year in highschool, my friends and I preformed a few experiments involving acid and carbon as I recall, and they never turned out well!

----------


## melanieb

> Yes I would, and I said that a million times. But I wouldn't want to shove my experience down someone's throat and present shared dreaming as a fact. 
> I also wouldn't be mad for someone not believing me.
> It wouldn't prove difficult at all. The person I shared the dream with would be able to recall several dream events which I recall also.
> Of course I would believe the experience, *because it is a mutual experience*.
> That's why it is easily verifiable (if it indeed occurred).
> Very true.
> Who said it couldn't be real? Huh? What? 
> I never, ever, not once, ruled out the possibility that shared dreaming might exist. Read my posts on this forum, I made this very clear.




I wasn't trying to imply you hadn't said it a million times or that you might have suggested it couldn't be real. I haven't actually read every post and I was merely replying to one little point, and trying to do so with language that suggests openness to new ideas even if they seem...hard to sustain.

I have attempted it and I managed to create the agreed upon meeting place but on both occasions the other dreamer did not show up.   :Thinking: 





To add in...chemistry was one of my favorite classes. I can recall a few weird events as well, some involving the room filling with smoke.

Of course, it didn't quite compare to my experiences working with acids and gold-cyanide for the manufacture of circuit boards but still a lot of fun.   :smiley:

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Gills is reminding me of Jakob right now, his wordings are exact.  ::laughhard::  Oh laaawd! XD
BTW nice try tricking me ;P Gills IS jakob so there is no point in responding back to this troll. So i DO know you  :Shades wink: 





> I never, ever, not once, ruled out the possibility that shared dreaming might exist. Read my posts on this forum, I made this very clear.

----------


## Sivason

Calm everyone. Poor Gills was not trolling. Just made a polite comment on my post. I am sure if you all look back few posts, you will see this. He then got accussed of trolling, and every comment he makes gets more people thinking he is. Gills has been very polite. Lets drop this thread, until someone has a new thought or observation?

----------


## Sageous

Here is what'll hopefully be a slightly different direction for our debate:

My main problem with shared-dreaming, I think, is the question of how physically it might work ... how are we transmitting our presence from dreamer to dreamer?

Well, I don't have an answer, of course, but I stumbled upon the following post by Chimpertainment, and I felt it might be worth posting.  So here it is, in it's entirety:





> So, Ive been thinking. If dreaming and psychic connection happens on magnetically based modes of communication, could the natural magnetic fields of the Earth be used in the dream state?
> 
> Check this out:
> 
> ScienceCasts: Hidden Magnetic Portals Around Earth - YouTube
> 
> Part 2: Frequency - PEMF - PEMF Therapy - PEMFT - PEMF Device Reviews
> 
> The Earth has a lattice structure of invisible magnetic strings. They all connect is specific points on the Earth, in the atmosphere and in space. Ive seen a lot of people use techniques like teleportation, or time travel using portals. I recall, when I was more experienced in dreams, that I could use the same portal repeatedly. 
> ...



I hope Chimpertainment will forgive my audacity of poaching his post (and I will delete it if you object), but I think his idea fits right in here, and is worth discussion:

*Though the Earth's magnetosphere is incredibly weak on a micro-basis, perhaps its presence can indeed provide a navigable matrix for dream-sharing thought energy to traverse (in intended directions, no less).  

In a sense, nature may have provided us with a world wide web for dream-sharing!*

This is just a thought, and is shamelessly unoriginal, but I'm hoping it'll re-stir some interest in the actual debate.  If not, then just ignore me!

----------


## EbbTide000

> LOL, you are exactly right! This thread began as a serious and logical shared dreaming experiment, and then it turned into a simple "guess the word I'm thinking of" game. 
> 
> What is really funny, is that during this one month period of trying to "retrieve" the password, we will have so many guesses, that the chances are actually moderately high of someone simply *guessing* the right password. 
> 
> Then we will have this person proclaim himself a shared dreamer.



 Gills

Please look at this





> Paragraph 25
> 
> The odds against two complete strangers on the same night, geologically separated by 500 miles, dreaming of being on a boat cutting open a fish and having the face of the fish turning into a bloody man's face are astronomical, and that both dreamers specifically mentioned flounder seems to argue against any notion that the correspondences are a chance occurrence.
> 
> Although not as striking in matching details, another female dreamer saw an:
> 
> "animal face and an animal with an open wound that I wamted to sew up or heal before too much was lost. "
> 
> Paragraph 26 next



It is post #62 on this thread:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/what-y...ml#post1927470

----------


## shadowofwind

The earth's magnetic field can move charged particles like electrons, but the field itself won't transfer information between people.  It would be like using the sound of the wind in trees to communicate.  You can make sound, such as with your voice, but the background noise doesn't help, it's just something extra to be separated from the noise you want to hear.  Using electromagnetics to communicate amounts to sending light or radio waves from your brain.

The biggest problem with that, or with using charged particles, is extracting the desired information.  It's exactly like trying to see your reflection in a shag carpet, except much harder because the mixing is much greater and the signal is much weaker.  This difficulty eliminates the possibility all by itself, as I see it, but here are a couple of other things that don't fit.  Electromagnetics effects generally decline in strength in proportion to square of distance.  If you could share thought with someone 2000 miles away, you would be blinded by the thought of someone ten feet from you, because the signal would be a trillion times stronger.  Yet it seems that distance makes little difference, except insofar as it influences where you put your attention.  Also, some people report precognitive effects when sharing thought, and electromagnetics doesn't work for that.

Changing the subject slightly.  Some people offer theoretical reasons scientists should be studying shared dreaming.  I offered reasons they don't.  As a result of this thread, I made another attempt to reach out to researchers on this topic.  I got a couple of friendly responses, but no interest in investigation.  And the reasons forthe lack of collaboration seem to be pretty much what I described.

Disbelieving in shared dreaming requires believing that all people who describe such experiences are lying, deluded, or insane.  And while some experiences can be explained as random coincidences or attributed to other fallacies, some can only be plausibly dismissed as lying or outright insanity.  Of course people are free to believe wha they want, and certainly a high portion of believers are quite a bit less than objective.  But belief and disbelief is not a symmetrical situation in this sense:  believers are not dismissing the personal experience of unbelievers as unreal, but are doing that in relation to some believers.  Of course some of those people are going to take offense at being called liars or similar.  I agree that the fact that so many believers are liars seems to suggest that they all might be.  But there are other reasons for this correlation.  For almost any notable personal skill or ability, more people say they can do it than actually can do it, even for thugs that are much more easily provable like athletic or artistic accomplishment.  And the absence of doubt, confidence in one's ability, is often key to those who can do it.  That lack of doubt often amounts to a lack of objectivity though.

I had what seemed to be a shared dream with someone from this site Thursday night, but I've been too busy to post.  That person does not think of shared dreaming as being a matter of two people mentally traveling to the same location.  They intentionally tried to reach me, not necessarily at that same time.  They appeared as a young, dark haired man.  The things I said had to do with motive/economics/destiny.  I don't consider this anecdote to be evidence of shared dreaming, I'm just posting it because past experience suggests it would have been a real person, and I haven't yet connected it with anyone.

----------


## Chimpertainment

> Here is what'll hopefully be a slightly different direction for our debate:
> 
> My main problem with shared-dreaming, I think, is the question of how physically it might work ... how are we transmitting our presence from dreamer to dreamer?



This has been my big question as well. Thank you Sageous, for tempering my outburst.  :smiley: 
Quantum physics is the closest thing I can think of that would reasonably provide at least a foundation for the kind of communication we are talking about. At the sub atomic level, which i think dreams exist, particles can disappear and reappear somewhere very far away seemingly without regard to time or space. Yet, all things we know of in science operates upon this structure of electricity and magnetism. This is why I wondered about the magnetic structure of the earth. I am sure it is involved in our brains operations regardless but consciously navigating that energy seems far-fetched.
Perhaps when we discover more about dark matter and dark energy, we can begin to look at things on a smaller level. Originally it was thought these forces could not have any effect on matter; however, now they are saying it does have an effect, but they are not sure how much. 





> What is the truth then?
> 
> Or are you simply being incoherent?



That reminds me of Pilate asking Jesus the same question. What is truth? I am certainly not advocating that we assume shared dreaming is real because someone says as much. What I like to avoid is automatically dismissing those same people because their experiences seem ridiculous. Many times, the experience of a person is valid while their interpretation of the experience is in question. 
What I see you doing Gills, is intentionally seeking out shared dreaming discussions throughout this forum and attempting to throw it off track or dissolve it completely into tirades about how we can know what we know. 
Perhaps you are just confused and you are angry that everyone is not as confused as you. I say this because I know the feeling. Are people really missing something when they believe something that is not scientifically verifiable? Why shouldn't they be allowed to enjoy their experience and explore its individual veracity? All I see you doing is immediately dismissing someone because their experience fits into the "unprovable" category. 
Of course, I have already said this in other ways before, I just feel the need to defend this thread again because of your determined blind faith in proof.
If we never imagine what is possible, we will never discover the impossible. And as soon as you place burden of proof on the imagination, you have lost your humanity.





> The earth's magnetic field can move charged particles like electrons, but the field itself won't transfer information between people. It would be like using the sound of the wind in trees to communicate. You can make sound, such as with your voice, but the background noise doesn't help, it's just something extra to be separated from the noise you want to hear. Using electromagnetics to communicate amounts to sending light or radio waves from your brain.



Ok, cool. So, what if our brains use something else that reacts with charged particles but uses something different? I am thinking about dark matter/energy. To continue with your metaphor, maybe a dream is like a bubble of dark matter/energy which could sail along the magnetic wind metaphorically speaking. The magnetic fields would act like jet streams or wormholes for these ultra-sensitive particles?
This is completely theoretical but it sounds interesting...

----------


## dutchraptor

> That reminds me of Pilate asking Jesus the same question. What is truth? I am certainly not advocating that we assume shared dreaming is real because someone says as much. What I like to avoid is automatically dismissing those same people because their experiences seem ridiculous. Many times, the experience of a person is valid while their interpretation of the experience is in question. 
> What I see you doing Gills, is intentionally seeking out shared dreaming discussions throughout this forum and attempting to throw it off track or dissolve it completely into tirades about how we can know what we know. 
> Perhaps you are just confused and you are angry that everyone is not as confused as you. I say this because I know the feeling. Are people really missing something when they believe something that is not scientifically verifiable? Why shouldn't they be allowed to enjoy their experience and explore its individual veracity? All I see you doing is immediately dismissing someone because their experience fits into the "unprovable" category. 
> Of course, I have already said this in other ways before, I just feel the need to defend this thread again because of your determined blind faith in proof.
> If we never imagine what is possible, we will never discover the impossible. And as soon as you place burden of proof on the imagination, you have lost your humanity.



Well said, I would like to add that in that sense theoretical physics is very alike. They are making up theories based on theories based on visual evidence. The fact that they can make up such theories which would seem so far fetched. To even start thinking about multi-dimensions, wormholes, special relativity and super string theories. And yet people take these things as fact even though they are far from it. 
Now I am not stating that these theories aren't accurate or false, they are infact probably largely correct but the fact that scientists like Heim believed that sufficient electro magnetism could create an anti-gravity effect and that hawkings discusses that there could be more than 10 to the power of 500 different possible unniverses definetely puts dream sharing back into the realms of science. 
I kinda forgot the origanal intent on this post..hmmm. I will post more once my head is straight again.

----------


## DreiHundert

Gills covers it nicely.
I don't think I have time to jump into this 12 page debate completely, so I'll just explain my views. (But then again, I have a tendency to get sucked into things)

I don't believe shared dreaming is real, and I don't think that Dreamviews presents sufficient evidence to lead me to believe that it is real. Therefore I continue to believe that it is not real. 

You may ask: Why do you choose to "Believe that it is NOT real", rather than simply "Not believe that it IS real". (Subtle differences here). 

When I say that I don't believe that it IS real, I am basically saying: "I have not seen convincing evidence of its existence, but it seems possible, and I will not discount the possibility of it actually being real".  For example.  I don't believe that there is life on mars.  I don't think that the new rover is going to find anything, but I don't discount that it actually could, and I wouldn't be surprised if it DID.

When I say that I do believe that it is NOT real, I am basically saying: "I have not seen convincing evidence of its existence, and it seems impossible, so I discount the possibility of it actually being real." This is my stand on Dream Sharing. When I think about how it would work, I cannot find an explanation that is within the realm of science. And I've not noticed many things that can circumvent the laws of physics. 

So, that being said... if Dream Sharing was proven to be true, I would be BLOWN AWAY. Totally surprised that it was actually true, because all of my logic and research had suggested otherwise.

EDIT:
Why is "No, it's impossible" italicized in the poll? There appears to be some sort of emphasis that is used when saying those words. A kind of emphasis that does not exist with the other choices. Such a subtle thing to notice, lol. But it can't just be for the hell of it... Is this based upon your idealistic depiction of someone who does not believe in shared dreaming? That they are more emphasized than the other folks? Lol.

----------


## dutchraptor

> Gills covers it nicely.
> I don't think I have time to jump into this 12 page debate completely, so I'll just explain my views. (But then again, I have a tendency to get sucked into things)
> 
> I don't believe shared dreaming is real, and I don't think that Dreamviews presents sufficient evidence to lead me to believe that it is real. Therefore I continue to believe that it is not real. 
> 
> You may ask: Why do you choose to "Believe that it is NOT real", rather than simply "Not believe that it IS real". (Subtle differences here). 
> 
> When I say that I don't believe that it IS real, I am basically saying: "I have not seen convincing evidence of its existence, but it seems possible, and I will not discount the possibility of it actually being real".  For example.  I don't believe that there is life on mars.  I don't think that the new rover is going to find anything, but I don't discount that it actually could, and I wouldn't be surprised if it DID.
> 
> ...



This is more of a personal question, would you not find that having this philosophy stops you from truly experiencing life?
You are limiting your experiences, you should focus on using things in life if they work and note how they work. What if in a hypotetical situation you happened to have a shared dream but dismissed because of your beliefs instead of profiting and learning how to develop the skill.
What if people didn't know how dreams worked or if they really existed. Would you believe that they are not real because no one could explain them or would you rather leave that oportunity open so you could gain from them if they ever happened to you.

----------


## melanieb

> This is more of a personal question, would you not find that having this philosophy stops you from truly experiencing life?



How would this prevent someone from enjoying/experiencing life?

----------


## dutchraptor

> How would this prevent someone from enjoying/experiencing life?



Well he states that he is more inclined to dismiss dream sharing then be at a midpoint between believing and not believing. He is assuming that because of lack of evidence and the occult nature of dream sharing that it is most likely impossible. But what if did happen to have a shared dream? or something similar,
I personally like to believe that it is neither true or fals to me currently, once I experience or happen to come across it I will try reproduce the effect, without the thought of how it works or why. 
Imagine if I happen to be able to use it. I just find that dismissing an idea that is not completely outrageous is not a wise thing to do because for all you know one day something like this *could* happen to you.

----------


## melanieb

^^ I doubt that would keep anyone from experiencing life or enjoying life to its fullest.

We all have ideas that we include or dismiss until we have direct observation that influences our perceptions.

I have never experienced a shared dream but I allow for the possibility. Still, it seems unlikely I wouldn't be able to experience life if I was steadfastly against the idea of shared-dreaming or other subjective experiences.

----------


## Empedocles

> That reminds me of Pilate asking Jesus the same question. What is truth? I am certainly not advocating that we assume shared dreaming is real because someone says as much.



When alleged shared dreamers want people *not* to demand any evidence, then this is irrational and hypocritical. As simple as that.

And it's funny that many of these same alleged shared dreamers demand proof from theists, to scientifically prove God.

_Please_ let's not get into this again. I am (literally) tired of typing the same things over and over.





> What I like to avoid is automatically dismissing those same people because their experiences seem ridiculous. Many times, the experience of a person is valid while their interpretation of the experience is in question. 
> What I see you doing Gills, is intentionally seeking out shared dreaming discussions throughout this forum and attempting to throw it off track or dissolve it completely into tirades about how we can know what we know. 
> Perhaps you are just confused and you are angry that everyone is not as confused as you. I say this because I know the feeling. Are people really missing something when they believe something that is not scientifically verifiable? Why shouldn't they be allowed to enjoy their experience and explore its individual veracity? All I see you doing is immediately dismissing someone because their experience fits into the "unprovable" category.



This is complete nonsense. I only get pissed off when 1.) someone tries to present shared dreaming as a fact, and 2.) someone gets mad at a skeptic for demanding evidence for shared dreaming.





> Of course, I have already said this in other ways before, I just feel the need to defend this thread again because of your determined blind faith in proof.
> If we never imagine what is possible, we will never discover the impossible. And as soon as you place burden of proof on the imagination, you have lost your humanity.



I have the ability to breathe underwater. Do you believe me? If not, why not?

----------


## Empedocles

> Gills
> 
> Please look at this
> 
> Paragraph 25
> 
> The odds against two complete strangers on the same night, geologically separated by 500 miles, dreaming of being on a boat cutting open a fish and having the face of the fish turning into a bloody man's face are astronomical, and that both dreamers specifically mentioned flounder seems to argue against any notion that the correspondences are a chance occurrence.
> 
> It is post #62 on this thread:
> ...



My thoughts on this are very simple. I see no evidence that this event occurred, because it hasn't been done in a controlled study where the two dreamers are isolated and separately questioned by individuals overseeing the experiment. I'll be short and to the point: Unless I see a controlled study in which one dreamer can transfer a simple password to the other dreamer, I will refuse to believe in shared dreaming.

On another note, please don't derail this thread. If you want to discuss shared dreaming, go here: http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/shared...debate-120211/

Let's keep this one on topic please.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

Here's some good info on shared dreaming, instead of debating  :smiley:  Shared Dreaming - Real life Inception, page 1
http://dreamdoze.com/can-people-share-dreams/

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## Empedocles

> Real quick.
> 
> No password involved, but a decent case study on the subject: - Google Scholar
> 
> You'll have to hit up a library or database if you want to read it for "free."



As there is no password involved, the study is unreliable and essentially worthless. All we have is the two individuals telling stories that match one another. How does this show evidence of shared dreaming?

Absolutely no evidence of anything. Even I could do much better, with me and my wife memorizing several made-up dreams in detail, and then going into a study.

And again, please keep the thread on-topic. For shared dreaming debates, use this: http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/shared...debate-120211/

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

This is also interesting, i love coast 2 coast stuffC2CAM - Criminal Profiling & Active Dreaming - Coast To Coast AM - YouTube it also covers about shared dreaming on the later half. 
I would skip to 1:00hrs to listen to interesting topics as well for criminal profiling. Active dreaming is 17 mins after 1:00hrs.

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## EbbTide000

WOW hathor28





> This is also interesting i love coast 2 coast stuffC2CAM - Criminal Profiling & Active Dreaming - Coast To Coast AM - YouTube *it also covers about shared dreaming* on the later half. 
> 
> I would skip to 1:00hrs to listen to interesting topics as well for criminal profiling.



Thank you, I will soon open a thread to transcribe the stuff I like from the Robert Moss interview.

Thanx a million hathor28.

----------


## Sageous

> The earth's magnetic field can move charged particles like electrons, but the field itself won't transfer information between people.  It would be like using the sound of the wind in trees to communicate.  You can make sound, such as with your voice, but the background noise doesn't help, it's just something extra to be separated from the noise you want to hear.  Using electromagnetics to communicate amounts to sending light or radio waves from your brain.
> 
> The biggest problem with that, or with using charged particles, is extracting the desired information.  It's exactly like trying to see your reflection in a shag carpet, except much harder because the mixing is much greater and the signal is much weaker.  This difficulty eliminates the possibility all by itself, as I see it, but here are a couple of other things that don't fit.  Electromagnetics effects generally decline in strength in proportion to square of distance.  If you could share thought with someone 2000 miles away, you would be blinded by the thought of someone ten feet from you, because the signal would be a trillion times stronger.  Yet it seems that distance makes little difference, except insofar as it influences where you put your attention.  Also, some people report precognitive effects when sharing thought, and electromagnetics doesn't work for that.



As usual, Shadowofwind, your extensive knowledge is dowsing yet another cool theory with waves of pesky facts!   :smiley:  

In spite of that, I'd like to add a metaphor to your description and Chimpertainment's above response to you, just to  see what you think:

Instead of assuming that thought-energy is electromagnetic in nature, what if we assumed it was composed of something else, perhaps a form of energy that exists outside of our current definitions, and one that cannot join with electromagnetic current but can be influenced by it?  

Then, instead of using the magnetosphere as a_ conductor_ of thought-energy, what if you considered it a great moving ocean _of_ electromagnetic energy -- a potential _purveyor_ of thought-energy, blowing our thoughts around like the wind moves leaves?  And what if you considered that we could "rig" our conscious thought-forms like sails that could be spread before the "wind" of that ocean and moved, under our control, from place to place and person to person?  

In fewer words, perhaps the thought-energy created by our conscious minds in our dreams (and waking life) is a _separate_ sort of energy than electromagnetic, and therefore can be pushed around by it, just as the wind moves sailboats.  So we wouldn't be trying to make sense of the wind as it blows through the trees, we'd be riding it.

This seems a simple, if remarkably farfetched solution to using the magnetosphere for transfer of thoughts and dream-sharing.  But it would bypass your amplification problem, I think.  Also, it would allow for transfer of thoughts anywhere, at near light speed.  Who knows? the precognitive stuff might even be a bi-product of the interaction!

Of course, navigation, exchange of information (aka changing thought energy into something your dream-sharing partner can understand), and the recipient actually paying attention, which still would amount to dipping your tongue in the ocean and tasting one particular drop, are still very difficult hurdles to targeted dream-sharing.

Any thoughts?

----------


## BgRdDragon

If I believed In shared dreaming then I would say that It most likely has to do with quantum physics, or possibly fancy extra-dimensional stuff..
We know for a fact that particles can be used to carry and calculate at least very basic information (Quantum computing anyone?), along with other brain phenomena our brains may be able to sense and or use a method of picking up on information from other people, perhaps electrons with quantum entanglement.
OR it may use some type of radiation, specially if you take into account Emoto's research on thought and water crystals, iff thoughts/ideas can manipulate water there's no reason they cant change other things

----------


## Sivason

> I have the ability to breathe underwater. Do you believe me? If not, why not?



*I believe you Gills!* Why would I doubt you? While I have never really done this, I have witnessed people doing this first hand. In fact, I witnessed no less than 2 dozen people doing this in Hawaii. They will actually teach you how to do it, for as little as $200-

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## dutchraptor

> ^^ I doubt that would keep anyone from experiencing life or enjoying life to its fullest.
> 
> We all have ideas that we include or dismiss until we have direct observation that influences our perceptions.
> 
> I have never experienced a shared dream but I allow for the possibility. Still, it seems unlikely I wouldn't be able to experience life if I was steadfastly against the idea of shared-dreaming or other subjective experiences.



Well you are taking what I am saying as if it's a either enjoy or don't situation. I am just saying that by leaving open possibilities one day he might be able to benefit from, it doesn't have to be a life changing, it can be as small as making him more calm throughout the day, maybe. Obviously if you leaves more doors open you'll have more paths to choose.

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## dutchraptor

I ain't great evidence, but these guys are well known and they have a bit of a laugh but this seems more than just a similarity. I'm not gonna convince anyone anyways (still have to convince myself) but I thought it was cool none the less.

----------


## Chimpertainment

> When alleged shared dreamers want people not to demand any evidence, then this is irrational and hypocritical. As simple as that.
> 
> And it's funny that many of these same alleged shared dreamers demand proof from theists, to scientifically prove God.
> 
> Please let's not get into this again. I am (literally) tired of typing the same things over and over.



Seeing that you have not seen anything that satisfies you in the way of evidence; why do you continue to demand for it? Instead, reminding people repeatedly how their experience does not satisfy your standard. This stifles any conversation about what those experiences were, or how they came to be, or for what purpose they may exist.

Is it not good to discuss how something might occur? Let us suspend judgment for just a while, _as a true skeptic does_, while some facts are presented. The world is full of uncertainty and reality is based upon principles of probability.

There is no proof of shared dreaming anywhere in your mind, and that's fine to me..I just want people to be able to talk about their experiences a while before being slapped and told its all fake. 







> Then, instead of using the magnetosphere as a conductor of thought-energy, what if you considered it a great moving ocean of electromagnetic energy -- a potential purveyor of thought-energy, blowing our thoughts around like the wind moves leaves? And what if you considered that we could "rig" our conscious thought-forms like sails that could be spread before the "wind" of that ocean and moved, under our control, from place to place and person to person?...This seems a simple, if remarkably farfetched solution to using the magnetosphere for transfer of thoughts and dream-sharing. But it would bypass your amplification problem, I think. Also, it would allow for transfer of thoughts anywhere, at near light speed. Who knows? the precognitive stuff might even be a bi-product of the interaction!



Some good stuff! I was just watching a youtube video with Brian Greene on quantum mechanics and some of the possibilities presented are very similar to this picture. Not only quantum entanglement, but also the discovery that information can travel in large quantities, and yet very small sizes. 

According to quantum theory, observation is key. Which strikes me as deeply profound, and also definitely impacting in terms of dreams. Everything we place attention to and place intention upon is being effected. It makes me wonder who/what counts as an observer? Is everything experiencing everything else subjectively in total synchronicity?
 :Eek: 

I like that idea about pre-cog. For some reason, I think it would be something like a result of resonance. Like a wave bouncing off a wall, except the wall would be the space/time continuum....



In other news: *If* the information *is* transferred, how would the mind identify it in any form? Some kind of familiarity would need to be established with corresponding sensory data. Would one use sound, sight, smell, touch, taste? Could one use any of these sensory "triggers" to associate with another person? Or perhaps a consecutive code of sensory input. For example: blue apple-taste of cinnamon-core of red light. It would be like a password in metaphorical terms. Could one use the existing archetypal imagery to create unique identifiers? Or maybe we already have them... oooo... ::shock::

----------


## Empedocles

> Again, we have to wait and see what the results are.  The experiment isn't complete yet.  Please feel free to contribute.



I wasn't referring to your experiment. My post had nothing to do with this particular thread.

I was replying to debrajane and Mzzkc.

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

::laughtillhurts::

----------


## Sageous

> Seeing that you have not seen anything that satisfies you in the way of evidence; why do you continue to demand for it? Instead, reminding people repeatedly how their experience does not satisfy your standard. This stifles any conversation about what those experiences were, or how they came to be, or for what purpose they may exist.
> 
> Is it not good to discuss how something might occur? Let us suspend judgment for just a while, _as a true skeptic does_, while some facts are presented. The world is full of uncertainty and reality is based upon principles of probability.
> 
> There is no proof of shared dreaming anywhere in your mind, and that's fine to me..I just want people to be able to talk about their experiences a while before being slapped and told its all fake.



Nicely said!  

What do you think, Gills (_and_ Hathor, Dutchraptor, Dreihundert, etc)?  Maybe we could all step off the "Is Not!" "Is Too!" carousel and enjoy a debate about potentials, possibilities, explanations, and, yes, possible fantasies that would accompany shared-dreaming _if it were to exist_?  To me that is much more fun and enlightening than the endless rounds of accusations, insults, and umbrage into which so many of us lock ourselves.  I know I'm not a moderator and certainly have no place to make this request, but it would be real nice to finally have a conversation about shared dreaming without seeing it derailed every five posts by the usual empty nonsense ... maybe we could avoid the "old and ridiculous," label Mzzkc aptly applied above, and seek the new and interesting? Wouldn't that make the debate more true to the OP as well?

_That said, back to the excellent stuff Chimpertainment brought up:_





> Some good stuff! I was just watching a youtube video with Brian Greene on quantum mechanics and some of the possibilities presented are very similar to this picture. Not only quantum entanglement, but also the discovery that information can travel in large quantities, and yet very small sizes. According to quantum theory,* observation is key*. Which strikes me as deeply profound, and also definitely impacting in terms of dreams. *Everything we place attention to and place intention upon is being effected*. It makes me wonder who/what counts as an observer? Is everything experiencing everything else subjectively in total synchronicity?



I think the real profundity here, in regard to shared-dreaming anyway, comes with _paying attention_.  Yes, the question of observation defining reality itself is a deep one, and does matter, but I think in this thread's context it is paying attention that matters.  

Why? It might sound like another way of saying "observation," I suppose, but I think "paying attention" might mean something more, because when you _observe_ a thing you are choosing what to see, and judgments/measurements/qualifications/etc are made empirically based on almost prefabricated focus.  But _attention_ is more a state of opening up your self-awareness to your surroundings, allowing it to absorb and interpret not just the things you expect, but the _surprises as well_.  In the case of shared-dreaming, one must be attentive to the oddest of oddities, and tiniest of ripples, lest you miss a visit from a fellow dreamer.  I could go on for another thousand words about this, but I think you get the idea: It isn't just the observation, it is the flexibility and openness of the observer (and observee, I suppose) that is critical in shared-dreaming.





> I like that idea about pre-cog. For some reason, I think it would be something like a result of resonance. Like a wave bouncing off a wall, except the wall would be the space/time continuum....



My thoughts exactly!  Once again you clarified my clumsy blather quite nicely; thanks!






> In other news: *If* the information *is* transferred, how would the mind identify it in any form? Some kind of familiarity would need to be established with corresponding sensory data. Would one use sound, sight, smell, touch, taste? Could one use any of these sensory "triggers" to associate with another person? Or perhaps a consecutive code of sensory input. For example: blue apple-taste of cinnamon-core of red light. It would be like a password in metaphorical terms. Could one use the existing archetypal imagery to create unique identifiers? Or maybe we already have them... oooo...



This I have always thought is the true difficulty of shared-dreaming!  I have a feeling that archetypical imagery is universal enough that metaphor could easily be produced to ease communication, but how do we _know_ that the image we're presenting to our shared-dreaming partner is perceived as planned?  I might send you an image of, say, an apple, but you might perceive that image as, say, a fire hydrant.  Our thoughts, perceptions, expectations are so different, even with common archetypes in hand, that it seems to me almost impossible to think of a message, convert it into thought energy, send that thought energy across the aether to our target dreamer, and then have them spot and receive that thought, _and then_ not only convert it to an image but an image that even remotely resembles what was originally sent.

Now, this might sound terribly negative and insurmountable, but if you think about it, we already sort of do this with language in waking life.  Indeed, by typing this post I'm doing a thing that would not only have been utterly unimaginable 2 centuries ago, but would have been laughed off as fantasy, magic, or blind faith.  Yet here I am.  Perhaps this method of transferring thought does already exist -- we simply haven't noticed it yet.  Perhaps more attention needs to be paid?

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Gills


I wasn't referring to your experiment. My post had nothing to do with this particular thread.

I was replying to debrajane and Mzzkc.



No offense intended, no offense taken.  Our posts got a little jumbled._

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

> Nicely said!  
> 
> What do you think, Gills (_and_ Hathor, Dutchraptor, Dreihundert, etc)?  Maybe we could all step off the "Is Not!" "Is Too!" carousel and enjoy a debate about potentials, possibilities, explanations, and, yes, possible fantasies that would accompany shared-dreaming _if it were to exist_?  To me that is much more fun and enlightening than the endless rounds of accusations, insults, and umbrage into which so many of us lock ourselves.  I know I'm not a moderator and certainly have no place to make this request, but it would be real nice to finally have a conversation about shared dreaming without seeing it derailed every five posts by the usual empty nonsense ... maybe we could avoid the "old and ridiculous," label 
> I think the real profundity here, in regard to shared-dreaming anyway, comes with _paying attention_.  Yes, the question of observation defining reality itself is a deep one, and does matter, but I think in this thread's context it is paying attention that matters.  
> 
> Why? It might sound like another way of saying "observation," I suppose, but I think "paying attention" might mean something more, because when you _observe_ a thing you are choosing what to see, and judgments/measurements/qualifications/etc are made empirically based on almost prefabricated focus.  But _attention_ is more a state of opening up your self-awareness to your surroundings, allowing it to absorb and interpret not just the things you expect, but the _surprises as well_.  In the case of shared-dreaming, one must be attentive to the oddest of oddities, and tiniest of ripples, lest you miss a visit from a fellow dreamer.  I could go on for another thousand words about this, but I think you get the idea: It isn't just the observation, it is the flexibility and openness of the observer (and observee, I suppose) that is critical in shared-dreaming.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sorry, i am not debating here, nor do i want to when someone is continuing to confuse any thread that is connected to shared dreaming.
Whenever something is started good, like a good debate or experiment, i see it keeps getting interrupted so i stopped debating and started giving information like i did at my last youtube post about coast2coast etc. I think i have to(or someone) has to start a thread about "informational" sites regarding shared dreaming. 
Yes i am observing the debate but, to me it's not very welcoming to me because of certain confusions here. I am not saying stuff like "Is too"/"Is not", if i do say this, it's actually not based on the debate itself but actually correcting or making someone remember what they last said and if it made any sense, or it has been repeated many times.
That's all i can say.

----------


## EbbTide000

I don't know how to debate.

I would like to ... just discus what many have done over the last hundred years to further our understanding of psi dreaming.

Most of my threads are transcriptions of YouTubes from scientists and folk deeply into dreaming. It's wonderful that I can watch lectures and interviews for free then publish ALL of it on a forum without getting sued. 

I can't do that with books. 

Youtube only began in February 2005. I came on line on March 2008.

Look at my story:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/debraj...7/#post1924504

(196.views)

That is what brought me on line on 1-March-2008. I didn't know anyone online and I had no one to tell my dream to except someone in Melbourne who wasn't interested anyway. 

But *some how* I shared dreamed with a bunch of people 12,000 miles away whom I didn't know and still don't know.

I want to do psi dreaming. I wish some one would offer a very simple thingy. Simple enough for a 6 year old infant to join in (because one of me is a 6-8 year old boy).

Or

Do my share dream (psi dream) thingy: 

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/dream-...loaded-123389/

There is 8 posts in the above thread. 

But I enthusiastically started my dream game here on the 25-February-2011. I thought lots of people were playing privately (not posting) so I kept it up a long, long time (there is 120 posts, mostly mine) Below is that thread:

Here is the last page (page 5)

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/synchr...40/index5.html

* What are your thoughts on my share dreaming/psi game?*

----------


## Empedocles

> Nicely said!  
> 
> What do you think, Gills (_and_ Hathor, Dutchraptor, Dreihundert, etc)?  Maybe we could all step off the "Is Not!" "Is Too!" carousel and enjoy a debate about potentials, possibilities, explanations, and, yes, possible fantasies that would accompany shared-dreaming _if it were to exist_?



That is one of the more intelligent comments on this thread, and I thank you for it. Debating how dream sharing could work *if it were to exist* is completel rational, and I have no problems with it.

----------


## DreiHundert

> This is more of a personal question, would you not find that having this philosophy stops you from truly experiencing life?
> You are limiting your experiences, you should focus on using things in life if they work and note how they work. What if in a hypotetical situation you happened to have a shared dream but dismissed because of your beliefs instead of profiting and learning how to develop the skill.
> What if people didn't know how dreams worked or if they really existed. Would you believe that they are not real because no one could explain them or would you rather leave that oportunity open so you could gain from them if they ever happened to you.



In your hypothetical examples, I would have different facts and therefore form different opinions. But I would use the same logic to arrive at those opinions.
For instance. If I experienced Shared Dreaming, (By experienced I mean, know for a fact I had the same dream as someone else and not just had a hunch), then I would believe in them. But I have not, so I do not, and the hypothetical you presented does not change that fact. 

If people didn't know how dreams worked or if they even existed, and I had never had a dream, then I would indeed believe they are not real because the majority of the population accepts the fact that dreaming is not real.

IN the current, non-hypothetical world, most people are aware that it is possible to have dreams, and there are many reports of dream experiences. Shared Dreaming, however, is only believed in by a small number of people. Most people do not believe in shared dreaming, and by using logic to hypothesize about its existence, considering all that I know about science... I have determined that it is more likely to be impossible than it is to be possible. So personally, I believe that it's not possible.

In the real, non-hypothetical world, I do not believe in shared dreaming. What I would believe in a hypothetical scenario is trivial information, because it is all hypothetical. 

I also notice that you are under the impression that I have "Closed the window of opportunity" by believing that it is not true. As a matter of fact, I haven't closed the window of opportunity, I have just chosen not to go through it. If new evidence arises that makes me reconsider my beliefs, I will still have the ability to pursue dream sharing if I wished to. Therefore, the window of opportunity is not closed.

----------


## Chimpertainment

Just did a quick search and found some good reading material...


Randall's Book

I have not been able to read the entire book yet but the introductory passages are very informative alone. The book is about 34 years old so it has an understanding predating lucid dreaming becoming mainstream. Becoming lucid seems to be the chosen path of dreamers on this website and apparently it is easier. On the other hand, earlier research was conducted by dreamers presumably recalling dreams which contained shared content. This is obviously a bit different than lucidly/consciously seeking a person/place/thing/word/symbol.

Linda Lane Magallon's Book

This page is how shared dreaming works from the perspective of a dreaming "guru". The texts are excerpts from her book which can be viewed by clicking the Mutual Dreaming link at the bottom or top of the page. This material is about 18 years old. Still, humans have been dreaming for a long time and recent research is not always essential.

Perhaps the perspective of those more learned in the subject might breed some fresh thoughts.

PS. Here is some music to listen to while reading..

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Gills


That is one of the more intelligent comments on this thread, and I thank you for it. Debating how dream sharing could work if it were to exist is completel rational, and I have no problems with it.



I propose that Gills do something sort of in the manner that I was doing this month, but Gills be in charge of this new experiment.  How about Gills set up the rules of this new experiment:

a) What you wish to find out about shared dreaming, if it exists
b) How you wish to go about proving or disproving your hypothesis
c) Your actual experiment
d) Your observations
e) Your conclusions

I'd be quite interested to see what Gills comes up with._

----------


## Linkzelda

I hope what I say adds on to everyone's desire to learn from others perspective.

Okay, let's step into this *hypothetical world* for a bit:

In a *hypothetical world*, not in the real world where we require substantial evidence to entice us to go through that window of potential....

If shared dreaming were to be proven, *if* (I'm emphasizing if for a reason)....

Like with a few posters have declared that having a bond with one person being one medium that can help speed up the process in sharing dreams with someone.

Now let's say this bond (love as in friends, intimate, religious, spiritual, whatever aspect you want it to) is the most _reasonable_ way to get a few people (2, or even maybe 3, but just at 3 to prevent it from it being synchs instead of genuine shared dreams) to engage in shared dreaming.

Remember, we're still in this hypothetical world! Follow me here, it may sound crazy, just think about it...

In this _presumptive world_, where we are seeking to add on to the endeavor of enticing others to go through that window of potential, it is for the sake of our own enlightenment. To feel a connection.

*If* we cannot feel a bond (a good bond) with the person we are experimenting with, *if* the whole point of shared dreaming in this *"if" world* is having harmonization between two or three minds....then to have consistent results, both participants would have to let go of their emotional ties that questions and doubts the existence of shared dreaming.

It's just like any aspect of love with friends, families, spouses, etc., if you cannot think of the other half, it cannot be done, or at least properly AND consistently.

Now let's get out of the *presumptive world*, where shared dreaming does have evidence of being possible.

NOW, let's see this in *real world,* where the hypothesis is just speculation, nothing productive

With the password shared dreaming experiment for example, both critics and believers try to *harmonize* with one another, but with critics that have *emotional ties* and mental filters that creates a pretentious attempt to play along with the experiments, there will be interference.

Still in the real world here, follow me here!

Even though the experiment (from the other thread)  *may* not add on to the possibility of shared dreaming, it is still considered something fun to do in finding other aspects that *might* transcend our beliefs to going through that window of opportunity that only has a hypothesis as it's way for both critics of believers to follow through.

Now, even if we were to set another experiment, whether or not the host is a critic or believer of shared dreaming, harmonization, from the *hypothetical world* (that would be key for shared dreaming attempts), is not apparent in the *real world*.

Do you see where I'm getting here?

 I'm not saying the experiments are useless, but if a person who doubts the existence of shared dreaming (but does not shut down the window of opportunity of it being there...with the hypothesis reaching its hand out, to be the beck and call for critics and believers) does not have the intention of aligning themselves  (based from the mechanics of the* presumptive world*) in releasing emotional ties that strengthen their belief of not going through that window of opportunity, then there cannot be harmonization.

And in the *presumptive world* where harmonization between one another to attempt shared dreaming is key for consistent and genuine results, then a possible problem in the *real world* is *alignment.*

We all have roles to *align* to in life ( i.e being a student, being a mother, father, police officer, etc.)

It does not mean it establishes our core beliefs, they are just "roles," placeholders if you will for us to live in, for expansion of knowledge and experience.

Now

almost done here....and I hope this will make sense!

Now,

if you are critic of shared dreaming, but will keep the window of opportunity open through the hypothesis (and by no means am I saying that's bad or anything), this means you are opened to *aligning* yourself to the role of a *person who believes in shared dreaming.*

There's a difference here, as a critic (it can be anyone, not pointing my finger at any specific group of people), you know that you can align yourself back to the role of being skeptical of shared dreaming.

So if you know that the shift in roles is always there, to be your beck and call, then this means that *temporarily* letting go of those emotional ties that strengthens your skepticism and your role as the skeptic is no problem at all, so then possibly....

in the *real world*, the mechanism behind *harmonization* from the *presumptive world* JUST may prove to be your *key* to exploring that window of opportunity.

And as you take on this *role* of a skeptic for shared dreaming, you also allow the window of opportunity of there being far more levels of consciousness (i.e. lucid dreaming).

So this is what I ask to skeptics and believers here....is the problem of *alignment* of temporarily taking the *role* of the mentality of a shared dreamer the factor that creates inconsistent results and just mere clashing of egos?

Because to me, there is a HUGE difference from *aligning* *yourself to a role*((erasing doubt)), rather than *tolerating* each others beliefs for the time being to see if there's any progress. ((Tolerating is still proof of doubt))

I don't think it's only the beliefs that each critic and believer holds that causes clashes, carousels of egos and what have you....it could also be that *not wanting* to align to the roles of being a shared dream believer temporarily (when you know that you can align yourself back to the role of skepticism that still leaves the window of oppurtinity there) is the problem. This can be fixed.

Because if you don't want to align yourself to that role, but you know that it won't completely change your current beliefs, it's just a placeholder for your own expansion of knowledge and experience, then it doesn't hurt you! Everyone wins! (right?)

I'm sorry for meshing presumptive and real worlds here, and if I did show flaws in what it would be like in each worlds, hopefully you still can get the bigger picture I'm implying here.

 :smiley:

----------


## shadowofwind

> Instead of assuming that thought-energy is electromagnetic in nature, what if we assumed it was composed of something else, perhaps a form of energy that exists outside of our current definitions, and one that cannot join with electromagnetic current but can be influenced by it?  
> 
> Then, instead of using the magnetosphere as a_ conductor_ of thought-energy, what if you considered it a great moving ocean _of_ electromagnetic energy -- a potential _purveyor_ of thought-energy, blowing our thoughts around like the wind moves leaves?  And what if you considered that we could "rig" our conscious thought-forms like sails that could be spread before the "wind" of that ocean and moved, under our control, from place to place and person to person?  
> 
> In fewer words, perhaps the thought-energy created by our conscious minds in our dreams (and waking life) is a _separate_ sort of energy than electromagnetic, and therefore can be pushed around by it, just as the wind moves sailboats.  So we wouldn't be trying to make sense of the wind as it blows through the trees, we'd be riding it.
> 
> This seems a simple, if remarkably farfetched solution to using the magnetosphere for transfer of thoughts and dream-sharing.  But it would bypass your amplification problem, I think.  Also, it would allow for transfer of thoughts anywhere, at near light speed.  Who knows? the precognitive stuff might even be a bi-product of the interaction!
> 
> Any thoughts?



Sorry for the slow response....Obviously there must be some interaction between the magical shared thought stuff and 'ordinary' physics or we wouldn't be able to speak and write about our experiences.  I don't see what aspect of our experience seems to be described or answered by the thoughts-being-blown-about-like-sailboats-by-the-magnetosphere conjecture though.  It doesn't fit my experience at all anyway.  It implies temporal movement of thoughts through space, whereas the sharing I experience seems to be non-local, acausal, and in some partial sense timeless.  Unless it fits someone else's experience, it would seem to me to fail the Occam's razor principle.

Last week I considered saying almost the same thing about wormholes.  When people were first thinking seriously about the geometry of space, a natural question was whether it could be topologically different from what we normally perceive it to be.  So the wormhole idea was born, and of course it made great science fiction in the context of sending ships from one place to another.  But most aspects of the math never worked, even in principle.  I don't think the transfer of the 'ship' idea to space made much sense either, interstellar space is actually not very much at all like a big ocean, and it doesn't seem to me that thoughts are very much like ships either.  From a purely geometrical perspective, ignoring all the problems with tidal forces, implausible energy requirements, etc., a wormhole sort of makes sense for moving objects, but I don't see how sharing in a dream is very much like that.  To me its more like being two places at once, and that's probably not the right way to think about it either.

What way is the right way to think about it is of course the answer we're after.  I'm ambivalent about this.  On the one hand, the answer to this seems to be key to all of my deepest aspirations.  On the other hand, I feel strongly that we can not handle the answer, that the corrupting effects of power that we know would be utterly dwarfed by what this knowledge would do to us, and we'd hurt a lot more than ourselves.  I don't think I'm just being paranoid, I feel I know this at some level.  So I have half a mind to just accept that I can not have what I want, not now, not here, and not merely because of our ignorance.

By the way, from my understanding of fields, the magnetosphere doesn't really push stuff around, it changes the direction of things that are already moving.  I didn't say that very well in my earlier post.

----------


## Sivason

> To me its more like being two places at once, and that's probably not the right way to think about it either.



It seems that way to me. Perhaps it is a matter of being every place at one time.








> Maybe we could all step off the "Is Not!" "Is Too!" carousel and enjoy a debate about potentials, possibilities, explanations, and, yes, possible fantasies that would accompany shared-dreaming _if it were to exist_?




Ok, let me see. How about this for a possible and fantasy based explaination. In this one I want every one to think about the movie The Matrix. Let's pretend that the idea of that movie is correct. Ok, we all know the story. The world individuals preceive would be mostly just preception. They experience life and believe the outer apperance to be real. Then we would all be in a state just like we are now, but we are pretending  the Matrix principles are true. The reality would be mear illusion. In that setting, it would be easy for the 'program' to link two mental awarenesses together. Any distance could instantly be bridged, and very detailed dream interaction could be shared. In this fantasy it would not be possable to determine the reason shared dreaming existed. the laws of physics we could explore would still all be part of the Matrix. The true answer, that the entire world of experience was illusion, could not be recognised by us. No matter how scientists inside the matrix explored the concept, they would miss the truth, that being that a connection existed between the two dreamers that fell entirely out side of the physical world as they could understand it. So, in this fantasy,, the connection would be possable because all concepts of distance and individual ego/identity were illusion, but outside of the knowable realm, the computer program could manipulate the experience of the people in any way, with no limits what so ever.
I, of course, do not believe we are all hooked up to a giant computer that uses us as batteries (that was such a stupid concept), but my own feeling is that to some large degree experience is not real. I have attempted to explain the deep yogic belief I have that "God" is creating this experience through a dream like process,  but I will not try to  share that idea right now. let's keep my fantasy in terms of The Matrix story  line being true. If you can envision the explaination I just made up about the matrix, then by extension you can understand my "the world is a dream" line of logic. The only difference is the presence of a mystical god-like force, instead of an evil computer.

----------


## shadowofwind

> Because to me, there is a HUGE difference from *aligning* *yourself to a role*((erasing doubt)), rather than *tolerating* each others beliefs for the time being to see if there's any progress. ((Tolerating is still proof of doubt))



Not to disagree....I don't think its necessary to completely or even mostly erase doubt.  Just relaxing it a little bit is enough.  I don't think the absence of strong evidence in shared dreaming compels maintaining a strong, active position on whether its real or not.  Doubt is OK, and will allow a capacity for objectively exotic dream experiences to grow, as long as the doubt is not hardened into obstinate resistance/ignorance.





> I don't think it's only the beliefs that each critic and believer holds that causes clashes, carousels of egos and what have you....it could also be that *not wanting* to align to the roles of being a shared dream believer temporarily (when you know that you can align yourself back to the role of skepticism that still leaves the window of oppurtinity there) is the problem. This can be fixed.



I think ego is to a large degree a symptom more than a cause of our troubles.  Its a sort of a gatekeeper.  If you're too selfish or excitable to handle knowledge without hurting yourself or other people with it, its there to protect you from gaining it.  I think the same can be said for a lot of other faults like aggression, etc.  I'm not pointing the finger at anyone here, I include myself in this also.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by shadowofwind


Not to disagree....I don't think its necessary to completely or even mostly erase doubt.  Just relaxing it a little bit is enough.  I don't think the absence of strong evidence in shared dreaming compels maintaining a strong, active position on whether its real or not.  Doubt is OK, and will allow a capacity for objectively exotic dream experiences to grow, as long as the doubt is not hardened into obstinate resistance/ignorance.



I think that's sort of the main difference between Gills and myself.  I am a skeptic, but I'm at least going to look at the scientific experiment.  Gills (so far) has formed his conclusions before any kind of scientific experiment has been made by either side._

----------


## Sageous

^^ I thought we'd agreed not to go there for a little bit?   ::?:

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Sageous


^^ I thought we'd agreed not to go there for a little bit?  



Well...  I do think one should be skeptical of things... but... how do you go about it?  It's one thing to just blindly say "it's impossible!", it's another thing to go about in a logical and step-by-step analysis of something new, different, and even something you disagree with._

----------


## Sageous

Shadowofwind:

I think you might have missed the point of my "What If?" statement, being that it was meant to happily fly in the face of reason, empirical evidence, and physical law.  Indeed, I suggested that thought-energy might be a new, undiscovered form of energy, so its behavior might vary from that of the forces we know.  These thoughts might be insane, yes, but I wasn't professing the truth, just an idea that might explain the 2nd biggest problem I have with shared-dreaming.  

_That said:_ 





> Sorry for the slow response....Obviously there must be some interaction between the magical shared thought stuff and 'ordinary' physics or we wouldn't be able to speak and write about our experiences.



Not so obvious to me.  We currently exchange our thoughts through media (the air, light, electrical, etc) that is proven to exist, and very handy for informational exchange.  Dreaming cannot tap any of those media, so by its absence "ordinary physics" fails to assist.  To exchange thoughts in dreams is currently magical indeed, from a scientific standpoint (and no, I have no problem with that at all -- just making the statement).





> I don't see what aspect of our experience seems to be described or answered by the thoughts-being-blown-about-like-sailboats-by-the-magnetosphere conjecture though.



  Again, that was the _point_ of my suggestion.





> It doesn't fit my experience at all anyway.  It implies temporal movement of thoughts through space, whereas the sharing I experience seems to be non-local, acausal, and in some partial sense timeless.  Unless it fits someone else's experience, it would seem to me to fail the Occam's razor principle.



 Are you sure it doesn't fit your experience?  If thought forms -- those "sails" of thought-energy -- can move about the magnetosphere at near light speed (more on that in a second), wouldn't the exchange, the sharing, _appear_ acausal, instantaneous and timeless to you?  I can't think of a simpler explanation than that, with what we currently know! 





> Last week I considered saying almost the same thing about wormholes.  When people were first thinking seriously about the geometry of space, a natural question was whether it could be topologically different from what we normally perceive it to be.  So the wormhole idea was born, and of course it made great science fiction in the context of sending ships from one place to another.  But most aspects of the math never worked, even in principle.  I don't think the transfer of the 'ship' idea to space made much sense either, interstellar space is actually not very much at all like a big ocean, and it doesn't seem to me that thoughts are very much like ships either.  From a purely geometrical perspective, ignoring all the problems with tidal forces, implausible energy requirements, etc., a wormhole sort of makes sense for moving objects, but I don't see how sharing in a dream is very much like that.  To me its more like being two places at once, and that's probably not the right way to think about it either.



Excellent example, mostly because wormholes were a delightful base from which to form unsupported theories, stories, and fantasies. I think it is better to imagine an impossible form of space travel than have all our fiction (and daydreams) stoutly announcing that "We can't get there from here."   Besides, aren't we agreeing here that shared dreaming _does_ exist (as opposed to instantaneous space flight, which I'm pretty sure nobody in their right mind has said they've done yet)?  There seems to be a difference  in that, I think.





> What way is the right way to think about it is of course the answer we're after.



  I thought looking for a new way to answer the question was what I was doing ... one that flies in the face of known science, as anything describing shared-dreaming must. 





> I'm ambivalent about this.  On the one hand, the answer to this seems to be key to all of my deepest aspirations.  On the other hand, I feel strongly that we can not handle the answer, that the corrupting effects of power that we know would be utterly dwarfed by what this knowledge would do to us, and we'd hurt a lot more than ourselves.  I don't think I'm just being paranoid, I feel I know this at some level.  So I have half a mind to just accept that I can not have what I want, not now, not here, and not merely because of our ignorance.



  Perhaps then you should steer clear of threads like this? What if we stumbled upon something that actually rings true? Wouldn't that be a very bad thing?  Maybe we should all stop talking about it?  Seriously, Shadowofwind, I think that if we managed a real miracle and summoned the knowledge that proves and defines shared-dreaming, there wouldn't be much we could do with it, because we would still lack the physical media to exploit the knowledge... plus no one would believe us for at least a century...





> By the way, from my understanding of fields, the magnetosphere doesn't really push stuff around, it changes the direction of things that are already moving.  I didn't say that very well in my earlier post.



Sure you did.  What you missed though, was that I suggested that _thought-energy would not follow currently known physical laws._  Yes, that is what the magnetosphere does to known physical objects.  What I'm talking about is a new force that may behave differently -- thought-energy would be a force that did not exist until sentient beings started thinking, so it missed the rules committee meeting before the Big Bang.  

Since I'm assuming the magnetosphere isn't perfectly static, and must be comprised of energy that actually moves, thought-energy might be able to move with it in a manner that defies known physics.  

 ... Keep in mind also that I thought of all this about five seconds after reading Chimpertainment's post somewhere above, so I'm not expecting to have covered every inch of scientific ground (not that I could or would ever do that anyway).

----------


## Sageous

> Well...  I do think one should be skeptical of things... but... how do you go about it?  It's one thing to just blindly say "it's impossible!", it's another thing to go about in a logical and step-by-step analysis of something new, different, and even something you disagree with.



I think you go about it by suspending belief (and disbelief) for five minutes and chat about ideas that defy science and nature as we know them, and _from_ that debate might come ideas upon which experiments can be made.  

There's nothing wrong with being skeptical -- we should all be that way, especially when dealing with phenomena as nebulous as shared-dreaming.  It would just be nice if that skepticism, and the inevitable heartfelt attack upon it,  be held off until after some imaginative and utterly unsubstantiated debate into the nature of shared-dreaming takes place, and perhaps some conclusions are agreed upon (LOL).

----------


## EbbTide000

> As there is no password involved, the study is unreliable and essentially worthless. All we have is the two individuals telling stories that match one another. How does this show evidence of shared dreaming?
> 
> Absolutely no evidence of anything. Even I could do much better, with me and my wife memorizing several made-up dreams in detail, and then going into a study.
> 
> And again, please keep the thread on-topic. For shared dreaming debates, use this: http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/shared...debate-120211/



 Dear Gills

Study study Robert L. Van de Castle's paper called

Exogenous dream continuity: Exploring the matrix of entangled dreams.

I am slowly (parahragh by paragraph) posting the whole thing in this thread.

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/what-y...ml#post1930057 

Parahraph 28

In my 3rd dream, there was  crowd of people in a slanted auditorium, and some board members and I were sitting down to eat at a table on the main floor.

A total of eleven dreamers made references to activities taking place at different elevations - 

in a grandstand,
on stage,
in the balcony,
in a theater,
ect.

Paragraph 29 next.

----------


## Empedocles

> Dear Gills
> 
> Study study Robert L. Van de Castle's paper



Again, this is useless, and I will explain why, since you (once again) seem to miss the point.

A serious study in which shared dreaming could be verified *must* consist of information (such as a password) that is given to the subject BEFORE going to sleep. This password would then have to be transferred to the other subject(s) during sleep.

This is the only way that it could be scientifically validated. We could also throw in a couple of other things such as specific coordinated eye movements, but the password alone is absolutely sufficient.

You need to transfer/*share* information. It is, after all, a *shared* dream.

Everything other than that would pretty much be a nonsense study, because I can agree with tons of dreamers to go into a study and afterwards claim we had the same dreams, with elements X Y and Z.

However, with one simple password, this kind of "cheating" is absolutely preventable.

----------


## Sageous

DebraJane and Gills:

Um, is it me or are you guys posting on the wrong thread?  Shouldn't this exchange be on Mindraker's Password Shared Dreaming Experiment ?

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Sageous


DebraJane and Gills:

Um, is it me or are you guys posting on the wrong thread?  Shouldn't this exchange be on Mindraker's Password Shared Dreaming Experiment ?



Oh, the fun confusion!  

OK, after Melanieb moved some posts around, there was some confusion:

This thread (the one you're looking at now) is for the debate about shared dreaming.  Do you think it exists?  Are you an avid believer in it?  Do you want to post angry messages supporting either side?  THIS is your thread.

The "password shared dreaming experiment" thread is the thread in which we tried finding the password in the cathedral._

----------


## shadowofwind

Sageous,

The trajectory of my response below was in relation to your earlier post, where you seemed to take issue with my having made the comments I did.  Now that I've finally gone through the whole thing I see that you have subsequently changed your post.  Nothing wrong with that, but then bear in mind that my response here is partially obsolete also.  I don't think I'll go through it again, mostly out of laziness.  If I say something that's already in harmony with your thinking, you can just consider it settled without further comment.  (Can always do that anyway of course.)





> Shadowofwind:
> 
> I think you might have missed the point of my "What If?" statement, being that it was meant to happily fly in the face of reason, empirical evidence, and physical law.  Indeed, I suggested that thought-energy might be a new, undiscovered form of energy, so its behavior might vary from that of the forces we know.  These thoughts might be insane, yes, but I wasn't professing the truth, just an idea that might explain the 2nd biggest problem I have with shared-dreaming.



OK.  The first thing that I do after forming a new, exploratory hypothesis is to try to expand it into a better developed hypothesis.  And part of that process is identifying possible problems with the hypothesis so that adjustments can be made.  I just shared the main things that came to mind to that ends, with lots of qualifiers.





> Not so obvious to me.  We currently exchange our thoughts through media (the air, light, electrical, etc) that is proven to exist, and very handy for informational exchange.  Dreaming cannot tap any of those media, so by its absence "ordinary physics" fails to assist.  To exchange thoughts in dreams is currently magical indeed, from a scientific standpoint (and no, I have no problem with that at all -- just making the statement).



Here's why its obvious to me that there is "some interaction between the magical shared thought stuff and 'ordinary' physics", since this is one of those rare things I understand well enough to be confident of.  Like I said, otherwise "we wouldn't be able to speak and write about our experiences".  In other words, vibrations in air can be described in terms of 'ordinary' physics, as can the operation of a computer and electromagnetic waves through air and wires on the internet.  A 'shared thought' experience' has some kind of relationship with the description of it, the two don't exist in entirely different realms which never influence each other.  Somewhere in the process, where feeling contacts the brain, or identity contacts feeling, or exotic thought matter contacts feeling, or exotic thought matter contacts the brain, or somehow, there is influence between the two realms or sets or contexts.  I'm not making any claim about the nature of the interaction, or that its local or causal or anything else, just that there is one.   





> Are you sure it doesn't fit your experience?  If thought forms -- those "sails" of thought-energy -- can move about the magnetosphere at near light speed (more on that in a second), wouldn't the exchange, the sharing, _appear_ acausal, instantaneous and timeless to you?



The problem isn't the speed of the interaction.  Even if the 'movement of thoughts' were very slow, the same interrelated thoughts could arrive at two different places in any order.  That would be necessary for the precognitive aspect of the sharing no matter what the speed.  The issue is the meaning of 'magnetosphere'.  I've had shared experiences in a wide variety of pairs locations, with no apparent connection with the direction of the magnetic field.  This doesn't prove that the magnetic field isn't involved, but it doesn't suggest that it is involved either.  Insofar as I have evidence, the field doesn't appear to do anything, to potentially answer any question that's not answered as easily in its absence.  Hence my mention of Occam's razor.  Of course, someone else may have experience that is suggestive of the magnetic field playing some essential role, which is why I qualified my statements by saying it was based on what I experience.  Of course other people's experiences are always of interest where they are different than mine.  Sivason responded saying his experience was like mine.  Theosophists and others believe that the earth has 'energy centers', which fits more with the magnetosphere thought.  However, I regard their views as unreliable for reasons discussed previously, so I would like to hear from someone who has direct experience and can describe more of what they are experiencing.





> I can't think of a simpler explanation than that, with what we currently know!



We already know that something else besides the magnetosphere is involved in selecting who shares dreams with who, since some of us only share dreams with people who our thoughts and experiences are in some kind of content synchronicity with.  So take your thought about the magnetosphere, and bear in mind that this other selective process is present also.  Now subtract the magnetosphere aspect of the idea entirely.  Was it adding anything that the other, poorly understood selective process wasn't already doing?  The idea minus the magnetosphere seems to me to be simpler.  Both ideas require exotic matter or some kind of non-local interaction.  I don't have a goal to shoot down the magnetosphere idea, if you have an explanation of what it adds that I can understand, that's great.  Or if you don't feel like trying, that's fine too.  I was just saying what my impression was based on what I've understood so far.





> Excellent example, mostly because wormholes were a delightful base from which to form unsupported theories, stories, and fantasies. I think it is better to imagine an impossible form of space travel than have all our fiction (and daydreams) stoutly announcing that "We can't get there from here."   Besides, aren't we agreeing here that shared dreaming _does_ exist (as opposed to instantaneous space flight, which I'm pretty sure nobody in their right mind has said they've done yet)?  There seems to be a difference  in that, I think.



I've confused by this argument because the second point seems to counteract the first one.  Since we agree that shared dreaming does exist, what we're looking for is a better understanding of how it works, nobody is trying to close a door on what is possible.  And for those people who _don't_ agree that shared dreaming exists, and seek evidence that it does, of what value is a hypothesis unless we can improve it to the point where it clearly works?  In either case, how are we going to do that if we can't consider how well it seems to fit what we experience?

Clearly there is a place for whimsical imagination.  This is why I mostly read science fiction instead of 'spiritual' books in recent years, there's more substance for me in the science fiction.  But at some point there is also a place for honesty, for doing something real and not just pretending.  Everybody reaches that point at a different time.  For myself, I desire a better understanding of 'astral' type stuff, and its clear to me that existing metaphors, wormholes among them, aren't getting the job done.  The question that they attempt to answer contains a false premise, and we already have enough knowledge to recognize that and try to form a better question.  This is what I was trying to do, highlight what I see about that.  It shouldn't prevent you from developing your magnetosphere thought further if you can see a way to do that.





> I thought looking for a new way to answer the question was what I was doing ... one that flies in the face of known science, as anything describing shared-dreaming must.



Attempting to describe shared dreaming means attempting to accommodate our actual experience.  For me, this means taking into account with what is known about the electromagnetics.  And you wanted to do that also, apparently, hence your attempt to relate shared dreaming to electromagnetics.  The magnetosphere is an electromagnetic field, the basic principles of which are defined by a very simple set of equations.  If you mean to 'fly in the face of' those principles, then you're not talking about the magnetosphere any more, you're talking about something else.  That's fine, I've just been trying to follow along with the words you're using, which of course are unavoidably inadequate.





> Perhaps then you should steer clear of threads like this? What if we stumbled upon something that actually rings true? Wouldn't that be a very bad thing?  Maybe we should all stop talking about it?



I said I was ambivalent.  If pressed to make a firm stand though, I'll oppose pushing our understanding of shared dreaming forward, because other people's indifference to the issue of consequences tells me a lot about what those consequences will be if we succeed.  

But if I oppose further progress, the logical course would be to continue visiting threads like this one, since your response seems to suggest that critical scrutiny of an idea is more likely to kill it in its infancy than to develop and strengthen it.





> Seriously, Shadowofwind, I think that if we managed a real miracle and summoned the knowledge that proves and defines shared-dreaming, there wouldn't be much we could do with it, because we would still lack the physical media to exploit the knowledge... plus no one would believe us for at least a century...



We are severely obstructed and limited in our efforts.  For me, the fact that we're unlikely to accomplish much of consequence because of those obstructions isn't a reason not to try to understand the reason for the obstruction, or to understand what truly is or is not helpful.  We are just a few people, a tiny part of the overall scheme of things.  But I still want to understand my role, and what I feel, and how we came to be where we are today.

If you think a century amounts to much you're not thinking about this the same way that I am though.

Since this is a "debate" thread, and my comments on your magnetosphere thought appear to me to be well within the domain of civil, thoughtful, and fair debate, my first reaction is to think that you're the one who's in the wrong place, not me.  But I've long since learned that almost nothing in life is what it presents itself as.  So yes, it may be me who is in the wrong place.





> Sure you did.  What you missed though, was that I suggested that _thought-energy would not follow currently known physical laws._  Yes, that is what the magnetosphere does to known physical objects.  What I'm talking about is a new force that may behave differently -- thought-energy would be a force that did not exist until sentient beings started thinking, so it missed the rules committee meeting before the Big Bang. 
> 
> Since I'm assuming the magnetosphere isn't perfectly static, and must be comprised of energy that actually moves, thought-energy might be able to move with it in a manner that defies known physics.



What the magnetosphere does to known physical objects defines what it is.  There isn't anything else "there" besides those interactions.  Maybe this just seems like semantics, but it seems essential to me to understanding what physics is.  Any interaction with your 'new force' is no longer the magnetosphere.  That's almost all I was saying to start with, using other words.

(I think news accounts of the Higgs bozon highlighted a similar point.  As often described, gravity depends on the Higgs particle, as if there are invisible Higgs particles buzzing all over the place mediating gravitational attractions.  Actually there may be a Higgs field, which under appropriately extreme conditions may manifest as something like a Higgs particle, but in normal contexts Higgs particles aren't merely hard to detect, they don't exist.  Radically change the properties of the Higgs field and its no longer the Higgs field, it doesn't have a substance independent of the dynamics that are being considered.)





> ... Keep in mind also that I thought of all this about five seconds after reading Chimpertainment's post somewhere above, so I'm not expecting to have covered every inch of scientific ground (not that I could or would ever do that anyway).



Sure, you were just brainstorming.  I was doing a similarly quick post-brainstorming review of ideas.

----------


## EbbTide000

Dear Gills

What are your thiughts on this?;





> Paragraph 11
> 
> Hall also extended his explorations in another direction that produced interesting results.
> 
> "Sometimes, the sleep of  two subjects was monitered on the same night. The subjects slept in separate rooms which were located on either side of the room in which the EEG was kept.
> 
>  Occasionally, the two subjects would have REM periods close together in time, and in two instances a striking congruence between the dreams reported by the subjects from these REM periods was was noted".
> 
> (...)
> ...



Page 1 post 14 of this thread:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/what-y...oughts-131453/

----------


## shadowofwind

I think a lot of this comes back to the issue of what kind of evidence constitutes scientific proof.  If a person is trying to prove something that is unlike the kinds of things that have been proven before, then the same kind of control and statistical techniques that have been used previously for other kinds of experiments won't necessarily get the job done.  If science amounts to an insistence that new discoveries must be like previous discoveries, and amenable to the same methods, then I don't think that 'science' is the way to go here.

----------


## Sageous

> The trajectory of my response below was in relation to your earlier post, where you seemed to take issue with my having made the comments I did.  Now that I've finally gone through the whole thing I see that you have subsequently changed your post.  Nothing wrong with that, but then bear in mind that my response here is partially obsolete also.  I don't think I'll go through it again, mostly out of laziness.  If I say something that's already in harmony with your thinking, you can just consider it settled without further comment.  (Can always do that anyway of course.)



I usually try to change my words in edits and not my themes, but if I did that this time, sorry for the confusion.

I read your (amazing) post twice, and from that have concluded that it would be best to consider this settled, for two reasons.

First, I presented the magnetosphere hypothesis after a few _seconds_ of thought, based on a suggestion by Chimpertainment somewhere up there.  I only did it because I thought it presented an interesting solution to the problem of how dreamers can both find each other and communicate over vast distances.  Plus it gave me an opportunity to make some noise about thought-energy, which you know is a thing I like to do.  Clearly either my obvious lack of physics expertise or my utter failure to present a metaphor for thought-energy's possible independence of/alternate reaction to existing physical laws are more than enough to make this conversation a major waste of time for me, if not an outright embarrassment. 

Second, I simply don't care enough about the magnetosphere idea, I guess. My real issue (and curiosity) about shared-dreaming isn't so much the mechanics of transmitting the message as it is understanding the message once it arrives.  That I believe is the true miracle, and well worth further exploration and discussion (as I believe you also noted in your post).

So yeah, I concede.  Navigating reality by sailing your thoughts across the magnetosphere seemed a graceful solution to both the transmission and targeting problems inherent in shared dreaming.  But your aim was simply too accurate:  good idea or not, it has been categorically shot down.  

 ::cheers::

----------


## shadowofwind

Thanks for your thoughts Sageous.  As difficult as it may be, this is more fun than arguing with Masons.  I just finished a several hour post on another forum.  I make a statement, and in response am asked to justify it with quotes from relevant texts.  I do that, its all ignored completely, and some other statement I previously made is pulled out of context and challenged.  Its like fighting a hydra.  All I was trying to do to start with was to be helpful, to answer someone else's question in an uncontroversial way without contradicting anyone else's beliefs.  Then someone finds something to take issue with, and it turns into a quagmire.  I decide I'll just stop, but the implication is always that if I don't answer a challenge its because I can't.  So when someone else who seems sincere wanders into the forum, I fear I have left a false impression by omission.  And I do care about those people, in part because I know what its like to be one.  So I try to answer what was asked of me.  I hope its done now, for me anyway.

----------


## Empedocles

> Dear Gills
> 
> What are your thiughts on this?;



My thoughts are, with all due respect, that you should learn how to read a post and comprehend it. I specifically laid out my thoughts here:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/shared...ml#post1930216





> Again, this is useless, and I will explain why, since you (once again) seem to miss the point.
> 
> A serious study in which shared dreaming could be verified *must* consist of information (such as a password) that is given to the subject BEFORE going to sleep. This password would then have to be transferred to the other subject(s) during sleep.
> 
> This is the only way that it could be scientifically validated. We could also throw in a couple of other things such as specific coordinated eye movements, but the password alone is absolutely sufficient.
> 
> You need to transfer/*share* information. It is, after all, a *shared* dream.
> 
> Everything other than that would pretty much be a nonsense study, because I can agree with tons of dreamers to go into a study and afterwards claim we had the same dreams, with elements X Y and Z.
> ...



... yet you keep repeating yourself.  ::roll:: 

If you have problems understanding what I said there, then I can't help you.

----------


## EbbTide000

> My thoughts are, with all due respect, that you should learn how to read a post and comprehend it. I specifically laid out my thoughts here:
> 
> http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/shared...ml#post1930216
> 
> 
> ... yet you keep repeating yourself. 
> 
> If you have problems understanding what I said there, then I can't help you.



 Ok Gills

Turn to page two, post 32  to 37 of my thread called " What are your thoughts on this " Gills.

This is pretty close to your proposal of having one lucid dreamer talking with another lucid dreamer and passing a password, one to the other in a shared lucid dream. 

And please note Gills

These experiments were conducted in the late 60s. (check post 29 that begins:

Paragraph 17a




> Dr. Allan Rechtschaffen, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Chicago, is a noted pioneer in the field of sleep research.
> 
> He was invited to present an experimental design for a *1968* conference in France sponsored by the *Parapsychology* Foundation on Methodology in *Psi*  Research.



And Gills

This is what he did. 





> So ...
> 
> We had to go on and introduce * experimentally*  an *external stimulus*  into the dream.
> 
> We did this by post hypnotic suggestion.



 



> Before the subject went to sleep for the night, he was hypnotized,
> 
> and
> 
> while he was in trance we told him  that during the night, he would have a certain dream.



 



> Dear reader
> 
> To get a copy of this riviting report from the Grandaddy of Psi Dreamers, (rvdc) goto post two and print the pdf.



 



> "The very first night that we tried it, we told the subject that he would *dream the death of Martin Luther King and of a fear of riots,* 
> 
> and
> 
> He dreamt that * Martin Luther King had been shot* and that somebody threw a rock and they were * afraid a riot would would start.* 
> 
> The other subject, *who had not recieved any suggestion,*  dreamt of a Negro policeman who was beating another man and he was afraid that sombody would throw a brick * and* start a riot."



 



> "On the other night we told this subject to dream he was in an amusement park, having a very good time. * He dreamt that* and *specifically* he dreamt about riding on a * merry-go-round.*
> 
> The other subject had a dream of people laughing and running in circles and there were 'grining funny looking horses' in his dream."



 



> * Rechtschaffen* then decided to use * hypnosis*  to investigate the possibility of * inducing* SIMULTANEOUS dreams.
> 
> He reported some very striking correspondences between these * hypnotically* induced dreams.

----------


## Sageous

> Thanks for your thoughts Sageous.  As difficult as it may be, this is more fun than arguing with Masons.  I just finished a several hour post on another forum.  I make a statement, and in response am asked to justify it with quotes from relevant texts.  I do that, its all ignored completely, and some other statement I previously made is pulled out of context and challenged.  Its like fighting a hydra.  All I was trying to do to start with was to be helpful, to answer someone else's question in an uncontroversial way without contradicting anyone else's beliefs.  Then someone finds something to take issue with, and it turns into a quagmire.  I decide I'll just stop, but the implication is always that if I don't answer a challenge its because I can't.  So when someone else who seems sincere wanders into the forum, I fear I have left a false impression by omission.  And I do care about those people, in part because I know what its like to be one.  So I try to answer what was asked of me.  I hope its done now, for me anyway.



I hope so, too.  I think that if you finally throw up your hands and walk quietly away, it is not your problem if your "opponents" feel you've failed..  Let them think that, and if they reinforce their inadequacy with such pettiness, consider that you've done a good thing by making them briefly happier, if no wiser.

----------


## dutchraptor

> Its like fighting a hydra.



 ::lol::  XD hahaha Shadowofwind I have to thank you for that, perfect explanation  ::D:

----------


## shadowofwind

> I hope so, too.  I think that if you finally throw up your hands and walk quietly away, it is not your problem if your "opponents" feel you've failed.



To clarify....Its not what the opponents think that I'm concerned about.  I consider the doctrine they're pushing to be life-destroying, and since I half-wrecked mine just from the three or so years that I took it seriously (careers are fragile things), I think I owe it to other more honest readers to share what I can see from where I am now.  Someone should have done the same for me.  And as the sole person doing this, apparently, I think my intellectual credibility is worth something, hence the most recent exchange.  But yeah, other than that I agree.

----------


## snoop

If shared dreaming exists then it can be proven.  It's yet to be currently, so at this moment I do not believe it exists.  I am skeptical of its existence for the same reason I'm skeptical of big foot sightings, alien abductions, ghost hauntings, and being possessed by demons and demonic spirits. Despite the number of people claiming these things exist or that they _know_ what they saw or experienced, the human mind has been know to be unreliable, especially in such situations as these in which no evidence supporting the claims can be presented.  You cannot go by anecdotal evidence because the mind is prone to error, be it in perception or in memory.  Studies have been done showing how crime witnesses can be led to remember false information when, unbeknownst to them, a false witness to the crime under speculation purposefully "remembers" false information concerning the crime aloud, with disturbing potency. So not only are memories unreliable, but perceptions themselves can be due to hallucinations and delusions, or if intense emotions are experienced during an event. 

So, people who see UFOs and big foot, ghosts, or are abducted may full well believe what they say they experienced, but that does not make these beliefs true. The brain, especially in a sleeping state, can make you believe things that are not true or are impossible (many people experience false memories in dreams). A schizophrenic who believes there is a mass conspiracy to destroy the human race and he/she is the only one that can stop it _"knows"_ that this delusion is true, yet it isn't.

The reason you need to use a password experiment is because false positives can arise out of mere coincidence. The people happen to have dreams about similar things, but this is not evidence that they shared dreams because there are other variables still at play.  Give the dreamers a predeterminer password to share and recount after waking and this eliminates a lot of those variables. The possibility of coincidence still exists, but that's nothing multiple trials of this experiment wouldn't take care of.

----------


## Chimpertainment

This thread is immortal, lol...Im gonna try to create a personal synopsis of my thought thus far...

I've just finished reading a book called _Mavericks of the Mind_ and there was a metaphor for consciousness I really enjoyed. One of the people in the book describe the individual as a snowflake. They are reasonably unique, separate, and essentially isolated from other snowflakes. Of course, there is interaction between snowflakes but they usually entails occupying near space physically. There is also interaction between snowflakes due to wind. The movement of a snowflake by the wind will be affected by the presence of the other snowflakes.
So we have snowflakes. Then the snowflake falls into the ocean. At this point, the snowflake ceases to exist and it becomes the ocean. We as humans contain about a trillion cells yet we identify our whole body as one. This is the same idea. All the cells in the body have certain ways of communication but there are always paths by which information is transferred.
If you look at the brain, these paths are created through absorbing information. The more you absorb the same information, the deeper the neural pathways become and habit is formed.
So now we have the ocean. We see it as one, yet it is made of an unbelievable amount of water molecules. Of course, the only reason all of these things come together is because of the opposing forces in nature. 





> there are four known forces:
> 
> 1. Gravity - This force acts between all mass in the universe and it has infinite range.
> 
> 2. Electromagnetic - This acts between electrically charged particles. Electricity, magnetism, and light are all produced by this force and it also has infinite range.
> 
> 3. The Strong Force - This force binds neutrons and protons together in the cores of atoms and is a short range force.
> 
> 4. Weak Force - This causes Beta decay (the conversion of a neutron to a proton, an electron and an antineutrino) and various particles (the "strange" ones) are formed by strong interactions but decay via weak interactions (that's what's strange about "strangeness"). Like the strong force, the weak force is also short range.



Many people thought lucid dreaming was impossible before Stephen Laberge proved *through empirical research* and with the help of observational technology. There are standards of proof in our society and thats fine but there are different ways to find out if something is possible. When scientists are thinking of experimenting with something, they build models. This begins with hypothesis, and data collection. Well, there can be no hypothesis or data collection if one is waiting for someone else to prove their idea.
What we are able to do here is create hypothesis and test them using empirical data collection. We have mounds of dream journal material and years upon years of dreaming expertise all contained on this website. Its brilliant! We all come together to interpret our experience without even trying.  :smiley:  

So here are some things I have discovered. They are things that already exist but people take them for granted most of the time. 

- The vast majority of what we experience is *unconscious*
- The truth of our experience is already uncovered, it is our responsibility to consciously interpret what has been unconsciously known all along. In a sense, we are digging for hidden treasure.  :smiley: 
- Our past experience dictates what we believe will happen in the future. 
- True experience is found in the present moment. 

So my conclusion? Most of us have our heads up our asses.  :smiley: 

How does all this apply to shared dreaming? 
Well, we could talk about what people *think* about what it may be. We could discuss what we have seen *so far*. And we can attempt the experience ourselves and make a personal decision. 
Science and the scientific method arose from a human mind. This form of truth finding is instinctive in all of us. Cultural conditioning and emotional stagnation is usually the cause of all the excess bullshit. 
Personally, I like talking about all present, past, and future possibilities. That is our ability, why would I choose not to use the tools with which nature has gifted me? 
I am still on the fence about shared dreaming. On the probability scale, it seems likely. That scale going from most likely, more than likely, likely, less than likely, and least likely. Basically, it could go either way for me. 
At the end of the day, people who want scientific evidence are just asking us to use external tools for proof. Well, I dont need to prove my experience to anyone, but at the same time it would be nice to prove that shared dreaming is real. 
All my head keeps saying is, Ive experience things that seem much deeper than shared dreaming but Ive never put any effort into shared dreaming. I think mostly because in order to practice shared dreaming properly, it requires an understanding of fear and the ability to share your mind with someone despite the fear that is bound to be there somewhere. 

So now I am going to try myself to share my dream. Ive never been good at sharing so it will be a big step. We all live in a culture of fear and its our responsibility to do what we can to change that. Shared dreaming by that account would be something to be avoided and even made punishable. Shared spiritual experience has never been very high on the priority list in western society. We all just sit and listen to someone drone on about fantasy and dreams without actually *experiencing anything.*

anyways, we are discovering ever deepening connectivity in the physical world. Levels of infinitesimal reality are becoming a part of everyday discussions which people may never have imagined. The likelihood that shared dreaming would work between people seems the same likelihood that someone who does not know the native tongue of a land would be understood by the native people. 
We must look through the lens of our more subtle abilities of communication.  ::banana::

----------


## EbbTide000

> If shared dreaming exists then it can be proven.  
> 
> It's yet to be currently, so at this moment I do not believe it exists.  I am skeptical of its existence for the same reason I'm skeptical of big foot sightings, alien abductions, ghost hauntings, and being possessed by demons and demonic spirits. Despite the number of people claiming these things exist or that they _know_ what they saw or experienced, the human mind has been know to be unreliable, especially in such situations as these in which no evidence supporting the claims can be presented. 
> 
>  You cannot go by anecdotal evidence because the mind is prone to error, be it in perception or in memory.  Studies have been done showing how crime witnesses can be led to remember false information when, unbeknownst to them, a false witness to the crime under speculation purposefully "remembers" false information concerning the crime aloud, with disturbing potency. So not only are memories unreliable, but perceptions themselves can be due to hallucinations and delusions, or if intense emotions are experienced during an event. 
> 
> So, people who see UFOs and big foot, ghosts, or are abducted may full well believe what they say they experienced, but that does not make these beliefs true. The brain, especially in a sleeping state, can make you believe things that are not true or are impossible (many people experience false memories in dreams). A schizophrenic who believes there is a mass conspiracy to destroy the human race and he/she is the only one that can stop it _"knows"_ that this delusion is true, yet it isn't.
> 
> The reason you need to use a password experiment is because false positives can arise out of mere coincidence. The people happen to have dreams about similar things, but this is not evidence that they shared dreams because there are other variables still at play.  Give the dreamers a predeterminer password to share and recount after waking and this eliminates a lot of those variables. The possibility of coincidence still exists, but that's nothing multiple trials of this experiment wouldn't take care of.



*Dear Snoop, Gills and folk of like mind 

I think that shared dreaming has been proven over and over and over under rigorous scientific conditions. Robert L Van de Castle and his friends have been diligently pursuing this for many decades. Robert L Van de Castle is 84 now. He gives his contact details in that paper I am transcribing slowly in this thread:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/what-y...oughts-131453/

Here are his contact details as published on his amazing paper:

Corresponding address: 
Robert L. Van de Castle 
Professor Emeritus 
University of Virginia Medical Center, 
Charlottesville, VA, USA 

Email: [email protected]

He is of cause an extraordinarily busy man. It might be easier to attend the pdc and chat on-line to him there about shared-dreaming.*

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by snoop


The reason you need to use a password experiment is because false positives can arise out of mere coincidence. The people happen to have dreams about similar things, but this is not evidence that they shared dreams because there are other variables still at play.  Give the dreamers a predeterminer password to share and recount after waking and this eliminates a lot of those variables. The possibility of coincidence still exists, but that's nothing multiple trials of this experiment wouldn't take care of.



Well said.  And the fact that in a password sharing experiment you'll have -wrong- guesses makes shared dreaming a weak tool for communication.  We're supposed to (in theory) be able to have the equivalent of live video feeds broadcasting and rebroadcasting around the world directly from one brain to another with shared dreaming;  instead we can't even get a simple one-word transfer with any amount of reliability._

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## EbbTide000

Hi Mindraker





> Well said.  And the fact that in a password sharing experiment you'll have -wrong- guesses makes shared dreaming a weak tool for communication.  
> 
> We're supposed to (in theory) be able to have the equivalent of live video feeds broadcasting and rebroadcasting around the world *directly* from *one* brain *to another* with shared dreaming;  
> 
> instead we can't even get a simple one-word transfer with any amount of reliability.



 That's because * "we"* are working from the wrong metaphore (IMO). 

* "We"*  are not many individuals where shared dreaming and all other dream psi happens.

 Deep within-inside we are one being. 

Got to sink into the moment through the life-force (the heartbeat and breathing). The mind empties of individual thought and we merge. 

We merge into the Matrix, the Eternal Beloved. 

And the rest is history.

----------


## Empedocles

> Ok Gills
> 
> Turn to page two, post 32  to 37 of my thread called " What are your thoughts on this " Gills.
> 
> This is pretty close to your proposal of having one lucid dreamer talking with another lucid dreamer and passing a password, one to the other in a shared lucid dream.



No, for the third time.

Dreaming about similar events can be brushed off as a coincidence, but a password transferred from one dreamer to another is undeniable proof of a psychic connection between the dreamers.

----------


## Empedocles

> Well said.  And the fact that in a password sharing experiment you'll have -wrong- guesses makes shared dreaming a weak tool for communication.  We're supposed to (in theory) be able to have the equivalent of live video feeds broadcasting and rebroadcasting around the world directly from one brain to another with shared dreaming;  instead we can't even get a simple one-word transfer with any amount of reliability.



You have it backwards. The fact that there are wrong guesses in these experiments doesn't make shared dreaming a weak tool for communication. It just shows the lack of evidence for the existence of shared dreaming.

----------


## Sageous

^^ Wouldn't its non-existence make dream-sharing a pretty weak tool for communication?

... just saying ...

----------


## Empedocles

> *Dear Snoop, Gills and folk of like mind 
> 
> I think that shared dreaming has been proven over and over and over under rigorous scientific conditions.*



That is a very, _very_ stupid thing to say. It hasn't been "proven" even once by anyone, much less tested under "rigorous scientific conditions."

I don't care about your obsession with Robert L. Van de Castle, or his writings. We need the following:

1.) Dreamers isolated, so they cannot physically see/hear each other.
2.) One simple password. (ex: Windows98, debrajane, Pillow99, etc.)
3.) Observation and analysis.

End of story.

----------


## Empedocles

> ^^ Wouldn't its non-existence make dream-sharing a pretty weak tool for communication?
> 
> ... just saying ...



Yes it would, but wording it that way is a bit strange to me. It'd be like saying that Santa Claus is a bad sleigh driver because he doesn't exist.

----------


## Sageous

^^ I was just kidding, Gills.  Relax.

----------


## Empedocles

::cheers::

----------


## Chimpertainment

I personally don't think a password test would be sufficient. And its definitely not the only way to conclusively prove that people can communicate via dreams.

----------


## snoop

> I personally don't think a password test would be sufficient. And its definitely not the only way to conclusively prove that people can communicate via dreams.



I agree, but as of yet we can't even get the believers to do _this_ test, let alone successfully or a more rigorous and precise test.  At best so far it's "I know what I experienced" and "we both dreamed of a dog, ergo shared dreaming exists!!!".

----------


## Chimpertainment

^^^Easier said then done...

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by snoop


I agree, but as of yet we can't even get the believers to do this test, let alone successfully or a more rigorous and precise test.  At best so far it's "I know what I experienced" and "we both dreamed of a dog, ergo shared dreaming exists!!!".




Got a few more days on the password sharing experiment, but the participation has pretty much ended.  I'll start wrapping it up._

----------


## dutchraptor

> Got a few more days on the password sharing experiment, but the participation has pretty much ended.  I'll start wrapping it up.



I really wanted to particapate but everysingle LD I tried (About 8 in total) I got no password of any kind, something would always go wrong and I didn't want to just keep blindly guessing I wanted to post a definite result.

----------


## EbbTide000

> That is a very, _very_ stupid thing to say. It hasn't been "proven" even once by anyone, much less tested under "rigorous scientific conditions."
> 
> I don't care about your obsession with Robert L. Van de Castle, or his writings. We need the following:
> 
> 1.) Dreamers isolated, so they cannot physically see/hear each other.
> 2.) One simple password. (ex: Windows98, debrajane, Pillow99, etc.)
> 3.) Observation and analysis.
> 
> End of story.



 It's 7:02 am here and I just woke with the image of a man taking a large pet crocodile for a walk through a jungle, on a lead, like a dog. Got to put it in dream journal and pasword thread later.

Uhhhh

Just recon that an 84 year old researcher like Van de Castle would be happy to let you know, Gills, where in the world (and when) your pasword experiment had been done and what the results were.

or

How you could get  your hypothesis tested in a university under rigorouse scientific conditions. The IASD do that. They give out grants ($$$) to encourage and support intrepid folk, (like you and snoop) to get down and Do It.

----------


## Empedocles

> I personally don't think a password test would be sufficient. And its definitely not the only way to conclusively prove that people can communicate via dreams.



I keep hearing this again and again, and I think it's just a lame excuse not to do the experiment.

I mean come on... how the hell would the password test not be sufficient!?  ::shock:: 

It would be the PERFECT test. There is absolutely no way to cheat, and the results would be undeniable proof of a psi-connection between the two subjects.

----------


## Chimpertainment

It seems the only effective way would be for people to pair up or make very small focus groups...That way a connection could be established, then experiments could begin. I mean, practically speaking, what is the basis for communication anyway?

To me:

- Locality - you have to be near someone to communicate. With modern technology we can increase our ability to communicate without locality. However, the level of non-local communication being had usually determined the level at which you will be able to interact. So the concept of locality could be linked with depth of communication as well.

- Depth/Intensity/Intimate Association - Depending on how deeply you know someone, the communication had would be on a certain level. You might connect with someone because of a shared experience yet not know their favorite color for example. With that in mind, certain parts of ourselves are available to the "other" while different parts are "off limits".

- Understanding Communication Types - We have 5 senses to communicate with in the physical/macro world. Not every sense is necessary for communication. Therefore, you could communicate with someone even if you are deaf, blind, dumb etc..

These seem to be foundational concepts to establish a communication link. Once the link is established, then further information and communication can be added. 

Think about how we meet people in real life is what im suggesting. We can then use these approximate these basic types on an unconscious level...

mm?


P.S. Gill...Feel free to do what you feel would satisfy your personal standard of proof. My goal is to build a foundation to build upon rather than attempt to discover "the smoking gun".

----------


## dutchraptor

> I keep hearing this again and again, and I think it's just a lame excuse not to do the experiment.
> 
> I mean come on... how the hell would the password test not be sufficient!? 
> 
> It would be the PERFECT test. There is absolutely no way to cheat, and the results would be undeniable proof of a psi-connection between the two subjects.



It's an opinion, it's not stopping anyone from still performing the test including himself. He is obviously indicated that our limited knowledge on the subject would indicate that shared dreaming might operate differently than would seem apparent.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by dutchraptor


I really wanted to particapate but everysingle LD I tried (About 8 in total) I got no password of any kind, something would always go wrong and I didn't want to just keep blindly guessing I wanted to post a definite result.



Thanks for letting me know... you see... it's even stuff like "participating but having no results" that is even scientifically significant.  (At least, for me.)  Thank you for having participated._

----------


## TwoCrystalCups

I agree about the smaller groups, the better, even only 2 people is fine. But i have read that distance has no difference what so ever in shared dreaming.  But the connection between the 2 has to be strong, like for example a close friend, etc. Also having 6th sense helps a lot in shared dreaming (I.E. Telepathy, psychic, etc.)




> It seems the only effective way would be for people to pair up or make very small focus groups...That way a connection could be established, then experiments could begin. I mean, practically speaking, what is the basis for communication anyway?
> 
> To me:
> 
> - Locality - you have to be near someone to communicate. With modern technology we can increase our ability to communicate without locality. However, the level of non-local communication being had usually determined the level at which you will be able to interact. So the concept of locality could be linked with depth of communication as well.
> 
> - Depth/Intensity/Intimate Association - Depending on how deeply you know someone, the communication had would be on a certain level. You might connect with someone because of a shared experience yet not know their favorite color for example. With that in mind, certain parts of ourselves are available to the "other" while different parts are "off limits".
> 
> - Understanding Communication Types - We have 5 senses to communicate with in the physical/macro world. Not every sense is necessary for communication. Therefore, you could communicate with someone even if you are deaf, blind, dumb etc..
> ...

----------


## shadowofwind

> I keep hearing this again and again, and I think it's just a lame excuse not to do the experiment.
> 
> I mean come on... how the hell would the password test not be sufficient!? 
> 
> It would be the PERFECT test. There is absolutely no way to cheat, and the results would be undeniable proof of a psi-connection between the two subjects.



If it works you have rock solid proof of shared dreaming.  If it doesn't work, as I think is highly likely, then you have proof that shared dreaming, if it exists, can't easily be controlled in a manner that makes that test work.  

If you want proof of the kind of shared dreaming that real people who we know actually claim to be able to do, and not proof of a hypothetical shared dreaming that nobody claims to be able to do, then I think you need to find a more appropriate test.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Gills


I think it's just a lame excuse not to do the experiment.



O... K...  So... why aren't you doing an experiment?  Gee, I seem to have asked you this multiple times now._

----------


## Sivason

> Again, this is useless, and I will explain why, since you (once again) seem to miss the point.
> 
> A serious study in which shared dreaming could be verified *must* consist of information (such as a password) that is given to the subject BEFORE going to sleep. This password would then have to be transferred to the other subject(s) during sleep.
> 
> This is the only way that it could be scientifically validated. We could also throw in a couple of other things such as specific coordinated eye movements, but the password alone is absolutely sufficient.
> 
> You need to transfer/*share* information. It is, after all, a *shared* dream.
> 
> Everything other than that would pretty much be a nonsense study, because I can agree with tons of dreamers to go into a study and afterwards claim we had the same dreams, with elements X Y and Z.
> ...





No, I am not sure your experiment would help convince me. Lets say you got a haigh rate of correct passwords. It shows evidence that an unkown factor is involved. The first thought o this type of unkown is to assume cheating may be to blame. If you found good safegaurds to prevent any king of cheating, and the password was found, still this does not prove it. Other theories can account for the answer being guessed. It could have resulted for mind reading, far-seeing, or precog. and believe me, doubters would make a point of that.

----------


## Empedocles

> No, I am not sure your experiment would help convince me. Lets say you got a haigh rate of correct passwords. It shows evidence that an unkown factor is involved. The first thought o this type of unkown is to assume cheating may be to blame. If you found good safegaurds to prevent any king of cheating, and the password was found, still this does not prove it. Other theories can account for the answer being guessed.



Oh please. What theories? The dreamers are separated from one another and cannot send any form of signals, neither visual nor audio. You could also have them perform specific coordinated eye-movements while being in REM at the same time, to be sure.

Again, more excuses.





> It could have resulted for mind reading, far-seeing, or precog. and believe me, doubters would make a point of that.



As far as I'm concerned, mind-reading and precognition are all related to shared dreaming (if it exists). And even if they're not, proving mind-reading and/or precognition would be an enormous breakthrough in itself.

----------


## Empedocles

> O... K...  So... why aren't you doing an experiment?  Gee, I seem to have asked you this multiple times now.



Because I don't have the resources to do so. An internet forum isn't good enough. I would need the following:

1.) Two or more highly skilled lucid dreamers who can induce lucidity almost every night.
2.) REM-monitoring equipment.
3.) Several people overseeing the experiments, assigning passwords, and analyzing the results.

This would all require lots of time and money, among many other things. The only person I could see doing this kind of study efficiently is Stephen LaBerge. But from reading his books I gathered that he doesn't seem to have much of an interest in shared dreaming.

----------


## Empedocles

> If it works you have rock solid proof of shared dreaming.



Correct.





> If it doesn't work, as I think is highly likely, then you have proof that shared dreaming, if it exists, can't easily be controlled in a manner that makes that test work.



How you would arrive at such a ridiculous and irrational conclusion is beyond me. What you are doing right now is *almost* like arguing from silence. To you, the absence of evidence for shared dreaming shows you that it exists, but isn't "testable".  ::wtf:: 

It's funny, because I brought this up several weeks ago. I noticed a strong pattern with people claiming that shared dreaming can't be studied (for some odd reason). Dreams are being shared, information is being transferred, minds are being connected, yet no study will be able to show evidence of this?

Bullcrap.





> If you want proof of the kind of shared dreaming that real people who we know actually claim to be able to do, and not proof of a hypothetical shared dreaming that nobody claims to be able to do, then I think you need to find a more appropriate test.



The study I proposed is completely foolproof, and if I had the tools/resources that are necessary, I wouldn't hesitate to do it.

Until we have something like that, you can believe whatever you want, but please don't expect others to take your word for it.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Gills


Because I don't have the resources to do so. An internet forum isn't good enough.



So why are you here?_

----------


## Empedocles

> So why are you here?



Huh? I'm here to discuss, debate, and learn. AFAIK, that's what internet forums are made for.

So if I don't have the tools necessary to do a study on shared dreaming, then I shouldn't post here? Mmkay.

*Edit:* One more thing I forgot to say. If you don't want skepticism, then please go to http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/deep-d...s-forum-78664/ . Otherwise, if you stay here, then you should expect people to challenge certain claims.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Gills


Huh? I'm here to discuss, debate, and learn. AFAIK, that's what internet forums are made for.



Gills, with all due respect, you don't discuss, debate, and learn.  You bash other people.  I haven't seen you even attempt to do a study on your own.  You are a skilled ad hominem attacker.  This does not help learning or healthy discussion.

Now, yes, we are limited by the tools that we have.  But we have to make do.  At least we tried to do a study.  I don't see you even trying to do anything.  All I see is forum bashing._

----------


## Empedocles

> Gills, with all due respect, you don't discuss, debate, and learn.  You bash other people.



Give me an example. This oughta be good.





> I haven't seen you even attempt to do a study on your own.



That's because I don't see much value in a "study" such as "guess what I dreamed last night" or "guess the word I'm thinking of". The study I want to do cannot be done online, and it requires a great amount of time and money.





> You are a skilled ad hominem attacker.  This does not help learning or healthy discussion.



You don't seem to know what ad hominem is. If you want to see ad hominem, read hathor28's posts directed toward me (and not only me).





> Now, yes, we are limited by the tools that we have.  But we have to make do.  _At least we tried to do a study._  I don't see you even trying to do anything.  All I see is forum bashing.



Please show me where I bashed a forum member. I will always challenge outrageous posts, such as claims about shared dreaming being a fact (for example). On the other hand, I don't attack anyone on a personal level.

----------


## Sivason

> Oh please. What theories? The dreamers are separated from one another and cannot send any form of signals, neither visual nor audio. You could also have them perform specific coordinated eye-movements while being in REM at the same time, to be sure.
> 
> Again, more excuses.
> 
> 
> As far as I'm concerned, mind-reading and precognition are all related to shared dreaming (if it exists). And even if they're not, proving mind-reading and/or precognition would be an enormous breakthrough in itself.




Do you just strike out at evry post you read? You act like everyone is your debate opponent regardless of the content? So, finally one of the more science minded members expresses doubt and  that still draws a negative from you? If you do in fact have more science background than is offered in high school, drop me a PM and fill me in. I am just curious where your getting all your wisdom on all things related to studies and scientfic method. Not going to doubt your validity for a second, but between us, fill me in on your background.

My doubts about your experimental idea, is not an excuse for shared dreaming or anything other than doubt, which I would think you of alll the posters would enjoy. Now, if you also added the REM eye movement aspect, it would come much closer to validating the theory, but I doubt it would still be enough proof for me. Sure, it would be very cool if ESP or precog exist, but you simply come to the solid conclusion that something 'paranormal' appears to have happened, not proved what paranormal event happened.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by Gills


Give me an example. This oughta be good.



This thread._

----------


## Sageous

Here we are.  Back on the carousel of righteousness.  Spinning and spinning and spinning, with nary a brass ring in sight.

Thanks, guys.  It was fun while it lasted, but, in the end hubris always seems to win.

And sorry for the mess, WakingNomad ... unless of course that's what you had in mind from the get-go!   :wink2:

----------


## snoop

> Do you just strike out at evry post you read? You act like everyone is your debate opponent regardless of the content? So, finally one of the more science minded members expresses doubt and  that still draws a negative from you? If you do in fact have more science background than is offered in high school, drop me a PM and fill me in. I am just curious where your getting all your wisdom on all things related to studies and scientfic method. Not going to doubt your validity for a second, but between us, fill me in on your background.



 This is literally the definition of an ad hominem attack :V

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by sivason


Do you just strike out at evry post you read? You act like everyone is your debate opponent regardless of the content? So, finally one of the more science minded members expresses doubt and  that still draws a negative from you?



I don't get it, either.  I think we should just walk away from this steaming, bubbling pot of hate that is this thread..._

----------


## Empedocles

> I don't get it, either.  I think we should just walk away from this steaming, bubbling pot of hate that is this thread...



What I don't get, is why you "liked" snoop's post about the ad hominem. Follow me here:

Mindraker accuses me of using ad hominem attacks (without showing specific examples).
Sivason throws ad hominems at me.
Snoop points it out.

Mindraker "likes" snoop's post.

----------


## Empedocles

> This thread.



What about it? Where are the ad hominem attacks in my posts? 

Please show me, or else I will have to conclude that you are using baseless assertions.

----------


## Empedocles

> Do you just strike out at evry post you read?



No. Just the ones with 1.) baseless assertions, and 2.) logical fallacies.

For example, when someone like _debrajane_ says that shared dreaming has been proven again and again under "rigorous scientific conditions", then I will be prepared to "strike out", as you nicely put it.





> You act like everyone is your debate opponent regardless of the content?



I don't view anyone here as my opponent. Perhaps you are being a bit too sensitive, and need to lighten up. 

It's ok if someone disagrees with you.





> So, finally one of the more science minded members expresses doubt and  that still draws a negative from you? If you do in fact have more science background than is offered in high school, drop me a PM and fill me in. I am just curious where your getting all your wisdom on all things related to studies and scientfic method. Not going to doubt your validity for a second, but between us, fill me in on your background.



I don't need a master's degree in order to use simple logic. Two dreamers, isolated, REM-monitoring, and one password. 

Very simple, yet very effective.





> My doubts about your experimental idea, is not an excuse for shared dreaming or anything other than doubt, which I would think you of alll the posters would enjoy. Now, if you also added the REM eye movement aspect, it would come much closer to validating the theory, but I doubt it would still be enough proof for me.



But that is completely irrational, because the statistics (chance, "luck", whatever you wanna call it) would be working against you. 

You want to know what I think? I think that you hate this kind of experiment just because of it's high potential to disprove shared dreaming. For that reason you want to trash it, run it into the ground, and label it as "ineffective."





> Sure, it would be very cool if ESP or precog exist, but you simply come to the solid conclusion that something 'paranormal' appears to have happened, not proved what paranormal event happened.



What is shared dreaming, if not a variation of ESP/precog/mind-reading?

And furthermore, the password results along with eye-movements (recorded via REM-monitoring equipment) would be proof beyond a doubt, that the dream is being shared between the two subjects.

----------


## Mindraker

_Just walk away, people.  Don't feed the...  ad hominem attacker._

----------


## Empedocles

> Just walk away, people.  Don't feed the...  ad hominem attacker.



If now, for the third time, you're not able to show specific examples of me using ad hominems, then I'll have to conclude that you are baselessly asserting.

In any case, please stop diverting the thread with _your_ ad hominems.

----------


## Mindraker

_Just walk away._

----------


## snoop

> What I don't get, is why you "liked" snoop's post about the ad hominem. Follow me here:
> 
> Mindraker accuses me of using ad hominem attacks (without showing specific examples).
> Sivason throws ad hominems at me.
> Snoop points it out.
> 
> Mindraker "likes" snoop's post.



I've got to say, I'm confused too.

----------


## Sivason

> No. Just the ones with 1.) baseless assertions, and 2.) logical fallacies.
> 
> For example, when someone like _debrajane_ says that shared dreaming has been proven again and again under "rigorous scientific conditions", then I will be prepared to "strike out", as you nicely put it.
> 
> 
> I don't view anyone here as my opponent. Perhaps you are being a bit too sensitive, and need to lighten up. 
> 
> It's ok if someone disagrees with you.
> 
> ...




Let's start with an appology from me. i do admit that directing such comments at you, is making it far to personal. I also admit that in some way, I wwas questioning why you feel you are an authority, and an internet forum is no place for such a personal attack. I bow out, admiting that my whole post was clearly to personal and appologize.

I admit that your study could prove that a paranormal event occured, and if you add in the strict requirment for the eye movement while in confirmed REM sleep that it would lean all surmizing in the direction of a dream based mechanism. I simply do not consider precog, ESP or any other thing to be the same as shared dreaming. Keep the REM confirmed eye movement and I think you have as close as we will get to varification. However, the idea that I hate a made up example of an experiment is silly. That is why I unfairly directed a very personalized commentt at you about debate. You must know for a fact that PROOF is almost impossable to "prove." I could care much less who does or does not believe, I am not sure why you say it is a case of anyone demanding you believe without proof? While I do not care who believes what, me and you were talking science, so lets look at something,,, how can you suggest that your experiment would dis-prove anything? What logic or science prrinciple are you using when you suggest a failed experiment could prove the abscence of the thing saught? No, attack here, just honest debate,,, could you call a negative result in your experiment proof that shared dreaming does not exist? In my own 'science based' opinion, you would simple have failed to produce a likely possitivee, while in no way providing a conclusion about the subject not existing. Simply failed to prove, is not related in any way to disproved.

----------


## Sivason

> This is literally the definition of an ad hominem attack :V




True, very true. I was being honest in my questioning however. I certainly did not call him under-educated however. I only asked for more information on the  background of the member, in order to personally gage the merit of his understanding, via PM. I also did not say he strikes out at every post, I just wanted to know if he intended to play Devil's Advicate against every position taken regardless. However, I normally hold myself to a higher standard and as you can see admit the post was too personal.

----------


## Chimpertainment

lolz....

everyone is so convinced they know what the other wants...when all that anyone wants is within themselves. 

Gills, the way you describe this password experiment, its like you already know what would happen. So convinced are we, that we forgo preliminary exploration? Dismiss any other ideas to prove a point? Yes, sounds like fun..for you...

Most here are falling into the trap you have set...Your aggression is obvious, awkward, and its getting annoying. 

No matter what anyone says, a more subtle interpretation would show that people express their exact feelings toward others no matter what words are used. Ad hominem attacks happen when people allow the purity of their emotions to be expressed through words. The truth is those emotions are still there, you just have to dig a little to find them.  :smiley: 

I'm not gonna try to figure out how to convince anyone, thats not my job. The only one that can convince you is you. 

My goal is to explore. The unknown is just that, and acting like its some easy task while sitting in your laurels (no offense to anyone named laurel, I know a very nice girl by that name) is just laughable. 

You will not be the one to explore, and you will not reap the benefits of mapping the unknown. Thats fine with me!  :Rock out: 


I have very much enjoyed this thread btw. It has motivated me to engage in dream research instead of just reading. Hopefully we can utilize this forum for the wonderful resource that it is, a vehicle of exploration and information sharing.

----------


## snoop

> Let's start with an appology from me. i do admit that directing such comments at you, is making it far to personal. I also admit that in some way, I wwas questioning why you feel you are an authority, and an internet forum is no place for such a personal attack. I bow out, admiting that my whole post was clearly to personal and appologize.
> 
> I admit that your study could prove that a paranormal event occured, and if you add in the strict requirment for the eye movement while in confirmed REM sleep that it would lean all surmizing in the direction of a dream based mechanism. I simply do not consider precog, ESP or any other thing to be the same as shared dreaming. Keep the REM confirmed eye movement and I think you have as close as we will get to varification. However, the idea that I hate a made up example of an experiment is silly. That is why I unfairly directed a very personalized commentt at you about debate. You must know for a fact that PROOF is almost impossable to "prove." I could care much less who does or does not believe, I am not sure why you say it is a case of anyone demanding you believe without proof? While I do not care who believes what, me and you were talking science, so lets look at something,,, how can you suggest that your experiment would dis-prove anything? What logic or science prrinciple are you using when you suggest a failed experiment could prove the abscence of the thing saught? No, attack here, just honest debate,,, could you call a negative result in your experiment proof that shared dreaming does not exist? In my own 'science based' opinion, you would simple have failed to produce a likely possitivee, while in no way providing a conclusion about the subject not existing. Simply failed to prove, is not related in any way to disproved.



 I'm sorry, but I really have no clue at all what it is that you're trying to say here. Is it possible that you could rephrase it or something?

----------


## Empedocles

> Let's start with an appology from me.



I never took offense, but thanks, apology accepted.





> I admit that your study could prove that a paranormal event occured, and if you add in the strict requirment for the eye movement while in confirmed REM sleep that it would lean all surmizing in the direction of a dream based mechanism. I simply do not consider precog, ESP or any other thing to be the same as shared dreaming. Keep the REM confirmed eye movement and I think you have as close as we will get to varification.



That's good. 





> However, the idea that I hate a made up example of an experiment is silly. That is why I unfairly directed a very personalized commentt at you about debate. You must know for a fact that PROOF is almost impossable to "prove." I could care much less who does or does not believe, I am not sure why you say it is a case of anyone demanding you believe without proof?



I'll be honest and say that I have absolutely no idea what you just said. 





> While I do not care who believes what, me and you were talking science, so lets look at something,,, how can you suggest that your experiment would dis-prove anything? What logic or science prrinciple are you using when you suggest a failed experiment could prove the abscence of the thing saught?



Maybe I didn't express myself good enough. All I suggested was that the failed experiment wouldn't be a good thing for those who claim shared dreaming is real. The lack of evidence in a high quality study certainly wouldn't bode well.

Also, take a look at this: Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Distinguishing absence of evidence from evidence of absence)





> No, attack here, just honest debate,,, could you call a negative result in your experiment proof that shared dreaming does not exist? In my own 'science based' opinion, you would simple have failed to produce a likely possitivee, while in no way providing a conclusion about the subject not existing. Simply failed to prove, is not related in any way to disproved.



If we go down that road, Santa Claus, Bigfoot, and the Tooth Fairy will all begin to exist. After all, no scientific study has disproven them.

----------


## Sivason

This is  for the last two posts were they say they do not understand. First, ESP could be the cause of a posative result. Because this suggestion is no less plausable, it could be the answer to a sucessful password experiment. I am saying that in science you do not complete one experiment and claim to have proved  the mechanism of your result. You can only report your result. Gills seems very caught up in science, but not all of his thoughts are following the true scientific experiment. In this case the only proven thing would be that a word was shared by an unknown mechanism. The researcher may conclude that this seems to have been a case of shared dreaming. It would never count as a proof of shared dreaming.

Gills has many times saidh is  anger is with people who want peeople to believe with out proof. I am saying no one cares if Gills believes anything, so why should he care what experiences they share with others?

Gills said he thinks I hate the idea of his experiment because it would likely disprove shared dreaming. I say, that is silly, why should I hate a made up example of an experiment?

Finally failure of the experiment does nothing to dis-prove the subject. I am just saying that if Gills wants to sound like he is so interested in science, he is not being  logical. Take Bigfoot from his example (much less silly than santa clause) a series of sstudies trying to find Bigfoot, and failing can never be taken as proof no other Homonids exist. That is not only short sighted, but completely not based on the scientific princaple. At best it could prove no homonids exist in the regions tested. I will stop posting after this example for awhile. Here it is, atomic energy from urainium. If the theory presented is that uranium can be used to create a bomb, we can test that. Given no knowledge of the findings that came during WW2 it would be largely assumed the theory was crackpot and stupid. So let's say me and Gills set up a lab and under rigorous conditions we first expose it to heat, cold and violent shock, yet nothing we try results in an explosion. can we at that point say that we have *proven* that the theory is incorrect? No, we can not claim to have proven anything. We would be wrong to suggest uranium can not be used as bomb material. Our experiment would simple say we had failed to induce any kind of explosion using the following methods, fire, heat, cold , violent shock.

----------


## shadowofwind

Person A: "Do you believe its possible for a person to jump 9 meters?"

Person B: "I can do that."

Person C: "I have done that more than once, and have measured it carefully, so I know its possible.  But I don't expect other people to believe me if they don't know me well and haven't seen it for themselves."

Person D: "Both of you, that's ludicrous, the world record is less than two and a half meters."

Person B: "That's high jump, we're talking about long jump."

Person D: "Oh, that's more reasonable, but that's still hard to believe.  Can you prove it?"

Person B:  "Maybe, though I'm not sure I care whether you believe me."

Person C: "I might be able to prove it, and am willing to try, but there's no good runway and pit locally, and I'm not in quite the condition I was a year or two ago."

Person E:  "Let's test this by seeing if you can dunk a basketball in a 9 meter high hoop.  We can easily rig up one of those, and there's no mistaking the result, the ball goes in or it doesn't."  

Person D:  Um, I don't think that's a good test.

Person E:  "Dunking a basketball is a good objective measure of ability to jump.  If you can't do it you can't expect people to believe that a person can jump 9 meters."  

Person C:  "I have been able to jump 9 meters horizontally with a running start, but I can't do that vertically with a basketball."

Person E: "You're just asserting that without providing any evidence." 

Persons A, B, C, and D: "WTF??"

----------


## melanieb

I've been following this thread and I have been wondering if it will ever turn into a real debate, with one side presenting evidence that backs up their case and the other side presenting evidence that makes a counterpoint followed by their own case.

I've seen a lot of great hypotheticals presented but I don't see anyone willing to do the late-night eye-crunching work to find evidence of studies or people who actually are working on the brain and dreaming. I saw some papers recently of great work being done in Europe by people with resources and the drive to find the mechanisms behind dreaming and anything related to it.

I won't post them because I don't want to debate the subject. I kind of enjoy watching from the side. I really think this thread has potential and I would hate to skew things. Everyone posting has given me a lot to think about and I value your ideas and perspectives, at least the ones presented that don't demonstrate ad hominem attacks.  

However...

For me, I find that movie quotes are the perfect way to sum up what this thread has led to so far:

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

----------


## Sivason

> I've been following this thread and I have been wondering if it will ever turn into a real debate, with one side presenting evidence that backs up their case and the other side presenting evidence that makes a counterpoint followed by their own case.
> 
> I've seen a lot of great hypotheticals presented but I don't see anyone willing to do the late-night eye-crunching work to find evidence of studies or people who actually are working on the brain and dreaming. I saw some papers recently of great work being done in Europe by people with resources and the drive to find the mechanisms behind dreaming and anything related to it.
> 
> I won't post them because I don't want to debate the subject. I kind of enjoy watching from the side. I really think this thread has potential and I would hate to skew things. Everyone posting has given me a lot to think about and I value your ideas and perspectives, at least the ones presented that don't demonstrate ad hominem attacks.  
> 
> However...
> 
> For me, I find that movie quotes are the perfect way to sum up what this thread has led to so far:
> ...



WARGAMES ? What a cool, old, referance! Debates have always irritted me in general.

----------


## Chimpertainment

> I've been following this thread and I have been wondering if it will ever turn into a real debate, with one side presenting evidence that backs up their case and the other side presenting evidence that makes a counterpoint followed by their own case.
> 
> I've seen a lot of great hypotheticals presented but I don't see anyone willing to do the late-night eye-crunching work to find evidence of studies or people who actually are working on the brain and dreaming. I saw some papers recently of great work being done in Europe by people with resources and the drive to find the mechanisms behind dreaming and anything related to it.
> 
> I won't post them because I don't want to debate the subject. I kind of enjoy watching from the side. I really think this thread has potential and I would hate to skew things. Everyone posting has given me a lot to think about and I value your ideas and perspectives, at least the ones presented that don't demonstrate ad hominem attacks.  
> 
> However...
> 
> For me, I find that movie quotes are the perfect way to sum up what this thread has led to so far:
> ...



Are there some international debate rules i might reference? <--That is nice sarcasm btw. References are nice...if i could find some...maybe you could help? Doesnt make you part of the debate..just a researcher...

Closest Thing I can find to real research after quite a bit of internet digging...

http://books.google.com/books?id=Laa...page&q&f=false

----------


## EbbTide000

New thread opened by Mzzkc

I just listened to the Youtube that, that thread is about. It comes close to what I meant when I said in post #379 





> *Dear Snoop, Gills and folk of like mind 
> 
> I think that shared dreaming has been proven over and over and over under rigorous scientific conditions. Robert L Van de Castle and his friends have been diligently pursuing this for many decades. Robert L Van de Castle is 84 now. He gives his contact details in that paper I am transcribing slowly in this thread:
> 
> http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/what-y...oughts-131453/
> 
> Here are his contact details as published on his amazing paper:
> 
> Corresponding address: 
> ...



Here is Mzzkc's thread.

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/psi-re...9/#post1931836

----------


## Empedocles

> It comes close to what I meant when I said in post #379



Whenever you repeat your mantra that shared dreaming has been proven under rigorous scientific conditions, you should expect to receive harsh criticism for such a baseless assertion. I will quote what I said in post #385:





> That is a very, very stupid thing to say. It hasn't been "proven" even once by anyone, much less tested under "rigorous scientific conditions."
> 
> I don't care about your obsession with Robert L. Van de Castle, or his writings. We need the following:
> 
> 1.) Dreamers isolated, so they cannot physically see/hear each other.
> 2.) One simple password. (ex: Windows98, debrajane, Pillow99, etc.)
> 3.) Observation and analysis.
> 
> End of story.



Best wishes.

----------


## snoop

That's because you never give him an answer?  You always just reply with a video or a paper that provides no evidence and ask what our thoughts are on it.

----------


## Empedocles

> Person A: "Do you believe its possible for a person to jump 9 meters?"



Your scenario can't be applied to this thread. Here we have people who do the following:

1.) Present shared dreaming as an undeniable "fact". (debrajane / hathor28 / daredevilpwn)
2.) Demand "evidence" for the "non-existence" of shared dreaming. (hathor28)
3.) Believe that a failed shared dreaming password experiment would *only* show that shared dreaming is a bad tool for communication. (Mindraker)
4.) Believe that a failed password experiment is essentially meaningless for shared dreaming. (sivason)

and I could go on and on...

The point: This thread is full of logical fallacies and baseless assertions. I said it many times, and I'll say it again. I have no problems with people believing in shared dreaming, but *please*, just *please*, don't make it out to be something it isn't. Don't present is as a fact, don't present it as undeniable truth, and don't present it as something that has been studied under "rigorous scientific conditions" (debrajane).

Cut the BS, stop the nonsense, and get real. If you experienced shared dreaming, or you think you experienced it, then I will never discredit you, because that would be arrogant and ridiculous. But if you want to force these beliefs onto others, and then get angry if someone demands evidence (such as a study), then *you* have a problem.

If you don't want skepticism, don't post in Beyond Dreaming. That's what http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/deep-d...s-forum-78664/ is for.

Notice that I have never challenged someone's beliefs. I only challenge them when they present them as truth, and when they want to shove them down someone's throat.

Best wishes.

----------


## Sivason

> The point: This thread is full of logical fallacies and baseless assertions. I said it many times, and I'll say it again. I have no problems with people believing in shared dreaming, but *please*, just *please*, don't make it out to be something it isn't. Don't present is as a fact, don't present it as undeniable truth, and don't present it as something that has been studied under "rigorous scientific conditions" (debrajane).
> 
> Cut the BS, stop the nonsense, and get real. If you experienced shared dreaming, or you think you experienced it, then I will never discredit you, because that would be arrogant and ridiculous. But if you want to force these beliefs onto others, and then get angry if someone demands evidence (such as a study), then *you* have a problem.
> 
> If you don't want skepticism, don't post in Beyond Dreaming. That's what http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/deep-d...s-forum-78664/ is for.
> 
> Notice that I have never challenged someone's beliefs. I only challenge them when they present them as truth, and when they want to shove them down someone's throat.
> 
> Best wishes.





Gills did not say anything negative about my experiences. He took the time to read them, and found then 'interesting' which from a logical/study point of view is all they can be deemed. He could have been slanderous and attacked the dreamer's honesty, but he has not shown himself to be that base. Thanks for that Gills.

Also, gills is correct about the different sub-forums. *Deep Dreaming is a permission required forum, but it is simple for any of you to get permission.* It seems like almost no one uses it, but it is there for any of us, who wish to have a talk free of skeptics. *Please feel free (any one) to sign up for permission and start a thread there.* Gills would not debate on that sub-forum, but on this thread Waking Nomad named it Debate.

So far, me and Gills may disagree on what counts as proof or dis-proof when conducting a science study (I am much more rigid on following the strict guidelines) but most would consider my point very academic and rigid, while I admit that if we relax the rules a little his experiment would _basically_ prove shared dreaming (if it produced a positive). That is just fine points between two guys interested in science. That is a very reasonable thing for us to disagree on in a debate thread.

Many people, including Gills have used words like 'stupid' and it would be better to avoid that, but we are all just people on a chat forum, so no one is ever going to act like  they are in a college debate class and follow strict edicate. 

My point here is simple! *Try to refrain from words like stupid, and petty meaness (every body),* but do not act like Gills is out of line, other than if he is being cruel on purpose. *There is a sub-forum where he will not debate with you, that is why it is there.* This thread has the word Debate in its name, so expect arguements and every thing we have seen so far. The Dream Guide team will remove viscious personal posts and give infractions to out right mean behavior, but so far that has only happened a couple times.

Enjoy Waking Nomad's thread for what it is, a debate, or start a new thread in Deep Dreaming, and post a link here so we can all find it.

Smile everyone, we have an awesome community of friends here and so much to talk about, including debates.

----------


## shadowofwind

> Your scenario can't be applied to this thread....If you don't want skepticism, don't post in Beyond Dreaming....Notice that I have never challenged someone's beliefs. I only challenge them when they present them as truth, and when they want to shove them down someone's throat.



You're projecting an awful lot here.  I don't think people should believe things they don't have evidence for.  I don't think you should believe in shared dreaming.  Skepticism is great, I think its an essential virtue.  But saying that you don't believe what someone is saying, when you have not tried to understand what they are saying, is just stupid.  Try to understand their meaning first, then see if you agree or disagree with it.

I can't pass a password sharing test, and I don't know of anyone else who can.  Sharing passwords is not what shared dreaming is for us, that's not the sort of thing we can do.  The shared dreaming you are trying to test is a hypothetical kind that isn't what we're talking about.  This isn't a hard concept to grasp.  You can even understand _why_ we can't share passwords, I can explain it, but you have shown no curiousity for understanding that.  You fixate on people's fallacies, both real and imagined, and don't even look at people's strongest arguments.  If you want to learn something, or even understand the basics of the subject you think you're talking about, you have to try to do that.

----------


## Sivason

> You're projecting an awful lot here.  I don't think people should believe things they don't have evidence for.  I don't think you should believe in shared dreaming.  Skepticism is great, I think its an essential virtue.  But saying that you don't believe what someone is saying, when you have not tried to understand what they are saying, is just stupid.  Try to understand their meaning first, then see if you agree or disagree with it.
> 
> I can't pass a password sharing test, and I don't know of anyone else who can.  Sharing passwords is not what shared dreaming is for us, that's not the sort of thing we can do.  The shared dreaming you are trying to test is a hypothetical kind that isn't what we're talking about.  This isn't a hard concept to grasp.  You can even understand _why_ we can't share passwords, I can explain it, but you have shown no curiousity for understanding that.  You fixate on people's fallacies, both real and imagined, and don't even look at people's strongest arguments.  If you want to learn something, or even understand the basics of the subject you think you're talking about, you have to try to do that.



I sure understood your jumping example. Very nicely done. Gills, let me try to clarify something, to my knowledge no members of this community have claimed to be able to do any kind of dream sharing that is even similar to what you are suggesting could be tested. If I missed something that gave you the idea, please fill me in. Are there members claiming to be able to exchange exact information in shared dreams? I do not know if any of us believe in shared dreaming that is that specific and controllable. Most of us who believe in the type of dream sharing we have described may feel that that kind of shared dream, may be possable, just like many believe there are likely planets with life out there other than Earth. That is a kind of an attitude of 'well it seems likely that in a vast wonderful universe, such a thing just does not seem too unlikely.'
Gills idea of a test would be great if we could find two people who claim that they can Share Dreams in the manner Gills is taking about. However, Shadowof winds point is simple and maybe Gills is missing it. Simply, who is claiming to be able to share dreams in any manner similar to what Gills is talking about?

----------


## Empedocles

> You're projecting an awful lot here.  I don't think people should believe things they don't have evidence for.  I don't think you should believe in shared dreaming.  Skepticism is great, I think its an essential virtue.  But saying that you don't believe what someone is saying, when you have not tried to understand what they are saying, is just stupid.  Try to understand their meaning first, then see if you agree or disagree with it.



You are creating a straw man. I never misunderstood someone who claims they experienced shared dreaming. I might not believe that it actually happened, but I do believe that they believe it, that they are convinced of it, and I do respect their beliefs. Read my past responses to sivason's experiences. Only those who pass their experiences off as facts and truth will be challenged by me.





> I can't pass a password sharing test, and I don't know of anyone else who can.



Any two experienced shared dreamers would be able to pass this test with ease. Those who are less experienced and have spontaneous "shared" dreams don't come into question. 





> Sharing passwords is not what shared dreaming is for us, that's not the sort of thing we can do.  The shared dreaming you are trying to test is a hypothetical kind that isn't what we're talking about.  This isn't a hard concept to grasp.  You can even understand _why_ we can't share passwords, I can explain it, but you have shown no curiousity for understanding that.  You fixate on people's fallacies, both real and imagined, and don't even look at people's strongest arguments.  If you want to learn something, or even understand the basics of the subject you think you're talking about, you have to try to do that.



If the fallacies I talk about are imagined, then why did you leave out 95% of my post, and only respond to a few incomplete sentences?

----------


## shadowofwind

Summarizing again why I think proving shared dreaming is inherently difficult....

The scope of the sharing is more abstract than language, and more abstract than visual imagery.  In a 'shared dream', as far as what I've experienced, the sounds and pictures seem to me to all be projected by the person having the dream, not by the other person.  In order for the same word or object to appear in both people's dream, the significance of it has to be felt and understood by both people in a way that's specific enough to be represented by the same symbol, and not some metaphorical synonym.,  If a particular word or object has no purpose in the dream besides being something to be objectively shared, the main felt content is "this is the symbol used for test purposes".  That doesn't say what the symbol actually is.  To be recognized the same way by both people, it has to have meaning in the motive/desire realm where the sharing is.  For the most part a password doesn't rise to that level.  Compounding this difficulty is the weakness or lack of control of the minds of the dreamers.  If two people were really, really, good at this, they might be able to feel every impression clearly enough to generate sounds and pictures with a high enough degree of correspondence to get agreement on a particular chosen concrete symbol.  But as it is, all they usually get is agreement at an emotive and idea level.  Often I can tell you what someone's attitude is about something, but the words and pictures that are used to describe that are mine, not theirs.  Sometimes there are specific words and colors that are in common, but these are tied involuntarily and in a direct way to the content that is shared.

If a person dislikes ambiguity, they could try to simplify the scenario by deciding a priori that all the abstract and metaphorical stuff is either coincidental or extrapolated from externally known evidence.  Judging from my experience though, they won't be able to make that seem plausible for long if they have these experiences a lot, nearly every night, and keep working at it.  Very often there is objectively verifiable content, and with practice a person gets better at distinguishing 'me' from 'not me' by the way it feels, so that they know where to look.  Time and location context can also be judged by feeling, then checked afterwards.  When evidence can't be categorized neatly enough to be generated from a simple experiment, that doesn't mean its not real objective evidence, just that its messier than that, more difficult. 

I'm not suggesting what someone else should or should not believe.  I'm describing my own experience.  If someone else wants to suggest how to interpret or test such experience, first they need to know something about what experience is, so that they're testing it and not something else.

For others, shared dream experience is less abstract than what I'm describing here, so they might have more success with less allegorical approaches to it.  I also tend to disagree with other people though about what is likely to be 'real' in their experiences, I think a lot more of it is personally imagined or 'pretend' than what they realize if they just take the images at face value.  Everyone is a bit different in that regard, we're all clear and strong or weak and confused in different areas.

----------


## Empedocles

> I sure understood your jumping example. Very nicely done. Gills, let me try to clarify something, to my knowledge no members of this community have claimed to be able to do any kind of dream sharing that is even similar to what you are suggesting could be tested. If I missed something that gave you the idea, please fill me in. Are there members claiming to be able to exchange exact information in shared dreams? I do not know if any of us believe in shared dreaming that is that specific and controllable. Most of us who believe in the type of dream sharing we have described may feel that that kind of shared dream, may be possable, just like many believe there are likely planets with life out there other than Earth. That is a kind of an attitude of 'well it seems likely that in a vast wonderful universe, such a thing just does not seem too unlikely.'
> Gills idea of a test would be great if we could find two people who claim that they can Share Dreams in the manner Gills is taking about. However, Shadowof winds point is simple and maybe Gills is missing it. Simply, who is claiming to be able to share dreams in any manner similar to what Gills is talking about?



We don't necessarily need two self-proclaimed experienced shared dreamers. Actually, anyone who is very good at achieving lucidity would be suitable for this study. Why not have 50 people (just an example), participate in a study where they try to exchange a password? They'd have to be in REM at the same time, and then the assignment would be to attempt contact with the other dreamer, and give them the password.

The key is to become fully lucid and attempt to initiate contact with the other participants, who are dreaming at the same time.

It's not hard at all. The requirements are: time, money, and people willing to participate.

----------


## melanieb

This thread has brought out some insightful opinions and ideas.

Unfortunately too many posts have strayed off-topic and should be taken to private messages. 

Please keep your posts directed at the subject of the OP and do not include attacks on people's character. Challenging the opinions of others is perfectly allowed and makes a debate lively but it needs to be done without attacking the person themselves. 

*Challenge the ideas...not the person.*

----------


## Sivason

> We don't necessarily need two self-proclaimed experienced shared dreamers. Actually, anyone who is very good at achieving lucidity would be suitable for this study. Why not have 50 people (just an example), participate in a study where they try to exchange a password? They'd have to be in REM at the same time, and then the assignment would be to attempt contact with the other dreamer, and give them the password.
> 
> The key is to become fully lucid and attempt to initiate contact with the other participants, who are dreaming at the same time.
> 
> It's not hard at all. The requirements are: time, money, and people willing to participate.



That is a pretty good idea. I of course wil stick to my guns on scientific mehod and say that failing to produce a possitive does not prove a negative, but that is an old topic by now.

I would add a control group of 50 people who are not lucid dreamers at all, and have them simply guess the password after a nights sleep. In order to adress Shadowofwinds concern, whuch I find very valid I would also want to simplify the pool of possable words. I would create a list that each person had access to, including the control group. The list would be possable passwords and should be limited to about 1000 words. The words should be very archtypal and for the first round of experiments lets also limit them to one word nouns. Examples could  be dog, apple, tower, shirt and so on. No effort should be made to confound the dreamers by creating weird compound thoughts like yellow bubblegum pie. Just a simple noun that is archtypal from a limited list of 1000 words.
Yes, this gives the chance for an accidental selection of the word, but that is why we would need a control group. The rate of correct answers would be adjusted with statistical method, and significance would need to be mathmatically demonstrated. That is just my idea of what would add to the validity of the test. Later, the LDers (if any)  who had got passwords correct, would be tested under more complex settings such as compound thoughts involving a discriptive term and a noun, such as hot tower, or blue dog.

----------


## shadowofwind

As we've discussed previously, I think they don't have to be in REM at the same time.  As the acronym implies, REM is when you're dreaming of images, but since the information shared is at a more subtle level than that, the picture and sound dreaming doesn't need to be at the same time.  This makes the experiment a lot easier, despite the other difficulties.  Proximity doesn't matter either.  The only reason I can think of to get people together in one place and time is to make sure that nobody cheats.  Having passwords that connect to people at the strongest instinctive level, such as having to do with community, violence, and sex would help, as long as you can control adequately for the different ways that people think about these things.

----------


## shadowofwind

I also think that it makes the most sense to have one person with a relatively strong mind try to broadcast the key to the other people, rather than having people pair up.  If they try to pair up, people will get confused and wind up with their thoughts mixed up in the wrong combinations.  That would happen with me anyway.

Not having different control groups makes the test less rigorously 'scientific', but its necessary since there's no good way to isolate the different groups, by the very nature of the phenomena being investigated.

----------


## Sageous

> Summarizing again why I think proving shared dreaming is inherently difficult....
> 
> The scope of the sharing is more abstract than language, and more abstract than visual imagery.  In a 'shared dream', as far as what I've experienced, the sounds and pictures seem to me to all be projected by the person having the dream, not by the other person.  In order for the same word or object to appear in both people's dream, the significance of it has to be felt and understood by both people in a way that's specific enough to be represented by the same symbol, and not some metaphorical synonym.,  If a particular word or object has no purpose in the dream besides being something to be objectively shared, the main felt content is "this is the symbol used for test purposes".  That doesn't say what the symbol actually is.  To be recognized the same way by both people, it has to have meaning in the motive/desire realm where the sharing is.  For the most part a password doesn't rise to that level.  Compounding this difficulty is the weakness or lack of control of the minds of the dreamers.  If two people were really, really, good at this, they might be able to feel every impression clearly enough to generate sounds and pictures with a high enough degree of correspondence to get agreement on a particular chosen concrete symbol.  But as it is, all they usually get is agreement at an emotive and idea level.  Often I can tell you what someone's attitude is about something, but the words and pictures that are used to describe that are mine, not theirs.  Sometimes there are specific words and colors that are in common, but these are tied involuntarily and in a direct way to the content that is shared.



That I think describes not just the problem with a password, but the fundamental problem with shared dreaming:  _How_ can the communication itself occur?

Also, almost as an aside: Why use a password at all?  Why not an action, like a tap on the shoulder, or perhaps something singularly annoying?

----------


## Chimpertainment

> The scope of the sharing is more abstract than language, and more abstract than visual imagery.  In a 'shared dream', as far as what I've experienced, the sounds and pictures seem to me to all be projected by the person having the dream, not by the other person.  In order for the same word or object to appear in both people's dream, the significance of it has to be felt and understood by both people in a way that's specific enough to be represented by the same symbol, and not some metaphorical synonym.,  If a particular word or object has no purpose in the dream besides being something to be objectively shared, the main felt content is "this is the symbol used for test purposes".  That doesn't say what the symbol actually is.  To be recognized the same way by both people, it has to have meaning in the motive/desire realm where the sharing is.  For the most part a password doesn't rise to that level.  Compounding this difficulty is the weakness or lack of control of the minds of the dreamers.  If two people were really, really, good at this, they might be able to feel every impression clearly enough to generate sounds and pictures with a high enough degree of correspondence to get agreement on a particular chosen concrete symbol.  But as it is, all they usually get is agreement at an emotive and idea level.  Often I can tell you what someone's attitude is about something, but the words and pictures that are used to describe that are mine, not theirs.  Sometimes there are specific words and colors that are in common, but these are tied involuntarily and in a direct way to the content that is shared.



Couldnt have said it better myself!  :Clap: 





> I also think that it makes the most sense to have one person with a relatively strong mind try to broadcast the key to the other people, rather than having people pair up. If they try to pair up, people will get confused and wind up with their thoughts mixed up in the wrong combinations. That would happen with me anyway.



Or perhaps both ways? The video Mzzkc posted in another thread references studies done using both of these approaches. They are not shared dreaming studies, but they do involve psychic interaction according to Dr. Radin, the speaker in the video.

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## shadowofwind

> Or perhaps both ways?



Yeah, I agree my statement was overly sweeping.  You could have separate groups do some kind of bonding beforehand.  There would still be some spillover, but you might still get good results.  Because of the asynchronous/premonitory nature of the sharing you'd also get spillover between the sessions on different nights, but not necessarily enough to hose the experiment.

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## Sivason

I agree that REM sleep may not be required for shared dreaming to occur. However, for an experiment to pass the rigorous needs to pure science confirming a dream state occuring at the same time would lend a lot of weight. It should be required that both people were confirmed to be asleep at the same time. Again, perhaps time is not relevant, but for a convincing test it would be.

What about nREM sleep? A whole lot of lucid dreamers do not realize they can LD in nREM. They are missing out on good oppertunities to improve their WILDs by initiating nREM dreams, while waiting for a REM cycle. Here is a link to my most recent DJ entry, as it deals with this topic, 08/14/12 WILD. Over an hour of nREM LD to get 10 minutes in REM only to fall prey to a FA - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views. They also do not get to clearly understand why some LDs take place in poorly lit settings and why they have blurry weak visuals. So Shadowofwind is correct. The need for REM is not actually true as far as LDs go, and therefore is likely not needed for shared LDs, nREM lucids should work.

I think the need for an evironment where all test subjects are together stems from the difficulty in making contact with a stranger. that is the one huge flaw I see in aall of our honest efforts to explore the topic. Friends and family members should not need to be close, but it will help strangers if they need to make contact with someone in the next room, instead of some guy somewhere.

I also agree that pairing off people is to complex and not the most logical approach. I would have a cross over design. That is half the group would attempt to convey the password to anyone who came seeking it, while the other half was assigned to seeking contact with anyone in the next room to ask for the password. Then you would have the two groups switch roles. The idea of one dreamer having the password is also reasonable.

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## shadowofwind

> You are creating a straw man. I never misunderstood someone who claims they experienced shared dreaming.



I may have been insufficiently clear about the context.  Every time someone tells you that _what they mean by shared dreaming_ is not directly testable with passwords, and you reply by reasserting that it is testable that way, you're not understanding what they mean by shared dreaming.





> Originally Posted by shadowofwind
> 
> 
> I can't pass a password sharing test, and I don't know of anyone else who can.
> 
> 
> 
> Any two experienced shared dreamers would be able to pass this test with ease.



There you did it again.





> Those who are less experienced and have spontaneous "shared" dreams don't come into question.



There aren't any other kind, as far as anyone here seems to be claiming.  Even having shared dreams nightly does not imply control of content of the type you're suggesting.





> If the fallacies I talk about are imagined, then why did you leave out 95% of my post, and only respond to a few incomplete sentences?



I said the fallacies are both real and imagined, not that they are all imagined.  The fact that not everyone posting here makes sound arguments every time they post is beside the point I was trying to make in my athletic analogy.  Creative/imaginative people are often not very good at rigorous reasoning, particularly when subjects are touched upon that they're sensitive about.  But there is still usually a kernel of truth in the point they are trying to make, if you try to understand it.  

If someone claims 'I can do X', and you respond 'we can prove it one way or another by testing for Y', and they reply no, the 'X' that I'm referring to is not equivalent 'Y', there's nothing wrong with their logic.  They're not trying to push a belief down your throat, they're just trying to say that your equation of shared dreaming with being able to share a password mischaracterizes what they have been talking about when they talk about shared dreaming.  However adeptly or ineptly people have been trying to say that, most of it boils down to this.

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## Chimpertainment

> I've been following this thread and I have been wondering if it will ever turn into a real debate, with one side presenting evidence that backs up their case and the other side presenting evidence that makes a counterpoint followed by their own case.



Ya know, I have to agree with this, despite my knee-jerk reaction to defend my ego. And, I had the question in my head, how does a group go about tackling the idea of debate and argument. So as usual, I turned to my always handy pal google and asked them...

and of course I find something...

Argument and Debate

Here is my thought. Perhaps with a little help from the University of Pittsburgh, we can present our positions, using the supplied rubric, to form our discussion. 
It would possibly appear haphazard or drawn out using a free for all forum, but its a step up from stream of consciousness quotes...

The first item to settle seems to be *what* can be argued about and be considered valid subject for debate?

Here are the supplied perimeters (If you would like to see the full definition of each word, follow the link above):

Facts:

Values:

Policies:

Definitions:

Interpretations:

Research:

Criteria:

Theories:

Of course, as has been decided already...personal feelings are conveniently absent.  :smiley: 

Now, of course that list is just the beginning. That is the prescribed formula for the purpose of constructing a position. Each category encases an amalgamation of information that serves to form a foundation of communication...*shun*.....*shun*...*shun*....

Here is the fun part...As we battle it out on the debate grounds or peacefully explore the hills of argument, there is a certain progression that should occur. I think we can all agree we don't want to repeat ourselves continually. And here is the progression:

Contest issues: Deliberation involves a controversy or unsolved problem in need of resolution.

Exchange opinions: Deliberation is not individual monologues, but a substantial consideration of ideas by multiple group members who advance different perspectives.

Reflect: Deliberation encourages members to acknowledge others viewpoints and consider them in relation to their own viewpoint. The inability or unwillingness to consider opposing viewpoints leads to uninformed, and often indefensible, resolutions.

Synthesize: Deliberation combines and builds upon individual contributions to create intellectual activity greater than the sum of its parts.

Reform opinions: Deliberation between individuals sparks deliberation within themselves, challenging and expanding their opinions on issues.

Judge: Deliberation fosters conclusions on critical issues.

As I mentioned before, it would be pretty difficult to accomplish an authentic debate in an open forum but im sure it could be done. 

1. *Our Unsolved Problem:* 
Shared Dreaming


Lets Build a Foundation.
This is just for the idea to begin with. I would like to put some more time into the structure of an argument, but the outline should be sufficient for the time being.

Facts:
There have been multiple studies regarding shared dreaming. People were able to produce similar informational patterns to the initial selected pattern be it a picture, shape, whatever.

Values:
Different religious and spiritual traditions have opposing views on the use of dreams. Some believe we should not tamper with our spiritual qualities. How would shared dreaming be affected by the interaction of two conscious minds who would typically experience severe cognitive dissonance in waking life?

Policies:
Consider the future possibility that shared dreaming were proven true. What would we do as a society to respond to such information? Are we supposed to start dreaming with people now? Or perhaps we should cut off funding to research in these areas.

Definitions:
What do we mean by "shared" dreams? What dream-like qualities would be shared?

Interpretations:
There are many studies done on shared dreaming that claim its validity. However, they are mostly based on anecdotal evidence with no technologically based results. The researchers have claimed proof, but others interpret their data differently.

Research:
All the studies I have found are either in a book or a psychological journal. There is a certain level of dedication needed to research. I have personal experience from three years of university training; actually research was much more exciting then writing or presenting my work. Dedicated, in depth, focused research needs to be done in this area. Some might call this a meta-analysis of shared dreaming. This is inaccessible to me at this time but I hope to compile a fair amount of information in the future. 

Criteria:
This pertains to the standards by which we will accept an idea, or information presented on the topic and seems loosely tied to interpretation. We may accept the research and experience of another; however, there are certain benchmarks that should be established determining the veracity of research and experience.

Theories:
I have no workable theory for shared dreaming. If someone does, I would like to hear that.

That is the entirety of the outline. And there are also a few things we haven't talked about yet that maybe some good fodder.
Of course, its all a choice. This topic has gained my interest, and im not sure if thats good or bad...

----------


## shadowofwind

I think one difficulty with debate here, is every time some kind of progress in is made in the discussion, someone new drops in a few days later and starts off again where things were a week or month or a year or more earlier.  The issue isn't skepticism or lack of it, its just being informed about what people are talking about.

As a side note, I think arguments in relation to character and motive are appropriate in many circumstances.  Its inappropriate when it is used as a way of evading forthright engagement with people's arguments, and often that is the way it is used.  But suppose, for example, that I'm here with an agenda to advance a particular religious theology, and I bend every exchange towards that ends by any sleight of argument possible.  Or suppose I'm here to find psychologically vulnerable people who I can prey upon.  Or suppose that I'm halfway sincere, but to some extent I'm also doing one or both of those other things.  Anyone who tries to take what I say at face value will become frustrated by the way I lead on like I'm having a real discussion, but in the end always close the door on what they're trying to communicate without giving it an honest chance.  Sometimes calling out where the person seems to be coming from is the most direct approach.  Even if the person doing the calling out is wrong, at least it gets it into the open where the other person has a chance to refute it effectively.  One example of this would be my rude exchange with OutlawPig a month or so ago.  Since both of us were honest in our approach to the other person, we were able to cut through the misunderstanding very quickly that way, with no hard feelings afterwards, notwithstanding the highly aggressive and personal nature of both of our comments.  Another example would be an argument I had with tsouiz in the f96 forum about Gurjieff.  In that case we didn't arrive at any mutual agreement, but the exchange showed a lot more clearly where each person was coming from, which allowed us to avoid subsequent wastes of time and energy.  Yes I know that everyone is different, and complicated, and my approach to communication is far from perfect, and we'd be better off if I'd improve it and be less of an asshole.  (Is it OK to call myself an asshole?  Sometimes its just the most appropriate word for a particular kind of behavior.)  But I also think that various subtle forms of insincerity cause far more problems in these discussions than anything else.  And if we can't speak about things like motives without that being out of bounds, then sometimes its hard to have a real discussion, because people's motives are to a very large extent what are driving their positions and misunderstandings.  As I see it, its not the questioning of honesty that causes problems so much as it is people's desire to maintain a dishonest stance without having it questioned.  A lot of this comes down to what the goal is.  If the experience of having a pleasant discussion is valued more than making real progress, then we should just pretend friendliness and cheerfulness at every juncture, whether where people are coming from is truly friendly or not.  But that's not why I'm here.  Yes I realize that conflict and bad feeling can damage communication also, I'm trying to point out one part of the picture, not to suggest that its the whole picture.

----------


## EbbTide000

Participation, participation, participation.

*Shared dreaming* accidently, spontainiosly, (totally unexpected and SHOCKINGly) began to happen between participants on saltcube back in 07 and 08 as they participated in Matt Jones 35 and EyeOneBlack's 48 dream remote viewing laboritories.

Due to * threats* all these amazing threads were removed.

I can't help wondering whether those who got the saltcube threads removed are here, with a mission to discourage the discovery of controlled Psi Dreaming (including shared dreamimg).

*Participation is the key*

There will be lots (and lots) of embarrassing misses for all participants.

But

Once the brain starts figuring out how to HIT things become wonderous.

A brain is just a brain. 

I saw a TV program where Drs kept putting a baby in a high chair and put put a feeding bottle within reach. The brain of that baby ran every program it knew trying to find one that would help towards getting a feed.

The babe even kiked out a leg.

Once the baby hit the bottle with its hand, the brain noted that, and began running that programe over and over.

Once the brain knew how to get the hands to go over to the bottle it began running knew programs trying to figure out how to grasp the bottle.

When the brain had the * grasp the bottle*  program down it began to close-in on how to get a feed from that darn (#!#) feeding bottle.

I coulden't help smiling when I remember seeing that babe kicking out its little foot hoping to get a feed.

When attemping to psi-dream our brain will go through a similar process as it went through to learn how to walk and so on.

We will have many funny falls that will look hillarious to onlookers.

Its * humiliating* and we feel like running away and never trying again. 

But the misses must happen over and over till the baby's hand accidently hits the bottle. The brain notices this and so it * the HITS* begin to happen more and more.

(IMO)

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## shadowofwind

Chipertainment, thanks for the thoughts.  I'll pontificate on these a little bit for the sake of trying to add something....

Facts:  Nuance of understanding often interferes with certainty of conviction, and this doubt can interfere with people's experiences and accomplishments.  Shared dreaming skeptics are generally correct in their perception that self-proclaimed shared dreamers commonly aren't very objective about their dream experiences.  Everyone wants to be heard.  We should continue to acknowledge the truth in the skeptic position also.

Values:  I think this one is really important, it goes near to the heart of everything.  If you can truly understand what someone values, you can understand who they are and what they are trying to communicate.  You can know what they know, or even more, since it tends to interact constructively with what you know also.  I think that its definitely possible for two people who don't get along to have shared dream experiences with each other.  As in a waking life discussion, it strongly qualifies and limits the nature of the experience though.  For example, I had what I consider to be a personally valuable shared experience with WakingNomad, though he might not agree and on the face of things we disagree about a lot.  I think that at some level we must be at least partially on the same page though, or constructive interaction would not have been possible.

Policies: As I've said before, its not clear to me that proving shared dreaming would even be a positive development at the present time, and I think that's one reason its difficult.  At some level we're not ready for it, which is why we can't get there.  Struggling with this is part of how we make ourselves ready for it though, as long as we don't push it too hard.  I think we should bear in mind that we're talking about a 'psychic phenomena', and its not as if people have just started exploring this sort of thing.  For instance, 'channeling' spirits has been big off and on for a long time, but every few generations some people act as if its just being discovered.  Its the New Age!  There also seems to be some evidence that some of that isn't a very good idea, though we forget those lessons every time the practice falls out of interest for a few decades.

Definitions:  Obviously this is a big area of difficulty.  A lot of the 'dream world' level shared dreamers seem to have given up and left the forum, leaving a few of us more abstract-meditative types trying to hold up their end of the argument.  But it only sort of works, because we're not completely talking about the same thing.

Interpretations:  Yes, obviously a problem area, inherently so for this subject in particular, since shared dreaming is to a signficant extent subjective by its very nature.

Research:  I don't know a lot about dream research.  I do know a fair amount about winning grants, and I've done a bit of trying to reach out to dream researchers.  So between those two experiences I'm not surprised that not very many people are working on it.

Criteria:  This seems to me to be a big sticking point.  The same evidence criteria that are used for say, theories on the evolution of M class stars, are not going to work for shared dreaming.  Historically this same kind of difficulty is encountered every time science moves into a new area.  As soon as one topic like shared dreaming is tackled successfully, others will quickly follow.  For this reason I don't think it matters whether people prove shared dreaming, telepathy, or precognition they're all different facets of the same type of thing.

Theories:  I think that when I 'share a dream' with someone, to the limited extent that I do that, I am them a little bit, and vice versa.  I have access to their thought the same way they do, in their brain, there aren't any signals being sent around.  That shared content is felt, and is relayed to my brain through my feeling.  Maybe there are other kinds of sharing also, but for me its all feeling based.  In that sense its not even a 'shared dream', we all feel whether we're asleep or awake, and whether we're dreaming pictures and sounds or lucid in some other way.  The capacity to feel is definitely central to this sort of thing, particularly being able to feel things that are more subtle than sounds, sights, touches, etc.  I realize this isn't anything like a 'theory' in a scientific sense.  As far as a mechanism that can be modeled with equations like how other 'physical' interactions are, I think I can argue effectively that nobody has much of a start on this.

----------


## Sageous

Chimpertainment/Shadowofwind:

Well said, both of you! 

But... Does this arena really rate that kind of thoughtful attention?  Was it worth your effort?  Well, when conversation swings right back to riteous indignation, umbrage, syllogistic logic nightmares, and, yes, "It's true because I said so," I think you'll likely pause and wonder.

We may all know what a debate really is, and some of us (myself included) may be able to endure great personal damage if some truth rises from the effort, but in the end it's not about rational thought, controlled reason, or well-founded theory.  No, in the end it's all about who makes the most noise longest...

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## shadowofwind

Sageous, 

As I've implied earlier, my theory is that there's something that I need to do here, or decisively understand that I don't need to do, before fate will let me move on.  Just quitting doesn't seem to work, I've tried that, and its not quite right.

Most human endeavor is ultimately futile.  Nothing to do but keep trying anyway, giving in to hedonism is worse.  Ninety-nine percent pointless still beats a hundred percent by a wide margin. 

Sivason was helping me with some past-life exploration on the side.  Maybe I still don't know anything about past lives, or believe in them, but it did turn up some interesting images last night.  I think people should feel welcome to private message us if they want to collaborate somehow.

----------


## Linkzelda

People are free to express their opinions, learn from each other, broaden their views on the subject at hand, but this is merely just for speculation. Sure, we can try our best to promote a healthy debate, and just like debrajane declared, once the brain knows how to hit the spot, it becomes a breeze!

It's just like with practicing techniques, especially for WILD, once a person finds their own balance of maintaining awareness and relaxation, it's only a matter of time until that person gets it consistently. It may be tedious, it may drain our energy, but for what it's worth, once we find our way of doing it, all of that effort, all of the pain and discipline we tried to apply to make it happen will be compensated through this realization.

It's nice to see people express their thoughts, but the only thing that really has any kind of value (IMO), is to simply do the experiments. If there is a flaw with the experiments, we learn from that, we see the mistakes, we find ways to fix it, and we keep TRYING. Even if there are months of failures, (and I'm not implying anyone was saying this), we just have to keep trying. If we really are trying to approach this scientifically, we just have to follow the steps right?

To me, this is all hypothesis, hypothesis, hypothesis, and there's nothing wrong with that. To me, I find that having a bond helps out a lot, and even in the experiment now that I'm trying my best to do, I know that's not going to work out, because it takes time to get to know the participant's behavior. I can only use archetypes and hopefully proper synchronization and hope for the best.

I'm not saying anyone is making it hard to attempt these things, I think it's a matter of understanding how your mind works when you are lucid. I believe in shared dreaming, but I try to keep myself from preaching that it's real, because I know I have yet to make any progress to show any kind of potential of doing so.

People in the IOSDP are trying their best as well (and to be honest, they have shown extreme devotion, despite having a few struggles). This is really going beyond just mastering to get used to how your body works when you are usually unconscious, this is involving trying to synch with another person, synching with how their mind deviates experiences and tries to recollect them to make an experience for them.

It's also a constant struggle within, especially when each attempt fails most of the time because even if a person has perseverance to keep walking through the pain and struggle of finding that connection that can get results, they still have to experience and embrace deeper aspects of their mind.

This is why it's so hard (IMO) to get consistent results with experiments. People engaging in them have the passion, they are willing to work together, eliminate their beliefs *temporarily* for the sake of improving how they should approach doing the experiments (both here and on the IOSDP section) is what will get substance. 

From what I'm seeing in these experiments (from both sections of the forum), is just like debrajane said, it's just a matter of finding what clicks in the brain.

It's simple as that. Once it's found out, once the person has the ability to connect the dots and find how their mind works, all doubt and confusion will continue to subside. Sure it may not give proof just like that, but to me, the actual "doing" is what really matters.

Just imagine, everyone has their own unique way of becoming lucid....some might take weeks, months, years. Now apply that mentality when attempting shared dreaming password experiments.....that's basically elevating things tenfold, it's obviously going to be very very hard because everyone has their own way of getting things to click.

The experiment results might turn out to be horrible time after time, but as long as we as a community can see that, we can find the flaws, re-arrange things, try things out, and try it at a new approach. Yes, there may have been attempts years ago, but they usually did not have many people passionate enough to keep walking through the failed attempts and learning from them.

Everyone that has posted here as their own beliefs, they express their passion, whatever side they're on, and that's respectable. Yes, there are a few attacks on each other here, but most of the time it's because they can't think of a way to approach it.

Things like this, (IMO), are very hard to approach stoically. There will be a little heated discussion once in a while, it's inevitable. I know we're just trying to focus on the idea, and not the person. All I'm saying is that doing it (the experiments, and finding ways to update and improve any imperfections of how they are done), finding what clicks, is really all that matters to me at this point.

We will get nowhere with hypothesis and speculations (even if things end up being civilized and healthy debates), we will get somewhere if we keep pushing forward with the experiments, even if they're not perfect.

When one person clicks, so will the other, in time. This thread itself is proof to motivate ourselves to go a step further from the speculation, and start going on a scavenger hunt for clues, hints, _something,_ to connect the dots. 

As long as we know that, this thread can be taken as something for inspiration (to do the experiments) rather than getting staff members to settle things down.

People who join this community are mostly mature and respectful, because dreaming itself is a whole another level of embracing the human psyche. This isn't a weed forum, this isn't a forum on relationships, those all can only go so far.

This is a forum on dreaming in general, that is something that is so spontaneous, so grand, that the only way to get anywhere is to just do something, to just try. I just hope others view this thread as inspiration, no matter the odds.

----------


## Sageous

> Sageous, 
> 
> As I've implied earlier, my theory is that there's something that I need to do here, or decisively understand that I don't need to do, before fate will let me move on.  Just quitting doesn't seem to work, I've tried that, and its not quite right.
> 
> Most human endeavor is ultimately futile.  Nothing to do but keep trying anyway, giving in to hedonism is worse.  Ninety-nine percent pointless still beats a hundred percent by a wide margin.



I hear you, and as you know I emphatically agree.  It's just that sometimes the futility's glare blinds, and that one percent validity simply fades.  

Sometimes plugging away at the truth, obstacles be damned, just gets old.  It makes me wonder if exploring and disseminating reality is really worth the effort...

----------


## Chimpertainment

To use an over used saying Sageous.

The oak came from the acorn. Like Johnny Appleseed, a modern archetype, we spread the seeds of renewal and the truth is we may never see the results. That is what makes us so strong, like oaks.  :smiley: 

Consciousness has been on the move much longer than science.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by debrajane


But the misses must happen over and over till the baby's hand accidently hits the bottle. The brain notices this and so it  the HITS begin to happen more and more.



Just look at all the failed attempts throughout history to make an airplane.  However, that IS because flight is possible.

I could very well see something in the future like a very advanced EEG scanner being connected to my brain recording my brain waves while I am either awake or asleep and transmitting them over the internet to another individual who also has a device connected to his brain.  That sounds feasible;  you have a device which can record the data;  you have a device which can transmit the data, you have a means over which to transmit the data, and you have the two individuals who are both sending and receiving the data.  That's not much more advanced than two computers talking to each other on the internet.

Right now, all we have are two (or more) individuals who are trying to communicate (sending and receiving), but we haven't established the means over which we are transmitting the data, how we are recording the data, or how we are receiving the data.

For example, if I have a dream, how does the dream get "sent" to you?  Is it in words?  Text?  Images?  Binary code?  A movie?  What if you speak a different language than I do?  How is it sent?  Over a telephone cable?  How do you receive it?  All these things are clearly defined in computer-to-computer communication._

----------


## Sageous

> To use an over used saying Sageous.
> 
> The oak came from the acorn. Like Johnny Appleseed, a modern archetype, we spread the seeds of renewal and the truth is we may never see the results. That is what makes us so strong, like oaks. 
> 
> Consciousness has been on the move much longer than science.



That is very true, and why I keep plugging away, regardless.

It's just that yes, those mighty oaks come from acorns, but if the squirrels never stop throwing the things at each other, the seeds won't get a chance to take root.

----------


## Chimpertainment

^^^lol, wait are we the squirrels or the acorns...You could use the parable of the sower from the bible as well. Some go to the birds, some to the rocks, some to the weeds, and some to good ground. Another thing as well, these seeds have been spreading long before humans have been around. So, when we are all dead and gone, what we really are is still here. Some might not see it that way but thats how life seems to be...

Random thought: Try using the principle in martial arts of using a persons forward motion against them. It can be a useful mental trick. In physical terms, they could be running and put to a stop. Most people in western culture have been trained to never stop or rest. It makes for a good working class, but terrible psychological consequences. Just turn that momentum against itself, and you can take advantage of that moment to speak. 
Its the opposite of an advertisement; a real moment of connection with another human is the only feasible way to communicate. Unfortunately, many do choose to make this contact more aggressive. I personally like the way martial arts converts aggression to inert energy.  :split:

----------


## Sageous

> ^^^lol, wait are we the squirrels or the acorns...You could use the parable of the sower from the bible as well. Some go to the birds, some to the rocks, some to the weeds, and some to good ground. Another thing as well, these seeds have been spreading long before humans have been around. So, when we are all dead and gone, what we really are is still here. Some might not see it that way but thats how life seems to be...



  We are the squirrels, without question. though sometimes I feel like an acorn...  

Nice point about the seeds preceding and surviving us, despite all our hubris!  Would that for an hour we all held them in the esteem they deserve, rather than in our tightly closed fists.





> Random thought: Try using the principle in martial arts of using a persons forward motion against them. It can be a useful mental trick. In physical terms, they could be running and put to a stop. Most people in western culture have been trained to never stop or rest. It makes for a good working class, but terrible psychological consequences. Just turn that momentum against itself, and you can take advantage of that moment to speak. 
> Its the opposite of an advertisement; a real moment of connection with another human is the only feasible way to communicate. Unfortunately, many do choose to make this contact more aggressive. I personally like the way martial arts converts aggression to inert energy.



Great thought, especially after I just  witnessed Mzzkc  perform some serious mental judo on another thread!  That aside, I think you're right; aggression (not just western, but human -- eastern cultures have only cared to notice and exploit the malady, not replace it), or the need to never stop pushing our own point, is anathema to communication. I we could all pause from hearing ourselves talk and listen to other thoughts and ideas, I think we'd all grow.  The squirrels need only drop the acorns and admire them, even the ones they weren't carrying themselves.  Share the momentum, as it were, and it is multiplied.

Now I'm just not making sense, and am wondering anyway what this has to do with shared dreaming, even if it has everything to do with debating...

----------


## Baron Samedi

Wow! Twenty-seven percent of the people who answered the poll say you have experienced shared dreaming!

----------


## Sageous

^^ Hey, no fair putting us back on topic, Nomad!

That is a helluva statistic, though ... perhaps it was bolstered by some hopeful bluster?

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by debrajane


Shared dreaming accidently, spontainiosly, (totally unexpected and SHOCKINGly) began to happen between participants on saltcube back in 07 and 08 as they participated in Matt Jones 35 and EyeOneBlack's 48 dream remote viewing laboritories.

Due to  threats all these amazing threads were removed.



Have you tried looking for your threads with internet archives?  You *may* still be able to find them floating around somewhere on the web._

----------


## EbbTide000

> Have you tried looking for your threads with internet archives?  You *may* still be able to find them floating around somewhere on the web.



I don't know how to look for lost threads by internet archives.

I am happy that I found my photoes thanks to your password experiment. You see, ever since you posted the password "Rubik's cube" I got a "niggle" at the back of my mind. For days it reminded me of something.

Finally, at 2 in the morming it jelled. I opened the old photo galleries in this phone and there it was (hahaha). And not only my Rubiks cube dream-target photo but all twelve. 

I quite again after twelve because participation stopped. But I got another idear and started up again and sgain. Getting participants is the hard bit.

I think Matt Jones got more paticipants because he could offer prizss. Small prizs, but prizes are motivating to folk who otherwise woulden't face the humiliation of * busting*.

Matt Jones got seventeen participants in his second dream remote viewing lab. I wasn't on saltcube back then but I coppied all Matts 35 Labs when I found them. Then I coppied all of EyeOneBlack's. Eye did 48. I was invited onto saltcube to participate during Eye's thirtieth (30th) Lab.

I have all 48 of Eye's threads copied too.

So I don't need to find them if they are out there somewhere. And my big 60+ post thread on the IASD Discussion Board thread was deleted on the 11/11/10. That thread was heading right off-the-scale just befor it was deleted.

Thing is

I recon it was heading off-the-scale becaus I and my couple of participants *wouldn't quit.*  Me thinks that's the bottom line.

 It don't matter who hosts or who participates. It's a matter of having a go and when you * bust* pick yourself up, brush youself down, and start all over again.

Something that a man with epilepsy has had a lot of experiece at.

----------


## EbbTide000

> I don't know how to look for lost threads by internet archives.
> 
> I am happy that I found my photoes thanks to your password experiment. You see, ever since you posted the password "Rubik's cube" I got a "niggle" at the back of my mind. For days it reminded me of something.
> 
> Finally, at 2 in the morming it jelled. I opened the old photo galleries in this phone and there it was (hahaha). And not only my Rubiks cube dream-target photo but all twelve. 
> 
> I quite again after twelve because participation stopped. But I got another idear and started up again and sgain. Getting participants is the hard bit.
> 
> I think Matt Jones got more paticipants because he could offer prizss. Small prizs, but prizes are motivating to folk who otherwise woulden't face the humiliation of * busting*.
> ...



Pick Yourself Up – Swing Time (1939)
Pick Yourself Up - Swing Time (1936) - YouTube
(2:10) 21,589 views since 24-March-08

"Pick Yourself Up" is a popular song composed in 1936 by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Dorothy Fields.

The song was written for the film Swing Time (1936), where it was introduced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Ginger plays a dance instructor whom Fred follows into her studio; he pretends to have two left feet in order to get her to dance with him. It served as the theme song for the short-lived 1955-56 prime time television variety series The Johnny Carson Show.
 [She]* I can’t teach you anything.*
Lyrics:
[He]
Please teacher, teach me something,
Nice teacher, teach me something.
I'm as awkward as a camel, that's not the worst,
My two feet haven't met yet,
But I'll be teacher's pet yet,
'Cause I'm gonna learn to dance or burst.

[She]
Nothing's impossible I have found,
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
Start All over again.

Don't lose your confidence if you slip,
Be grateful for a pleasant trip,
And pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

Work like a soul inspired,
Till the battle of the day is won.
You may be sick and tired,
But you'll be a man, my son!

Will you remember the famous men,
Who had to fall to rise again?
So take a deep breath,
Pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

[He]
I'll get some self assurance
If your endurance is great.
I'll learn by easy stages
If you're courageous and wait.

To feel the strength I want to,
I must hang on to your hand,
Maybe by the time I'm fifty
I'll get up and do a nifty.

[Both]
Nothing's impossible I have found,
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
Start all over again.

Don't lose your confidence if you slip,
Be grateful for a pleasant trip,
And pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

Work like a soul inspired,
Till the battle of the day is won.
You may be sick and tired,
But you'll be a man, my son!

Will you remember the famous men,
Who had to fall to rise again?
So take a deep breath,
Pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
Start all over again.

She (Ginger Rogers) say’s to He ( Fed Astaire):

* “No one could teach you to dance in a million years!”*

Ooops I found a better one here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKWC4...eature=related

----------


## EbbTide000

Look!!!!!!

Sivason *( Fred)*  has opened this * exciting*  thread:
http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/shared...-think-135449/

Here is the bestest, and longest Fred and Ginger  Pick Yourself Up Youtube:

Fred & Ginger - Pick Yourself Up - YouTube
(7:24) heeheehee 444 views

Mis Carol (Carol was my amazing participant behind the big sharks coming into shore in my experiment)

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by debrajane


Something that a man with epilepsy has had a lot of experiece at.



Can say that again... and again... and again.  Whew!  

Oh... about the archives...   here's the link:  http://archive.org/index.php  I can't guarantee it will be out there.  It's fun playing with, and finding stuff that's re-re-re-cached on the internet.  You never know.  I've found posts of mine that are over 10 years old._

----------


## Sivason

> Just look at all the failed attempts throughout history to make an airplane.  However, that IS because flight is possible.
> 
> I could very well see something in the future like a very advanced EEG scanner being connected to my brain recording my brain waves while I am either awake or asleep and transmitting them over the internet to another individual who also has a device connected to his brain.  That sounds feasible;  you have a device which can record the data;  you have a device which can transmit the data, you have a means over which to transmit the data, and you have the two individuals who are both sending and receiving the data.  That's not much more advanced than two computers talking to each other on the internet.
> 
> Right now, all we have are two (or more) individuals who are trying to communicate (sending and receiving), but we haven't established the means over which we are transmitting the data, how we are recording the data, or how we are receiving the data.
> 
> For example, if I have a dream, how does the dream get "sent" to you?  Is it in words?  Text?  Images?  Binary code?  A movie?  What if you speak a different language than I do?  How is it sent?  Over a telephone cable?  How do you receive it?  All these things are clearly defined in computer-to-computer communication.




I like this idea. Man, that would be great technology. I think it would be awesome if the computor system worked on a sort of holladeck (star trek) concept. The dreamers would not be in the hooladeck, but the system could intensify the experience somehow, and make things more 3d and real. Totally want one of the devices!

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by sivason


I like this idea. Man, that would be great technology. I think it would be awesome if the computor system worked on a sort of holladeck (star trek) concept. The dreamers would not be in the hooladeck, but the system could intensify the experience somehow, and make things more 3d and real. Totally want one of the devices!



Technology is moving rapidly.  If you want to see something really messed up, check this out.  Wires are planted *into your brain* and little electric tingles go off to deal with extreme parkinson's and epilepsy patients.

If that's not cutting-edge, I don't know what is.

_

----------


## Baron Samedi

Wow. over 87% of the people that voted in the poll so believe shared dreaming is real or could be!

----------


## Mindraker

_GARRRRGGHHH  I AM THE DEMON OF DEAD THREADS...  why the heck did this get bumped up?_

----------


## shadowofwind

> GARRRRGGHHH  I AM THE DEMON OF DEAD THREADS...  why the heck did this get bumped up?



It is WakingNomad thread.  He was mostly indisposed for two years, but not dead.  Now he's back.  Seems appropriate to me.

----------


## MindGames

> wow. Over 87% of the people *in the beyond dreaming section* that voted in the poll so believe shared dreaming is real or could be!



ftfy.

----------


## Zoth

I'm confused about one option, so if someone that voted on it could explain it:
"Maybe, but I have to experience it for myself."

If others may have gotten it wrong, what would make you think that you would know for sure when you experienced it? I'd be more inclined to believe in shared dreaming if 5k people around the world were said to be able to do it rather than "I experienced it". Does this thought make sense?

(There should be a new option: "I want to believe" xD)

----------


## Mylynes

Just my opinion here so hope nobody takes this personally. It saddens me to see so many vote for "No, it's impossible." When there is a "Maybe, but it has to be scientifically proven." option. To me, it looks like these people are close-minded to the point that the wouldn't believe it even IF it were scientifically proven. =/ Just my 2 cents.

----------


## Zoth

> Just my opinion here so hope nobody takes this personally. It saddens me to see so many vote for "No, it's impossible." When there is a "Maybe, but it has to be scientifically proven." option. To me, it looks like these people are close-minded to the point that the wouldn't believe it even IF it were scientifically proven. =/ Just my 2 cents.



Good point, but you have to understand that it's also about the wording: OP is questioning our beliefs regarding shared dreaming, so under that logic, I'd say "I don't believe it's possible" (because I haven't been yet presented with any evidence that would make me do so). The problem is that the option that resembles that one best is "It's impossible", portraying us with an image of being close-minded.

TLDR: I bet most people who voted "it's impossible" did it thinking in the lines of "I don't believe it's possible".

----------


## shadowofwind

> I'm confused about one option, so if someone that voted on it could explain it:
> "Maybe, but I have to experience it for myself."
> 
> If others may have gotten it wrong, what would make you think that you would know for sure when you experienced it? I'd be more inclined to believe in shared dreaming if 5k people around the world were said to be able to do it rather than "I experienced it". Does this thought make sense?
> 
> (There should be a new option: "I want to believe" xD)



I can answer that....Millions of people around the world are liars who embellish their experiences, or draw conclusions from their experiences that don't logically follow.  Are 5k of those people who claim shared dreaming experience objective and honest?  Can you reliably distinguish those people from the others who are not?  Often when a person looks honest, its because the slippery side of their personality is different enough from what you know that you don't recognize it.  If you experience it yourself many times however, and you have some kind of external check on your own sanity, to make sure you're not inventing memories and whatnot, then that can give you a lot more confidence.  Also, if you can prove for yourself anything that is generally regarded as impossible, then that tends to make you more open to other people who claim other apparently impossible things.  It doesn't mean you have to believe them, but you can at least leave the door open a bit and suspend judgment.  If there's nothing in your experience like that however, then it may seem more plausible to you that the people who make fantastic claims are just liars or nuts.

----------


## Sageous

^^ If Zoth said that what he meant was that if 5k people were said to be able to dream share, with "said" indicating it was somehow proven, and not just an accepted given among claimants, would that make a difference in your response?

I could be wrong, but I think that's what he meant, and I can see the point... even a smallish number of actual, proven, practitioners of a skill would hold more validity than a nation of claimants and believers for me as well.

I understand the difficulty a person who has not experienced a shared dream for himself might have believing in its veracity, simply on the word of others.  However, just as I believe that there are actually, say, professional football players because I watched their games, it would be much easier to believe in shared dreaming if its existence could be shown to us, and "said" to be true.

I hope I didn't step on any of your words, Zoth...

----------


## shadowofwind

Sageous, your scenario seems to me to fall under the 'scientifically proven' category.  But maybe what you're getting at is that there is a missing category of "Maybe, but I need stronger anecdotal evidence from a larger number of people."

This seems to make a good point.  Since we can't prove it scientifically, since we've been unable to attract the attention of any 'qualified' researchers, we've been trying to prove it to people by helping them have their own experiences.  But just sharing our own experiences in a temperate, clear headed manner helps too, even for people who don't plan to duplicate those experiences.

----------


## Sageous

^^ Good point.

----------


## rrrrocketrick

> Remember, the burden is on you to be able to prove your claim.  It is not on me to disprove your hypothesis, even though I've already cast more than enough reasonable doubt upon it.



I think that's incorrect, Mindraker. 

My vote on this poll would fit into the following category, if it was available: I strongly incline to believe that shared dreaming is actual not because of personal experience with it but because I evaluate reports of the phenomenon relative to a philosophical cosmology (metaphysic, worldview, theory of reality) that both renders it unsurprising and transcends the physicalist/materialist metaphysic that determines most of the negative judgments expressed here.  To say the same thing in different words, I mostly believe reports of mutual dreams because I judge them from the perspective provided by a philosophy of nature (metaphysic, philosophical cosmology, worldview), 1) which is more coherent and adequate to experience than that of the so-called "modern scientific worldview" (by virtue of including it and going beyond it, not by virtue of denying it) and, 2) which implies that the burden of proof is _not_ on those who accept the phenomenon but rather on those who deny it.  

Almost everyone here seems to assume a sharp distinction between the so-called imaginary (e.g., dreams) and the so-called real, but I can discover no criteria/criterion according to which that distinction might be non-circularly defended (as sharp).  Accept that the distinction between dreams and reality is non-sharp, and there's no longer any reason to doubt that shared dreams happen; in fact, there's then reason to think that waking reality is itself a shared dream.  No need for brain waves or telepathy or anything else supernatural or unusual; no need for "scientific proof" either.  Shared dreaming comes along for free (conceptually speaking) given a theory of reality according to which the real-imaginary distinction is non-sharp.  

It's a deep mistake to think that present-day science has the authority to determine the rational acceptability of shared dreaming or any other phenomenon that is/seems to be excluded by the metaphilosophy that underwrites present-day science.  This mistake could be given various titles/short descriptions: reasoning in a circle, begging key questions, drawing what should be empirical conclusions deductively....  

There's no such thing as intrinsic (im)plausibility; rather, (im)plausibility is relative to metatheoretical context.  In other words, change your philosophy of nature, and what previously seemed outrageous and inconceivable might instead seem obvious.  

Perhaps I'll start a thread to discuss criteria for differentiating between the "real" and the "imaginary"?  Would anyone be interested in contributing to/following such a thing?

----------


## Baron Samedi

> I think that's incorrect, Mindraker. 
> 
> My vote on this poll would fit into the following category, if it was available: I strongly incline to believe that shared dreaming is actual not because of personal experience with it but because I evaluate reports of the phenomenon relative to a philosophical cosmology (metaphysic, worldview, theory of reality) that both renders it unsurprising and transcends the physicalist/materialist metaphysic that determines most of the negative judgments expressed here.  To say the same thing in different words, I mostly believe reports of mutual dreams because I judge them from the perspective provided by a philosophy of nature (metaphysic, philosophical cosmology, worldview), 1) which is more coherent and adequate to experience than that of the so-called "modern scientific worldview" (by virtue of including it and going beyond it, not by virtue of denying it) and, 2) which implies that the burden of proof is _not_ on those who accept the phenomenon but rather on those who deny it.  
> 
> Almost everyone here seems to assume a sharp distinction between the so-called imaginary (e.g., dreams) and the so-called real, but I can discover no criteria/criterion according to which that distinction might be non-circularly defended (as sharp).  Accept that the distinction between dreams and reality is non-sharp, and there's no longer any reason to doubt that shared dreams happen; in fact, there's then reason to think that waking reality is itself a shared dream.  No need for brain waves or telepathy or anything else supernatural or unusual; no need for "scientific proof" either.  Shared dreaming comes along for free (conceptually speaking) given a theory of reality according to which the real-imaginary distinction is non-sharp.  
> 
> It's a deep mistake to think that present-day science has the authority to determine the rational acceptability of shared dreaming or any other phenomenon that is/seems to be excluded by the metaphilosophy that underwrites present-day science.  This mistake could be given various titles/short descriptions: reasoning in a circle, begging key questions, drawing what should be empirical conclusions deductively....  
> 
> There's no such thing as intrinsic (im)plausibility; rather, (im)plausibility is relative to metatheoretical context.  In other words, change your philosophy of nature, and what previously seemed outrageous and inconceivable might instead seem obvious.  
> ...



You use a lot of big words, there pal! I feel smrt because I overstood it awl. I have been asking myself during the day if waking life is just another dream. I think maybe it is.

----------


## Sageous

> Perhaps I'll start a thread to discuss criteria for differentiating between the "real" and the "imaginary"?  Would anyone be interested in contributing to/following such a thing?



I think people would indeed be interested in a thread like that... i would be, anyway.

----------


## Mzzkc

@rrrrocketrick

This debate is about "shared dreaming" which can be very succinctly defined: mutual experience(s) between two or more individuals during sleep.

Please note the term sleep. "Mutual experience(s) between two or more individuals during wakefulness" defines something else entirely.

The terms "real" and "imaginary" are superfluous to the conversation (as both are simply experiences), so I don't understand why you bring them into this discussion as part proof of some alleged fallacy.

Unless you are simply attempting to assert the well-tread "nothing can be known, because subjectivity" anecdote. In which case, I'm puzzled by the fact that you'd wish to try and end the conversation on rather a pointless absolute from which nothing of value can be derived.

Care to explain?

----------


## shadowofwind

I think its unfortunate that 'imaginary' is generally understood as a synonym for 'pretend', since imagination is essential to perceiving and/or creating anything real.

Not everything imagined is real though.  I could imagine I'm a sage Jedi super-hero mahatma, and that you're all helpless fools in comparison to my magnificence, but I'd be delusional.  I could imagine that the people I abuse deserve it, but very often they don't.  Given our agreed upon definitions of arithmetic, one plus one is two, not three.  A person can lie with imagination, by imagining things to be a certain way while ignoring the details that don't work out.  But the process and experience of imagining is real, whether what is imagined is fully true and consistent or not.

"Original Poster" and I and others argued about this at length in the inner-sanctum sub-forum, in his thread where he rhetorically asks if he's psychic.

We've also had threads on whether life is a dream, mostly in this sub-forum.  I think we pointed out clear and important differences between waking life and dream, even though there are notable similarities also.

I agree that shared dreaming as a goal can be a bit redundant to waking life, to the extent that waking life is a shared dream that works really well.

The question of whether shared dreaming is 'real' isn't merely a matter of semantics though.  There are real, describable differences between 'remotely sharing a dream experience' and 'dreaming about similar things in isolation'.  And these differences can be proven, albeit with difficulty.  Information can be shared which isn't transferred through sensory means or extrapolated from past experience.

I hope we can dispense with the 'burden of proof' line of argument.  If someone doesn't want to believe in shared dreaming, they're free not to.  They don't need to justify that to anybody, and nobody has any obligation to fight to convince them.  Likewise, if someone believes in shared dreaming, they aren't accountable to skeptics who's beliefs are based in large part on a different set of experiences.  People find the arguments convincing, or they don't, and the arguments may be logical and consistent with experience, or they might not be.  Nobody owes anybody anything here, except maybe a degree of honesty.

(Also, while I'm at it, since this usually comes up in the same context....Occam's razor means that when forming a hypothesis, it doesn't make sense to include details that are orthogonal to the facts being explained.  In other words, if you're describing a system with N degrees of freedom, you don't model it with N+1 parameters.  For example, if I see footprints, and think they look like dog footprints, I don't say "I think a brown dog made those footprints" unless there's some evidence that suggests the dog was brown.  Seems obvious enough, but people violate this all the time.  Occam's razor does not say that explanations are to be preferred because they're commonly accepted, or rejected because they seem exotic or difficult to understand or are outside of some skeptic's experience.  The model with N parameters doesn't have to be at all simple, just as long as there aren't N+1 parameters.  A simple model with N+1 parameters would however violate the principle.  So for instance, "I think an alien made those footprints" would not violate Occam's principle, if the prints have a characteristic which seems alien, whereas "a brown dog made them" would violate it.  Occam said that the theory must be simple in terms of not adding extra stuff.  Its not a principle that strikes down everything that's unfamiliar or uncomfortable or even delusional and wrong.  It applies only to what isn't logical because its over-embellished.)

----------


## rrrrocketrick

> Not everything imagined is real though.  I could imagine I'm a sage Jedi super-hero mahatma, and that you're all helpless fools in comparison to my magnificence, but I'd be delusional.  I could imagine that the people I abuse deserve it, but very often they don't.  Given our agreed upon definitions of arithmetic, one plus one is two, not three.  A person can lie with imagination, by imagining things to be a certain way while ignoring the details that don't work out.  But the process and experience of imagining is real, whether what is imagined is fully true and consistent or not.




Hi Shadowofwind.  I'm considering all that's imaginary abstracted from specific instances here, so though I agree with you that delusions and falsehoods and the like exist, I think that's beside the point.  

I'm using _the imaginary_ in a vernacular sense that includes dreams, mystical experiences, drug trips, OBEs, NDEs, and the like.  There's clearly a sense in which all such experiences/events are real.  I really did dream of my old classmate Meredith last night whether or not she shared my dream.  That you're a sage Jedi super-hero mahatma is real as delusion if you really think so, real as a fictional illustration of delusion if you don't.  1+1=3 is a _bona fide_ falsehood.  

In suggesting that the real-imaginary distinction is non-sharp, then, I'm suggesting that the so-called real considered in abstraction from any of its instances is not different in kind from the so-called imaginary considered in abstraction from any of its instances.  Or, to put it differently, I'm rejecting the dualism that's generally presupposed on dreamviews in favor of a monism.  I'm saying that only one type of thing exists, as reductive materialists and reductive idealists also claim.  Given a monistic perspective according to which all things are dreams of mind, shared dreaming is as surely real as you and I are different individuals interacting on dreamviews.  





> We've also had threads on whether life is a dream, mostly in this sub-forum.  I think we pointed out clear and important differences between waking life and dream, even though there are notable similarities also.



I think I'd like to look at those threads.  Could you point me to the best of them? 

By the way, does anyone know how I can keep dreamviews from logging me out when I take too long to compose my response?  It's annoying to write a careful response and then try to post it only to be told I'm no longer logged in.

----------


## Mindraker

_What exactly constitutes as a shared dream?
I dream of Barack Obama on the night of the presidential election.  So do many other Americans.  But why?  Because millions of Americans stayed up until 2:00 AM watching the polls close, and this was an emotional event for millions of Americans.
So we have dreams with "similar topics".  Does this mean our dreams are shared?  No._

----------


## Sageous

> By the way, does anyone know how I can keep dreamviews from logging me out when I take too long to compose my response?  It's annoying to write a careful response and then try to post it only to be told I'm no longer logged in.



When you sign in, click the "remember me" box just to the right -- that'll keep you logged in.

----------


## rrrrocketrick

> When I say that I do believe that it is NOT real, I am basically saying: "I have not seen convincing evidence of its existence, and it seems impossible, so I discount the possibility of it actually being real." This is my stand on Dream Sharing. When I think about how it would work, I cannot find an explanation that is within the realm of science. And I've not noticed many things that can circumvent the laws of physics. 
> 
> So, that being said... if Dream Sharing was proven to be true, I would be BLOWN AWAY.



It was in significant part the laws of physics (as then understood) that prevented Galileo's contemporaries from believing that the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice-verse.  

It's always better to judge the phenomenon on its own grounds first rather than to judge it relative to established scientific or philosophical principles. Science is perpetually incomplete and needs revision in light of new discoveries, but the fact of the matter is just the fact of the matter no matter what scientists think.

----------


## AstralMango

Personally, I believe that shared dreaming is possible because it actually hasn't been scientifically proven or not. So I don't rule out the possibility of things that seem impossible or "crazy" just because the majority of society (or scientists) say so. We still have a lot to learn about how things work, anyway.

----------


## shadowofwind

> When you sign in, click the "remember me" box just to the right -- that'll keep you logged in.



This doesn't actually work for me.  However, after a frustrating day or two of getting logged out on a particular computer, the problem goes away.  So if you check the box and save your text often (I just copy it into the mouse buffer), the problem cures itself it seems.

----------


## Mzzkc

@rrrrocketrick

I would appreciate it if you took a moment to address my concerns, as I still don't see how playing with language and abstraction proves anything useful or offers value to the conversation.

Yes, experiences happen and have an effect on people and thus the world. Sure, that's all fine and well. But that fact doesn't discredit those seeking proof or explanation on _how and why_ shared dreaming is purported to work. 

So can we agree to agree that our focus in this conversation be on the poll's intent and not its choice of wording?

----------


## shadowofwind

> What exactly constitutes as a shared dream?
> I dream of Barack Obama on the night of the presidential election.  So do many other Americans.  But why?  Because millions of Americans stayed up until 2:00 AM watching the polls close, and this was an emotional event for millions of Americans.
> So we have dreams with "similar topics".  Does this mean our dreams are shared?  No.



That scenario is unlike what most people in this forum have been referring to as shared dreams.  You're mostly not even on the same subject.

Several years ago I dreamed of a train derailment, and that morning a train on my sister's commute line derailed and killed several people.  The previous evening, I'd seen a scene on a TV drama where two people were locked in a shipping container.  Shipping containers vaguely resemble box cars.  The train derailment was caused by someone who parked their SUV on the tracks.  So my first hypothesis was that person had seen the same TV show as me, and the shipping container image in conjunction with some other unnoticed stimulus had caused both of us to think about train derailments.  I dreamed it and he acted on it.  So this is similar to your hypothesis for shared dreams, except applied to dream premonitions.

But that was just one premonition, and I've had hundreds of others that don't fit that pattern.  One example, which I've given many times before, is dreaming of an aircraft bird-strike, water-landing during a nap a couple of hours before it happened.  There's no way something like that can be extrapolated from past experience.  So another possible hypothesis would be that I retroactively created the memory of the dream after reading the news item.  Except that I wrote the dream down when I woke up and e-mailed it to someone shortly before the event, and I still have the time stamped e-mail.  So that theory doesn't work either.  Another conjecture would be that the dream was a coincidence, and that I'm reading in more similarity than is really there.  If I experience a thousand things happen in a day, then some of them are going to seem quite improbable, right?  And dream images can be interpreted multiple ways.  So I test these hypotheses with many additional dreams, and eventually they fail quite decisively also.  I've used premonitions as examples here because dream telepathy involves other people, and I don't like posting about people's private stuff without their permission.  But mostly the same principles apply, because the two phenomena are closely related, and related to what other people call shared dreaming.

In contrast to my approach involving years of effort and lots of experiential data, your approach appears to be to make up strawman arguments without even caring to know what you're arguing against.  Or if I misjudge you here, if you really care enough about the subject to have an informed opinion about it, go back and review some of the older threads in this sub-forum.  Perhaps you've participated in such threads before but have forgotten the details.  Or, if you dream vividly despite your remarkably low reported lucid dream count, find a dreaming partner who can help you have these kinds of experiences that are being discussed.  It may take some time, but you'll find out first hand how ill-informed your Obama example is.  Otherwise you're just trolling.

Or maybe you were just pointing out that the Obama scenario is not what people have been referring to as shared dreaming.  That is one possible literal reading of what you wrote.  In that case I agree with you.

----------


## shadowofwind

> Yes, experiences happen and have an effect on people and thus the world. Sure, that's all fine and well. But that fact doesn't discredit those seeking proof



My view is that this is not about to happen in the immediate future in a clinical-trial type setting, because its difficult to demonstrate that way and nobody is funded to study it currently.  But I have some spare time for another week and am willing to try something similar with you if you're strongly interested.  I've had some success with this.





> or explanation on _how and why_ shared dreaming is purported to work.



We can describe symptoms, but as I see it there's no plausible explanation within the scope of existing scientific models, and we don't have even remotely enough information to extend the models adequately.

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## Mzzkc

> My view is that this is not about to happen in the immediate future in a clinical-trial type setting, because its difficult to demonstrate that way and nobody is funded to study it currently.



I completely understand and can speak to the accuracy of this point. Demanding a clinical trial (especially on a forum such as this) is unreasonable at best and ignorant at worst.

But it seems my original point has been misunderstood. I shall restate it plainly: distorting the meaning of words does not contribute to the conversation or prove anything useful.





> But I have some spare time for another week and am willing to try something similar with you if you're strongly interested.  I've had some success with this.



It's fine; I'm not seeking proof on this matter. Those days are very much behind me.

But thanks. =)





> We can describe symptoms, but as I see it there's no plausible explanation within the scope of existing scientific models, and we don't have even remotely enough information to extend the models adequately.



I may have a few ideas to add here at a later time, but I'm writing this up on a break, so I must be brief.

In short, I think I might be able to point to a number of plausible explanations that exist on the fringes of current models. But that is neither here nor there. For now, describing symptoms--as you put it--is the most reasonable course of action, as such data helps form the basis of future experiments (be they clinical or otherwise).

----------


## rrrrocketrick

> @rrrrocketrick
> 
> This debate is about "shared dreaming" which can be very succinctly defined: mutual experience(s) between two or more individuals during sleep.
> 
> Please note the term sleep. "Mutual experience(s) between two or more individuals during wakefulness" defines something else entirely.
> 
> The terms "real" and "imaginary" are superfluous to the conversation (as both are simply experiences), so I don't understand why you bring them into this discussion as part proof of some alleged fallacy.
> 
> Unless you are simply attempting to assert the well-tread "nothing can be known, because subjectivity" anecdote. In which case, I'm puzzled by the fact that you'd wish to try and end the conversation on rather a pointless absolute from which nothing of value can be derived.
> ...



Mzzkc, I encourage you to re-read and re-consider my post.  It's certainly relevant to the discussion to consider the meanings of and the nature of the relations between the various components of the conceptual system(s) through which we consider shared dreaming.  You provide good reason to think so yourself by defining waking reality and dreams as you do.  To define _mutual experiences between real persons in waking reality_ and _mutual experiences between imaginary persons in dream reality_ in mutually exclusive terms (as you do) has a large number of consequences that are relevant here.  First, you thereby decide by definition that life is not a shared dream.  Second, you thereby impose a dualistic metaphysic onto a world that might be better described monistically.  Third, you thereby make it much harder to imagine how shared dreaming could be actual even if it is, as we are then faced with the problem of developing entirely novel physical theories  (etc.) to accommodate it.  (And many more important consequences than these follow.)  On the other hand, given a monistic metaphysic in which the distinction between _the real_ and _the imaginary_ is non-sharp, no sharp distinction will be drawn between the mutual experiences of "real" persons in waking reality and the mutual experiences of "imaginary" persons in dreams.  Given such a metaphysic, furthermore, "real life" and dreams are of a kind and we need no special physics (etc.) to account for shared dreams.  

Conceptual issues take priority here (as everywhere).  The empirical question is secondary.  If we impose a conceptual system onto the discussion that excludes shared dreaming a priori or renders it hard to conceive, then of course shared dreaming will appear unbelievable (to anyone who lacks compelling experiences with it, anyway).  If we impose a conceptual system onto the discussion that entails shared dreaming, on the other hand, then anyone who embraces that conceptual system will naturally embrace shared dreaming as a fact as well.  The empirical question (Is shared dreaming actual or not?) can be rationally pursued only within a conceptual system that doesn't entail either its affirmation or its denial.  Powerful experiences with shared dreaming (or whatever else) aren't to be discounted just because we don't have or can't conceive of mechanisms to explain it; instead, those experiences should alert us to the fact that the conceptual system through which we engage the world is incomplete and requires modification (which is clear anyway).

----------


## Mzzkc

First: I am not seeking to discredit shared dreaming experiences. I have never done this; if anything, my post history has provided them considerable credence in the past. 

Please do not suppose you know my personal worldview and philosophy. I can assure you: you don't.

All of that is beside the point I am trying to make.

Second: Among other things, a useful conceptual system still requires adherence to the definition of accepted terms. Below I will provide an analysis on what terms* and ideas we seem to agree on thus far, and then I shall note the discrepancies so they might be discussed further. 

*terms are notarized with double quotation marks.

1. "real" and "imaginary" are non-distinct terms which exist as modifiers that can describe the set of all "experiences"

By agreeing these terms are non-distinct, and considering their inherent meaning, it can be concluded that these terms are less useful/descriptive than other common modifiers. For example, saying "I thoroughly enjoyed the red wedding" has more value than stating "I thoroughly enjoyed that imaginary wedding".
2. "sleep" and "wakefulness" are terms (separate from "real" and "imaginary") that exist as states within the set of all "experiences".

Thus "sleep" and "wakefulness" are simply a specific kind of "experience".


Where we don't seem to agree:

1. I postulate "sleep" and "wakefulness" are distinct terms, as clear symptoms and methodology can be utilized to distinguish the two.

Though I will not go into further detail (for reasons of time), this postulate can be reasonably shown given a framework which includes a place for the scientific method.

Even if this were not the case (please note, paragraph 1 of post #484 implies that we are indeed working with such a framework), your own philosophy of nature--as you put it--places the burden of proving that "sleep" and "wakefulness" are non-distinct on you. Thus I'd be off the hook here, regardless. And you wouldn't be able to meaningfully dispute this postulation without first proving me wrong or yourself a hypocrite, which would either bring this conversation to a screeching halt or send it into loops.
2. Shared dreaming can be succinctly defined: mutual "experience(s)" between two or more individuals during "sleep".

Please notice the definition I present is extraordinarily distinct from 'mutual experiences between imaginary persons in dream reality'. In my definition, I purposefully do not use the non-distinct terms "real" and "imaginary" as they are largely irrelevant to begin with (we have already agreed on this). Additionally, I do not use the word 'dream' in my definition, as that is simply poor description. 

If we can agree that dreams be defined as 'experiences which occur during "sleep"' (and I do not think this unreasonable) then the origin of my definition becomes strikingly clear and relevant. If not, I would ask that you provide your own definition of both "dreams" and "shared dreaming" so we might reach a consensus and move this discussion along in a more coherent manner.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by shadowofwind


That scenario is unlike what most people in this forum have been referring to as shared dreams.  You're mostly not even on the same subject.

Several years ago I dreamed of a train derailment, and that morning a train on my sister's commute line derailed and killed several people.  The previous evening, I'd seen a scene on a TV drama where two people were locked in a shipping container.  Shipping containers vaguely resemble box cars.  The train derailment was caused by someone who parked their SUV on the tracks.  So my first hypothesis was that person had seen the same TV show as me, and the shipping container image in conjunction with some other unnoticed stimulus had caused both of us to think about train derailments.  I dreamed it and he acted on it.  So this is similar to your hypothesis for shared dreams, except applied to dream premonitions.

But that was just one premonition, and I've had hundreds of others that don't fit that pattern.  One example, which I've given many times before, is dreaming of an aircraft bird-strike, water-landing during a nap a couple of hours before it happened.  There's no way something like that can be extrapolated from past experience.  So another possible hypothesis would be that I retroactively created the memory of the dream after reading the news item.  Except that I wrote the dream down when I woke up and e-mailed it to someone shortly before the event, and I still have the time stamped e-mail.  So that theory doesn't work either.  Another conjecture would be that the dream was a coincidence, and that I'm reading in more similarity than is really there.  If I experience a thousand things happen in a day, then some of them are going to seem quite improbable, right?  And dream images can be interpreted multiple ways.  So I test these hypotheses with many additional dreams, and eventually they fail quite decisively also.  I've used premonitions as examples here because dream telepathy involves other people, and I don't like posting about people's private stuff without their permission.  But mostly the same principles apply, because the two phenomena are closely related, and related to what other people call shared dreaming.

In contrast to my approach involving years of effort and lots of experiential data, your approach appears to be to make up strawman arguments without even caring to know what you're arguing against.  Or if I misjudge you here, if you really care enough about the subject to have an informed opinion about it, go back and review some of the older threads in this sub-forum.  Perhaps you've participated in such threads before but have forgotten the details.  Or, if you dream vividly despite your remarkably low reported lucid dream count, find a dreaming partner who can help you have these kinds of experiences that are being discussed.  It may take some time, but you'll find out first hand how ill-informed your Obama example is.  Otherwise you're just trolling.

Or maybe you were just pointing out that the Obama scenario is not what people have been referring to as shared dreaming.  That is one possible literal reading of what you wrote.  In that case I agree with you.



Coincidences *do* happen.  And you're going to dream about people and events that you experience in real life, not things that you haven't experienced.  You mention TV drama -- I see celebrities in *my* dreams even though it takes quite a while for me to even figure out who the devil these people are.  Why do I see these people?  Because I watch TV, just like you do.  Look at my "tag cloud" -- the most frequent things that show up are the people I interact with the most -- my Mom, my Dad, my Brother, my family.

When my parents talk about their dreams -- well no surprise -- they talk about my Mom, me, my Brother, my family.  Shared dreams?  No.  Just shared experiences.

I once thought I had a premonition of a guy committing suicide in High School.  Was I right when the guy actually killed himself?  Maybe I was just observant of something the other people weren't aware of.  But it sure as heck wasn't some "telepathic event".

The real question is -- what happens to all the OTHER dreams we have, which bear NO similarities to each other?  For example, I dreamt about washing dishes yesterday.  That has no relation to anything you dreamt.  But we're just going to brush that off as "noise"?_

----------


## Baron Samedi

> I once thought I had a premonition of a guy committing suicide in High School.  Was I right when the guy actually killed himself?  Maybe I was just observant of something the other people weren't aware of.  But it sure as heck wasn't some "telepathic event".



That must have been traumatizing for you. I am sorry to hear that. I had a premonition an acquaintance of mine, my cousin's friend was going to kill himself, and I did nothing, because I wasn't sure, and I barely knew the guy. It's always crappy when we have an intuition about a death, and then it happens.

----------


## rrrrocketrick

Hi again Mzzkc. 





> a useful conceptual system still requires adherence to the definition of accepted terms.



 I don't understand what you're trying to say in the above clause.





> 1. "real" and "imaginary" are non-distinct terms which exist as modifiers that can describe the set of all "experiences"
> 
> By agreeing these terms are non-distinct, and considering their inherent meaning, it can be concluded that these terms are less useful/descriptive than other common modifiers. For example, saying "I thoroughly enjoyed the red wedding" has more value than stating "I thoroughly enjoyed that imaginary wedding".[/indent]
> 
> 2. "sleep" and "wakefulness" are terms (separate from "real" and "imaginary") that exist as states within the set of all "experiences".



I don't understand much in the bit just above either.  _Real_ and _imaginary_ are non-distinct terms?  Non-distinct terms have inherent meaning?  Terms exist as states?  Terms have inherent meaning?  _X_ can be concluded by agreeing that _y_?  Saying _x_ has more value than stating _y_?





> your own philosophy of nature--as you put it--places the burden of proving that "sleep" and "wakefulness" are non-distinct on you.



That seems false.  I can't see why I should need to prove that _sleep_ and _wakefulness_ are non-distinct given my philosophy of nature (which is a widely used term in certain circles, by the way). 





> 2. Shared dreaming can be succinctly defined: mutual "experience(s)" between two or more individuals during "sleep".



No it can't.  I don't have a shared dream if my partner kicks me in bed, not even if we're both asleep and both experience the kick.  





> Please notice the definition I present is extraordinarily distinct from 'mutual experiences between imaginary persons in dream reality'.



Yes,  I was wrong to ascribe that definition to you.  And I think I see the need to change what I wrote a bit, so I think I'll repost it below. 

Mzzkc, I'm under the impression that what I'm getting at is somewhat beyond you at present.  I encourage you to think my posts over a bit more. 

Is there anyone out there with more philosophical acumen who'd like to engage what I posted?  Shadowofwind?  Sivason?

----------


## rrrrocketrick

> @rrrrocketrick
> 
> This debate is about "shared dreaming" which can be very succinctly defined: mutual experience(s) between two or more individuals during sleep.
> 
> Please note the term sleep. "Mutual experience(s) between two or more individuals during wakefulness" defines something else entirely.
> 
> The terms "real" and "imaginary" are superfluous to the conversation (as both are simply experiences), so I don't understand why you bring them into this discussion as part proof of some alleged fallacy.
> 
> Unless you are simply attempting to assert the well-tread "nothing can be known, because subjectivity" anecdote. In which case, I'm puzzled by the fact that you'd wish to try and end the conversation on rather a pointless absolute from which nothing of value can be derived.
> ...




I'd like to make a few improvements to the response I made to the above post by Mzzkc, but I don't want to edit out anything he took issue with, so here's revision of my earlier response:


It's certainly relevant to the discussion to consider the meanings of and the nature of the relations between the various components of the conceptual system(s) through which we consider shared dreaming. You provide good reason to think so yourself by defining waking reality and dreams as you do. To define mutual experiences between people who are awake and (allegedly) mutual experiences between people who are dreaming (_sleeping_  is your preference) in mutually exclusive terms (as you seem to) has a large number of consequences that are relevant here. First, one thereby decides by definition that life is not a shared dream. Second, one thereby imposes a dualistic metaphysic onto a world that might be better described monistically. Third, one thereby makes it much harder to imagine how shared dreaming could be actual even if it is, as we are then faced with the problem of developing entirely novel physical theories (etc.) to accommodate it. (And many more important consequences than these follow.) On the other hand, given a monistic metaphysic in which the distinction between the real and the imaginary is non-sharp, no sharp distinction will be drawn between the mutual experiences of "real" persons in waking reality and the mutual experiences of "imaginary" persons in dreams. Given such a metaphysic, furthermore, "real life" and dreams are of a kind and we need no special physics (etc.) to account for shared dreams. 

Conceptual issues take priority here (as everywhere). The empirical question is secondary. If we impose a conceptual system onto the discussion that excludes shared dreaming a priori or renders it hard to conceive, then of course shared dreaming will appear unbelievable (to anyone who lacks compelling experiences with it, anyway). If we impose a conceptual system onto the discussion that entails shared dreaming, on the other hand, then anyone who embraces that conceptual system will naturally embrace shared dreaming as a fact as well. The empirical question (Is shared dreaming actual or not?) can be rationally pursued only within a conceptual system that doesn't entail either its affirmation or its denial. Powerful experiences with shared dreaming (or whatever else) aren't to be discounted just because we don't have or can't conceive of mechanisms to explain it; instead, those experiences should alert us to the fact that the conceptual system through which we engage the world is incomplete and requires modification (which is clear anyway).

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by WakingNomad


That must have been traumatizing for you. I am sorry to hear that. I had a premonition an acquaintance of mine, my cousin's friend was going to kill himself, and I did nothing, because I wasn't sure, and I barely knew the guy. It's always crappy when we have an intuition about a death, and then it happens.



Creepy, eerie, unsettling...  classic "drag the entire student body to the auditorium out of English class"-episode even though rumors had been raging all morning.

Oh yeah, and the principal really fumbled the news to everyone.  More like a blurt.  And...  no school for the rest of the day to make you all feel better, and you can talk to the school counselor...  and it's all back to normal, right kids?_

----------


## shadowofwind

> Coincidences *do* happen.  And you're going to dream about people and events that you experience in real life, not things that you haven't experienced.



Mindraker, You continue to make a credible argument that your dreams are not shared dreams, but it still applies poorly to what some other people are taking about.

Its true that most dreams for most people are cobbled together collage-like from things they have experienced.  Not all dreams are like this though, and this is part of what makes the premonitions and shared dreams stand out.  You have a dream that does not connect in any recognizable way with your previous experience, it looks alien, and it feels alien, that something came into your mind from outside of yourself.  Then you wake up and meet a new acquaintance a few hours later and it matches what they tell you.  After even a few dozen clear experiences like this, the "its all a coincidence" hypothesis gets pretty implausible.

For the past few years I don't watch TV or movies at all, with one or two rare exceptions, and a large portion of my shared/telepathetic experiences are in relation to strangers I'm about to meet on the internet.  So in most cases I don't have a stream of common sensate experience to confuse the issue.  This is one reason why I don't have many objectively shared dream experiences with people close to me like my wife.  There isn't any way to separate it from our existing knowledge of each other.  And there isn't as much reason to have the experience, because there isn't anything in us pushing to be shared that can't get across any other way.  But with someone I will meet for the first time a few hours after the dream, there is the potential of new experience, and often there are identifying details that can't have been drawn from any previous joint experience.





> The real question is -- what happens to all the OTHER dreams we have, which bear NO similarities to each other?  For example, I dreamt about washing dishes yesterday.  That has no relation to anything you dreamt.  But we're just going to brush that off as "noise"?



No.  For me almost all of the dreams that feel like shared dreams are followed a few hours later with a confirmation of the experience.  Its not a matter of selectively pulling one coincidence out of a much larger sample of experiences.  I already mentioned that possible fallacy in my previous response, though I didn't say specifically what the resolution was for me.  For about 3 years I had one of these kinds of experience per night, clearly distinct from the other dreams.  Now its more blurred together, with the same element weakly present in most of my dreams, but I learned to recognize how it feels when it was separated more.  Since I have math and engineering degrees and work in light measurement, I know a bit about statistics, so statistical fallacies were the first possibilities I explored.  During the period when the premonition and/or shared experiences were separated into their own dreams, close to 100% of them panned out, I didn't exclude any.  And the couple that didn't pan out are still useful data points in their own right, since that in itself was unusual and distinctive.  Now, even though the phenomena is blended more with my other dreams, most of it still connects in an identifiable way with next day experiences that can't be extrapolated from previous experience.

Last night I dreamed of climbing up a pole, and climbing up a tower.  I was a character that reminds me a little bit of Dave Mustaine, with a daughter about 7 years old.  I had another dream that some guy with a gun was coming to kill me.  I'd gotten rid of all my guns, and was frantically searching in my house for one to defend myself with.  The man came to the front door, and the woman I was with went out to stall him.  At the end I found an old muzzle loading pistol under the oven.  I had other dreams also, including one in a mini-van where I drove out to a beautiful but scary looking view.  No washing dishes.  I'd say that these dreams are weakly shared though, based on past experience and how they feel.  There's an element in them that's not entirely me.

I skimmed a thread you started earlier where you tried to share passwords in dream.  That kind of experiment would be quite hard for me, for reasons I've discussed at length in other threads.  For me the connection in the so-called 'shared dreams' is emotional, and relates to the other person's identity as an individual.  Generally speaking, a password doesn't relate strongly enough to that, there's nothing there I can feel clearly.  My 'shared' experiences do often contain objective details that can be verified, but they appear as building blocks in metaphors for the more abstract subjects that drive the experience.  So if I were going to intentionally try to share a dream with someone, I'd focus on a philosophical or personal topic that we both care about, and the synergies in our different perspectives on that will create the dream.  I can't just create the dream with my own force of will.  Its more like surfing, where you have to use the waves that are already there.

For example....I consider ourselves as humans to be 'damned' in some sense, our world has characteristics that I regard as hellish, notwithstanding the positive things.  Is this damnation, such as it is, eternal?  In other words, does our universe work pretty much the only way it can work, with no spiritual 'path' to anything significantly better?  I asked this question before I went to bed.  If someone else has a dream that connects to my dream, its likely that it will relate somehow to this as a theme, that there will be something in their dream that provides some modest perspective on my question that I lacked.  Or the dream could as easily have to do with something they are concerned about, but there is generally that kind of connection.  The reason for this is that the part of me that is capable of having this kind of dream cares about these kinds of subjects, and doesn't care about things like passwords.  Personal relationships and moral choices are important to that part of me too though, so the topic doesn't have to be theoretical like the example I gave here.

On the topic of suicides....I had a roommate/landlord who was taking rent from us while not passing it on to the real property owner.  That same individual also had a serious benzodiazepine addiction, and dramas going on with multiple girlfriends he was juggling.  Shortly before he killed himself, I let him know fairly strongly that I didn't like being lied to, without however realizing what was going on with the rent.  I also encouraged him to honestly face up to his situation, not to run away from it.  A couple of hours before he killed himself, I told him I was moving out, and unknown to me, his situation with his landlord had also come to a crisis point.  He said that he might become homeless.  (He had parents, but didn't want to live with them because they required him to go to drug rehab.)  I encouraged him that he could get through it, that it was spring, so the weather was warm, and I'd known a lot of other people who had gotten through that kind of experience in a positive way.  With retrospect the things I said helped push him over the edge rather than helping pull him back from it.  But I didn't understand his real situation, in large part because of his intent to hide his stealing from me.  A disturbing thing to me about this experience is I was already having a lot of accurate premonitions by this time in my life, but I was completely oblivious to what was about to happen.  I'd had a dream that exactly fit how he died, but the dream had come a while earlier and I didn't connect it with him.  Had I realized he was a suicide risk, I would have acted differently.  And its the kind of thing that I should have been able to pick up on, if I wasn't blinded by his attempt to deceive me, or for some other reason.  Our other roommate didn't see it coming either, and had approached the situation in about the same way that I did.

My point is here isn't that what happened is or isn't partially my fault.  I'm just sharing my experience, so you know you're not alone in this regard.  Dream premonitions are largely beside the issue here, we'd be wrestling with the same thing anyway, everyone does.

I mentioned that I had a dream right before this incident (US Airways Flight 1549 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).  I'll describe it again now, as an example to illustrate how these kinds of dreams work for me, how the symbolism works.  My topic of interest before going to sleep had been redemption.  In my dream, I'm in a long, thin, low building with water on the floor.  There's a small animal kind of like a polecat, which sort of reminded me of a miniature Ted Nugent.  (If you shrink an aggressive asshole, it exhibits more of the skittishness of a small animal because it feels more vulnerable.)  I was debating whether the water on the floor was spittle from the cat hissing, or something else.  Next scene there are hymns of praise to this cat-like animal, "leo leo leo".  Next scene I'm outside of the building, and there's another small building next to it, about the size of a pump house, with an opening in the side.  Several times a blob of some heavy material smacks against the side of the building, as if someone has thrown a shotput at it.  I think the sound it makes when it hits the building is kind of cool, like the sound of a hammer against a human skull.  So I pick up one of the blobs and toss it through the opening.  Inside there's a multifaceted metal contraption.  When the object hits, the contraption rings like a bell, quickly vibrating out of control and tearing itself apart.  Then there's another, louder deeper gong outside, like a knell of impending disaster.  I move back towards the long thin building, because I have "children" in it which I have to save.

In my interpretation, the 'cat' symbolizes a spirit of aggression, which is very similar to a spirit of courage, such as was required to save the people in the long thin building.  It relates to my question of redemption, because it allows me to feel the relationship between aggression and courage, which helps me understand the essential value in it and begin to change it into the other.  Without this concern, I would not have had the dream.  I also believe that the long thin building is related to an airplane fuselage, and the squat building next to it with the metal contraption inside is an engine.   The episode with the metal blob corresponds to the destruction of one of the plane's engines in slow motion, milliseconds stretched out into several seconds.  The 'leo' principle was exhibited in my death-loving aggression in the dream, which I experienced as a cause of the accident, and in the celebrated courage of the pilot who saved everyone.  

One reason I didn't dream it as a literal airplane is I'd had no experience with airplanes for a while, and so had no closer memories on hand to build the image out of.  Also, my previous experience with the inside of an aircraft engine was actually in a building I used to work in at NASA, not attached to a real aircraft.  Another reason is that to a very large extent the dream isn't intended as a vision of the subsequent event.  My dream is really more directly about courage, while drawing supporting metaphors from subsequent events.  The dream and the heroic episode a few hours later are related to each other, but one doesn't 'cause' the other, and isn't really 'about' the other.

All of my dream premonitions developed this way:  when I dreamed on certain kinds of relatively 'deep' topics, the imagery seemed to be drawn from future experience as easily as from past experience.  The premonitory aspect of the dream was to some extent incidental.  I also noticed that such dreams always relate to other people, there's always someone else's desire or thought connected to them.  So I started paying more attention to that, and that's how the more clearly 'shared' experiences developed.  Now the premonitory aspect is a lot weaker, probably in large part because its not interesting to me any more.  Likewise the 'shared' experience isn't interesting to me any more either, because its no longer new to me and I'm no longer looking for more evidence to prove whether or not its real for myself.  So its not as strong and overt as it had been either.  But its still there in a more muddled form, because like everyone else in one way or another, I'm still wrestling with identity, and how to make real contact with other people without losing myself.  And other people are in the process of trying to verify whether shared dreaming is real for themselves, and their aims interact with mine.

Besides the fact that its generated from something like a very detailed feeling, I think there's also another reason why my 'Hudson river' dream is loosely metaphorical in the manner I described.  I've publicly shared this dream several times now, and its one of the few dreams that I have a kind of 'proof' of, in that I have it in a time-stamped e-mail from immediately prior to the corresponding event, demonstrating that I didn't make it up or embellish later.  Is the dream 'just a coincidence', am I reading too much into it?  If you want to believe that its a coincidence, the dream's metaphorical nature leaves you room do that.  Its not right to force people to believe in this sort of thing, to push too strongly with evidence against their will to live in a world where this kind of thing doesn't happen.  ("In the hunt the king uses beaters on three sides only, and forgoes game that runs off in front.")  Some other dreams that I consider too personal to post, since they involve other people, are more direct and literal than this one.  

Having skimmed your previous thread, you don't seem like the kind of person that fears psychological collapse if your life paradigm changes, which is why I'm saying as much as I am here.  I think if you want the truth of the matter, it will allow itself to be caught.  But the Michael Shermer types have the right to remain smugly the way they are.

Shared dreaming, such as I experience it, is deeply intimate.  Its more like brain sex than sharing a movie.  By sex I don't mean pornographic images, I mean that you meld a little bit with the other person on a deep level.  Maybe doing it with strangers like I do isn't even healthy, I'm a psychic slut and drama queen, and I pay a price for that, even while I pretend that my sincere motive protects me a little bit.  Are you comfortable with other people being in your mind?  Do you really want their desires and fears to become a part of you?  As with sex, once you open the door a little bit, you can't go back completely to the way you were.  You can't undo your experience, and unlearn what you learned.  So I think that declining the experience, deciding "I don't want to do that, I'm OK with not knowing one way or the other", is perfectly reasonable, and probably the best choice for a lot of people.  (Maybe from some standpoint it would have been the best choice for me too, but events kind of seduced me into it before I understood where it was going.)  It is possible to have these experiences while maintaining your honest skepticism though, you don't have to give that up.  That's the road I took.  Faith and credulity can make it happen easier, but isn't required.  So I think you can keep all your skeptical ideas about random coincidences and other fallacies and still prove shared dreaming to yourself, as long as you apply that skepticism honestly.

I guess I'll stop here with a disclaimer:  I realize I come across a bit as an arrogant ass.  That's because I'm a bit of an arrogant ass.  I can't turn that off completely, and if I try to clamp down on it too hard, it starts cutting too much into my intuitive and expressive directness.  So all I can do is say yeah I see it, and apologize to whatever extent I appear to have been speaking to you in an unfair or annoying manner.

----------


## shadowofwind

> I may have a few ideas to add here at a later time, but I'm writing this up on a break, so I must be brief.



My life will change significantly in a couple of weeks, so I'm almost out of time too.  One thing I wanted to mention relatively quickly though....Your tree-like icon connects to dreams and feelings I had a few years ago.  Here's something of what it means to me, and maybe you can say what it means to you.  

I know this might sound really weird, but in one interpretation, the two 'trunks' are twin spinal columns in some alien animal, one on the left and one on the right.  The brain of this animal is more divided than our brains are also.  An upside is this makes it easier to do dream-like thinking while awake, because one side can imagine freely while the other side is engaged in thinking actively about the external world.  A downside is it makes it harder in some ways to integrate those two processes, and those two sides of experience.  Its a bit like the separation we experience between waking and sleeping, but the division is more spatial and less temporal than it is for us.

I strongly feel myself 'being' this animal, and acutely feel the absence or loss of one side of the nervous structure, as if it has been torn out of my body, or I've suffered the death of a twin.  I feel like crying a little bit when I think about it, and if speaking some effort would be required to keep my voice from catching.  I'm not suggesting what this means or in what sense it is or isn't real, I'm just describing the experience.

I also feel an analogous loss of connection with others, as if openly psychic empathy has been the norm, and I'm more isolated now.  In one dream I saw an image like your picture, and the branches from one side sort of shrunk and withdrew from the other, leaving it separate.  The motion of it was a weird kind of feeling, sort of plant-like, sort of animal-like, sort of slippery and medical in a squeamish kind of way.  The shape of the 'nerves' was a little bit more feather-like than in your picture, and I think it was on a slightly lighter background, but it feels similar.

(By the way Sageous, and other people I've mentioned this to, I finally got a job where my wife and kids are!  So thanks for your prayers or atheistic well-wishes or whatever you've done in that regard.  It will be a challenge I think, but all we can hope for in life is an opportunity, and it looks like a good one in terms of the opportunities and difficulties it involves.  And of course being home all week except for business travel will be wonderful, its hard to be a good partner and parent from 500 or 2000 miles away.)

----------


## Sageous

> (By the way Sageous, and other people I've mentioned this to, I finally got a job where my wife and kids are!  So thanks for your prayers or atheistic well-wishes or whatever you've done in that regard.  It will be a challenge I think, but all we can hope for in life is an opportunity, and it looks like a good one in terms of the opportunities and difficulties it involves.  And of course being home all week except for business travel will be wonderful, its hard to be a good partner and parent from 500 or 2000 miles away.)



That's wonderful news!

----------


## Sageous

> Mzzkc, I'm under the impression that what I'm getting at is somewhat beyond you at present.  I encourage you to think my posts over a bit more. Is there anyone out there with more philosophical acumen who'd like to engage what I posted? Shadowofwind? Sivason?



For what it's worth, rrrrocketrick, Mzzkc is one of the most knowledgeable people I've encountered on these forums; I think you are going to have a very hard time getting "beyond" him, and I haven't noticed you doing so yet, by any measure.  Given that he usually takes the high ground, I'm not sure Mzzkc will follow up after such an uncalled-for insult... But  sort of hope he does.

----------


## Mzzkc

Responses to different folks will come sporadically due to time constraints. Sorry in advance for the wait. <3





> Hi again Mzzkc.



Hello.





> I don't understand what you're trying to say in the above clause.



I will explain further.

To discuss any philosophical frameworks, we need language to do so. Language is a complex subject, but by sharing knowledge of English most of the work is done for us. However, basic discourse still requires a set of agreed upon terms and definitions to facilitate proper communication. If the framework of a conceptual system can only prescribe multiple, contradictory, or ambiguous meanings to the terms used in basic discourse, then it has no real value--since no coherent discourse can be had from which conclusions can be drawn.

Thus, I asked that we further develop the language with which we discuss shared dreaming and related topics. This is a necessary first step in a broader conversation. After all, without a common language, we may as well resort to grunts and handwaving to get our meaning across.





> I don't understand much in the bit just above either.  _Real_ and _imaginary_ are non-distinct terms?  Non-distinct terms have inherent meaning?  Terms exist as states?  Terms have inherent meaning?  _X_ can be concluded by agreeing that _y_?  Saying _x_ has more value than stating _y_?



Would you prefer a more formal proof? Are you familiar with basic set theory and standard notation? That would make communication easier, I think. Though, I admit I'm a bit rusty. =)







> That seems false.  I can't see why I should need to prove that _sleep_ and _wakefulness_ are non-distinct given my philosophy of nature (which is a widely used term in certain circles, by the way).



I have experienced, witnessed, and researched multiple phenomena which prove that "sleep" and "wakefulness" are distinct states. 

To show why you would need to prove that sleep and wakefulness are not distinct state (obviously, you wouldn't have to if you agree they are distinct), I provide a quote (with context).





> I judge them from the perspective provided by a philosophy of nature (metaphysic, philosophical cosmology, worldview), 1) which is more coherent and adequate to experience than that of the so-called "modern scientific worldview" (by virtue of including it and going beyond it, not by virtue of denying it) and, *2) which implies that the burden of proof is not on those who accept the phenomenon but rather on those who deny it.*



If I take you by your word, and I have no reason not to, then it would seem that any experiential claim I make (no matter how ordinary or extraordinary) I would neither need to support or prove. At least as far as your conceptual system will take us, anyways.





> No it can't.  I don't have a shared dream if my partner kicks me in bed, not even if we're both asleep and both experience the kick.



What a lovely imagination you have! Could you elaborate further on this hypothetical? How do these two experience the kick? Or is it only their bodies which experience the event, while their minds don't register a thing? Or if their minds do register the kick, and they experience it in dreams, do they experience it the same way? Would they be kicking each other in the dream? Or would the dream construct an event where one experienced kicking a tree and the other getting kicked from a bar--or something else entirely? 

We'd have to delve deeper into this example to see how my proposed definition fares. There are simply too many potential symptoms with what you've presented to draw a reasonable conclusion on the veracity of my proposed definition--but I think you might be onto something here which can help us better focus our language. 

I've still yet to see you offer definitions for consideration, though. I certainly hope you do.





> Yes,  I was wrong to ascribe that definition to you.  And I think I see the need to change what I wrote a bit, so I think I'll repost it below.



All very well, but my definition of shared dreaming (alone) does not preclude the possibility of waking life being a shared dream. I'll allow you to figure out how that could be. It'll be a fun mental exercise, I'm sure! 

A hint: the solution to the quandary relies upon an oft-discussed, well-known philosophical framework and a bit of recursion.





> Mzzkc, I'm under the impression that what I'm getting at is somewhat beyond you at present.  I encourage you to think my posts over a bit more. 
> 
> Is there anyone out there with more philosophical acumen who'd like to engage what I posted?  Shadowofwind?  Sivason?



From what I've seen, you assume too much. Getting the basics right is a prerequisite to real philosophical discussion. Part of getting the basics right is agreeing upon language...terms...definitions. If we were already working with a common set, there would be no issue here. But by your own admission, you've brought a new framework to the table with which no one but you is intimately familiar. 

If you want to discuss its merits, we must come to a consensus on the fundamental symbols to be used in discourse. There is value in symbols--in words and definitions. Surely, you are not blind to this.

----------


## Mindraker

_





 Originally Posted by shadowofwind


<snip>





> you don't seem like the kind of person that fears psychological collapse if your life paradigm changes

Well, no, but I'd -prefer- stability over instability.  

> That's because I'm a bit of an arrogant ass.

What?  This is the Internet.    OK, I admit to a *little* trolling myself online.  I can get carried away myself.  But in all seriousness, I do think your point about TV is interesting -- I find that on the nights that I watch TV, my dreams are consistently far less sharp than on nights that I do watch television -- to the point that I don't even have dream recall on the nights that I watch TV.

We will probably disagree on this issue.  "Let us agree to disagree..."_

----------


## EbbTide000

Love Your New Avatar * Mzzkc*  (post #510)

It looks like a dream Portal to "one plus one" trees

Do trees Communicate? 

***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8V0...e_gdata_player

***(4:41) 32,852 views

In the "show more" it sat:

 In this real-life model of forest resilience and regeneration, Professor Suzanne Simard shows that all trees in a forest ecosystem are interconnected, with the largest, oldest, "mother trees" serving as hubs. The underground exchange of nutrients increases the survival of younger trees linked into the network of old trees. Amazingly, we find that in a forest, *1+1* equals *more than 2.* 

Your avatar is one plus one trees,

----------


## EbbTide000

Hmmmra (this is harrrd)

Am trying to link you 100+ readers of this thread to rvdc's work. In the first post (OP) is a link to a scientific, published paper by 86 year old rvdc. 

In post #2 has a very interesting, online share dream experiment video. Fast forward to the 12 minute point to listen to what happened in shared dream, online experiment.  

Discuss rvdc and synchronicities

***

http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dre...chonicity.html

***

----------


## shadowofwind

> Given that he usually takes the high ground, I'm not sure Mzzkc will follow up after such an uncalled-for insult... But  sort of hope he does.



In my reading of the exchange, Mzzkc's responses to rrrrocketrick were hostile from the start, and rrrocketrick mostly reacted against that.  I don't really mean that as a criticism of Mzzkc, since I've often led off with posts that were 10 times as aggressive as his.  When I do that, its usually because what the other person seems to be saying is something that I've heard before and had a problem with, so I treat the other person as sort of a proxy for previous posters.  I think rrrocketrick and I both did this a little bit in this thread in response to MindRaker's statement about the "burden of proof" being on believers in shared dreaming.  People have come into the forum demanding that we justify our thoughts and experiences to them in terms of their own preferred paradigm, as if they have that authority over what its acceptable for us to think for some reason.  I recognized MindRaker's handle, so had I been in less of a hurry, and if the site's search facility were not mostly broken, I'd have gone back and tried to get a better idea of where he's coming from before responding.  Instead I just guessed based on his most recent posts.  I think I guessed correctly to some extent, and missed to some extent, confusing him with somebody else.  Anyway, I speculate that Mzzkc was reacting to rrrrocketrick in a similar kind of way.  Maybe his reaction was in defense of MindRaker, or the apparent consequences of rrrocketrick's philosophy offended him, or maybe he smelled something in rrrrocketrick's attitude that he didn't like and went after that.  In any case, as arrogant and rude as rrrrocketrick was at the end, I don't think he started it.

I disagree with rrrrocketrick that there is a "burden of proof" on people who deny shared dreaming.  Many people who believe in shared dreaming lie about their experiences, or interpret their experiences in logically fallacious ways.  Seeing that, its not unreasonable for someone to conclude that shared dreaming is probably all bullshit.  And its fair for them to hold that position without somehow disproving shared dreaming, which would be pretty much impossible.  I think that people who deny shared dreaming are wrong, but I expect them to make their best judgment based on the evidence they have.  And not believing in shared dreaming is not an unreasonable view if they have no personal experience of it, given how much fabrication and delusion there appears to be on the other side.  The best approach in my view though is simply not to form concrete opinions one way or another.  A person can just leave it open to some extent, recognizing something of the degree to which their informed guesses are guesses.  It doesn't seem reasonable to me to assume that claimed phenomena are real as a default position.  I guess that maybe that's Mzzkc's view also, and he just reacted more strongly against some of the implications.

As I see it, rrrrocketrick is right that the dichotomy between "real" and "imaginary" has been a significant source of confusion on the topic of shared dreaming.  So I think it was reasonable to bring it up, and I think it was unreasonable for the point to be dismissed as superfluous.  The thread topic was "Do you believe shared dreaming is real?", and for very many people who have posted in this sub-forum on that question, the converse of "real" in this context is "imaginary".  So how can that distinction not be relevant?  Its a dichotomy that has confused my perceptions also.  For example, when I first had an astral projection experience, I thought it was "real", that I was out of my physical body.  Then after a couple of more I was able to determine that it was imaginary, that I was manipulating a kind of model in my imagination.  Equating imaginary with physically unreal, like most people do, I dismissed it as unreal for about ten years before other experiences taught me that it doesn't fall cleanly into one side or the other of that category.  So definitely its relevant.  Also, rrrrockettrick didn't say that in his way of looking at the world the dichotomy goes away entirely, just said that its non-sharp.  And he said that many times, so that we wouldn't misunderstand.  So while I agree with Mzzkc that "nothing can be known, because subjectivity" is a stupid way of looking at things, rrrrocketrick seemed to me to be quite clear that this wasn't what he was saying.

I agree with both rrrrocketrick and Mzzkc that the paradigms through which we think about the world matter, and word definitions matter.  But I also think its possible to try to do too much with definitions.  Some thoughts can't be expressed as a sequence of symbols with definite meanings.  No matter how you chop it up something is left out.  Also, generally speaking, a "philosophy" is too limited to capture everything important that can be understood about nature.  These are toy models.  They're useful, but they're not even remotely isomorphic to reality.  I think that when we try to discuss topics like shared dreaming, it doesn't work to try to pin everything down with careful definitions.  We also have to try to read each others' minds to some extent.  Without that we won't understand, because the words are not enough.  Furthermore, the castles of definitions and ideas built by modern philosophers tend to become a world of their own, mostly disconnected from the rest of reality.  Navigating these mazes isn't very interesting to me, they're not close enough to the heart.  I think, for example, that if there's a serious debate about whether dream is different from waking life, somebody has become too wrapped up in subjective experiences and mental constructs and forgotten to look at the evidence.  Yes there are things that are the same between the two, but if we try to make up a philosophy and try to impose it on the world its going to be wrong.  I guess what I'm saying is that when there's a misunderstanding having to do with the way a word is used, then that has to be addressed.  But at the same time its not possible to understand the world by careful philosophical construction.  A person could do that forever, for instance, and never experience a shared dream.  The tool is inadequate to the task, and in any case the spirit slips away.

This comes back a little bit to a criticism I made recently of so-called Thought Science.  People who call such a thing science have, in my view, little understanding of what science is, and no experience with the incredible detail and rigor that goes into something like a successful physics model.  I'd say the same thing about Objectivism or Zen Buddhism or Marxism or any other dogma or philosophy that I've ever encountered.  Yes science has serious limitations also, but it has also been successful in a way that puts it in a whole different league than other philosophies.  Mechanisms do matter, and the lack of a plausible mechanism for shared dreaming does matter.  If rrrrocketrick has a way of looking at things that makes mechanisms irrelevant, that may be a useful way of looking at things in some regard.  But I think it leaves something out also, and is not an alternative that can replace the 'scientific' way of looking at things.

I think to a large extent we've been speaking past each other.  We see considerations that we think are important, so we try to communicate those, and we do that in a way that's at the expense of things that other people see as important.  So I can't really pick a side here.  I wish that we can respect that other people have something to say that's worthwhile, even if we must disagree with a large part of what it seems to be saying to us, and even if it doesn't interest us personally.

----------


## EbbTide000

I messed it up. I knew I would. So, here is page one of that thread I meant to link you to:

***

http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dre...-thoughts.html

***

86 year old rvdc wrote this in 2012  and It was published in the:

* International Journal of Dream Research* 

Volume 5 Number 1 (April 2012) * Van De Castle* 

The article is called:

Exogenous dream continuity: 

Exploring the matrix of *entangled* dreams 


You can print a PDF of the 8 page article here:

***

Exogenous dream continuity: Exploring the matrix of entangled dreams | Van de Castle | International Journal of Dream Research

***

Here are some exerts:

In post #3

The largest collection of psychic experiences was compiled by Louisa Rhine who filed over 15,000 reports (Rhine, 1978, pg. 21). (...) over 60% of these reports consisted of dreams,*

In post 4

*On p. 141, Hall wrote:*With the advent of sleep monitoring techniques and objective methods of content analysis, it has become possible to do fairly rigorous controlled experiments on the incorporation in dreams of material subliminally presented during sleep. In the language of parapsychology these are investigations of mental telepathy during sleep.

 post 5





> The first two presentations with *Van de Castle* as the subject did not have any discernible effect on the dreams he reported.
> 
> * But* 
> 
> The third topic consisted of watching a prize fight. The experimenter 
> 
> visualized a prize fight mentally, 
> looked at pictures of prize fighters in a magazine,
>  wrote out the message:You are watching a prize fight.And 
> ...



Post 6

Although I experienced this dream back in *1967*, I can still recall the vividness and intensity of that dream *45* years later.

 It served as my personal introduction to the reality of psychic phenomena, even though I had an extensive reading background on the subject matter for 15 years prior to that time. 

For the person experiencing this kind of impactful dream, no amount of scepticism by omniscient scientists can ever dissuade an experiencer of this kind of powerful psychic event that they were deluded.*

If you get hit by a truck, you know that you hit by a truck, and no amount of critical comments by these arbiters of reality will ever convince you that the truck that hit you was an imaginary truck.

----------


## Mzzkc

Hostile? Is that how I come off nowadays?

Hmm...maybe it's the terse prose?

For the record: I have no animosity towards anyone here. Don't have a reason to; we're all here to learn, aren't we?

Too often these debates foster an "us vs. them" mentality that I find absolutely ridiculous. We're all people, all humans in our own right.

What's more, by its very virtue, my belief system (if you can call it that) precludes offence from new ideas. And that would presuppose the ideas rick presented were new to me in the first place (they weren't).

When I read rick's post, I saw potential for real conversation, if I could only get him to move beyond such mundane topics as "reality" and "imagination" by pushing his presented points to their logical ultimate. If I had not seen this potential, I would not have posted; not worth my time otherwise.

But as of yet, rick doesn't seem to be willing to work out the absolute basics needed to have a meaningful discussion (how can we talk about shared dreaming when we can't even agree upon a definition for the phenomenon). That's a shame.

----------


## shadowofwind

No its not the terse prose.  Not the style of what you said so much as the substance.  It looks more like aggressive arrogance than anything else.  Right or wrong, deep or superficial, insightful or cliche, rick had something he was trying to communicate, and you crapped on it while falsely characterizing what he was actually saying.  With that attitude, it doesn't matter how much intelligence or knowledge you have, nobody is going to be able to learn very much from you because you don't respect other people's intelligence enough to understand where they're coming from and what they're actually asking.  When you say "I saw potential for real conversation, _if I could only get him to_...." I don't think you're thinking about who you are in relation to other people in a realistic way.

As far as I understand what both of you are saying, I think I agree more with your ideas than with his.  And I didn't have a problem at all with how you responded to my posts.  But Sageous suggested that rrrrocketrick's attack wasn't provoked, so I'm just saying what I saw.

----------


## Mzzkc

Statistically speaking, I'm more adept at symbol manipulation, pattern recognition, and recall than 99.9% of the population. This is a simple fact supported by numerous tests and accompanying documentation. I say this not to brag, but to help you better understand my perspective.

Given this knowledge, is it arrogance to think that I am capable of taking the ideas presented by rick much further than they are at present? Or would this be a reasonable conclusion based on overwhelming probability?

As for respect, if I thought rick unintelligent and beneath me, I would not have bothered to engage in discourse. If you would all rather I leave, I would not be opposed to do so; I've continued posting thus far only at Sageous' implied request.

More on topic: Regarding the search for a suitable definition of shared dreaming, there is a fantastic work of fiction which describes shared dreaming experiences as accurately as I've yet seen in literature. Here, let me google it for you.

----------


## Sageous

^^ Nice link, Mzzkc; don't know whether to smile or sigh.

----------


## shadowofwind

> Statistically speaking, I'm more adept at symbol manipulation, pattern recognition, and recall than 99.9% of the population.



Fantastic, so am I.

If you're better at basketball than 99.9% of the population, and trying to play at a pro level, that's likely not good enough.  We self-select into different groups to a remarkable degree.  Being smarter than 999 other people doesn't mean much if your view of yourself prevents you from communicating with the people you are actually in contact with.

Being as brilliant as you are, you must understand that there are different types of intelligence, and that people who are notably less intelligent than you in some ways can nevertheless sometimes know things that you would benefit from learning.  Even if your goal is to teach them, and not to learn anything from them, you can't teach effectively if you can't look for the truth in what they're saying and treat it accordingly.





> Given this knowledge, is it arrogance to think that I am capable of taking the ideas presented by rick much further than they are at present?



Yes, definitely.  It didn't work very well, did it?





> Or would this be a reasonable conclusion based on overwhelming probability?



No.  I could have predicted the outcome with nearly 100% certainty based on your first post.





> As for respect, if I thought rick unintelligent and beneath me, I would not have bothered to engage in discourse.



You thought him worthy of being blessed with your wise radiance, yes, if he was humble and open enough to receive it.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that you're more arrogant than he is, or even more arrogant than me.  What I'm suggesting is that your arrogance is producing a deep blind spot for you in this particular area, and I'm able to tell you about it because my particular flavor of bullshit blinds me in slightly different areas.  Not that I'm being any more effective here than you were in relation to rick.





> If you would all rather I leave, I would not be opposed to do so; I've continued posting thus far only at Sageous' implied request.



No, please don't go, we would be lost without you!  Seriously though, I find this conversation a lot more interesting than the other one, tedious as it might seem to you.  I've known a lot of really talented people in my life, and I've learned a lot from them.  But a point comes where I'm working on questions that they can't help with, not because I'm smarter than them or they don't have anything to contribute, but because they can't imagine that I could know anything worthwhile that's not a subset of what they know.  So they interpret everything I say through that filter, and understand very little of it.  And so they can't help with what I'm thinking on because they don't understand it.  Not because they're not smart enough, but because they're too full of themselves.  Then they feel isolated on their esteemed mountaintop, that the world is too primitive to receive their offering.  It eventually becomes painful for them, its a sad waste of talent for everyone else, and its insane.





> More on topic: Regarding the search for a suitable definition of shared dreaming, there is a fantastic work of fiction which describes shared dreaming experiences as accurately as I've yet seen in literature. Here, let me google it for you.



Yeah I have one of those, thanks.  I think Peter has a bit of a sage complex too, though from what I've seen so far, yours is a lot further progressed.

----------


## Sageous

^^ I was going to put on my arrogant-sage hat and self-importantly apologize for perhaps triggering this current conversation, but I changed my mind because damn, it was entertaining!  And I even somehow got a free plug in the process (a backhanded plug, no doubt, but that's okay).  So never mind.

----------


## Mzzkc

shadowofwind:

Understood. Thanks. =)

Sageous:

We aren't allowed to post direct links, so I had to get creative. XP

----------


## rrrrocketrick

I have neither time nor opportunity to visit this page every day, and I shouldn't visit it as often as I do.  I've just skimmed (lightly skimmed) recent postings, however, and I see that people are discussing the recent "exchange" between Mzzkc and I.  I don't like to do this, but I feel pushed at this point to say that I'm a PhD writing from my field of expertise.  I offered what I believe is a very deep point in my post.  Mzzkc appeared to me not to grasp the substance of it, I consequently found his dismissal of my post uninformed and arrogant, and I found it outrageous that he was suggesting I might just be a "hypocrite" (a hypocrite?) right off the bat (his first post in response to me!), so I opted to disengage.  I'm reluctant to post on dreamviews anyway, because the level of discussion is too often low and because there's way too much shouting, arrogant swagger, and superficial engagement to deal with.  It's thanks to certain significant exceptions to that rule that I took a chance.

I'll be back later--perhaps later today--to take a closer look at what's been posted recently.  Perhaps I'll re-engage.  Or maybe I'll just go back to lurking.

----------


## EbbTide000

> I have neither time nor opportunity to visit this page every day, and I shouldn't visit it as often as I do.  I've just skimmed (lightly skimmed) recent postings, however, and I see that people are discussing the recent "exchange" between Mzzkc and I.  
> 
> I don't like to do this, but I feel pushed at this point to say that I'm a PhD writing from my field of expertise.  
> 
> I offered what I believe is a very deep point in my post. 
> 
>  Mzzkc appeared to me not to grasp the substance of it, I consequently found his dismissal of my post uninformed and arrogant, and I found it outrageous that he was suggesting I might just be a "hypocrite" (a hypocrite?) right off the bat (his first post in response to me!), so I opted to disengage.  
> 
> I'm reluctant to post on dreamviews anyway, because the level of discussion is too often low and because there's way too much shouting, arrogant swagger, and superficial engagement to deal with. 
> ...



I just checked your profile. Thank you for what you told us about yourself in your biography.  Here is a copy and paste:

***

*About rrrrocketrick

Biography:*

I'm new to lucid dreaming; started trying it in late 2012.*

I'm an academic; I have a PhD in 'Science and Religion.

'I'm interested in lucid dreaming because it seems to carry important implications about the nature of nature. Specifically, I think it very strongly suggests that materialistic theories of nature are false, strongly suggests that dualistic theories of nature are also false, and also strongly suggests the superiority of what might be called dialectical monisms. In other words, it suggests that no sharp boundary can be drawn between the imaginary and the real. This in turn has important scientific, philosophical, and religious implications.

*How you found us:*

Nick Newport lucidology video on youtube[

***

----------


## Sageous

> I have neither time nor opportunity to visit this page every day, and I shouldn't visit it as often as I do.  I've just skimmed (lightly skimmed) recent postings, however, and I see that people are discussing the recent "exchange" between Mzzkc and I.  I don't like to do this, but I feel pushed at this point to say that I'm a PhD writing from my field of expertise.  I offered what I believe is a very deep point in my post.  Mzzkc appeared to me not to grasp the substance of it, I consequently found his dismissal of my post uninformed and arrogant, and I found it outrageous that he was suggesting I might just be a "hypocrite" (a hypocrite?) right off the bat (his first post in response to me!), so I opted to disengage.  I'm reluctant to post on dreamviews anyway, because the level of discussion is too often low and because there's way too much shouting, arrogant swagger, and superficial engagement to deal with.  It's thanks to certain significant exceptions to that rule that I took a chance.



Wow.  

Sorry you're having trouble lowering yourself to our puny level, rrrrocketrick.  If you don't rejoin because we're all just too stupid, swaggering, and emotional, well, I guess we'll just try to get along without your wisdom and marked humility.

Good luck finding a site stocked with smart people ... I'm sure there are many of them, no doubt flush with self-affirming Phd's, if not experienced LD'ers.  

sheesh.

----------


## shadowofwind

> Wow.
> 
> Sorry you're having trouble lowering yourself to our puny level, rrrrocketrick.



Sageous,

I don't think you're interpreting his comment quite in its proper context here.  How is what he said more arrogant than what Mzzkc said about being in the 0.1%, or his comment about seeing "potential" in rick's post?  

I've sometimes mentioned that I do R&D related to electromagnetics, to try to dispel the perception that I have no idea what I'm talking about in that area.  It doesn't mean that I'm lording it over people.  And even to whatever extent I am, it doesn't mean that an earnest person can't get through the barrier and have a real conversation with me anyway.  Maybe this will turn out to have been an epically farcical battle of pompous fools, myself included, but I think rrrrocketrick deserves a chance to demonstrate who he is before we decide for him.  Treat him with some amount of human respect first, _then_ criticize him if he proves that he's just here to try to 'teach' us.  He asked for engagement with his ideas, so I made some criticisms.  Let him engage with that if he wants to.  If my criticisms seem off base, he can say why and elaborate.  Mzzkc really didn't give him enough of a hearing for that to happen I don't think, as I suggested earlier.

By the way rrrrocketrick, sometimes people pretend to listen to and respect the people they're talking to, as a way of patronizing the people they're trying to teach 'for their own good'.  I've seen two people do that to each other, and though a sadist might find it fun to watch, otherwise its a waste of time.  So I hope we can be completely straight up with each other, if you're not too offended by my suggestion that it could be otherwise.

----------


## Sageous

^^ Sorry, Shadowofwind, I think I interpreted Rick's comment just fine, as he managed to break the pomposity meter with that last post, eclipsing Mzzkc's (and my) arrogance with ease.  And yes, Mzzkc's statements did pose a fairly high bar to clear, didn't they?  Trouble is, even that .1% statement is likely grounded in fact, and was made as a perhaps snarky defense to Rick's earlier statements. 

I ignored the Phd part, because I don't give a crap about Phd's; I never did.  Some of the most moronic and closed-minded people I've met in life have Phd's; given enough time, any idiot can get a Phd.  Besides, I understand that sometimes a little resume-citing becomes necessary in a conversation; I've done it myself.  

Indeed, I wasn't even asserting that bit about the Phd; nor was I considering his conversation with Mzzkc, even if that was the implied context.  No, it was his line saying, essentially, that most of us here at DV are simply too stupid to talk with him at his level, we do not merit his high attentions, and even the exceptions were failing to meet his requirements. That kind of talk is quite irritating, and, honestly, quite telling.

Would _you_ have made a post like that, Shadowofwind?  I think not. You are well educated, usually have a better handle on the science or philosophy behind a concept than anyone present.  And yet you never announce that you are simply too smart to communicate your deep wisdom with the rabble below... I believe that you both know better than to do so and that you would not do so, because a part of you understands that there is always something to be learned ... even from the swaggering rabble.

No, I did not misinterpret; I think Rick meant exactly what he said, and I have a feeling it was aimed at all of us, not just Mzzkc.  That kind of arrogance ought to be called out, I think.

----------


## shadowofwind

OK, fair enough.  In my first comment about Mzzkc's reaction to rrrrocketrick, I said "maybe he smelled something in rrrrocketrick's attitude that he didn't like and went after that".  What you're talking about is the same kind of thing I was talking about, and I'm not going to try to tell you what you should or should not find offensive in any case.  My point was only that we all stink at least a little bit, and rrrrocketrick never got a chance at the beginning before the skunk tails were all raised.  Also Mzzkc said a few things that imply that many people here are not worth his time to talk to, so rick isn't alone in that regard.  I was just trying to give the 'reset' button a chance.

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## shadowofwind

Mzzkc, I'm still interested in hearing what your icon means to you, if my own strange take on it didn't scare you off on that subject.

----------


## Mzzkc

Got a meeting in 30, so this will be brief and very much abridged.


Sageous:

=(

That wasn't very nice. See shadow's post above for why.


shadow:

Had a chance to properly read through your posts.

Good read on the exchange and play-by-play all around.

On the avatar: it doesn't hold a lot of personal meaning for me. Found it recently when going through old images to replace my current avatar with something more fitting with my new signature. It was something I had whipped up a year or two back in reaction to some striking dream imagery a member of this forum shared.

The inherent symbolism, simplicity, and beauty of the design really stuck out, so I just went with it. Can't say for sure what it means to me yet. Don't want to ruin or cloud others' interpretation. =)

On timing: between work, social stuff, other interweb communities, looking for a condo/house/apartment, holidays, intermittent wedding planning, and finding time to just chill--my time is stretched about as far as it will go. I'm sure others have equally time consuming requirements, but I need to pay extra special attention to my time management for reasons beyond the scope of this discussion. Let's just say time management one of my many deficiencies. XP

rick:

Taking a few steps back...

So we've got a universe that can best be modeled and described as a dialectical monism. Everything is one, one is everything, and experience serves to distinguish between seemingly dualist notions.

Cool. Now what?

While the model you're presenting is assuredly deep and interesting, I still see no experience-driven practicality here. Though that sentiment may just be the engineer in me, I don't think this criticism is too off-base.

----------


## Lucidpotential

Hi there,
I have been following this thread with interest. Well done guys! A great collection of thoughtful posts. I am hoping that all you Einstein Protégés will soon stop sparing with one another and we can get back to the discussion.
LP

----------


## Belle

> I have neither time nor opportunity to visit this page every day, and I shouldn't visit it as often as I do.  I've just skimmed (lightly skimmed) recent postings, however, and I see that people are discussing the recent "exchange" between Mzzkc and I.  I don't like to do this, but I feel pushed at this point to say that I'm a PhD writing from my field of expertise.  I offered what I believe is a very deep point in my post.  Mzzkc appeared to me not to grasp the substance of it, I consequently found his dismissal of my post uninformed and arrogant, and I found it outrageous that he was suggesting I might just be a "hypocrite" (a hypocrite?) right off the bat (his first post in response to me!), so I opted to disengage.  I'm reluctant to post on dreamviews anyway, because the level of discussion is too often low and because there's way too much shouting, arrogant swagger, and superficial engagement to deal with.  It's thanks to certain significant exceptions to that rule that I took a chance.
> 
> I'll be back later--perhaps later today--to take a closer look at what's been posted recently.  Perhaps I'll re-engage.  Or maybe I'll just go back to lurking.



You shouldn't allow the big bully, Mzzkc, to pick on you.  You should stand up for yourself more.  Explain how intelligent you are (outside of internet postings), how you're unable to find intelligent life sources elsewhere on the interwebs, and fight the label of hypocrite.  Then if all that fails, threaten the minions with your departure.  

Really though, seriously? 

If you can't handle the heat, get outta the internet.  Most online communities will bring your opinions under a magnifying glass and if you make outrageous declarations expect some fine toothed combing.  If you can't handle defending your ideas, it might be best you return to lurking.  On the other hand, you've managed to bring the best two of DV's tag team to life.  I find you rather entertaining for that.  Thanks  ::D:

----------


## shadowofwind

> So we've got a universe that can best be modeled and described as a dialectical monism. Everything is one, one is everything, and experience serves to distinguish between seemingly dualist notions.



I'm not much of a philosopher, but I've fortified myself with some basic definitions, so I'll say a few things to try to stimulate the discussion....

It seems to me that any philosophy that can't be at least loosely lumped in with dialectical monism wouldn't make sense.  Pure monism would make no sense.  Pure dualism would make no sense.  Neither would accommodate either experience or logic.  And the wikipedia page on positivism has this quote by Heisenberg, which seems to me to be on target:

_The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in silence. But can any one conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we omitted all that is unclear we would probably be left with completely uninteresting and trivial tautologies._

I recognize that our ways of thinking about the world are important in deciding what we are able to experience.  And I think that our present ways of thinking are limiting our experience a lot, even for people who don't care about philosophy.  Whether we realize it or not we're all tapping into the same collective pool of ideas, even though we're not all drawing on quite the same part of it.  So I think it is important that people who are cut out for it think about this sort of thing, even if the modern philosophical approach is not quite my cup of tea personally.

I'm not sure what the best words are to describe this, but one of the things that I've tried to do, which seems to have been beneficial, is to weigh my beliefs with an appropriate measure of confidence depending on how much evidence I really have.  If I'm about 2/3 sure of something, its a mistake to guess and call it a belief, its better to leave it at about 2/3, as a working hypothesis.  I think that even if we had all possible knowledge we'd still need to do this, some things are just inherently ambiguous.  Its sort of like in chemistry, where if you could nail down the position of every particle exactly, you'd have nothing.  Freedom and interaction depends on a degree of vagueness, it adds substance or thickness to experience that wouldn't be there otherwise.

For a lot of things this seems fairly easy and obvious, but it gets hard where there are stronger passions involved.  We shy away from the right thought because we're afraid to judge too hard, or we're afraid of what will happen if we don't judge decisively enough.  It happens so fast we hardly notice, but in an instant the thought is collapsed from something beautiful to something more distorted and limited than it would be otherwise.  And when we get an insight, we're so excited by the thrill of it, the feeling of understanding, that we grasp too hard and stunt it before it is fully formed.  Or we get so carried away by the feeling of wisdom that we forget how to think.  A thousand times a day this happens.  It reminds me somewhat of the song, which I guess is plagiarized from a poem, that goes "when a man lies he murders some part of the word.  These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives."  Every thought seems to me to be like that, a little bit.  Though of course a person can choose to emphasize the positive of it instead of the negative, since every thought contains an element of truth also.

About 15 years ago, by grace, apparently, I had a blissful experience that lasted a couple of hours, where it seemed as if I could feel and see some of the underlying unity in things.  The thing I tried to tell myself to remember, before the experience slipped away, was "don't _decide_ anything".  I don't think it would be a good idea to interpret that as "don't think" or "don't exercise any discernment", because both are essential to progress.  But maybe if the judgment is done with more temperance, it loosens those myriad mental knots a little bit, and gives us more mental and emotional freedom to see what we wouldn't be able to see otherwise.

So to try to bring this back to the topic at hand....A scientific mindset which tries to decompose every cause into "physical necessity" and "random chance" is inadequate, and tends to be destructive of experiences like shared dreaming.  Its too limited and brittle, and leaves out too much of our emotional and intuitive intelligence.  At the same time, a mindset which doesn't value forming hypotheses and checking them rigorously against experience quickly devolves into superstition.  The scientific approach is essential to mental hygiene.  So somehow we have to accommodate both.  If we can make progress at this philosophically, then shared dreaming will be open to more people, because people won't be jamming their conscious and subconscious self-expression into materialist or mystic paradigms that can't accommodate such things as well.

----------


## Sageous

I feel a little silly following such a post with this small thought, but I felt it needed mentioning:

Monism and dualism are both debatable perspectives in waking life, but in dreams, especially of the lucid variety, there is _only_ monism -- the entire world in which you reside is you, and yours. So a non-dualistic* approach in waking life would certainly help get you in the right place in dreams (*sorry, "monistic" just sounds too holy, or, worse, like a kissing disease symptom).

And with regard to shared dreaming -- that's why we're here, right? -- a non-dualistic mindset might allow you to be more aware when something or someone appears in your dream that shouldn't be there; something here is not you, in other words, and deserves attention.  Also, lets say there is some energy or dimensional stuff attached to dreaming and shared-dreaming: if so, a non-dualistic dreamer might be able to expand her, say, field of influence to make herself a better target to other dreamers, or perhaps to draw others into her influence.

So monism works well, in dreams.  In waking life, the debate continues.

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## shadowofwind

> in dreams, especially of the lucid variety, there is _only_ monism -- the entire world in which you reside is you, and yours.



I thought that in a shared dream some aspects of the world in which you reside are _not_ you.  Otherwise it wouldn't even be identifiable as a shared dream.

Granted, your awareness and acceptance of your 'oneness' with the other person is probably essential to creating the dream.  This is definitely how it works for me, and this is an example of where pure dualism doesn't make sense or agree with experience.  But pure monism wouldn't work either:  as you extended your personal sense of self to include other people, your sense of power and place in relation to them would be ballooning out of control.  Increasingly you'd be thinking of yourself as a god.  It seems essential to me to maintain an awareness of the distinctness of 'other' identity, and its right to freedom from unwanted manipulation.  And that involves a degree of dualism.

It seems like you've made a good argument though for why something like dialectical monism is essential for shared dreaming.  I think it also casts some light on the kind of ego and power-lust problems that psychically adept people tend to have: its difficult to draw that internal line between 'me' and 'you' in the right way.

----------


## shadowofwind

One other minor point....In the last two posts we we've been talking about monism and dualism only in relation to identity.  There are many other kinds of dualism in a lucid dream also.

I thought your comment was quite worth making though, it gets more to the heart of the issue than what I had posted previously.

----------


## Sageous

> I thought that in a shared dream some aspects of the world in which you reside are _not_ you.  Otherwise it wouldn't even be identifiable as a shared dream.
> 
> Granted, your awareness and acceptance of your 'oneness' with the other person is probably essential to creating the dream.  This is definitely how it works for me, and this is an example of where pure dualism doesn't make sense or agree with experience.  But pure monism wouldn't work either:  as you extended your personal sense of self to include other people, your sense of power and place in relation to them would be ballooning out of control.  Increasingly you'd be thinking of yourself as a god.  It seems essential to me to maintain an awareness of the distinctness of 'other' identity, and its right to freedom from unwanted manipulation.  And that involves a degree of dualism.



Yeah.  I left that little conflict out, didn't I?  I guess the best way I can come to terms with this (and also come to terms with shared-dreaming itself) is to say that perhaps shared-dreaming is a merging of dreamworlds, a  counter-intuitive event in which yes, you are still seeing your dream world from a non-dualistic perspective, but are simultaneously viewing bits of someone else's world as it overlaps your own.  Indeed, perhaps as the other person's aspects wander in (and yours to his), you are adapting them to your world, making them yours, and making the "sharing" all the more intimate -- and difficult, because you must recognize the immigrant thoughts as they enter your world, before you assimilate them.  Hmm.





> I think it also casts some light on the kind of ego and power-lust problems that psychically adept people tend to have: its difficult to draw that internal line between 'me' and 'you' in the right way.



Very true, especially because, if you nominate yourself god of your dream realm, with all the accompanying delusions of perfection and power, you will certainly not be able to recognize it should your dreamworld overlap with another's (much less be able to properly explore your own dream world with real humility and curiosity).

[_Full disclosure:_  I think that last paragraph runs counter to probably a hundred of my DV posts that confirm that you _are_ god of your dreamworld -- I am speaking in a different context here, one of identity and awareness, rather than the dream control context I was using in those threads.  Just thought it worth mentioning, and I hope it doesn't make me a hypocrite.]

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## shadowofwind

I know I keep saying this, but maybe its worth pointing out again that in both dream and in waking life, your sensate experience is projected by your imagination, incorporating information that has come from your thought and/or through your senses.  So you are lord of your own world at that level both in waking life and in dream, sort of, even though the process of projection is largely involuntary, and even though the content is more immediate and concretely collective during waking life.

This highlights a difference between my dreams now and my dreams of a couple of years ago, and makes it clearer to me.  Then, the process of forming the story and images was often controlled by something "other" than "me", and which was clearly drawing on a lot more than my own personal memory and subconscious thought process.  Now, there's still a common element to the content, but the imaginative process is left a lot more to "me", and I neglect it so my dreams are a lot more muddled.  Or if I'm still letting fate/muse/"kin" drive it, the identity of that mind is a lot more complex and spread out, not focused into a single intelligent will like it had been.  In other words, the line that separates "me" from "not me" isn't fixed to a special internal boundary in my imaginative process, it can move and change.  So though we speak generally of things like dream control vs awareness, these distinctions are a bit different for different people, which accounts for our different lucid experiences.

----------


## Sageous

> One other minor point....In the last two posts we we've been talking about monism and dualism only in relation to identity.  There are many other kinds of dualism in a lucid dream also.



Not so minor, I think, because it might indicate that identity (and self-awareness, though here the two are the same to me) is key to shared-dreaming, as it is key to truly understanding the significance of "You," and potentially others, in a dream.  The other kinds of dualism, I think, fall more into the "tools" category, like needing a little dualism to put your dream body to work for you, or to get a proper rush from the roller-coaster you just conjured; and perhaps into a "challenges" category of misconceptions, like "this place is real, and outside of me," that must be overcome or at least accepted as naturally unavoidable.

Since I just noticed I stepped on your last post:





> I know I keep saying this, but maybe its worth pointing out again that in both dream and in waking life, your sensate experience is projected by your imagination, incorporating information that has come from your thought and/or through your senses. So you are lord of your own world at that level both in waking life and in dream, sort of, even though the process of projection is largely involuntary, and even though the content is more immediate and concretely collective during waking life.



This is true, but keep in mind that there is no significant physical sensate experience in a dream.  You are not just interpreting the world you encounter with your imagination, as in waking life, you are creating it. I think the difference is significant, especially when it's time to put your mind into a place that's receptive to events like shared-dreaming.

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## shadowofwind

> Is there anyone out there with more philosophical acumen who'd like to engage what I posted?  Shadowofwind?  Sivason?



It has been five days now since you said that.





> I'll be back later--perhaps later today--to take a closer look at what's been posted recently.



And two days since you said that.

You specifically asked me to engage with you, so I did, as well as I could.  I also argued extensively that Mzzkc did not give you a fair shake and should have.  He accepted that criticism without reservations, and subsequently went out of his way to open a new door for you.

I realize that you have a life outside of internet posting, but you found the time to try to justify yourself further.  A lower priority, apparently, was responding to the engagement you asked for, or acknowledging our gestures and time spent on your behalf, or apologizing for being unable to do so.  Mzzkc came out looking pretty good from the exchange in my opinion.  You, at least at the present moment, not so much.

----------


## shadowofwind

> So we've got a universe that can best be modeled and described as a dialectical monism. Everything is one, one is everything, and experience serves to distinguish between seemingly dualist notions.
> 
> Cool. Now what?
> 
> While the model you're presenting is assuredly deep and interesting, I still see no experience-driven practicality here. Though that sentiment may just be the engineer in me, I don't think this criticism is too off-base.



I'll take a further crack at this then, since I've got a couple of hours to burn.  I hear what you're saying about time management on your end though.

My main difficulty with rick's 'model' is I think I don't actually understand what it is.  From a distance it looks a bit like "scientific thinking is inadequate" + "handwaving".  By way of comparison, Marx made a fairly valid critique of capitalism, but provided almost no detail about what could replace it.  So Lenin and Mao filled that in by going straight to a corrupt state monopoly, which ironically resembles the degenerate end point of capitalism, in a slightly different form.  It was just supposed to work automatically.  Once we decide that the distinction between dreams and reality is "non sharp", how does that give us shared dreaming?  Because we just made it up?  Then what keeps us from making it up however we want to?   I could describe at length how "shadow people" have the power to imprison people's souls.  And I could make a pretty good business pretending to teach people how to protect themselves, if the burden of proof is always on my critics who deny the phenomena I claim.  How are we going to sort out what's real and what's not?  I don't think my hypothetical example is very far fetched, we've seen a lot of this sort of thing.  

Maybe its better just to say what we've got, namely, that scientific thinking is inadequate, but we don't have an adequate extension or replacement of it, yet, besides sketching out some vague ideas.

I guess this didn't turn out to be much of a response, I just rehashed what you said in different words.  I was going to emphasize how awareness of the inadequacy of science creates an opening for new experience like shared dreaming, which in itself is of significant value.  But maybe we already covered that enough.

----------


## rrrrocketrick

> It has been five days now since you said that.
> 
> 
> 
> And two days since you said that.
> 
> You specifically asked me to engage with you, so I did, as well as I could.  I also argued extensively that Mzzkc did not give you a fair shake and should have.  He accepted that criticism without reservations, and subsequently went out of his way to open a new door for you.
> 
> I realize that you have a life outside of internet posting, but you found the time to try to justify yourself further.  A lower priority, apparently, was responding to the engagement you asked for, or acknowledging our gestures and time spent on your behalf, or apologizing for being unable to do so.  Mzzkc came out looking pretty good from the exchange in my opinion.  You, at least at the present moment, not so much.






Hi Shadowofwind,

This is the first I've been able to return to this forum since my last post.  I very much appreciate your consistently sympathetic reading of everyone on this forum, and I'd like to respond to your more-thoughtful-than-most response to what I wrote, but not on here, sorry.

----------


## shadowofwind

> I'd like to respond to your more-thoughtful-than-most response to what I wrote, but not on here, sorry.



If the forum environment was the issue, you could have sent a private message.  If the primary issue was that you misjudged your amount of available time when you called for engagement, I think you would have acknowledged that differently in your post from three days ago.  I suspect that your main difficulty now is that you don't have a response to the substance of our criticisms, and that this has become the primary source of your sensitivity.  But this is another example of an area where I can't know for sure and a hard judgment isn't necessary.  We can just leave it non-sharp.


Moving on....Here's a point that was made earlier by rick and others, but which might be worth saying again in a different way.  Something that makes shared dreaming and similar phenomena difficult to deal with scientifically, besides being difficult to control, is that there isn't a clear dividing line between subjective and objective.  What you think about shared dreaming has a huge effect on how it behaves.  There is of course has an analogous problem in physics, with the way a measurement affects a system.  But in that case, the limitation is very clearly defined and well understood, at least in one narrow context.  Here, the relationships between our ideas and beliefs and our objective paranormal experiences are a lot more difficult.  If I dream of someone, is the dream about them, or a part of myself?  The answer is both, but what this means varies a lot depending on the situation and the people involved.  Likewise, for comparison, the 'spirits' that we encounter in lucid astral experiences are neither objectively real nor solely the product of our own imagination.  This kind of statement would drive a materialist skeptic nuts, they want to be able to nail things down.  From their standpoint, it sounds like we're just making excuses for why our claims never seem to pan out publicly.  And of course with mystics and psychics there has been more than a little bit of that going on.  Its not a topic that lends itself at all well to black and white thinking.  It requires a degree of firm objectivity, to cut through the bullshit.  Hence the aggressive manner of myself and Mzzkc, perhaps.  But it also requires a light touch, and a degree of comfort with ambiguity.  Hence the sensitivity of rick perhaps, and the emphasis on distinctions being non-sharp.

----------


## Mzzkc

Since rick is bowing out, I guess I'll reply to shadow.





> I'll take a further crack at this then, since I've got a couple of hours to burn.  I hear what you're saying about time management on your end though.
> 
> My main difficulty with rick's 'model' is I think I don't actually understand what it is.  From a distance it looks a bit like "scientific thinking is inadequate" + "handwaving".  By way of comparison, Marx made a fairly valid critique of capitalism, but provided almost no detail about what could replace it.  So Lenin and Mao filled that in by going straight to a corrupt state monopoly, which ironically resembles the degenerate end point of capitalism, in a slightly different form.  It was just supposed to work automatically.  Once we decide that the distinction between dreams and reality is "non sharp", how does that give us shared dreaming?  Because we just made it up?  Then what keeps us from making it up however we want to?   I could describe at length how "shadow people" have the power to imprison people's souls.  And I could make a pretty good business pretending to teach people how to protect themselves, if the burden of proof is always on my critics who deny the phenomena I claim.  How are we going to sort out what's real and what's not?  I don't think my hypothetical example is very far fetched, we've seen a lot of this sort of thing.  
> 
> Maybe its better just to say what we've got, namely, that scientific thinking is inadequate, but we don't have an adequate extension or replacement of it, yet, besides sketching out some vague ideas.
> 
> I guess this didn't turn out to be much of a response, I just rehashed what you said in different words.  I was going to emphasize how awareness of the inadequacy of science creates an opening for new experience like shared dreaming, which in itself is of significant value.  But maybe we already covered that enough.



I've been trying to give rick the benefit of the doubt, looking for some sort of reasonable connection which might make the model (as we currently understand it) useful for more than approaching experiential phenomena with an "everything is true" bias, but I keep coming back to these critiques.

Ultimately, I think the model may be superseded by rick's more important point (as I see it):





> Conceptual issues take priority here...The empirical question (Is shared dreaming actual or not?) can be rationally pursued only within a conceptual system that doesn't entail either its affirmation or its denial.




And with this I mostly agree. Hence why my personal conceptual system requires I remain agnostic to all things. I neither believe, nor disbelieve any phenomena; I simply consider, experiment, and weigh likelihoods accordingly.

Taken to a slightly lesser extreme, what rick suggests here seems--at least to me--the exact basis from which the scientific method works its magic. Indeed, it is the path of moderation (where nothing is assumed) that provides the foundation required for the empirical study of shared dreams.

In this context, rick's model seems to lie at one extreme (where shared dreaming is affirmed as fact through metaphysical 'handwaving'), while a more dualist/physical model (where shared dreaming cannot be affirmed due to an exclusion of unknown or poorly understood natural laws) lies at the other. But again, focusing on rick's model brings us back to the question of its practicality...and I still don't see how it might be usefully applied outside of discourse or debate.

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## shadowofwind

> I neither believe, nor disbelieve any phenomena; I simply consider, experiment, and weigh likelihoods accordingly.



I see faith as being the confidence to actively follow through on a working hypothesis.  If the hypothesis is false, often you find out after having made a sort of contrapositive proof with your own life.  This can be more effective than thought experiments, you learn the lesson at a deeper level.  A downside of course it that when the hypothesis itself is an idea that falsely interprets negative feedback, you're mostly screwed.  All religious cults work this way.  Drug abuse can work that way, though the 'lie' involved is largely chemical.  You escape because it kills you off, or because the pain becomes so accurate that it forces you to "tunnel through" the belief system and step outside of it even though nearly everything you think you know is telling you that's the wrong response.  Unfortunately, natural selection is not a perfect arbiter of truth and justice, so certain types of delusions persist.

Every approach has holes though, including your agnostic approach, which as I understand it is much like what I described earlier as "not deciding" and being comfortable with ambiguity.  I think this is one reason it often helps to talk to different kinds of people.  You may be right about something and everyone else may be wrong, but sometimes interacting with them will still highlight something that wouldn't have been as clear to you otherwise.  That's how it works for me anyway.  Sometimes I gain a lot more benefit this way from dysfunctional fights than I do from successfully sharing ideas.  And this is one reason I don't shy away, it can be counterproductive often, but sometimes essential.  In my experience its a major tool that fate has for pulling us out of the perceptual traps we fall into.  Often there's a time just to leave things alone though, and that's a lesson I'm still a long way from learning completely.

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## Mylynes

Greetings, I would like to begin by saying that I am no master debater, nor do I care to get into a long drawn out argument. That out of the way, If you guys are anything like me, then you wont believe in shared dreaming until you both experience it and confirm the experience. In my experience SDing is not very easy to pull off nor control. It is something that people can prove to themselves, but may require a good bit of training. Fortunately, even skeptics can have confirmed SDs.

I doubt that SD will be proven or dis-proven as a result of some enlightening conversation, not that the conversation couldn't be enlightening in other ways. The how and why SD works for example, would be interesting to learn, as I have no idea how or why it works.

So anyways, I am working to do something which may not even be possible, just like when I first got into SD not thinking it likely that SD was possible. I want to induce mass shared dreaming. If that could be done, then perhaps SD could be more easily proven to greater numbers of people, through experience instead of debate.

So I guess that's about all I wanted to say. Have fun guys n gals.

Edit:
Also, just my 2 cents, but I do not think, at least in this case, that burden of proof lies on either the believer or non-believer to prove or disprove. Instead I think the burden lies on those who wish to take it upon themselves to prove or disprove. So prove or disprove if you want and can, or don't if you don't. lol

Peace out.

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## Lucidpotential

A few practical issues have been nagging at me, primarily the issue of shared dream security.
As with any metaphysical communication, we want to validate the source of the incoming message. Perhaps some kind of psychic TLS (Transport Layer Security) is needed. I expect if the defences of the inner sanctum are not adequately maintained, the dreamscape could potentially become a schizophrenic orgy with long term negative repercussions to mental stability. To maintain sanity the mind has evolved a protective firewall that repels intrusion with the default security setting at maximum. For those who haven’t attained cognitive administrator status and can’t change the subconscious permissions it will be difficult to grant a network connection and thus limit the probability of participating in a shared dream. For those of you that have overcome this hurdle I would be interested to hear your methodology.

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## shadowofwind

> I want to induce mass shared dreaming.



I think if you or I had that kind of power, we would certainly abuse it.  Best case outcome, fate would kill or cripple us somehow for our own protection.

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## Mylynes

> A few practical issues have been nagging at me, primarily the issue of shared dream security.
> As with any metaphysical communication, we want to validate the source of the incoming message. Perhaps some kind of psychic TLS (Transport Layer Security) is needed. I expect if the defences of the inner sanctum are not adequately maintained, the dreamscape could potentially become a schizophrenic orgy with long term negative repercussions to mental stability. To maintain sanity the mind has evolved a protective firewall that repels intrusion with the default security setting at maximum. For those who haven’t attained cognitive administrator status and can’t change the subconscious permissions it will be difficult to grant a network connection and thus limit the probability of participating in a shared dream. For those of you that have overcome this hurdle I would be interested to hear your methodology.







> I think if you or I had that kind of power, we would certainly abuse it.  Best case outcome, fate would kill or cripple us somehow for our own protection.



A lot of what my goals and ultimate goals could lead to if possible brings up all kinds of security and moral questions. I have always trained mostly for training's sake, just to expand on the limits of what I perceive to be impossible or near-impossible. I honestly do not know what I would do with such insane abilities if I ever were to aquire them.

It could potentially be used for great good or great evil. Humans could potentially evolve in a way that drastically improves quality and length of human life. On the other hand, it could also give birth to new forms of terrorism. Gives lot to think about. There is already some interesting discussion on this topic going on here: http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dre...ming-club.html if you would like to check it out sometime.

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## EbbTide000

Nup

In practice it is * subtle* 

Better felt than telt.

I can onlt encourage you to join in Waking Nomads 50 week rv thread. It will induce accidental share dreams. And in time accidental mass sharr dreams for participants.

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## EbbTide000

> Nup
> 
> In practice it is * subtle* 
> 
> Better felt than telt.
> 
> I can onlt encourage you to join in Waking Nomads 50 week rv thread. It will induce accidental share dreams. And in time accidental mass sharr dreams for participants.




This is page two of the tread where Waking Nomad introduced it and people are allowed to chat about things here:

***

http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dre...eriment-2.html


***

This is his Opening Post from page one:

***

Fifty Week Remote Viewing/Telepathy Experiment

Hello Everyone.*I have been commissioned by an anonymous donor to run a fifty week remote viewing/mental telepathy experiment with the possible side effects of *shared dreaming.**

The purpose of this experiment is for you to test and hone*your*skills at remote viewing/mental telepathy.

This is how the experiment will work:

Every week, for fifty weeks, I will place two objects or images in a box, then assign them randomly chosen numbers. You may use the numbers, and me as targets.

When you remote view, write the number of the target on a sheet of paper, now draw whatever lines you see. 

Note color, texture, size, shape, sounds, smell, light, shadow. Write as many adjectives as you can. Do not concern yourself with guessing what the object or image is. 

Take a photo of your drawing, and type your adjectives for each number before the end of the week, then post in the thread for those week's experiments.

 On Sunday evenings, Hawaii time, I will reveal the images or photos of the objects in the box.*

I will post every Thursday or Friday for the following week the numbers for the two things in the box.

Shared dreaming is not the goal of this experiment, but may be a side effect.*

There is no commitment required for this. You may do it one week, some, all or none.*

The reason I call it mental telepathy is you may be focusing on my mind, which is fine. I will be trying to telepathically broadcast the targets all week, especially when I first assign them the randomly chosen numbers.

Good Luck, and Have Fun!

Keep track of your results and see how close to the targets you get. You may surprise yourself!

***

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## shadowofwind

> A few practical issues have been nagging at me, primarily the issue of shared dream security.
> As with any metaphysical communication, we want to validate the source of the incoming message. Perhaps some kind of psychic TLS (Transport Layer Security) is needed. I expect if the defences of the inner sanctum are not adequately maintained, the dreamscape could potentially become a schizophrenic orgy with long term negative repercussions to mental stability. To maintain sanity the mind has evolved a protective firewall that repels intrusion with the default security setting at maximum. For those who havent attained cognitive administrator status and cant change the subconscious permissions it will be difficult to grant a network connection and thus limit the probability of participating in a shared dream. For those of you that have overcome this hurdle I would be interested to hear your methodology.



I think your thought here is spot on.  You're not misapplying the computer metaphor, the problem you describe is real.  I think that an upside is there's nothing unprecedented by the kind of psychic group-think we're talking about facilitating.  On the downside, history is filled with disasters because of this sort of thing, in slightly varying forms.  A couple of examples would be the Taiping Rebellion and Nazi Germany.  And maybe Jim Jones is worth mentioning again, because the scale is closer to our case.  I realize those developments probably sound a lot different to most people, more political.  But I think a lot of people don't realize the extent to which they were about collective identity and mind control.  And shared dreaming, as I experience it, works through shared identity.  No, you can't just do a collective psychic clusterfuck first, trying to radically change the nature of human interaction, then decide if you're going to use it for great good or great evil afterwards.  If you start off with that kind of ambition thinking that your aim is morally neutral or positive, you're already suffering from hubris, and already set for a fall.  If you fall far short of your psychic ambition, your fall may be much smaller and more personal, but it will be a fall all the same.  I guess I've got my own form of this, so thanks for helping make that clearer.

As far as methodologies go....I've always had a fair degree of independence in the face prevailing trends.  Not drinking alcohol or smoking weed despite being non-religious would be an example of this.  Maybe this protects me a little, or maybe it just gives me a false sense of invulnerability and in the end I'm as vulnerable as everyone else.

Another characteristic of my case is that I'm not really sharing dreams directly.  Fate or my higher self or something like that acts as a buffer, coordinating the experiences and filtering them.  It also warns me of the dangers.  What I've done so far has seemed like something I have to do.  Maybe like gaining immunity to a more serious affliction by exposing myself to a lesser one.  But I feel the difficulty you describe, and fear where it goes.  It seems that a lot of other people fear it too,  and not just skeptics.  People in this forum that are philosophically open to shared dreaming still have walls up also.  I'm thinking they're not wrong.  

I know that fear is a dirty word in many New Age circles, but fear is nature warning you not to do something stupid.  Sometimes the fearful reflex is a mistake, and it's best to push through it.  But usually the voice is worth at least listening to.

I still think it's worth thinking about and dabbling in this stuff a little bit though, for those of us who are drawn to it.  Shared dreaming, at least in subtle and limited forms, is a part of life, there's no escaping that.  And maybe we need to remind ourselves periodically why its limited for us.  But it seems clear to me that the really big, world changing ambitions are a mistake.  And I include my own in that.  I know what I want, and in some way I won't give it up.  But now is not the time or place to see it fulfilled except in small ways.  If the foundation isn't right the tower will fall, irrespective of what you call your motives or what you decide later.

Anyway, thanks for the timely input.

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## Belle

> No, you can't just do a collective psychic clusterfuck first, trying to radically change the nature of human interaction, then decide if you're going to use it for great good or great evil afterwards.  If you start off with that kind of ambition thinking that your aim is morally neutral or positive, you're already suffering from hubris, and already set for a fall.  If you fall far short of your psychic ambition, your fall may be much smaller and more personal, but it will be a fall all the same.



I'm not too sure about that.  People don't always know the direction they're going, they just want to go.  Also, once more information presents itself, it makes it easier to formulate a destination.  

Usually you can't simply toss random ingredients into a blender and expect something tasty.  Though there are the few rare occasions where the right ingredients have been made available and what's tossed in is ripe and compatible.

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## shadowofwind

Thanks for your thought Belle, I'll try to clarify more what I meant.  I'm not saying all of this to you personally, my use of the word 'you' here will be rhetorical.  I think you made a reasonable point from where you're coming from.





> People don't always know the direction they're going, they just want to go.



That can either be a good idea or not when exploring, depending on what a person is exploring.  We're talking about a fairly specific kind of exploring.  'Shared dreaming' involves immediate access to other people's minds, and as such there are strong but subtle temptations to bend it towards one's own emotional gratification.  From the beginning its just built into what it is.  Furthermore other people's desires are blending with your desires and doing the same thing to you.  If you open the door wider, can you handle that?  And if you find out that you can not, can you close the door again?  My experience and observation is that the door can not be completely closed again, your brain doesn't go back to the way it was previously.

If a person wants to "induce shared dreaming" in relation to another person, that other person deserves to warned beforehand what they're getting into.  If we don't care about understanding the difficulties that come with that kind of development, if our philosophy is to just do it and not think about or debate such things, then I think we're denying this responsibility of honesty.  Its like conceiving a child with someone without being willing to face the lengthy responsibilities of parenting.  This isn't a hypothetical concern, I'm saying that I know from my experience that psychic development is like this.  And if we're talking about inducing mass shared dreaming, rather than performing limited experiments between a few individuals, these issues multiply.

If someone offers you an unfamiliar drug, you don't have to try it to find out whether its going to improve or destroy your life.  You can get some idea by looking to the example of other people who have gone down the same road for a ways, particularly if you know a few who you can trust to be honest with you.  But if you're attracted to drug experimentation but disinclined to that kind of caution, I only see two ways this can go.  You can hurt yourself in some startling but relatively superficial way, then change your attitude.  Or you can ruin yourself.  Or some combination.  This is what I'm saying about shared dreaming:  if you don't exercise that kind of conscientiousness, you will almost undoubtedly hurt yourself and other people.  Its as inevitable as it is when sharing drugs.  The main thing that protects people with that kind of attitude is limited access, or laziness in creating their own.





> Also, once more information presents itself, it makes it easier to formulate a destination.



Saying what I said in another way:  more information is presenting itself.  These kinds of discussions contain a kind of information.  "The bridge is icy, it might be a good idea to slow down."  Charging over it without reading the sign isn't the best way to find that out, even if that's how the first person did it.  Or to push the metaphor a bit further....When I first went over the bridge, I was lucky that there was still fresh wreckage from other recent attempts, so I was able to avoid hitting the ice full speed, and spared partially.  Those who come later don't have the benefit of observing misfortunes of those who came ahead of me.

To illustrate using a slightly different metaphor, about 15 years ago I had the following dream:

My friends and I are burgling a building.  I have a circular saw and begin cutting into something.  Its noisy, and its not clear what my aim is, but I think I've got I've got the audaciousness, the reckless courage, to pull it off.  My friends, who got me into burgling to start with, are like "whoa, that's going a bit too far for me", and leave the building.  I keep cutting.  After a little while the saw hitches on something, a surprise.  Its caught on something that I'm attached to, and begins relentlessly drawing me towards the blade.  Somehow I can't turn the saw off.  The dream ends with me almost upon the blade, and sobbing for my friends to save me, but they're long gone.

If you can intuit how this self-crucifixion feels, by feeling what I feel behind my words, how it feels to be me, this is what I'm suggesting happens to a person who approaches 'spiritual growth' with arrogance.  And to some extent its what happens to less arrogant people who trust them.

I think another relevant metaphor is the one in Beowulf, if you've read it or seen one of the movies.  I saw the quasi-animated movie with Angelina Jolie in it.  At the beginning, the king has copulated with a demon and produced a hybrid half-man, half-demon which is rampaging in the King's court.  If you think about how that man-demon feels, that's like how something in you that you're deeply connected to feels after you have consorted with demons.  It won't feel quite like that, for the same reason that Beowulf's demonic offspring is different from the first king's, even though the mother is the same.  But if you're pursuing knowledge outside the physical realm of men, which is the case with dream telepathy, you're effectively consorting with spirits.  Since men aren't purely physical, some degree of this sort of thing is just a part of life.  But if you're trying to take things deeper in some area than others have taken it, that's more like Beowulf.  My appeal is for people to have compassion for the king's subjects and the demon offspring, and forsake dreams of epic heroics.  Otherwise their suffering will be ours, without the glamor.

To be clear here, I've never tried to 'channel' spirits or gods or conjure up demons or open chakras or have exotic experiences.  I went for self-knowledge, with a starting assumption that higher worlds exist and we are all something more than human beings, and this is what happened.

Again, pushing the metaphor further....For me, exploring and interacting with people in relation to supernatural phenomena is part of how I try to care for what lives in my quasi-subconscious.  Maybe my initial spiritual escapade was a mistake, or maybe it was a blessing in disguise, but as with a child you don't just turn it off again.  My point is that our metaphorical progeny deserve some love and consideration, both after and before they're conceived.  And if you think that what I'm saying here sounds flaky or melodramatic or even cryptic, you're probably right, but this also may be more evidence that you don't know what you're getting into.

Thanks again Belle.  Like I said, I'm clarifying my comment in response to yours, but I have no reason to think that you personally have the hypothetical viewpoint that I was speaking to.

----------


## Sageous

This bit got me thinking, Shadowofwind:





> That can either be a good idea or not when exploring, depending on what a person is exploring.  We're talking about a fairly specific kind of exploring.  'Shared dreaming' involves immediate access to other people's minds, and as such there are strong but subtle temptations to bend it towards one's own emotional gratification.  From the beginning its just built into what it is.  Furthermore other people's desires are blending with your desires and doing the same thing to you.  If you open the door wider, can you handle that?  And if you find out that you can not, can you close the door again?  My experience and observation is that the door can not be completely closed again, your brain doesn't go back to the way it was previously.



I'm not sure if this is what you meant here, so here is another thought on this subject:  

When we dream -- especially when we lucid dream -- we are within our own universes, and we generally understand that during the dream (well, I do, anyway).  When we're strongly lucid, we know this place is all our own.  

So what happens when we enter the dream realm of another dreamer?  Do we maturely accept that we are a visitor in a different place, or do we continue assuming that this new place is still our own unique universe?  If we choose the latter, then I think a door does indeed open for bad things to happen, especially if we try to assert ourselves as singular owners of a shared-dream.

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## Belle

Thanks for the detailed response, Shadowofwind.  Interesting ideas.





> If you open the door wider, can you handle that?  And if you find out that you can not, can you close the door again?  My experience and observation is that the door can not be completely closed again, your brain doesn't go back to the way it was previously.



I've found it's very challenging to forget ideas once they're understood.  So I agree, the door cannot be completely closed; save a lobotomy.  





> If a person wants to "induce shared dreaming" in relation to another person, that other person deserves to warned beforehand what they're getting into.  If we don't care about understanding the difficulties that come with that kind of development, if our philosophy is to just do it and not think about or debate such things, then I think we're denying this responsibility of honesty.  ...  And if we're talking about inducing mass shared dreaming, rather than performing limited experiments between a few individuals, these issues multiply.



Not sure I agree with you so easily here.  Consent is for things like surgical procedures.  When one enters the realm of shared dreaming, there are many techniques a person might employ to say, "No, this isn't ok."  It's like dating and sex.  You partake in the festivities and if it becomes too much you hold up your safe word and opt out.  Mass shared dreaming (I'm thinking in terms of 30+ participants) is a shade more complicated with the abundant supply of imagination.  I won't touch that one, haven't gotten to that level yet.   





> But if you're attracted to drug experimentation but disinclined to that kind of caution, I only see two ways this can go.  You can hurt yourself in some startling but relatively superficial way, then change your attitude.  Or you can ruin yourself.  Or some combination.  This is what I'm saying about shared dreaming:  if you don't exercise that kind of conscientiousness, you will almost undoubtedly hurt yourself and other people.  Its as inevitable as it is when sharing drugs.  The main thing that protects people with that kind of attitude is limited access, or laziness in creating their own.



There's more than two possible results.  Comparing shared dreaming to drugs might not be ideal.  It doesn't have to be as dangerous as you're suggesting.  Yes, as will all things we do (think driving, flying, even eating ((for those with food allergies)) ) there are risks.  Yet it doesn't mean one should avoid jumping in and trying out the water.





> If you can intuit how this self-crucifixion feels, by feeling what I feel behind my words, how it feels to be me, this is what I'm suggesting happens to a person who approaches 'spiritual growth' with arrogance.  And to some extent its what happens to less arrogant people who trust them.



Your explanation makes sense.  Although we're all noobs initially, of course there will be many errors.  That's how you learn to tweak the methodology.  If what you're trying to say is be careful, sure, use caution.  The downfall of caution though is the limiting affect it has on success.  A balance might be nice.  Extend longevity at the cost of speed.  





> My point is that our metaphorical progeny deserve some love and consideration, both after and before they're conceived.  And if you think that what I'm saying here sounds flaky or melodramatic or even cryptic, you're probably right, but this also may be more evidence that you don't know what you're getting into.



I think what you're saying here sounds cautious.  Every action deserves love and consideration, yet how people express those emotions vary with the individual.

----------


## shadowofwind

> When we dream -- especially when we lucid dream -- we are within our own universes, and we generally understand that during the dream (well, I do, anyway).  When we're strongly lucid, we know this place is all our own.



For me dreams are never all my own, there has always been a foreign element.  Maybe I don't even know what isolation is in that sense.  

Reminds me of a time when I was about 20, not really asleep, but with my attention inward, and it seemed there was another spirit there with me, slightly a part of me but also not a part of me, hiding just behind my awareness so to speak.  It asked if it could stay, then blocked my response, directly in my mind so that I didn't know what my response was.  That always bothered me a little bit.  I guess I'm OK with it now, if it needed that space and didn't want a negative answer or an unfairly informed assent.





> So what happens when we enter the dream realm of another dreamer?  Do we maturely accept that we are a visitor in a different place, or do we continue assuming that this new place is still our own unique universe?  If we choose the latter, then I think a door does indeed open for bad things to happen, especially if we try to assert ourselves as singular owners of a shared-dream.



Our vocabulary fails us here, so to some extent I must be saying the same thing that you are in different words.  But for me a dream is not a place I go into.  Its more like I am the other person a little bit, and I dream from that standpoint.  Or like there's something that usually flows into them that's flowing into me a little bit, like their karma has splashed over the side into a different bucket.

I don't really see how a person can not have a difficulty with this sort of thing.  Part of my nature is being an aggressive asshole, and I would like to change.  But it seems that to a significant extent who I am is not even me, everybody else is in me in microcosm.  So how do I change when I can't change them?  At some point the "who am I" question doesn't even seem to make any sense.  It seems that who I am as a human being filters who 'we' are, and I have some power to change that by changing the way I think.  But it seems that to a significant extent its just built into necessity and what we are biologically, and none of us can change it, at least not in the short run.

You can't just "go into someone's dream" and then come back, as if returning from an expedition.  At least that's not how it works for me.  By experiencing something of who they are, and making that a part of my memory, I become that a little bit.  Separating again would be like trying to un-mix paint.  And I think there's probably a consequence on their end too, whether they want it or not, that they can't ever completely get 'me' out of them again.  That's not a good thing if its not something that they understand and agree to.

----------


## Cheysdreamer

I would go with maybe I have had a shared dream. But not by choice. It's been the same person from age 3-16, then not again till age 21. He has changed through the years. Grown. Claims he is real and feels different than any other dream character. I will have to see where this goes. 

My only concern is he showed up as around 16 when I was 3 and stayed such till almost age 10. Now he didn't show up every night but often enough for me to recall it. His explanation for it is that time is irrelevant. 

My husband and I have been discussing this. He looks at the brain like a super magnificent computer and the possibity is very much there for shared dreaming, telepathy, ect. It's a matter of opening or downloading the file that is necessary to open such. He said as for my dream guy that maybe we are tuned to the same "wave length". 

I don't know exactly how I feel about this quite yet. Interesting to read about this and compare notes of my own experiences.

----------


## shadowofwind

> I would go with maybe I have had a shared dream. But not by choice.



For me these things are never completely clear cut.  You might consider the possibility that part of what he represents is the subconscious, masculine side of yourself.  That would fit with the persistence, and the age evolution.  If time is irrelevant for him, that doesn't fit with him growing, unless that part of it reflects your own growth.  And it doesn't make sense to me that a human being or other entity would stalk you for that long.  If he had a huge impact on you at some point in your life, the premonitions could come that early.  But that seems implausible to me that anything that important to you wouldn't be a part of yourself.

To whatever extent that the character is not 'you', maybe you should decide if you want him around, and if you don't, he should leave.  To reiterate, the idea that he is you is not mutually exclusive with the idea that he is someone else, both elements are almost certainly present in my experience.  If he were entirely you, maybe you would experience him that way more.  But if he were entirely not you, I don't see how he could even get into your dream, much less do it so often.  It seems to me that he's likely more you than not you.  But you should be able to find that out by thinking about how he feels.  Also, even if you're not lucid enough during the dream, you can ask question before you go to sleep and the experience is likely to change in a way that tends to answer them.  Such has been my experience anyway.

----------


## shadowofwind

Sageous, here's another thought.  Suppose you were to have a shared dream with me, and from then on your solitude would be gone, I would always be there a little bit.  And after me, other people.  How would you feel about that?  I think we agree you wouldn't be totally OK with that, or at least you wouldn't have been in the past.  And I think this is a reason not to share a dream.

That ship has long since sailed for me though.





> Thanks for the detailed response, Shadowofwind.  Interesting ideas.



Thanks, no problem.  I appreciate the stimulating input, and I think I've been learning from it.

(By the way, for anyone who might be wondering....One reason I never 'like' anyone's posts is I've been posting to internet forums since USENET back in 1991, and the whole like/dislike thing comes after my communication habits got established, along with OMG LOL! and emoticons that jump around.  Also, even though I'm a fairly judgmental person in a way, in another way I know I'm unqualified to judge anything and it doesn't occur to me to decide what I like or not.  Generally the only time I 'like' something is if I've already posted in response, and I think what I said might come across as more critical than what I intend.  Otherwise, if I have an opinion on something I'll just respond with a post.)





> Consent is for things like surgical procedures.  When one enters the realm of shared dreaming, there are many techniques a person might employ to say, "No, this isn't ok."  It's like dating and sex.  You partake in the festivities and if it becomes too much you hold up your safe word and opt out.



By consent I mean not knowingly sucking people into doing things that they wouldn't do otherwise.  For instance, its wrong to tell someone that you like them more than you do for the sake of stimulating the affectionate response that you crave at that moment.  And its wrong to openly manipulate person by overcoming them with your 'wares', if this goes against what they seem to want.  Its true that life is messy, and things are never this clear cut, there's always some element of wrong, intended or otherwise.  But its also true that there's always a price that is paid for that.  I've used sex that way, and I've suffered for this.  Even in cases where you think the tradeoff was worth it for both people, and you'd do it again, you still pay the price.  

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that if things are to the point where 'safe words' are needed for sex, something has already gone badly awry.  What's wrong with 'no' or 'stop'?  It seems to me that if there's any confusion on the issue at all, then the relationship between the two people isn't sufficiently intimate for that kind of contact.  Yes I realize that life isn't that simple for everyone, but if 'no' and 'stop' mean something else, then it seems to me that there's already enough self-deception and sadistic and masochistic power dynamics in the relationship that its very unlikely to end well.  I hope you don't take offense at my comments here, moral dilemmas are just generally the kinds of things I'm interested in talking about.  Also, for me its somewhat of a proxy for discussing shared dreaming, since being on the same page morally is important there.  Shared dreaming is largely theoretical for a lot of people, but sex less so.

I guess we can't be squeamish about this sort of thing if we're willing to expose intimate parts of our minds in dreams.  So to try to illustrate with an example....About 20 years ago I had the following experience with a lady friend who stayed over at my apartment for a weekend.  She indicated that she wasn't ready for sex, so I just took that at face value.  I woke up at night, and she was sitting up and looking at me, with her eyes open but still asleep, and she said "I didn't understand".  She never told me what she meant, and maybe she never even told herself, but she sent me a letter the next week saying that she never wanted to see me again.  With retrospect I think that among her other possible complaints she had wanted me to fuck her, and had I recognized that I would have.  Maybe she was looking for more persistence, or more likely, more romance, though I would have been more romantic had she expressed interest in a romantic relationship.  To me 'no' really did mean 'no', not 'try harder to overpower the no'.  But I think she was conflicted enough that it never would have worked out anyway, and we both would have been hurt more had I had enough social intelligence to do that.  All relationships are hard, and I think if a relationship has enough potential to go somewhere very healthy and meaningful, it can overcome this sort of thing.  There are a lot of different aspects to social intelligence.  I think that just being sincere is worth more than the rest put together.





> Comparing shared dreaming to drugs might not be ideal.



I agree its different in the sense that I'm way more negative about drug use than I am about shared dreaming.  Drugs are just poison in my view.  Besides that I still think its an apt comparison.





> Although we're all noobs initially, of course there will be many errors.  That's how you learn to tweak the methodology.



Though this may just be a limitation of words, it seems to me that you're thinking too much in terms of methodology.  To use the sex metaphor again.  If you're deeply in love with someone, and they're just using you for a fun weekend, you're going to get hurt, and this doesn't depend on what clitoral stimulation technique you use.  Conversely, if your motives are on the same page your approach is unlikely to be a serious problem, you'll find one that works.  Likewise with shared dreaming, I don't think the methodology makes much difference at all.  The harm flows out of the inappropriate attitudes about power in our intentions, the unavoidable weakness of our moral wills, and our ignorance of our own natures.





> If what you're trying to say is be careful, sure, use caution.  The downfall of caution though is the limiting affect it has on success.  A balance might be nice.



Maybe I can say this better.  In a lot of ways I'm not a very cautious person, and am not opposed to risking the unknown.  What I'm try to say is to pay more attention to the heart, to the feelings, for that which deserves to be nurtured.  People on this site tend to talk a lot about what's going to work in a mechanical sense, what to do that will induce a desired experience like astral projection or whatever.  I think what matters a lot more is to listen to the parts of ourselves that want these things, and try to answer them more directly.  And for me, this kind of openness is the whole key to something like shared dreaming anyway.  When that openness is there, it just happens automatically.  

Its looking to me that the primary barrier to shared dreaming for most people on this site is that they don't want to do it.  But they shouldn't just try to overpower that by proclaiming their invulnerability and suppressing the fear.  If they're inclined to do anything about it at all, it would be better to look into it and see what they can learn about themselves.  And eventually its essential to do that with patience and compassion, as another poster reminded us a couple of years ago.

This is the origin of the shadowofwind handle:  It alludes to a verse in a Dio (with Black Sabbath) song that says "If words had names like red and green, and two for sympathy, like black and white and in between, then you'd be misery.  Every day is an inquisition, who are you what are you why?  I'm alive I belong I'll be back, its a half truth, still a whole lie.  In the garden of good and evil, you'll go, but you know:  the spider only spins, the shadow of the wind."   Literally this doesn't even make sense, but to me, at the moment I picked the handle, it describes pushing for occult answers rather than being able to just let things be what they are while taking care of what I can care for.

This also ties into to why I'm generally against drugs.  They can seem helpful at a level that is sort of like methodology, but the spirit underneath looks and feels badly skewed to me.  Undoubtedly drugs are an inevitable part of life for a lot of people, but I don't think this is what progress really looks like in a better world.  Likewise with shared dreaming, I think I'm not really arguing for caution so much as for humility.

I hope that made some sense, and that I didn't go too overboard with the raunchy analogies.  Thanks again for your thoughts.

----------


## Sageous

> For me dreams are never all my own, there has always been a foreign element.  Maybe I don't even know what isolation is in that sense.



 I don't know if I've said this lately, Shadowofwind, but you are truly a unique individual!  ... and I mean that in the best of terms.  In a sense, for you dream-sharing is not a goal to achieve, but simply a condition to perhaps define, or remember.  I think these discussions would go much more smoothly if more dreamers had your experience, or at least chose to hold your views (and, for what its worth, the scary things that accompany overzealous egos likely would have trouble happening).





> Reminds me of a time when I was about 20, not really asleep, but with my attention inward, and it seemed there was another spirit there with me, slightly a part of me but also not a part of me, hiding just behind my awareness so to speak.  It asked if it could stay, then blocked my response, directly in my mind so that I didn't know what my response was.  That always bothered me a little bit.  I guess I'm OK with it now, if it needed that space and didn't want a negative answer or an unfairly informed assent.



You're likely not surprised, but that makes sense to me, as I have had a few experiences remarkably similar to that.  Indeed, something like that spirit is a regular in my delta sleep (NREM) LD's.  I have tried to intellectualize it into some sort of DC, or perhaps just an echo of my own consciousness (and it certainly could have been either), but at the time, when I am sensing its unique presence and feeling its, um, projection of _belonging_, I can't help but wonder if it is something more than just another part of me.  That presence never asked me if it could stay, though, and if I tried to get closer, or to pull it directly into my perception, it was gone; or never there? So maybe it was something different.  Or not.  Someday maybe I'll pay enough attention to have a conversation -- or at least understand.  





> Our vocabulary fails us here, so to some extent I must be saying the same thing that you are in different words.  But for me a dream is not a place I go into.  Its more like I am the other person a little bit, and I dream from that standpoint.  Or like there's something that usually flows into them that's flowing into me a little bit, like their karma has splashed over the side into a different bucket.
> 
> I don't really see how a person can not have a difficulty with this sort of thing.  Part of my nature is being an aggressive asshole, and I would like to change.  But it seems that to a significant extent who I am is not even me, everybody else is in me in microcosm.  So how do I change when I can't change them?  At some point the "who am I" question doesn't even seem to make any sense.  It seems that who I am as a human being filters who 'we' are, and I have some power to change that by changing the way I think.  But it seems that to a significant extent its just built into necessity and what we are biologically, and none of us can change it, at least not in the short run.



See now, if Rocketrick were still with us, I think this is a bit he would find most interesting, as it seems to speak loudly of non-dualism, at least from an identity perspective... especially because you're implying that there really is no shared-dreaming as much as there is simply a shared consciousness or existence... or have I drawn too much of Carl Jung into my consideration?





> You can't just "go into someone's dream" and then come back, as if returning from an expedition.  At least that's not how it works for me.  By experiencing something of who they are, and making that a part of my memory, I become that a little bit.  Separating again would be like trying to un-mix paint.  And I think there's probably a consequence on their end too, whether they want it or not, that they can't ever completely get 'me' out of them again.  That's not a good thing if its not something that they understand and agree to.



Agreed.  _However,_ what if you _do_ "...'go into someone's dream' and then come back, as if returning from an expedition," or, rather, assume upon waking that that is what you did?  Does it mean that a communication never happened, or has your personality been subtly changed and you are simply not able to recognize that change?  And, if you do contact someone who does not understand, or can't see you there, will they change anyway?  That sort of makes me wonder about possible new sources for otherwise unexplained onsets of mental illness.

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## Belle

> Sageous, here's another thought.  Suppose you were to have a shared dream with me, and from then on your solitude would be gone, I would always be there a little bit.  And after me, other people.  How would you feel about that?  I think we agree you wouldn't be totally OK with that, or at least you wouldn't have been in the past.  And I think this is a reason not to share a dream.



I realized you posed that question to Sageous but that is a very intriguing thought.  I've been ok with that.  I've learned to love the demons which haunt me.  They become a part of me and myself a part of them.  There's usually a useful trait you can mimic in others and apply to your own life to make things easier.  Also, having a variety of voices in ones head makes for lively parties, no?  Obviously I'm a fan of shared dreaming.





> By consent I mean not knowingly sucking people into doing things that they wouldn't do otherwise.  For instance, its wrong to tell someone that you like them more than you do for the sake of stimulating the affectionate response that you crave at that moment.  And its wrong to openly manipulate person by overcoming them with your 'wares', if this goes against what they seem to want.  Its true that life is messy, and things are never this clear cut, there's always some element of wrong, intended or otherwise.  But its also true that there's always a price that is paid for that.  I've used sex that way, and I've suffered for this.  Even in cases where you think the tradeoff was worth it for both people, and you'd do it again, you still pay the price.



It's interesting you have such fixated views of right and wrong.  I'm not sure I see it as clearly as you do.  There are few things I consider wrong and I admit, my psyche is not the norm.  Yet it's challenging to view the world as black and white, there are shades of gray scribbled between the lines.  All 'wrongs' can be explained and justified.  I do see your point, I just don't think it's as easy and organized as you're making it out to be.





> Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that if things are to the point where 'safe words' are needed for sex, something has already gone badly awry.  ... Yes I realize that life isn't that simple for everyone, but if 'no' and 'stop' mean something else, then it seems to me that there's already enough self-deception and sadistic and masochistic power dynamics in the relationship that its very unlikely to end well.



Heh, I keep forgetting there are still normal people out there in the world.  You're right, of course, usually something has already gone badly awry.  Yet sometimes people need to learn how to have healthy relationships.  People don't magically become 'normal'.  They emulate others, practice, are shown how to communicate and express themselves.  It's a process.  





> To me 'no' really did mean 'no', not 'try harder to overpower the no'.  But I think she was conflicted enough that it never would have worked out anyway, and we both would have been hurt more had I had enough social intelligence to do that.  All relationships are hard, and I think if a relationship has enough potential to go somewhere very healthy and meaningful, it can overcome this sort of thing.  There are a lot of different aspects to social intelligence.  I think that just being sincere is worth more than the rest put together.



Sometimes being sincere means people have to successfully navigate out from their own bullshit.  Yes, relationships can be challenging for those who have a lot of bullshit to work through.  They can also be pleasantly easy.  Not all things are challenging.  Sometimes it's as simple an act as standing in an open field and breathing oxygen into our lungs.  





> Though this may just be a limitation of words, it seems to me that you're thinking too much in terms of methodology.  To use the sex metaphor again.  If you're deeply in love with someone, and they're just using you for a fun weekend, you're going to get hurt, and this doesn't depend on what clitoral stimulation technique you use.  Conversely, if your motives are on the same page your approach is unlikely to be a serious problem, you'll find one that works.  Likewise with shared dreaming, I don't think the methodology makes much difference at all.  The harm flows out of the inappropriate attitudes about power in our intentions, the unavoidable weakness of our moral wills, and our ignorance of our own natures.



The harm flows out of the inappropriate attitudes about power in our intentions.  For example, by not understanding that your partner has a difference in interests.  To use the sex metaphor you began with, it shouldn't matter if one wants a weekend fling or a relationship.  Each person has their own reasons for what they want.  Being hurt shouldn't be an issue.  Each person should respect one another regardless of their intent.  

The 'weakness of our moral wills and ignorance of our own natures' doesn't apply here.  It's an irrelevant factor.  Why should it matter what another intends?  How their morals align with yours?  If you truly believe there's a better way to live or dream, demonstrate it and allow the other person to either shift closer to your world view or hold their own.  Sometimes the weakness resides in not being flexible enough to transition into anothers world.

Yes you've made sense and your analogies were fine, demonstrated your point clear enough.  You're obviously educated and formulate your thoughts well, it's just a shame you have a good vs evil complex.

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## shadowofwind

> you are truly a unique individual!



Well thank you, so are you.  Everyone is unique obviously, amazingly so to me, even while in another way we seem to all be fundamentally the same.  But then there are things like what I said last week about feeling the loss of a second spine, and I wonder if I really understand anybody.





> You're likely not surprised, but that makes sense to me, as I have had a few experiences remarkably similar to that.  Indeed, something like that spirit is a regular in my delta sleep (NREM) LD's.



I would not have guessed that, since this is a little bit more of a 'demon' or 'familiar spirit' kind of experience, and less of an 'other people in my dreams' kind of experience such as I have seen you describe.

Maybe in the yin and yang of 'they' and 'I', the spirit is a little bit like the 'they' dot in the yang of 'I'?





> I have tried to intellectualize it into some sort of DC, or perhaps just an echo of my own consciousness (and it certainly could have been either), but at the time, when I am sensing its unique presence and feeling its, um, projection of _belonging_, I can't help but wonder if it is something more than just another part of me.  That presence never asked me if it could stay, though, and if I tried to get closer, or to pull it directly into my perception, it was gone;



Could a projection of belonging be interpreted as a question of being allowed to remain present?  If you take the belonging and interpret it through a feeling of insecurity?





> See now, if Rocketrick were still with us, I think this is a bit he would find most interesting, as it seems to speak loudly of non-dualism, at least from an identity perspective... especially because you're implying that there really is no shared-dreaming as much as there is simply a shared consciousness or existence... or have I drawn too much of Carl Jung into my consideration?



It seems to me that if contact at a distance is possible, being in two places at once, then this kind of partial unity follows from that as a consequence.  In other words if there is some kind of direct telepathy, not like sending a signal but like being there, then identity is shared to some extent also.  Or I guess its more conventional to start with the unity of consciousness and say that all other sharing is derived from that.  But that doesn't seem to me to account for the fragmentation as well.  Both seem to me to be sort of topological in nature, built into the structure of things.  What I've still been wanting to know is whether the fragmentation is unavoidable.  It seems to me that it must be, at least to some extent.  Otherwise there would be no complexity to anything at all.  But I doubt that it can be everywhere unavoidable to the extent that we experience it.  The awareness of the absence of the awareness of unity is just too strong.  In nature, a species typically either uses a characteristic or else quickly looses it.  And even for individual animals, something like the sense of sight can't develop if its not exercised.  Yet for us, the spiritual connection is always right there, even though it seems that almost all of our practical interactions are sensate and external.  I realize that the psychic connection is still critically important even though it seems weak.  Yet it still seems weaker than it should be somehow, like our whole universe is in a spiritual winter or something.  In other words, if you're in the desert and you find a little bit of water, which is essential to your life, how did it get there?  It seems logical to guess that there must be a whole lot of water somewhere.





> _However,_ what if you _do_ "...'go into someone's dream' and then come back, as if returning from an expedition," or, rather, assume upon waking that that is what you did?



If you bring something back with you, it changes you.  If you don't bring anything back with you, then you can't remember it.  And if you don't remember it, then I think this is the same as what we're doing all the time, every minute.  Its like in Feynman's physics, where a particle is everywhere at once, constrained not even by the speed of light, but the phases cancel out everywhere except for where you observe it.





> Does it mean that a communication never happened, or has your personality been subtly changed and you are simply not able to recognize that change?  And, if you do contact someone who does not understand, or ant you there, will they change anyway?



I'm certain that there are subtle influences that strongly affect everyone.  Its part of the basis of race and culture and religion.  I also think that there's way more shared experience in sex dreams than most people realize, they just don't have any objective way to connect it to particular people.  And there's more shared experience with something like pornography than most people realize, even though its less obvious because your imagination isn't floating as freely and trying to illustrate what is going on while you are awake.  Yes I think we do affect people in ways that they do not understand.  As we become more conscious of this kind of thing, various subtle forms of psychological rape become a more obvious problem.  We don't know how to deal with it, so most of us try our best to shut it down.  

Yet we also suffer from our isolation, we need the contact also.  And as we try to satisfy that need, which we don't understand, we do things externally which are more destructive than a modest amount of contact psychic contact would be.  In other words, we try to satisfy the craving for contact through a medium that's inadequate to support it.  So it gets distorted, and exaggerated, and ugly.  We can't just fix this through increased psychic interaction though, because the distortion is built deeply into our genome, and even into our physics.  So then when we do the psychic contact, that distortion is present there also, and we get sick personality-cult dynamics and whatnot.  Have to take it slow I guess, maybe like trying to kick a bad Valium addiction, except that the scale of the problem is almost incomprehensibly longer.  

So then another challenge is how to keep our hope up, when what we desire is so far away.  We can trick ourselves into thinking the goal is closer, and we do that.  But then that distorts the way we aspire to the goal and makes it harder to reach it.  I think all religions are like this, and this is one interpretation of the buzz-saw metaphor I gave yesterday.  I discovered that in almost any human sense of time we're damned, that our best philosophies only pretend to save us, and can't be tweaked so that they'll work.  Maybe I've got enough transcendent perspective to bear knowing this.  And obviously I'm guessing that you all do also, to the extent that what I'm saying here even connects.  I think its a necessary understanding at some point.  But its painful to the extent that we're still trapped in our temporal way of looking at things, while being morally awake enough to feel the horror of it.  The horror comes from the contrast between our present objective reality the vague awareness of what is ultimately possible.  We're caught in the middle.  At some point we've just got to go for it, even though 'going for it' in any real way requires extraordinary patience.  

I'm not sure if I'm making much sense here, and maybe it seems off topic from shared dreaming.  But its the same kind of concern about identity and about what helps and what doesn't help that dominates my thinking about shared dreaming.  Also, I think if you want to know what I'm saying, you have to read my mind, it requires either shared dreaming or the same thing in the waking moment.  And, to whatever extent I'm thinking about these things in a true way, and not just babbling distorted nonsense, I get all of it through something like shared dreaming, through that exploration of what it means to be 'I'.  When I share that space of feeling with someone else, their 'I' augments my 'I', and from that enhanced standpoint I feel these things that I've been trying to describe.

These last few paragraphs are closer to how I think in more of my 'core' identity than how I usually write.  But I can see that it must be pretty hard to follow, the way the ideas run together, and don't really stand by themselves as shorter bite-sized pieces.  

Maybe 'core' identity isn't the right concept.  Maybe all honest identity is real in some sense.  But its closer to the part of me that feels other people.  And if I work at it a little bit, though I haven't done this for a while, I can move far enough in that direction to speak for something greater than my human personality.  Maybe the difference between this and megalomania is that I know that its limited and distorted, I don't have that kind of self-righteousness, I hope.  

Part of my point here is just to try to illustrate the movement of identity, by moving mine and writing from a bit of an alternative state, since its this kind of thinking that makes the shared dreaming possible, such as I do it anyway.

This identity is closer to my animal instinct.  I feel fear, I want to bite.  I feel joy, its close to my awareness of immortality.  I am an angel.  I am a witch.  I love and hate, white and black, its very close together.  I want to tell you about the beauty I know of, from somewhere far beyond, to share the truth, to share who I am.  I am that message, was born to be this message.  I also want to warn you to stay away, I am death, I can kill you in ways you can't begin to understand.  I am completely sincere, and also so utterly dishonest that I can't even tell if I'm telling you the truth or lying.  Its close together.  And the things I don't know, I can't tell if they're hidden from me or if I know and I'm hiding them from myself.  I know that we're OK, and I want you to know this also.  And I fear that I'm not OK, and need to know that I'm OK.  I am like the moon.  A reflection of the moon.  

Usually for me there is not much 'I' in my experience, only 'we', but at the present moment it is joined and centered more strongly, more of an 'I'.  More who I would be if I didn't have to try so hard to fit in with all the others who I don't understand, who don't understand me.  Maybe this is why I have some trouble finding my 'I' usually.

I think that if there were something suppressed that I felt like needed saying, it would be easier for me to get into this state of mind.  But today it seems like everything is done for the most part, there's no reason for it.  Maybe that's a truer state of mind always, but its harder for me to recognize, because its not as sharp because its not as twisted. 

As I perceive him, this state of mind I'm in now has some things in common with what WakingNomad does all the time, though of course there's also more to him that I don't see.  Its more direct, not as encumbered by intellect.  And paradoxically, its both remarkably pretentious and lacking in pretense.  

This part of me values the other parts also, and sees their role, not necessarily for everybody but for who I was born to be, and generally.  So I put the other parts of my personality back on again.

I'm not sure if that made any sense at all, but it has been a while since I've tried to think that way while writing, so I thought I'd try it once.  I realize that if you can't go there for it, then it just looks like vain rambling, since it has an element of that in it also.  But maybe if you do go there for it, you'll know me better, and your dreams tonight will be different.  Even if you didn't understand much of anything I said, if you felt the movement, then you felt what movement is, in a way that might be a little bit different than what you already know, since we're a little bit different.  And that movement is part of what makes the exotic dreams possible.  Maybe its better to try to do it this way, while awake, since maybe you can make clearer choices now than when asleep.  So this does amount to something of a methodology after all.

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## shadowofwind

> Why should it matter what another intends?  How their morals align with yours?



Thanks again for your thoughts.  Relatively briefly, since I need to be able to think at work in the morning....Irrespective of what the other intends, if there's some intersection in your intentions, there will be an experience.  To make up an extreme example, if you're looking for romance, and someone else is looking for someone to chain up and steal a kidney from, there's enough common ground there for an experience.  There's even something positive there for both people, if you look for it.  But there's an ugly side to it also.

Some people think of right and wrong in terms of what God wants.  I don't think about it that way.  Its more a recognition of how things work, and a choice about what I want that's in harmony with what I see that's inherent in the way things work.  I choose, it really comes down to personal preference, though its inspired in part by an impersonal understanding.

I recognize that there's value in your amoral perspective also.  And its at least as important as my moral perspective.  Both have limitations.  But I'll say this, and I hope you don't take it wrong, because I don't have a problem with you personally, and in a way I don't mean it.  Here I'm speaking more as I normally would if I weren't concerned about people misunderstanding me.  My morality is not a matter of timidity, of some kind of karmic ass covering.  I love those who would be injured by your amorality.  As fate, as a demon, I'll hunt you down and crucify you to teach the value of morality, you won't even know I'm there until its too late.  If you don't love justice, you'll learn to love power first, at the point where power becomes justice.  Or recognize it another way, if you will, if you ask to.

I would also like to learn your amorality, because I intuit the value of it, if you can show me.  Please don't hurt me though.

There's a fairly radical difference in the two perspectives I just spoke from.  In the first part I'm sort of channeling something larger than myself that I experience, and that part of 'me' already knows all about amorality.  Then there's another, smaller me, that recognizes that I'm totally fucking helpless in the face of that kind of power, and can only appeal for a sort of moral empathy, respecting my desire not to be hurt because I endeavor not to hurt others.  If what I said seems strange or didn't make much sense its because I turned the filter off for a moment.  But maybe you said earlier that you know what its like to be a demon, so maybe I don't have to worry about that so much with you.

Don't think of my desire not to be hurt as weakness or timidity in the face of the unknown.  I know what pain is, and I can bear a lot of it.  I experience something of the pain of the life of every animal I eat.  I've been sincere, not from selfish motive, and have had that betrayed to harm me.  I wonder if you even know if you know what that is.  Or maybe that you know it better than I do, so well that you can hardly stand it, and that's part of what drives your amorality.  Real at one level, reflected at another, feigned at another.  

As an angel of death, indirectly, I feel the pain of every person I necessarily kill.  As a priest and as god, indirectly, of an ancient religion, I feel the pain of every human I've murdered, and I feel remorse.  And I know the pain of having a good vs evil complex, though I doubt that I have it in quite the sense that you imagine.  I don't pretend, for instance, that situations have 'right' and a 'wrong' alternatives to choose between, usually its a mix of different half-wrong alternatives, and you choose whichever one you will, and suffer whatever may follow.  Always there are two sides, almost any evil can be reinterpreted as a good if you perceive and respond to it in the right way.  I choose the pain of having a good vs evil complex because its hard for a single human personality to support both this and the amoral alternative.  I choose one willingly because somebody should;  I see its value.  Maybe my view here will make more sense after my previous post.

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## Cheysdreamer

> For me these things are never completely clear cut.  You might consider the possibility that part of what he represents is the subconscious, masculine side of yourself.  That would fit with the persistence, and the age evolution.  If time is irrelevant for him, that doesn't fit with him growing, unless that part of it reflects your own growth.  And it doesn't make sense to me that a human being or other entity would stalk you for that long.  If he had a huge impact on you at some point in your life, the premonitions could come that early.  But that seems implausible to me that anything that important to you wouldn't be a part of yourself.



I have given the thought he is a part of me. "protector" from age 3-10. "friend" from age 10 ish- 14. background but there from 14-16. Left at 16. Came back as more a "lover" at 21.  He suggests that at age 16 (his age 16) he actually remembered "us". He also remembered another entity that was coming to take away my memories as a child. Or to the tune, he always remembered but it wasn't until he turned 16 he understood how to get to me. He suggests that as time is irrelevant he was able to go back to me at 3 but already after the other entity took my memories, and he showed up to work on reminding me. Until my age 21 dreams with him have had little conversation. He says that is because we are now in the same time and place, therefore it is able to be more vivid.  He suggests we have been together for "lifetimes". He swears he will get me to remember the past. Also, upon kissing in dreams we share memories. Some that seem very waking life memories, and others that I'm in are in the dreamscape. He does feel independent of me. As in I do not control him nor can I even when I feel fully lucid. I do not know yet how I feel about all his explanations. Time will tell I suppose. 





> But if he were entirely not you, I don't see how he could even get into your dream, much less do it so often.  It seems to me that he's likely more you than not you.  But you should be able to find that out by thinking about how he feels.  Also, even if you're not lucid enough during the dream, you can ask question before you go to sleep and the experience is likely to change in a way that tends to answer them.  Such has been my experience anyway.



He has said he can't always "get in". He describes it like looking through a keyhole in a locked door. He tries to get in but unless I'm open for it he can't get in. I personally don't do this with any intent. One way or the other. 

I've had to wonder about past lives in this, I haven't decided how I feel. Again I suppose with time it will be revealed. If I am so connected to this guy. To the point lifetimes have been spent together and our souls are now part of the same, which is what I suppose would happen after so long. That could explain how easy it is for him to access me. Almost like a well-worn path straight to the door of my inner world. At the same time it seems I would have answered your question if he is me... maybe maybe not. Can it be possible for two souls to be nearly one yet be completely separate?

Keep this debate going. I am finding everyone's thoughts interesting, and helpful.

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## Sageous

> I would not have guessed that, since this is a little bit more of a 'demon' or 'familiar spirit' kind of experience, and less of an 'other people in my dreams' kind of experience such as I have seen you describe.



 Correct. This presence is quite different than the "Other peoples' dreams" phenomena (coincidentally, I just posted another curious experience of this on that thread today).  The other peoples' dreams in which I find myself are indeed actual REM-type dreams, even if perhaps not mine, while this presence would be more of the familiar-spirit variety, though I am hesitant to use such a term, given the non-context of its delta-sleep context (yeah, that made sense!).





> Maybe in the yin and yang of 'they' and 'I', the spirit is a little bit like the 'they' dot in the yang of 'I'?



 Maybe, but without the negative-positive (western) connotations of yin and yang -- and much more singular; like a "he or she"  and "I" encounter, I think.





> Could a projection of belonging be interpreted as a question of being allowed to remain present?  If you take the belonging and interpret it through a feeling of insecurity?



Yes, it could be interpreted that way, I suppose ... I'll have to take that thought with me when I'm next in delta. However, I doubt it would be interpreted through a feeling of insecurity, because, aside from my first accidental youthful forays into it, delta is a bastion of peace and security for me, and that presence  _complements_ the moment, rather than negates it (which, given my love of solitude, is why upon waking I assume it to be an echo, because wouldn't another presence at least disturb me?). 





> It seems to me that if contact at a distance is possible, being in two places at once, then this kind of partial unity follows from that as a consequence.  In other words if there is some kind of direct telepathy, not like sending a signal but like being there, then identity is shared to some extent also.  Or I guess its more conventional to start with the unity of consciousness and say that all other sharing is derived from that.  But that doesn't seem to me to account for the fragmentation as well.  Both seem to me to be sort of topological in nature, built into the structure of things.  What I've still been wanting to know is whether the fragmentation is unavoidable.  It seems to me that it must be, at least to some extent.  Otherwise there would be no complexity to anything at all.  But I doubt that it can be everywhere unavoidable to the extent that we experience it.  The awareness of the absence of the awareness of unity is just too strong.  In nature, a species typically either uses a characteristic or else quickly looses it.  And even for individual animals, something like the sense of sight can't develop if its not exercised.  Yet for us, the spiritual connection is always right there, even though it seems that almost all of our practical interactions are sensate and external.  I realize that the psychic connection is still critically important even though it seems weak.  Yet it still seems weaker than it should be somehow, like our whole universe is in a spiritual winter or something.  In other words, if you're in the desert and you find a little bit of water, which is essential to your life, how did it get there?  It seems logical to guess that there must be a whole lot of water somewhere.



 Perhaps that fragmentation isn't fragmentation at all, but simply the first whispers of a new form of communication developing in our ever-evolving minds?  In other words, we are tasting that bit of water in the desert for the first time, and its source has yet to be exposed; the evolutionary mutation (albeit a spiritual rather than genetic one this time) might have just revealed itself.  So, perhaps the new sense simply hasn't begun to be used yet, and, given its novel nature, might still take a few more generations of exposure before a well can be properly tapped over that bit of water in the desert.






> If you bring something back with you, it changes you.  If you don't bring anything back with you, then you can't remember it.  And if you don't remember it, then I think this is the same as what we're doing all the time, every minute.  Its like in Feynman's physics, where a particle is everywhere at once, constrained not even by the speed of light, but the phases cancel out everywhere except for where you observe it.



  Agreed, and well described!

And *Belle* reminds me that I did not respond to something I should have: 





> _Originally Posted by shadowofwind:_ 
> Sageous, here's another thought. Suppose you were to have a shared dream with me, and from then on your solitude would be gone, I would always be there a little bit. And after me, other people. How would you feel about that? I think we agree you wouldn't be totally OK with that, or at least you wouldn't have been in the past. And I think this is a reason not to share a dream.



Yes, That on its face is a reason I am not a great fan of shared dreaming -- I _like_ my solitude! I would not be totally okay with that, I think, especially at first.  However, solitude is a goal, not a requirement.  I think that, if bits of other souls commingling with mine became the norm -- or if it _already_ is the norm -- I would find a way to separate a sense of solitude (if not literal solitude) from the soup of my manifold identity, and enjoy some peaceful alone-time anyway -- just as I already do in waking life.  Also, I think that if I were to put these two things on a balance -- pure solitude on one side, and an identity constantly changing and growing from the influence of others on the other -- I think the scale would tilt in favor of inviting others in with me; solitude is nice, but it also can become quite empty and stagnant. 

As for the rest of what you wrote, I think I'm going to have to print it out and reread a couple of times to properly digest.  I think it's mostly things you've already shared, though not quite so succinctly... thank you for doing so!

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## Mylynes

> I'm not too sure about that.  People don't always know the direction they're going, they just want to go.  Also, once more information presents itself, it makes it easier to formulate a destination.  
> 
> Usually you can't simply toss random ingredients into a blender and expect something tasty.  Though there are the few rare occasions where the right ingredients have been made available and what's tossed in is ripe and compatible.



This sounds a lot like me. Have spent my life training and exploring my mind, mostly for training and explorations sake. Only recently have I taken a hard look at some possible destinations and stepping stones or goals to reach those destinations. I have also only recently started seriously considering the moral questions. For the most part I tend to look at things from an open-minded and neutral perspective. I'm so used to witnessing or hearing about the horrors of this world that I've reached a point where I simply don't care what people do here anymore. I don't spend much time in this reality anyways these days. I try to neither condone nor condemn. Even if someone were to murder my whole family it wouldn't be a huge deal to me. I could simply recreate them in my own worlds. Guess it shows how much I've been losing touch with this place.

Lets just assume that someone can and will use this for evil. We can even assume that the person is me after going completely nuts from existing for way too long. If I could induce mass shared dreaming and use it for mass terrorism through extremely long, mind warping nightmares, then what could be done to stop me or someone else? If it were done on a large enough scale, huge numbers of people could potentially go insane overnight.

Perhaps the best way to prevent something like this is to simply hinder others from reaching such a point, though that may not be possible. Perhaps if there were other skilled and ancient beings then there could be a sort of struggle of wills, with the more dominant winning control over the dream plane, or perhaps it would end in a sort of stalemate. Not really sure where I am going with this, but I am interested in hearing other people's thoughts, especially their ideas of right and wrong assuming mass SDs are or will be possible.

Know ye not that ye are gods? Do what though wilt shall be the whole of the law.

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## shadowofwind

Additional comments....

Though this must be obvious, for me a requirement for the discovery and free expression of 'self', such as can make the quasi-sharing of dreams possible, has been a willingness to show weaknesses and even glaring flaws.  I think the same is true for acquiring knowledge also.  If appearing to be wrong, to others or to yourself, is worse than actually _being_ wrong, then you try to cover up your errors, which prevents you from fixing them.  Better in my view to put the ugly out in the open where it can be dealt with, rather than being a can of worms with a shiny exterior.  In the end you can't hide anyway.  Havago's post a few weeks ago about her 'enlightenment' experience is relevant here, though off hand I don't know what thread that was in.

I think that its a common, almost universal mistake to confuse darkness with destructive desire.  There's nothing evil about darkness.  Its true that predators hunt in darkness, and thieves steal in darkness, but bad things happen in light too.  Darkness is something that we all need.  And as I have pointed out previously, perfectly bright and smooth light is actually darkness physically.  I have a Tarot deck that has a beautiful 'moon' card featuring a pregnant woman.  The moon card in my other Tarot deck features some creepy water monster with long teeth and many eyes and tentacles.  Both are moon principles, the yin to the sun's yang, but one is twisted and scary and one is not that way at all.  So if you're a person who is drawn to the 'dark side', one possible thing to consider is to start distinguishing dark from deranged a little better, and find ways to cultivate that 'dark'.  Why should the cool of the night by synonymous with self destructive stupidity?  A lot of glamorously 'bad' behavior, if you're not under its spell, simply appears as limiting and foolish.  

I think there's a necessary role for evil in the world too.  But that role is ultimately much, much smaller than the role of darkness.  In a saner reality, evil is sort of like the washboard at the edge of the road that warns you that you're in danger of going into the ditch.  Your heart can't feel what's 'right' without the discomfort of a very slight movement in aim and imagination towards what's 'not right'.  Its like you're thinking 300+300=900 for an instant, but you can't quite bring that into focus, then change your thought to 300+300=600 and you're good to go.  You adjust and you're back on the road.  

I think in our reality, its usually more like you're already off the road and crashing through boulders and trees, so far off that there really isn't a 'road' to get back onto.  The best you can do is find a relatively flat stretch that might eventually lead back towards the road.

Suppose that there's a meta-universe, infinite in size, which is characterized by 'evil' that is no more than the slight warning of intuition that helps you avoid potential mistakes.  A utopia with telepathetic, shape-shifting animals, where eating is consensual, for instance, and being eaten is a process of positive transformation.  Now take that entire cumulative fringe of minor, fleeting 'mistakes' in that universe, and project it onto a smaller universe.  That universe is still infinite, but is nothing compared to the first universe.  Sort of like a line compared to a plane.  I speculate that this is like our universe.  We're still an integral part of the larger universe, and in a sense still in it, but we don't see it because of the way our condition distorts and limits our experience.  

In some major eastern religious dogmas, our world is cyclically infinite, and involves pervasive suffering, but seems to have no discernible purpose or real relationship to the conscious 'self' (by whatever name).  In major western dogmas, our world involves extensive suffering, but this is the result of an unnecessary act of will, and the situation will be corrected before long.  In western scientific dogma, our world involves suffering, but that's just how it works, and likely the only way a world can work.  In my scheme that I'm suggesting, our world involves pervasive suffering, but this has a necessary and in a sense a permanent role in a much larger and much better context.  Our personal struggles to 'heal' our world are still necessary though, because they have a correspondence to what would be seen as movement to heal the momentary wrinkles in the larger multi-verse.  

I didn't explain my idea well here, but tried to keep it as short as possible.  I also don't think the idea is true, but I have some reason to think its closer to the truth than the other ideas.  I called it my idea because I didn't read it anywhere, but no doubt other people have thought of it also, and I'm pretty much just responding to what circumstances seem to conspire suggest so its not really mine in any case.

I do not believe there is a right answer for everything.  Some questions don't have answers.  Some questions have no right answers, only wrong answers.  Most questions have multiple answers that are partially right and partially wrong.  Also there is freedom.  Questions that have right answers usually have multiple right answers.  For me, believing in right and wrong, in the manner that I do, is not a matter of being uncomfortable with alternatives.  I hate chess, there are only a couple of plausibly good moves each turn.  Some people who love chess hate go (wei qi) because they can't see how to decide where to play.  I love go, compared to chess you can play almost anywhere you want, its like painting.  

"We are born upon the cross....you can release yourself but the only way to go is down."  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fld-5OuiNZk)  In this admittedly lame song, desire that is dark in the sense of being destructive is regarded as essential to enjoying life.  Let's suppose that your life starts like this song, all light and sunny but boring, and you decide to spice it up with dangerous adventures that lead to suffering.  Contrast that to mine, where external circumstances provide the suffering for me.  I don't think it makes much difference at all, we're the same in either case, and the process is essentially the same in either case.  In your heart, you feel the darkness, your darkness, and everyone else's darkness.  You choose to come alive by expressing it.  For me, fate expresses it for me.  But fate is also in us, and its just the path of expression that is slightly different.  Though the external causes of my childhood suffering involve other people, your internal darkness is connected to other people also.  Other people are in you, just as they are outside of us also.  The darkness that motivates your expression is theirs as much as your own.  For me, my own darkness is also to some extent a reflection of what I experienced externally, but is there really a difference, whether the mirror is viewed inside or outside?

Actually my life started sunnily also, the dark wave didn't really sweep me under until I was about 4, so experientially its the same in that regard also, even though the time-frames are slightly different.  And in my life I get a fair amount of self-destructive 'life' experience vicariously through other people anyway.  I don't do drugs, but I listen to songs written by people who do drugs, and I feel in their emotional space.  In a way its a bit of a cop-out.  If they weren't doing the drugs I might have to step into that role myself, just so that the destructive desire can find some outlet of expression.  I don't mean that the desire for drug abuse is ultimately necessary.  I mean that its there, and 'as above, so below', to quote Crowley favorably, (since I plan to say he was an idiot a later post).  Given that the desire is there, it must find expression.  Desire isn't quite the right word here, but maybe its close enough.

I don't think that the blending of identity that we've been talking about with shared dreams is entirely different from what we already experience as our own desire and instinct.  Normally the connection is sort of compacted to a point, without distinguishable parts of it coming to life freely in our imagination, but its there.

Summarizing my main assertions:

Its worth exposing the inside of the cup.  Hiding who you are is paralysis.

Darkness is not evil.  Seek how to feed your desire for darkness while minimizing the evil.

Evil is ultimately unavoidable also, in very small doses, though its not easy to see how this ideally works from where we are now.

My destructive desire expresses itself also, notwithstanding my outwardly 'clean' lifestyle.  Like individual expression, fate is inextricably connected with who we are.

The potential perils of shared dreaming are things we already deal with anyway.  Our efforts might make the problem worse, but we won't create a new problem.

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## EbbTide000

My avatar is the Expecto Petronum spell. So folk who attempt share-dreaming on my sacred beach (geological location, Henley Beach, South Australia) experience no attacks from any hungry anythings. 

Here is the story behind the Expecto Petronum and how it was cast:

***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YznI...e_gdata_player

***

(Acts like a shield with the Dementor  feeding  on {the nourishing light} rather than him)


Here he/we precognate and cast the spell in the now * from the future* 

***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiWR...e_gdata_player

***

It is hard for me to express what I know but as people begin participating in Waking Nomad's 50 remote viewing thing... what I'm trying to express will start manifesting and be felt.

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## shadowofwind

> Even if someone were to murder my whole family it wouldn't be a huge deal to me. I could simply recreate them in my own worlds. Guess it shows how much I've been losing touch with this place.



I think we can be pretty much certain that your ability to create your 'own worlds' is dependent on your existence in 'this place'.  There's a kind of schizophrenia in the dissociation, but the essential unity remains.  The love you have for yourself and for others, or its absence, is in you, its not in this place or that place. 





> Lets just assume that someone can and will use this for evil.



As I see it, as you are presently, were you able to obtain any such power you absolutely would use it for evil.  I think that anyone with any human insight can see this.  Might as well stop presenting it as a hypothetical?

I realize that you're trolling a little bit, but I don't think that shared dreaming matters much here.  Its a minor plot device in a more essential story.





> Do what though wilt shall be the whole of the law.



The rest of this is "Love is the law, love under will."  

It seems to me that if you love truly, morality flows from that, and no other standard is necessary beyond your sincere will and reason, informed by experience.

If will isn't informed by reason, and if the wills of separate individuals aren't tempered and coordinated with some degree of intelligence, I think its pretty clear that this produces results that no lucid person can honestly will.  As I see it, immorality can be understood as a form of stupidity.  Many people think that they can reap some results of who they are and not others, but watch a while and see it come back around, in one way or another.  You can't run away from yourself.

I said that I think Crowley was an idiot, but I guess I don't feel like defending that perspective at the moment.  Its hard to separate a historical figure from their image, especially where their writing is not intended as a straightforward, true reflection of who they actually are.  And the way a radical teaching characterizes itself is pretty much never an accurate account of what it actually is and does.  Annalee Skarin, a renegade Mormon who named her first book after your "Ye Are God's" passage, waxed eloquent about virtue and truth, even while her story was almost wholly a fabrication.

If people and dream characters have become almost as interchangeable parts for you, I'm not suggesting that you're to blame for that.  Maybe its the result of circumstances that are outside of your control.  But I think its nevertheless a really serious problem that leads downhill fast.  If I were you I would forget about shared dreaming and start talking about that, its where you need the help.  I wish you the best in any case.

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## StephL

Just showing up shortly without having read everything - or even a lot.
I find it honest and consequential that here are people, which do also see the theoretically following dark sides of esoteric practice in general.

This is rare, in my experience - including real life experiences with "New Agers" - so many are too deluded to think their own beliefs through completely.
Just once more to make it clear - I do not believe any of that.
But if I would - I would instantly also consider scenarios like Mylynes´ in another thread - (mass) influence over other people with malign intentions and potentially seriously dangerous results.
By inducing nightmares directly with forced shared dreaming - or other really arcane practices.

Just - on the other hand - you believers with a farther reaching sight-line - where are these phenomena?
There have been adepts of all sorts over the ages - why do we not see some disasters like that over and over?

You can invoke Hitler and Jones - but with these - the methods were from this world and observable.
I do not say, there is no mass-hypnotism and psychological engineering going on - there surely is - but for that you do not need any "psychic powers".
This can be done in broad daylight, unfortunately.

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## shadowofwind

> Just - on the other hand - you believers with a farther reaching sight-line - where are these phenomena?
> There have been adepts of all sorts over the ages - why do we not see some disasters like that over and over?
> 
> You can invoke Hitler and Jones - but with these - the methods were from this world and observable.



Hi Steph!  Let's suppose that there have been such disasters over and over.  How would you be able to tell?  If there's an externally visible side of it, then you can just point to that and say see, that's what's going on, nothing mysterious or psychic.  I think there was a huge psychic side to Nazism for instance, but what you see is what you can understand in terms of the external propaganda and coercion.  If, on the other hand, there is no external side, then there's no way to demonstrate that anything was going on at all.  Suppose for example that Mylynes were able to give a million people a nightmare.  How would you ever know?  Of the probably hundreds of millions of people who have dreamed about falling, for instance, or feeling paralyzed while fleeing a danger, how many ever posted about that to an internet forum?  Dozens?  Suppose that one or two of those people who had the dream from Mylynes posts it here or on dreammoods, and Mylynes or somebody else notes the similarities.  You would tend to attribute that to chance, or both people having been influenced by seeing the same movie or news event.  And then if additional people report having the same kind of experience, it appears plausible that this is because they have been reading about and discussing such experiences.  Its not easy to nail down what's really going on.

If there is something paranormal going on, and you want to know about it, that amounts to seeking for objectively paranormal results to be a part of your experience.  You've made it clear that you don't want this, and I support you choice.  But then, if there are any psychic disasters going on you're not going to know about them.  That's OK, but there's your answer.

Actually, the hypothetical situation I described, where multiple people independently have the same dream and a couple of them post it, that does happen a lot.  I could give at least a dozen examples from the dreammoods sight that don't connect to external stimuli like TV shows.  Recently, for instance, someone had a dream about going to the moon on a bus which I think is convincingly related to WakingNomad, whom they know nothing about externally.  Maybe it could look to someone like a coincidence, but as you've agreed, an additional volume anecdotal evidence tends to weigh against that uncertainty.  And I've avoided presenting you with more evidence out of respect for your expressed desire not to be dragged into those kinds of experiences.  Maybe I should continue respecting that desire more than I am now.  But you made an argument that I think I can answer, and its hard for me to say no to that.  (Had you remained agnostic without arguing for the unreality of shared dreaming, then I would have left it alone.  If you had merely argued for why you think shared dreaming might be a bad idea, then I would have left that alone too, aside from addressing any misconceptions I think I see about what shared dreaming actually is.  But its in your nature to state your thought about the absence of historical evidence, just as its in my nature to try to answer it, so I'm still at fault to some extent for sucking you into it.)  If you change your mind and you do want more evidence, then I can give you more.  Otherwise, I think that logically you have to concede the point:  the absence of historical evidence might be because mass psychic phenomena are unreal, or it might not be, but you can't tell either way without being willing to make a sacrifice that you don't think its prudent to make.  So you have to accept not knowing.  Obviously, if you're right that the phenomena are unreal, then there's no sacrifice, you'll open the door and there will be nothing behind it.  But I've already warned you that based on my experience that's not how it would pan out.  And whether I'm right or wrong about that I guess you know that I'm telling the truth as I see it.

Maybe it seems like I've given excessive attention to this point of motives and willingness, but for the last half dozen people who have argued against the reality of shared dreaming on this thread, this is what it came down to.  When presented with a potential opportunity to gain evidence that answers to their objections, they all backed off, without even trying to offer bogus pretexts.  So as I see it, this is point is the only real point to be made here, aide from whether their choice to back off is the right one.  And I agree that their choice is the right one, if that's the one they're making, and not because of any fault or weakness on their end.

There is one other aspect to this that I think is worth mentioning also, and which maybe concedes part of the point you were making.  I don't think that Mylynes can actually wreak serious havoc in the dream world, not by much more than people are already doing anyway.  He's just one guy, and furthermore he's limited by a kind of disinterest in relation to 'worldly' effort, which isn't compelling to him in the way that paranormal stuff is.  I think the apathy in that outward area somewhat circumscribes his psychic development also, though not in a way that would be obvious to someone with a more conventionally spiritual or occult outlook, as I understand this.  Is he psychically stronger than I am?  I doubt it, and I'm just one person also, and I can't do much either.  We don't have to speculate about a cosmic conspiracy to block his misuse of his abilities.  I think that one or two other people could cause him enough trouble to mostly shut him down.  And they wouldn't have to bother, because the semi-subconscious, muse-like, fate-like sides of ourselves would take care of that.  Plus he'd be picking a fight with the subconscious self-protective reflexes of a billion people who don't want to be manipulated with nightmares.  How could he stand a chance?  He may think of them as if they're sheep, easily manipulated.  But there are 7 billion of them, and collectively there's a lot of will and intelligence there.  Hitler didn't do what he did by himself, he was channeling the aspirations of a large number of people.  In an important sense he wasn't really in control, he was a puppet of other people's destiny.  Similarly, we can't really do very much either besides help give expression to what other people are desiring anyway.  And I think I've been at this long enough to have some idea what it is that people are desiring, and what the limitations are.  Consider how many people there are with internet access, and how many people have dreams that they consider worth posting on forums like dreamviews for discussion.  We're a tiny, tiny, tiny minority, billions against hundreds, and there are reasons for that.  Its not as if dreaming was just recently invented.  And at least hundreds of thousands of those other billions are as strong willed and intelligent as we are.  Psychically we are really quite weak.

When I said that fate would shut Mylynes down if he had power to induce mass shared dreams I meant it.  But I actually think that the red line would be crossed a long time before reaching that kind of capability.  And the result would be messy and painful.  More often than not providence doesn't just drop a piano on you from six floors up.  Time isn't an issue from that vantagepoint, it takes as long as it needs to.  And it wants to help you by giving you a chance to understand what's going on, and for other people to see and understand.  If those points can't be made intellectually, because of the way your beliefs filter your perceptions, then the point needs to be made emotionally.  And that commonly requires a lot of suffering for an extended time period.  

By 'providence' I'm not making assumptions about God, if you don't believe in God.  I'm describing something of the character and collective impact of our subconscious minds, as I experience it, in relation to who 'I' am.  And I guess someone who intends to mess with shared dreaming must either already believe that this sort of thing is real, or must be on the brink of believing it, because it follows almost immediately from the shared activity.  I'm presumptuous enough to say I'm relaying a threat, if it comes to that.  Otherwise, its a friendly warning based on my own equally limited and flawed understanding, as a person who has suffered a lot and seen other people suffer.  And I hope its helpful.  I fear pushing people in that direction by making it a matter of pride, but I'm not sure that leaving it alone is good either, if they're already headed in that direction.

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## Belle

Fascinating considerations all around the board.

From a different perspective, people should be allowed to play with guns.  Let them hold one in their hand, load ammo into it, lick the metal.  It's a lethal weapon but when given the proper respect it's also a useful ally.  Just like shared dreaming.

Shared dreaming is the gateway drug into mind-bending power.  Forget lucid dreaming where you're essentially just playing with yourself (subconscious).  Shared dreaming opens the doors to other participants.  You're granted access into numerous minds and are free to pluck as many apples from the minds of others as you desire.  One of the best things about shared dreaming is most people have no idea you're NOT them!  All behavior is excused.  The only person you answer to is yourself.  It's a wonderful playground.

Should beginners use caution?  Nah.  Let them run around and skin their knees a few times.  They'll get the hang of it.  If not, they'll be lost in the asylum and perish a pitiful death.  

Or.

They'll go on a shooting spree due to blending reality and imagination.

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## shadowofwind

I agree with all that.  If you see a novice playing with the clip out, not understanding that there's still a shell in the chamber, and you know someone else who has blinded and mentally crippled themselves that way, then compassion may require you to try to say something.  And if they have clear psychopathic tendencies, then maybe it requires a little more attention than that even.  But I agree that its mostly harmless exploration, and a matter of personal freedom.  It wouldn't be good to shun all shared dreaming exploration, and I don't want to give that impression.

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## Mylynes

> I think we can be pretty much certain that your ability to create your 'own worlds' is dependent on your existence in 'this place'.  There's a kind of schizophrenia in the dissociation, but the essential unity remains.  The love you have for yourself and for others, or its absence, is in you, its not in this place or that place. 
> 
> 
> 
> As I see it, as you are presently, were you able to obtain any such power you absolutely would use it for evil.  I think that anyone with any human insight can see this.  Might as well stop presenting it as a hypothetical?
> 
> I realize that you're trolling a little bit, but I don't think that shared dreaming matters much here.  Its a minor plot device in a more essential story.
> 
> 
> ...



I don't see myself for sure using this for evil, at least not for a very long time, though my perspective of what is/isn't evil may be different from yours. I tend to look very far ahead, and not just at one possible outcome or 1 side of a decision. Also, I kinda like my version of the law of thelema a bit more, is less restricting. And not trying to troll, i just like to think outside the bun, or box, or whatever.






> Hi Steph!  Let's suppose that there have been such disasters over and over.  How would you be able to tell?  If there's an externally visible side of it, then you can just point to that and say see, that's what's going on, nothing mysterious or psychic.  I think there was a huge psychic side to Nazism for instance, but what you see is what you can understand in terms of the external propaganda and coercion.  If, on the other hand, there is no external side, then there's no way to demonstrate that anything was going on at all.  Suppose for example that Mylynes were able to give a million people a nightmare.  How would you ever know?  Of the probably hundreds of millions of people who have dreamed about falling, for instance, or feeling paralyzed while fleeing a danger, how many ever posted about that to an internet forum?  Dozens?  Suppose that one or two of those people who had the dream from Mylynes posts it here or on dreammoods, and Mylynes or somebody else notes the similarities.  You would tend to attribute that to chance, or both people having been influenced by seeing the same movie or news event.  And then if additional people report having the same kind of experience, it appears plausible that this is because they have been reading about and discussing such experiences.  Its not easy to nail down what's really going on.
> 
> If there is something paranormal going on, and you want to know about it, that amounts to seeking for objectively paranormal results to be a part of your experience.  You've made it clear that you don't want this, and I support you choice.  But then, if there are any psychic disasters going on you're not going to know about them.  That's OK, but there's your answer.
> 
> Actually, the hypothetical situation I described, where multiple people independently have the same dream and a couple of them post it, that does happen a lot.  I could give at least a dozen examples from the dreammoods sight that don't connect to external stimuli like TV shows.  Recently, for instance, someone had a dream about going to the moon on a bus which I think is convincingly related to WakingNomad, whom they know nothing about externally.  Maybe it could look to someone like a coincidence, but as you've agreed, an additional volume anecdotal evidence tends to weigh against that uncertainty.  And I've avoided presenting you with more evidence out of respect for your expressed desire not to be dragged into those kinds of experiences.  Maybe I should continue respecting that desire more than I am now.  But you made an argument that I think I can answer, and its hard for me to say no to that.  (Had you remained agnostic without arguing for the unreality of shared dreaming, then I would have left it alone.  If you had merely argued for why you think shared dreaming might be a bad idea, then I would have left that alone too, aside from addressing any misconceptions I think I see about what shared dreaming actually is.  But its in your nature to state your thought about the absence of historical evidence, just as its in my nature to try to answer it, so I'm still at fault to some extent for sucking you into it.)  If you change your mind and you do want more evidence, then I can give you more.  Otherwise, I think that logically you have to concede the point:  the absence of historical evidence might be because mass psychic phenomena are unreal, or it might not be, but you can't tell either way without being willing to make a sacrifice that you don't think its prudent to make.  So you have to accept not knowing.  Obviously, if you're right that the phenomena are unreal, then there's no sacrifice, you'll open the door and there will be nothing behind it.  But I've already warned you that based on my experience that's not how it would pan out.  And whether I'm right or wrong about that I guess you know that I'm telling the truth as I see it.
> 
> Maybe it seems like I've given excessive attention to this point of motives and willingness, but for the last half dozen people who have argued against the reality of shared dreaming on this thread, this is what it came down to.  When presented with a potential opportunity to gain evidence that answers to their objections, they all backed off, without even trying to offer bogus pretexts.  So as I see it, this is point is the only real point to be made here, aide from whether their choice to back off is the right one.  And I agree that their choice is the right one, if that's the one they're making, and not because of any fault or weakness on their end.
> 
> There is one other aspect to this that I think is worth mentioning also, and which maybe concedes part of the point you were making.  I don't think that Mylynes can actually wreak serious havoc in the dream world, not by much more than people are already doing anyway.  He's just one guy, and furthermore he's limited by a kind of disinterest in relation to 'worldly' effort, which isn't compelling to him in the way that paranormal stuff is.  I think the apathy in that outward area somewhat circumscribes his psychic development also, though not in a way that would be obvious to someone with a more conventionally spiritual or occult outlook, as I understand this.  Is he psychically stronger than I am?  I doubt it, and I'm just one person also, and I can't do much either.  We don't have to speculate about a cosmic conspiracy to block his misuse of his abilities.  I think that one or two other people could cause him enough trouble to mostly shut him down.  And they wouldn't have to bother, because the semi-subconscious, muse-like, fate-like sides of ourselves would take care of that.  Plus he'd be picking a fight with the subconscious self-protective reflexes of a billion people who don't want to be manipulated with nightmares.  How could he stand a chance?  He may think of them as if they're sheep, easily manipulated.  But there are 7 billion of them, and collectively there's a lot of will and intelligence there.  Hitler didn't do what he did by himself, he was channeling the aspirations of a large number of people.  In an important sense he wasn't really in control, he was a puppet of other people's destiny.  Similarly, we can't really do very much either besides help give expression to what other people are desiring anyway.  And I think I've been at this long enough to have some idea what it is that people are desiring, and what the limitations are.  Consider how many people there are with internet access, and how many people have dreams that they consider worth posting on forums like dreamviews for discussion.  We're a tiny, tiny, tiny minority, billions against hundreds, and there are reasons for that.  Its not as if dreaming was just recently invented.  And at least hundreds of thousands of those other billions are as strong willed and intelligent as we are.  Psychically we are really quite weak.
> ...



I would agree with you that mass induced nightmares, especially ones that actually leave a major impact on its victims, would normally be impossible. The only way I see such things as being possible is through conscious manipulation of perceived flow of time. This would be essential both to attaining such abilities in the first place, and making the nightmares much more memorable. A regular mass induced nightmare could merely be shrugged off by most people. But with TD taken to the extremes, if all of those nightmares were to fill a single rem period with a near-eternity, then peoples minds could be completely warped, huge chunks of memory completely lost, could be driven utterly insane overnight. So instead of mass numbers of ppl simply waking up from a bad dream, they are warped, changed, and come back dangerously psychotic. The chaos that could follow after such an event would be much more intense than just having a bunch of people wake up from a bad dream.

People could go to a literal hell for eons, by the time they are released they could even potentially believe that they are demons themselves returning to earth on a mission to carry out the apocalypse or something.

Just something to think about. Row row row your boat.

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## shadowofwind

> If you see a novice playing with the clip out, not understanding that there's still a shell in the chamber....



I think a better analogy here would be playing with a wild animal like a lion.  Its not something you can put on a shelf and decide not to use, or impassionately decide what you're going to use it for.  If you've put yourself in close enough proximity to do anything with it, then it will use you.  And even directly knowing anything about it requires doing something with it.  First time you get horny, for instance, you're a dream rapist.  Whether you want to control that or not, you can't, unless your desires are already so well controlled that they don't even find expression in non-lucid, non-remembered dreams.  

We've agreed that the way to learn whether shared dreaming is real is not by endless intellectual argument, but to actually explore it.  So its not a theoretical problem for later, it already here.

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## shadowofwind

Thanks guys.  Maybe it looks like we've just been talking at each other, and I suppose there's always an element of vain farce in such discussions.  But I think I've learned a few things of importance to myself.  Implications of things I already knew, but hadn't made the connections.

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## Mzzkc

> I would agree with you that mass induced nightmares, especially ones that actually leave a major impact on its victims, would normally be impossible. The only way I see such things as being possible is through conscious manipulation of perceived flow of time. This would be essential both to attaining such abilities in the first place, and making the nightmares much more memorable. A regular mass induced nightmare could merely be shrugged off by most people. But with TD taken to the extremes, if all of those nightmares were to fill a single rem period with a near-eternity, then peoples minds could be completely warped, huge chunks of memory completely lost, could be driven utterly insane overnight. So instead of mass numbers of ppl simply waking up from a bad dream, they are warped, changed, and come back dangerously psychotic. The chaos that could follow after such an event would be much more intense than just having a bunch of people wake up from a bad dream.
> 
> People could go to a literal hell for eons, by the time they are released they could even potentially believe that they are demons themselves returning to earth on a mission to carry out the apocalypse or something.
> 
> Just something to think about. Row row row your boat.



That's a cool idea for a novel.

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