Thread: Entering someone's elses dream.

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Think this could work?
Dreamwalking
Shared Dreaming Networking
Mental connection through dreams

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Originally Posted by Tech Joe

I am new to this and this is my first post, so if I make a mistake, don't be too harsh. My question is; is it possible to enter into someone else's dream, or can two people dream the same thing together?

I have done this. I didn't know it, though, until I returned to the group discussion the next day at the ARE conference, and a lady freaked out while I was describing my dream from the previous night. Previously we had been requested to try to recall our dreams the following day. I told my dream, and it turned out she had the same dream but from a different perspective, as if in the same three dimensional landscape. It certainly convinced me that dreams are not just "in your head." They have a real location outside of your body. I believe that most dreams are in fact out-of-body-experiences.

So, yes, two or more people can share a dream, as was my own experience. I also have a friend who had a cousin describe the same dream he had just had, of a family reunion in a house where they both independently noted the same abnormality to the room. Dreams are REAL events, just in a different dimension.

That's really cool, Keith! I'll admit that there was a time when I believed in this stuff but don't anymore. And even though I don't believe in this stuff, your story was still pretty cool!

Originally Posted by Paradox-db3

That's really cool, Keith! I'll admit that there was a time when I believed in this stuff but don't anymore. And even though I don't believe in this stuff, your story was still pretty cool!

Keep your mind open. Getting older doesn't mean you have to become cynical. Older but wiser, yes. More discerning, yes. Closed minded, no.

I'll at least listen to any theory. If it explains the universe better than my own best theory, I will adopt it. Otherwise, I put it aside and see if it can fit into my grand jigsaw puzzle later. I don't discard any theory, just wait to see if it can be used in a yet to be found connection.

One day I learn something new, and I say, "Oh, now I can see how that crazy theory fits in." And I have a more complete understanding of the universe.

Originally Posted by Keith C. Johns

Keep your mind open. Getting older doesn't mean you have to become cynical. Older but wiser, yes. More discerning, yes. Closed minded, no.

Just because he dosn't believe it, dosn't mean he is closed minded.

An open mind also needs to know when to discard previous beliefs when new evidence arises. There is a big difference between being open minded compared to simply gullable or unwilling to continue research if the facts start to shake your beliefs.

I too used to think these sorts of things were possible, however, years of studying and hoping, and exploring the subject, left me with the inescapable conclusion that such things probably have no basis in reality. And i've had some pretty damn convincing experiences too! but, like any good magic trick, when you start to explore it further, you find how the illusion is created, and it's normally something quite simple.

Of course, being open minded, i'm always ready for new information, new evidence to give me reason to reconsider. However, up until this point, i've yet to find anything that holds up under scrutiny. Which is a terrible shame.
It'd be nice for these things to be true... (or would it?)

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

Just because he dosn't believe it, dosn't mean he is closed minded.

An open mind also needs to know when to discard previous beliefs when new evidence arises. There is a big difference between being open minded compared to simply gullable or unwilling to continue research if the facts start to shake your beliefs.

I too used to think these sorts of things were possible, however, years of studying and hoping, and exploring the subject, left me with the inescapable conclusion that such things probably have no basis in reality. And i've had some pretty damn convincing experiences too! but, like any good magic trick, when you start to explore it further, you find how the illusion is created, and it's normally something quite simple.

Of course, being open minded, i'm always ready for new information, new evidence to give me reason to reconsider. However, up until this point, i've yet to find anything that holds up under scrutiny. Which is a terrible shame.
It'd be nice for these things to be true... (or would it?)

I completely agree that being skeptical does not mean you have a closed mind. In fact, without skepticism, we would all be joining cults and mindlessly enslaved. It is a balancing game between being open to new ideas, and testing them rigorously before adopting them into your philosophy and practice.

However, dismissing ideas because science currently has not found a way to prove it, is closed minded. Science can only explain a small part of the whole. 1000 years ago, talk of sending invisible signals containing voices and moving images through the air or to the moon would have gotten you burned at the stake; science would have to catch up to the idea of television. The same is currently true with other concepts like the Astral Plane and OOBEs.

I believe in science, and anything I trust has to be consistent with science. And anything I believe MIGHT be true, has to at least not be disprovable by science. But there is a huge void between scientific knowledge and all the unknowns in the universe. What do you fill this with? I'd rather have a theory than nothing to believe in. And if my own experiences help prove my theories, even though I can not prove them scientifically (yet), I will believe until I have a better concept presented to me. That is not being gullible, it is having a working hypothesis of the way the universe operates until either disproven by science, or proven by experience.

Join me, it is good for your soul to believe in something you as of yet can not prove. As long as it is not enslaving you to some cult leader.

Well agree with everything you say there.
And sorry if it sounded like i was calling you gullable personally, that wasn't the intention, it was meant as a remark towards some of the less critical thinkers out there.

I think there is a lot to be said for having something to believe in.
It's just you have to, as you said, not let that contradict the facts, and i think thats the problem with belief, is not everyone has such an adaptive approach that you have.

I think as humans, we have a strong need for belief, take love for example. We can break it down into the basic scientific reasonings, but that isn't enough, we can't live seeing everything as a process. There is a distinct need to embrace the mystery of it, even if we do know what is involved and the science behind it. Yet, understanding the workings of things, can help us avoid being slaves too. It's a very delicate balance it seems.

I've had some very hard to rationalise experiences in my life.
For example, once, many years ago, I dreamt i was in a house with an old psychic woman. She showed me a vison of a girl trying to save a sheep on a clifftop, and falling to her death. It was a powerful dream, and came out of nowhere. So i shared this dream with my close friends. About a month later, I attended a gig in my home town, near the end, it became apparent that this gig was a memorial for a girl who had died in those exact same circumstances. Both I and the friends I told, all looked at each other, quite shocked at this revelalation. Still to this day I have no idea how this came about. Perhaps coincidence? but what a very strange coincidence. She is the first and last person i've known to die in such circumstances... So it's hardly something that could be put down to my mind prediciting a likely event. Also I had nothing to do with this girl, other than living in the same town. Didn't know her, or her friends or family. And oddly it had happened at about the same time I had the dream (at which point I was out of town at the Glastonbury music festival... so i had no idea of local news, this was prior to mobile phones being common too)

I've also had two shared dreams. One in which i was introduced to a friend of my best friend, who she'd not mentioned beforehand. A few weeks later, I met her in the real world. The dream was lucid for all of us, and we all shared our starsigns in the dream, as some kind of "proof" in case it was a genuine shared dream. Upon really meeting the girl, she looked the same, and we shared star signs again, all of which were right. Again, very hard to justify.

So you'd think i'd be very much a convert of such things.
However, I remain open minded to such events occuring, yet I shy away from making any concrete statements about thier reality. I think that would be closed minded, as I simply do not have enough information to work with.

If anything, I do not think that the astral plane is the best most likely explanation. Perhaps if there is any truth behind it, it is something along the lines of how the internet works. Seperate terminals, all operating as stand alone individual units, that can network and translate the shared information in thier own "dream world" or internal software. Why and how this happens (if it truely does) is still impossible to explain. I'd hesitate to say it's impossible, but I certainly think it is rare, and that many cases where people think it is happening, are probably wishful thinking. Dosn't mean that there may not be some rare genuine cases.

It's a mystery. A mystery that should drive us to search deeper, investigate, and try and gather facts.

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

I've also had two shared dreams. One in which i was introduced to a friend of my best friend, who she'd not mentioned beforehand. A few weeks later, I met her in the real world. The dream was lucid for all of us, and we all shared our starsigns in the dream, as some kind of "proof" in case it was a genuine shared dream. Upon really meeting the girl, she looked the same, and we shared star signs again, all of which were right. Again, very hard to justify.

How much more proof do you want?!?!?!

Originally Posted by The Cusp

How much more proof do you want?!?!?!

Seeing is not always believing.
If I thought that way, I'd be worshiping David Blaine as a God!

I'd like to consider myself humble enough to accept that just because i experience something, dosn't mean I wasnt wrong, confused, misremembered, added facts after the event, picked up something subconsciously and then thought it was "new information"

We have to be open minded just as much to the concept that just because we believe or experience something, that it could be wrong. We're not infallible.

If we arrogantly think that just because we experience something that we KNOW for certain what it was, what caused it, then we are asking for trouble and delusion.

I'd rather know the truth. If that means accepting that I'm not always right, that i can be wrong, that I can experience perfectly convincing but untrue experiences. Then I am more than willing to accept that. Just because I see the magician saw the woman in half, dosn't mean the woman was really in half. However skilled the magician and convincing the illusion is.
We all carry our very own magician around in our heads.... he's constantly creating the illusion that we experience the world directly... we know we dont. It's all a second hand processed model of the world. Does that stop it feeling utterly convincing? not at all.

Seeing isn't believing, personal experience isn't proof. Ask any parent who's child is convinced there is a monster in the closet.

I can't explain those things I experienced. But that dosn't immediatly imply that they are caused through supernatural means. I'd be small minded and short sighted to jump to those conclusions so quickly.

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

Well agree with everything you say there.
And sorry if it sounded like i was calling you gullable personally, that wasn't the intention, it was meant as a remark towards some of the less critical thinkers out there.

I think there is a lot to be said for having something to believe in.
It's just you have to, as you said, not let that contradict the facts, and i think thats the problem with belief, is not everyone has such an adaptive approach that you have.

I think as humans, we have a strong need for belief, take love for example. We can break it down into the basic scientific reasonings, but that isn't enough, we can't live seeing everything as a process. There is a distinct need to embrace the mystery of it, even if we do know what is involved and the science behind it. Yet, understanding the workings of things, can help us avoid being slaves too. It's a very delicate balance it seems.

Thank you for the compliment.

I agree that we are always being fed data which can mislead, and we can not trust our senses at all times, especially when someone else is feeding us the data; we have to be sure the source is unbiased.

There are some instances in life where we must react immediately to sensory data, for instance, when driving a car down a busy street. If we stopped to check every thing we saw before reacting, we would inch down the street, or worse, we'd have to get out and take a tape measure and a probe to be sure the street was solid and wide enough and that the cars coming towards us were real, and so on. So this is my analogy as to why we have to trust our experiences to a certain extent and not insist on absolute confirmation of all data before drawing conclusions. Some confirmations will come only after we take the chance that our gut assessments were valid.

Of course, if they turn out to not be valid, we will find that out soon enough as well, and then we need the courage to admit we were wrong and change course. I think the need to be infallible and afraid to admit being wrong is the biggest obstacle: better to subscribe to a theory which gets disproven in time than to not take a chance, and have no moorings at all. I am not afraid to be proven wrong; I have no giant ego to protect: I do not take myself that seriously. But it sure feels good to think I know where I am going.

Your experiences sounded at first like views of a previous lifetime, but the later events showed them to be precognitive. I have had many precognitive dreams. Interestingly mostly of trivial events: you'd think they would be of big important events, but not usually. Almost as if the experience was more of a personal message to me, rather than a special warning to be heeded. I would take them to mean that there is a hidden order underlying seeming random events in the physical world. How it functions is still mysterious, but at least this part of your experience should be clear enough to assimilate.

As to the collective unconscious being a matrix of minds interconnected like computers on the internet, that is a challenging idea. I think to some extent that is an aspect of it, because it is a consensus reality we share. But like the internet, it needs some big main frame computers to keep track of all the traffic, or random turning on and off of PCs would drop data. This would represent the presence of an underlying structure, be it a dimension apart from the physical one we all know, or a universal mind that supports it all, call it God or simply the Force. But I definitely agree that to participate, we needed to voluntarily "log on."

What's the point being skeptical about something that is a mystery? Science is clueless about dreaming, and we the lucid dreamers are the new pioneers on this field. If you are skeptical about shared dreamin, it means you see yourself as a very big expert on dreaming and science, or you couldn't be skeptical in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, being skeptical is good. But not when it prevents you from discovering new possibilities, which is the case here. Discussion won't give us answers, only experimentation. But with such a skeptical attitude, not much experimenation is going to happen

Originally Posted by Keith C. Johns

Keep your mind open. Getting older doesn't mean you have to become cynical. Older but wiser, yes. More discerning, yes. Closed minded, no.

I'll at least listen to any theory. If it explains the universe better than my own best theory, I will adopt it. Otherwise, I put it aside and see if it can fit into my grand jigsaw puzzle later. I don't discard any theory, just wait to see if it can be used in a yet to be found connection.

One day I learn something new, and I say, "Oh, now I can see how that crazy theory fits in." And I have a more complete understanding of the universe.

Cool, nicely put, I think along the same lines.. I accept and try to remember all theories regardless of my beliefs, and use those which work.

Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

What's the point being skeptical about something that is a mystery? Science is clueless about dreaming, and we the lucid dreamers are the new pioneers on this field. If you are skeptical about shared dreamin, it means you see yourself as a very big expert on dreaming and science, or you couldn't be skeptical in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, being skeptical is good. But not when it prevents you from discovering new possibilities, which is the case here. Discussion won't give us answers, only experimentation. But with such a skeptical attitude, not much experimenation is going to happen

Cool, nicely put, I think along the same lines.. I accept and try to remember all theories regardless of my beliefs, and use those which work.

I think you may misunderstand the meaning of skepticism.
Skepticism is to question, to raise doubts, without such thinking we would accept everything we are told.
If i told you I had a million dollars, you'd probably ask me to prove it, if truely had it, it wouldn't be hard for me to prove it to you. If i didn't you'd soon be able to disprove my claim.

Being skeptical has nothing to do with ego, or considering yourself an expert. It's simply wanting to consider the information provided with an open mind.
An open mind should be equally open to both a positive and negative result.

I see no harm in wanting proof.

Maybe the word skepticism is too loaded, perhaps the word discerning is a better choice.

Didn't see the quote in your sig, that guy makes a good point, and so do you. But imo there is harm in wanting proof for something that hasn't been scientifically investigated yet. If it hasn't been scientifically proven yet, there can be no proof. (actually, shared dreaming has already been scientifically investigated and confirmed by Carl Jung). But people want real physical proof. Which is just impossible because dreams are not physical. Our technology is not advanced enough to project dreams onto a screen and record them with a video camera so how are we ever going to get proof? A strong skeptical spirit also needs to be balanced by a great openness to ideas... no progress without new ideas. Btw, I'm not talking about you or something, I don't think you're too skeptical or anything, just people in general when the subject of shared dreaming is mentioned.

I think proof would be pretty easy... we don't need any new technology to prove this.

For example, I have a telephone, I know my number off by heart. All i'd need to do to prove shared dreaming is give that number to someone in a dream, if i feel i am having a shared dream, then wait for them to call me when i wake up.

Easy test, any of us can do it.
Or if its someone who already knows your number, give them some information they couldn't possibly know about you.

(Jung did not confirm shared dreaming by the way. )