Thread: Shared Dreaming Debate

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.

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??"

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."

Originally Posted by 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."

WARGAMES ? What a cool, old, referance! Debates have always irritted me in general.

Originally Posted by 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."

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

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

Originally Posted by debrajane

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.

Here is Mzzkc's thread.

http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/psi-re...9/#post1931836

Originally Posted by debrajane

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:

Originally Posted by Gills

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.

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.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

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.

Originally Posted by Gills

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.

Originally Posted by Gills

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.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

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?

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

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?

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.

Originally Posted by sivason

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Gills

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.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by 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.

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?

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

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!

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Originally Posted by Chimpertainment

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Gills

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 Gills

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.

Originally Posted by Gills

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.

Originally Posted by Gills

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.