Re: closed thread, I want to learn Invading Dream

[JJFrank]

I always seem to come late to these closed threads. As I said before, my apologies if bringing this up again is inappropriate protocol. Ophelia seemed to close it so that the main participants could somehow resolve their private issues. Okay, fine, maybe they needed that. I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. There were fascinating issues brought up beyond the personal ones. I am interested in those. I consider the participants some of the most thoughtful and insightful that I have read in my brief time on this forum. I find all of their comments interesting. What I find particularly interesting in this case is how thoughtful experienced people regard dream exploration (whether lucid or otherwise) as an ownership experience. People say that their dream experiences are theirs, that they do not want to be "invaded", that they want control over their experience as though an uninvited shared dream experience would be a kind of psychic rape. People seem very protective of their dream experiences, I guess similar to how they are protective of their (physically) awake experiences. I have found that there is more to lucid dreaming that is possible beyond this sense of possessiveness. The exchange helped me to understand something that I have been curious about for some time. There is tremendous potential in lucid dreaming experiences. Most of the experiences I read on this site are of a very primitive and novice level. Its great that people are exploring this area of human evolution. In exchanges like the one that was closed, one can see how baser elements of human personality can defile deeper possibilities. Quibbles, suspicions and defensiveness can prevent people from seeing the deeper potential in the moment. It would make sense that we cannot grow into deeper powers of expression and experience before we have the compassion and wisdom to express those powers judiciously. A person who has learned to infiltrate another's awareness would soon find their abilities diminished if their motives became selfish because the nature of open-hearted expansiveness takes one in a different direction than the energetic impulse of selfishness and defensiveness. The potential in the powers of the dream experience is vaster than the potential of physical world experience in the way that the capacity for language makes human potential vaster than animal potential. When one becomes embroiled in protective personal defenses, one's expansive potential is (temporarily) closed down. Because i prefer practical experience to abstract concepts, I have an offer for any who are interested. There is no need to argue with my comments. Trust your own experience and see what happens. I have sent a message to all who read this and in particular, all who are interested in the closed thread. The message will reach you and in reality already has. That does mean that you are aware of it. (I was surprised that shadowofwind expected results in only a few days. I have had messages take 10 years to get through) The effect of receiving the message will not necessarily be in a concrete form. It can appear as simply a feeling or a broader perspective. There is no need for proof or evidence. If you know, you know, and from then on, everything that you think and see will have a slightly different hue. This is characteristic of the nature of lucid dreaming. You grow even though you cannot be sure of the exact cause and effect, just like the way you live unaware of the millions of years of evolution that allowed you to do so. JJ

[snoop]

I don't think people were upset with the idea of their dream experience being theirs necessarily, but what should be disturbing is the lack of manners in the want to simply invade somebody else's dreams. Invade, as a word, cannot be separated from its negative connotations because it implies in its meaning the specific intent to commit malevolent actions on another human being or a group of human beings by means of intrusion. Assuming shared dreaming is real for the sake of argument, as a matter of etiquette, of pure common human decency one should, upon making a connection with another dreamer immediately present themselves to said dreamer and ask their permission to take part in their experience. To do otherwise is not only extremely rude, but suggests negative intentions. If you mean no harm, why would you disagree with the idea of immediately introducing yourself and asking permission to share an experience?

[gab]

Hi JJ, I'm also interested in shared dreaming. Too bad the other thread had to be locked because it got out of hand and quite off topic. I wasn't before, but now, after reading about the concept of "mind-meld", I am intrigued. And I would like to experience it. So lets hope this thread can stay more in the "how to" and actual experiences, then trying to debunk it with science. I don't really need a proof that it exists or not. After all, this is Beyond dreaming, and not Philosophy. Especially I'm not interested hearing about why it can't exist. I would much rather discuss how it does work and what happens during the experience. And if it doesn't exist, oh well. It's fun talking about it anyways. Everybody from the other thread is invited to continue, but please leave the science of why this is bogus out of this. Oh, and staff allows tis thread, since the other one was locked not because of unwelcomed topic, but thread going off topic, but next time please PM an admin if youl'd like to open another thread about topic that was just closed by staff. And another thing. I'm thinking that OP in the original thread didn't really mean "Invading", as in forcefully enter. I think it was more of an language issue. I think he meant to ask about dream sharing. And that's what I would like to learn about. Sharing.

[JJFrank]

Yes, there is no science argument to be made. Maybe in 50 years science will have the established vocabulary for those with experience to express it in a way so that those without experience can comprehend those who do. People who don't know what they are doing seem to believe that shared dreaming is like making a date to meet at Starbucks. Lucid dreaming is not physical experience. It is more like each of us is an ocean. Shared dreaming is a river of consciousness entering the ocean. The ocean is transfomed. The depth of the transformation is dependent on how deeply the ocean accepts what is brought to it or how strongly it resists. Gab, the experience you are open to is available and you can experience it. If you were aware of every aspect of your being, then you would be acutely aware of every alteration to it, you would be an ocean aware of the effect of every one of the thousands of rivers that feed it. So, to make you conscious of it, first attempt to be aware of the extent of your vastness. Then, be aware of any alterations to that vastness. Something will definitely change. Once you notice something that has changed, even if you do not know what it is, explore it. Imagine yourself diving into the unknown change and discovering its essence. It will come to you to the extent that you open yourself to it. If you can do this, you will be changed. The extent of the change will depend on your openess. If it seems small, and you want more, just open yourself more. Imagine that a ocean is carrying you away and imagine yourself willing to be carried away, knowing that, as an ocean, nothing can really change your essential nature. This invitation is for gab, and for anyone interested. If my directions are not clear, please ask for clarification. I am happy to provide it. JJ Hi JJ, I'm also interested in shared dreaming. Too bad the other thread had to be locked because it got out of hand and quite off topic. I wasn't before, but now, after reading about the concept of "mind-meld", I am intrigued. And I would like to experience it. So lets hope this thread can stay more in the "how to" and actual experiences, then trying to debunk it with science. I don't really need a proof that it exists or not. After all, this is Beyond dreaming, and not Philosophy. Especially I'm not interested hearing about why it can't exist. I would much rather discuss how it does work and what happens during the experience. And if it doesn't exist, oh well. It's fun talking about it anyways. Everybody from the other thread is invited to continue, but please leave the science of why this is bogus out of this. Oh, and staff allows tis thread, since the other one was locked not because of unwelcomed topic, but thread going off topic, but next time please PM an admin if youl'd like to open another thread about topic that was just closed by staff. And another thing. I'm thinking that OP in the original thread didn't really mean "Invading", as in forcefully enter. I think it was more of an language issue. I think he meant to ask about dream sharing. And that's what I would like to learn about. Sharing.

[gab]

Thank you, JJfrank. If you have seen Star Trek Deep Space 9, the episode in which the changeling goes "home". She walks into the "ocean" and she merges into it. The ocean is other bodies or thoughts or souls melded, yet still individual. That's how I imagine shared dreaming.

[shadowofwind]

In the 'evolution' thread, which is a branch off of the 'invasion' thread, Cusp mentions an idea of collapsing archetypes. My experience of dreams is like this also. An image in a dream is a fairly limited metaphorical expression of something much richer. So interpretations of dreams, while useful, are usually quite limited. In the 'invasion' thread, the topic was more narrow than the kind of spiritual communion that people are talking about here. In the second part of that thread, the issue was creating a dream experience that could be objectively validated by one person as 'real' using information content about concrete physical or personal things. All of my comments were specific to creating that kind of dream, and my impression of what 'time' it was. This other kind of sharing that's being discussed here interests me more. I'm out of time though, more later hopefully.

[gab]

So, did anyone dreamed with me last night? As I was reading yesterday about how both parties have to be opened completely and accepting of the experience, I was thinking if I'm like that. And I came to conclusion that yes, I'm. I was wondering, if that was a permission I just sent out, and somehow I know, that it was. I had a short dream last night, or at least I remember only short part of it. I recalled it much later, in the afternoon, when talking similar topic with someone.

[The Cusp]

People say that their dream experiences are theirs, that they do not want to be "invaded", that they want control over their experience as though an uninvited shared dream experience would be a kind of psychic rape. Well too bad for them, because you have to put up with the exact same crap during waking life. What I've found most useful about studying shared dreaming is how it bridges the gap between dreams and waking life. In a normal dream, there is only your influence. In RL there is the influence of countless people. In a shared dream there is a small number of people. Shared dreaming is the missing link between dreams and waking life.

[shadowofwind]

A person who has learned to infiltrate another's awareness would soon find their abilities diminished if their motives became selfish because the nature of open-hearted expansiveness takes one in a different direction than the energetic impulse of selfishness and defensiveness. In my observation, a self-righteous, megalomaniacal thirst for power facilitates psychic development, to a point. Its true that it limits and undermines itself, but this is true in the same kind of way that corruption in government limits the power and durability of government. Despite this corrective feedback, all governments are still to varying degrees corrupt, and many of them are very corrupt. Well too bad for them, because you have to put up with the exact same crap during waking life. It almost sounds as if your point is that since rape is a part of life, there's no point in avoiding or discouraging it. Its true that people who are hiding from themselves, and trying to hide their own deceitful aims from other people, are among those who most desire privacy. But I don't think that there's a wise, unselfish mindset that eliminates the need for boundaries in a predatory world. Other animals will eat your body if you let them, and generally speaking you still have a responsibility to protect and care for it, and respect that need in other people, irrespective of how expansive your sense of identity may be.

[JJFrank]

Could be. I have experimented with a link in the other direction. Instead of bringing RL people together in a dream experience, bringing lucid dream abilities into the RL. If you imagine that everyone you meet in RL has very recently been having dreams and has been doing so for a long time, then it is easy to see that they are closely linked to this area of consciousness. If I tap into the dream field while awake (practiced over decades of lucid dreaming and meditation, bringing dream reality into waking reality rather than the opposite) I have found that I can influence what another does as would happen in a lucid dream. This may be somewhat how hypnotism works, I don't know. When it happens it feels like a Jedi mind trick. This is a link that I can do on my own, with instant verification and not subject to the interpretations of others. JJ Well too bad for them, because you have to put up with the exact same crap during waking life. What I've found most useful about studying shared dreaming is how it bridges the gap between dreams and waking life. In a normal dream, there is only your influence. In RL there is the influence of countless people. In a shared dream there is a small number of people. Shared dreaming is the missing link between dreams and waking life.

[JJFrank]

In my observation, a self-righteous, megalomaniacal thirst for power facilitates psychic development, to a point. Its true that it limits and undermines itself, but this is true in the same kind of way that corruption in government limits the power and durability of government. Despite this corrective feedback, all governments are still to varying degrees corrupt, and many of them are very corrupt.. Shadow, are you trying to be deliberately provocative? Your generalization is silly, presumptuous and somewhat insulting to anyone on this forum. Maybe you had a rough time here lately, but can you just assume that everyone here is from the good side and not call us self-righteous and megalomaniacal? And no, not all of government is corrupt, in fact probably less than 10%. Can we just focus on the positive? It almost sounds as if your point is that since rape is a part of life, there's no point in avoiding or discouraging it. This comment is simply troll bait, please stop it. If you can try to understand nuance, nobody actually said that any rape was going on at all, only that people are acting as horrified as though they had been. Cusp was merely reinterating that people come into RL just as they do in shared dreaming. No one is actually taking about rape at all. You are capable of seeing that aren't you? Its true that people who are hiding from themselves, and trying to hide their own deceitful aims from other people, are among those who most desire privacy. But I don't think that there's a wise, unselfish mindset that eliminates the need for boundaries in a predatory world. Other animals will eat your body if you let them, and generally speaking you still have a responsibility to protect and care for it, and respect that need in other people, irrespective of how expansive your sense of identity may be. Shadow, are you really as scared as you sound? Can you see any possibility of having a positive experience with shared dreaming? If you are simply terrified of the whole concept, then please don't spread your fear here. Allow people who are learning new skills to explore them without your fearmongering, please? Can you try to be positive? I would really find it much more useful. Thanks JJ

[shadowofwind]

JJFrank, I did not call you or anyone else here self-righteous or megalomaniacal, and was not trying to insinuate that. I also apologize for the extent to which my poor choice of words is misleading and inflammatory. However, if you insist on looking only at the 'good' side of everything while ignoring the other side, then I think that self-righteousness is inevitable pretty much by definition. Although being negative about everything is destructive, some degree of honesty about unpleasant facts is important. I said that "all governments are still to varying degrees corrupt, and many of them are very corrupt." I've worked in government, and seen a lot of corruption. Of course no government is entirely corrupt, that what to varying degrees means. If we care about clean government, we have to talk about it the way it is, good and bad. Or if instead we're interested in shielding corruption and maintaining it, then we can be 'positive' and turn a blind eye to it. Likewise for psychic power. My point was simply that the way that bad motive tends to diminish power is insufficient to prevent abuse, and that its important to be aware of this. I was not thinking or implying that you are abusive. In my experience, shared dreaming experiences are generally at least partially by consent, because if a person is closed it tends not to happen. But as with physical contact, it is possible to force or trick one's way in to some degree. If someone doesn't want that, or you get them to open the door by deceiving them about your intentions, then yeah, I do consider that to be psychic rape, and that is what we've been talking about. The imagery in someone's dream is to a large degree generated in their mind, it doesn't happen somewhere else. Cusp's comment seemed to be dismissive of this, "well, too bad for them", and it sounds a lot like men who are similarly dismissive of date rape. But I might easily have been misunderstanding him. Hence my wording, "it almost sounds as if". If Cusp thinks it is important to be conscientious about how we treat other people right in dreams, rather than just doing whatever feels good that we can get away with, then that's something else. But neither of you expressed that thought it a way that I understood, so I expressed it. When you're 'influencing' people with Jedi mind tricks, do you consider whether or not you're intruding too far into their personal space without their consent? Or do you just figure that everything you do is fine because you're positive and never question this? Jedi mind tricks are a little bit new for a lot of people. If we don't think through the ethical implications and get those straight within ourselves, then its absolutely inevitable that we will abuse it. And mistakes are inevitable in any case. I don't see what kind of way forward there is without dealing with this. Yes of course there are many many other interesting and positive things to talk about also. But its kind of like putting your pants on before you go to the grocery: its not that big of a deal, but if you bypass it, then it becomes more important. Generally speaking, I am not afraid of shared dreaming, and do not think other people should be afraid of it. But some other people are afraid of it, as you have seen, and I don't see what's wrong with fairly acknowledging what is right in their perspective. Its like sex or driving a car or almost anything else in that if you don't do it conscientiously there tend to be adverse consequences. When people seem to suggest that anything that a person can do in dreams is fine, then I disagree with that. If this isn't what you were suggesting, then you can clarify. You have been reading an awful lot into my comments without understanding what I'm talking about, for instance when you were 'surprised' about my expecting a particular type of dream to happen within a few hours of when I considered it. If something I say doesn't seem to make sense, you can say that, and I'll try to clarify when I get time. But I'm not going to just shut up and 'be more positive' when you're clearly not understanding what I've been trying to say.

[kadie]

I also feel the OP is either mixing you up with someone else or not understanding where you western coming from shadow. Hopefully it was just a mix up. As for the thread that got locked....did anyone notice the OP's user name. Udie ..as in you die. He was trolling surely. Prolly thought he could kill someone with his dream "invading".

[shadowofwind]

I realize my manner can come across as annoying or worse. In the previous couple of years, when I had more time, I'd work on my language a lot to try to fix that, with mixed success. Sometimes my thoughts are inherently in conflict with other people's thoughts, because of the way we're blind in slightly different areas, and there's no way to communicate while avoiding that. Now I have much less time, so if I'm going to say anything at all, what I write has to be pretty much the first thing that comes out. Pretty much all of my dreams seem to be 'shared' to some extent now. I'm working on how to make sense of it. I think that all of our ideas here and in the 'evolution' thread are how we try to connect the experience with our other thoughts having to do with waking life experience. And so these thoughts help make the experiences possible. But these thoughts don't very well capture what's really going on in general. Modern physics ideas really don't apply to 'spirit' stuff very well. Older physics ideas such as having to do with four elements really don't apply to spirit stuff very well either. Likewise for thoughts about gods, or sympathetic magic, etc.

[JJFrank]

Shadow, I didn't expect you to just go away. I expected you to argue as you are doing. Here is a suggestion: Create a new forum post about the massive dangers that lurk in shared dreaming. All of the fearmongers can join you. You can leave this thread to people who want to actively explore the positive possibilities in shared dreaming. Or you can stay here and pollute this thread with your fear and negativity (excuse me, what you call reality). And if you thought that you found another foil to argue with, I will disappoint you. From now on I will only respond to your actual experiences of shared dreaming, and not to your useless arguing or your baseless fears. I encourage others to do the same. JJ JJFrank, I did not call you or anyone else here self-righteous or megalomaniacal, and was not trying to insinuate that. I also apologize for the extent to which my poor choice of words is misleading and inflammatory. However, if you insist on looking only at the 'good' side of everything while ignoring the other side, then I think that self-righteousness is inevitable pretty much by definition. Although being negative about everything is destructive, some degree of honesty about unpleasant facts is important. I said that "all governments are still to varying degrees corrupt, and many of them are very corrupt." I've worked in government, and seen a lot of corruption. Of course no government is entirely corrupt, that what to varying degrees means. If we care about clean government, we have to talk about it the way it is, good and bad. Or if instead we're interested in shielding corruption and maintaining it, then we can be 'positive' and turn a blind eye to it. Likewise for psychic power. My point was simply that the way that bad motive tends to diminish power is insufficient to prevent abuse, and that its important to be aware of this. I was not thinking or implying that you are abusive. In my experience, shared dreaming experiences are generally at least partially by consent, because if a person is closed it tends not to happen. But as with physical contact, it is possible to force or trick one's way in to some degree. If someone doesn't want that, or you get them to open the door by deceiving them about your intentions, then yeah, I do consider that to be psychic rape, and that is what we've been talking about. The imagery in someone's dream is to a large degree generated in their mind, it doesn't happen somewhere else. Cusp's comment seemed to be dismissive of this, "well, too bad for them", and it sounds a lot like men who are similarly dismissive of date rape. But I might easily have been misunderstanding him. Hence my wording, "it almost sounds as if". If Cusp thinks it is important to be conscientious about how we treat other people right in dreams, rather than just doing whatever feels good that we can get away with, then that's something else. But neither of you expressed that thought it a way that I understood, so I expressed it. When you're 'influencing' people with Jedi mind tricks, do you consider whether or not you're intruding too far into their personal space without their consent? Or do you just figure that everything you do is fine because you're positive and never question this? Jedi mind tricks are a little bit new for a lot of people. If we don't think through the ethical implications and get those straight within ourselves, then its absolutely inevitable that we will abuse it. And mistakes are inevitable in any case. I don't see what kind of way forward there is without dealing with this. Yes of course there are many many other interesting and positive things to talk about also. But its kind of like putting your pants on before you go to the grocery: its not that big of a deal, but if you bypass it, then it becomes more important. Generally speaking, I am not afraid of shared dreaming, and do not think other people should be afraid of it. But some other people are afraid of it, as you have seen, and I don't see what's wrong with fairly acknowledging what is right in their perspective. Its like sex or driving a car or almost anything else in that if you don't do it conscientiously there tend to be adverse consequences. When people seem to suggest that anything that a person can do in dreams is fine, then I disagree with that. If this isn't what you were suggesting, then you can clarify. You have been reading an awful lot into my comments without understanding what I'm talking about, for instance when you were 'surprised' about my expecting a particular type of dream to happen within a few hours of when I considered it. If something I say doesn't seem to make sense, you can say that, and I'll try to clarify when I get time. But I'm not going to just shut up and 'be more positive' when you're clearly not understanding what I've been trying to say.

[shadowofwind]

JJFrank, You are welcome not to respond to my posts. You created a thread referring to one I was active in, expressed your perspective on things that I was discussing, even mentioning my screen name. Then you want me to post somewhere instead of responding to what you said. Disagreeing is only OK when you do it, apparently. I did not say that massive dangers lurk in shared dreaming. I did not say that people should be afraid of shared dreaming. I've been exploring shared dreaming on this site and defending it against critics for a couple of years now. You're making this stuff up and attributing it to me. This is bullying, and is looking increasingly dishonest, now that I've tried to clarify my perspective.

[EbbTide000]

Here is my belief system My belief system is so different. Whome ever we meet in dream-life is .... really ... umm ... the "one god" born billion years after the last organic molecule died (froze out of a cooling universe). Before that Zero god appeared, (merging with all matter along the entire timeline from the big bang till the universe cooled to Absolute Zero) matter was "dead". As organic molecules evolved they remained just combinations of elements with no magical component (eternal soul). Then, when plants, animals and humans evolved they were still just more compicated combinations of elementary atoms that had no "magical" consciousness. They did have consciousness but no magical eternal soul. As every plant, animal and human died, it was gone. A bit like what the Jew believed. Jews believed that when they died they cessed to exist till the bodily resurection at the end of time. When the end of time happened, billions of years after the last organic molecule froze to death. An explosion happened. All matter, in the entire universe, at the end of time, became pure energy. The one true god is infinite pure energy. The explosion created the one true god. The Infinite energy was blown backwards through time. It merged with all matter, backwards, from Absolute Zero to the Big Bang. This unimaginable energy was so massive that it had no room to fit in into the universe even given all time to fit into. It had to merge over and over and over with matter creating multiple dimensions. The zero god is one. It has merged with you,. Giving you eternal life in an infinite number of dimensions. The only reson that the zero god is as intelligent as you is because you are intelligent and it merged with your. Its compassion is based on the fact that, being merged with you it is totally you. It feels all your pain. Anyway "It" is the one soul we all share. We dont have individual souls. When you usr your imagination you are communicating with this one god (soul). When we dream we are playing with the zero god (soul). When you Ask (or try) to remote view, precognate or share dream it is the zero god (soul) who is responding. So o o o You don't need to "hook-up" by skype etc with those you want to share dream with. (imo)

[EbbTide000]

Ok, to the point, of my belief system: da da da daaa! I don't think entities of any kind exist except in our wonderful imaginations. No Gods, devils, aliens, or even those we think we share dream with. It's difficult, if not impossible for me to explain. So I better not try. But when folk do gentle, playful dream games this happens: *** http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dre...-reloaded.html *** Just read the first post about the sharks. It was as if this happened: **** Mort Vs. Shark: Mort Vs. Shark - YouTube **** There is only one soul. Waking life is that one soul's lucid dream. What do you think?

[gab]

*Sigh* I think we are going to let this topic cool off a bit. Locked