Thread: Shared Lucid Dreaming - Nonsense

Well I've proved it to myself. i know what mysenses tell me, and scientists and others that try to tell me otherwise can go fuck themselves... because i know better.

I have to say JimmyD I actually agree with you. Everything that goes on in a dream is a product of your mind. Their isn't such a thing as the "dream realm". Don't get me wrong I'm a huge fan of dreaming lucid and non-lucid, but essentially all it is is a paralyzed hallucination. For me I would have to personally experience something for me to even entertain the idea.

yay science

lol my boys, you think its nonsense because you are climbing too high, seriously, lotsofface mentions "dream realm" WTF? If you are really a science guy, then you would first go about questioning dream sharing, and if its real, THEN ponder about any possible explanation, not before.

Also, you are making up your mind before even trying, try it, if your expereince tells you its fake, then so be it, if it tells you its real, then so be it... you try to overcomplicate stuff too much.
Oh right, there is no proof out there other than experiences, but we all know thats questionable.

Originally Posted by lotsofface

I have to say JimmyD I actually agree with you. Everything that goes on in a dream is a product of your mind. Their isn't such a thing as the "dream realm". Don't get me wrong I'm a huge fan of dreaming lucid and non-lucid, but essentially all it is is a paralyzed hallucination. For me I would have to personally experience something for me to even entertain the idea.

yay science

Well since the function of dreams is still unknown, I still wouldn't rule out the possibility that it is more than just a paralyzed hallucination. Of course, on the other hand, the only real way to know that shared dreaming does exist is to have many experiences that both you and other person(s) in the dream can confirm in waking life.

I've heard of people who have claimed to have shared dream experiences, that were confirmed in waking life, but they were just isolated incidents. In order to convince me you would have to have a large list of experiences that have all been confirmed by the other people in the dream, and so far I haven't found any. That said, since I think most psychological interpretations of dreams are just as ungrounded as dream sharing, I really could believe anything at this point.

Originally Posted by Kaizer

Well since the function of dreams is still unknown, I still wouldn't rule out the possibility that it is more than just a paralyzed hallucination. Of course, on the other hand, the only real way to know that shared dreaming does exist is to have many experiences that both you and other person(s) in the dream can confirm in waking life.

I've heard of people who have claimed to have shared dream experiences, that were confirmed in waking life, but they were just isolated incidents. In order to convince me you would have to have a large list of experiences that have all been confirmed by the other people in the dream, and so far I haven't found any. That said, since I think most psychological interpretations of dreams are just as ungrounded as dream sharing, I really could believe anything at this point.

http://www.dreamviews.com/f107/share...ou-moon-84188/ Here is the old shared dreams journal documenting what you were just saying. read it and weep. They aren't all isolated incidents, it's real, and can be done between a group of people.

Originally Posted by Man of Shred

http://www.dreamviews.com/f107/share...ou-moon-84188/ Here is the old shared dreams journal documenting what you were just saying. read it and weep. They aren't all isolated incidents, it's real, and can be done between a group of people.

anecdotes are all good and fun but honestly there is absolutely no science to the idea, and in fact it seems that our current understanding of neuroscience and sleep science would lead one to believe that any sort of "shared dreaming" claims are either coincidental, or a lie.

Sorry guys but I'm a pretty selfish dreamer and when I'm lucid I understand that everything I see and experience is a productive of my active brain and nothing else. There is clear evidence that you see things because your visual cortex is active, etc., not because you've entered some sort of plane or realm that can be shared.

Dreaming is Isolation. Beautiful, Infinite, Isolation.

you haven't even read it. and you still haven't explained or convinced me of anything. you haven't even looked at the evidence. These just aren't colorful anecdotes, they are logs of shared dreams. and many of them happened with people who weren't trying to share dreams. Read it first and then try to explain it away. I dare you. eitherwise, you are making judgements without your own evidence.

Trust me I have read plenty of shared dream journals and honestly, they're fascinating. I'm amazed about them. The issue here is validity, and scientific explanation. If this was to be properly documented in a controlled scientific environment, that still doesn't provide any sort of ground for this concept. Are you saying that there is a different realm, that a person physically enters during a dream, where he can literally come into contact with other people who happen to be dreaming at the exact same time? REM periods are very distinct and there's no way of knowing unless put under an EEG whether or not you were actually dreaming at the same time, or if you coincidentally had the same dream. Sure, the journals are impressive, and hard to dismiss, but until you can actual explain how shared dream actually works, instead of just saying it does and providing examples, then there's really no reason to consider it.

For example, if there was only a small group on the planet who claimed to have a super-rare disease in which he had nightly visions while he slept (dreams), while the rest of the world just experienced 8 hours of unconscious sleep, what reason would anyone have to believe them until they learned about the science behind it. That science being the idea of REM, and the active areas in the brain that allow nightly hallucinations.

Please, oh please, explain to me how it works. I am not trying to be sarcastic, I am truly interested in how the idea of shared dreaming actually works, not whether or not it does.

honestly you've read plenty of shared dream journals? Link them please. I would like to read them.

Things that are true about dreams that science refuses to even try to prove:

Astral body and dream body: there is no physically going places in dreams. Every person has and astral body and dreambody. They vibrate at a high frequency that they go by the physical eye undetected. during dreams, they other lighter bodies leave the physical body and inhabit the astral and dream planes.

Dreamtime is not linear: People don't have to be asleep at the same time to have shared dreams. People have shared dreams days apart and even years. I've added dreams to the shared journal between two people that didn't know about one another on DV, or read each others dream journals. And they shared a dream a night apart. They didn't notice this until i pointed it out to them. Think of it this way: Imagine you can teleport yourself to the nearest galaxy to the milky way, and you go there... then you point a highly sophisticated telescope at earth, you don't see modern men, you see flat face neanderthalls. Then you instantly teleport back to earth back in your own time. Since dreaming isn't limited to conventional time, "dreams" can take place at any time in any point in space time. The dream bodies travel to the Space time where that dream took place, and go back to their own space time when they return to their bodies.

oh and again please link these other shared dream journals that you've read.

shared dreaming and the facts behind the myth

Shared Dreaming - Real life Inception, page 1

I of course can't possibly remember the exact places where I read things, but there's a couple of examples of places I recall doing some reading at.

I have also gotten through a little bit of See You On the Moon.

I understand that people have claimed to experience this and it seems to be a popularly talked about phenomenon.

I have to say I'm very glad that you actual brought some substance to this discussion with the astral body and dream body/planes.

Now my first question I suppose would be this: of what matter do these bodies exist? Are they of the same recognizable bio molecules as human flesh, or the cells from which neurons originate?

You also seemed to have escaped the problem of actually being able to see these "bodies" by saying that they are of too high frequency of a vibration to be seen. Now the ability to see something is based on the amount of light being refracted off of it's surface. We don't see air because it's transparent, meaning it allows light to pass through it, not because of any sort of vibration. Air of course can still be isolated into real, actual parts (hydrogen atoms, oxygen diatomic molecules, etc.) I will be happy if the same can be done for a dream/astral body. Obvoiusly I believe in a mind, which some think can not be represented physically, but it can, it's the product of neurons sending messages. Thankfully our brain has the ability of consciousness and focusedness but this is all due to different parts of the brain reacting a certain way to neurotransmitters.

***Here is where my real argument lies:

I will relate this argument to the endless debate of creation/existence of a god.

The reason why this debate is so controversial and unsolvable, is because neither side can really definitively claim to know and be able to prove exactly how and why time space and matter began. There are ideas of course, but nothing tangible.


The difference in this discussion about shared dreaming is that we already know from scientific research and studies why and how the brain sleeps and produces dreams.

That is why the idea of a dream body/plane is ridiculous. It's an unnecessary explanation for something we can already explain.

If you are interested in the science behind dreaming I suggest this book The Dreaming Brain by J. Allan Hobson

Amazon.com: The Dreaming Brain (9780465017027): J. Allan Hobson Md: Books

I wouldn't pay 27 bucks for it though, just do like me and stop by the local library and hope they have a copy. It contains most of the research that's been done as to the neurological explanations for how we dream. And I'll go ahead and warn you it has absolutely nothing to do with a dream body, or dream plane.

Don't try to explain something we already can explain is what I'm saying.

JimmyD, lotsofface... Let's talk science... There are scientific experiments currently underway at Princeton University that have shown evidence of a global reaction just prior to a major disaster, they have computers that record minor changes in emotions, brainwave patterns, energy, etc. There is a reaction all around the globe just prior to a serious disaster such as the earthquake in Haiti. This shows that not only is there a reaction BEFORE the event, but that everyone is connected on some level such that everyone responded at the same time all around the globe. Since Princeton's experiments show that everyone is connected on some level, why couldn't that same connection be used to share a dream? I have included a link to the Princeton Global Consciousness site.

Global Consciousness Project

I can understand if you are unable to accept someone else's report as proof that they have shared a dream, but a true scientist never discounts any hypothesis until they have done thorough experiments, collected the data, and analyzed it to determine what the evidence supports. I know that I, for one, would be very interested in seeing the results of your experiments.

those pages still haven't explained why me and many others share dreams. Perhaps science just hasn't yet explained why they happen. AND even according to science the brain is still a very mysterious organ. If you want science to explain shared dreams, then go into the science of energy fields that humans give off, and also study quantum mechanics. I'm sorry Science has FAILED to explain why me and so many others shared dreams. and you STILL HAVEN'T Read through my evidence.

and the reason why you can't remember where you found other journals documenting shared dreams is because I actually journal dreams of me and other people that match up. none of what you posted contains that. As far as I know: no other shared dream journals exist.

Now then, i am scientists of sort but i still do not understand why one needs scientific prove for the possibility of SD. Personal experience is the best prove of all. Is like love no one can prove to you scientifically that you love someone but still you know that it is true,no? How? Eh, you just know that it is true. The same is with SD. One experiences and then knows.

That Princeton study actually looks pretty interesting, I'll have to check that out.

I have not completely discounted shared dreaming, but I just feel I have reasons to feel it doesn't exist.

This is my reasoning

you say (Man of Shred) Shared Dreaming exists because there is a dream plane and we have dream bodies. I explained that there is scientific research that defines how we dream and it involves no such plane or body.

So unless you are saying that our current research or science isn't credible, I don't see how you could try to replace it with a completely separate idea of how dreams work.

"AND even according to science the brain is still a very mysterious organ"

Um..... ok. Isn't that just more of a subjective opinion on the matter. The brain is mysterious and complex yes I agree, but we do understand how we dream. There are plenty of things about the brain that we have yet to discover and that's why neuroscience or psychophysiology seem like very appealing fields to me, but in terms of how we dream, please read the studies and the research, I think it's very interesting. I'll definitely take a look at that global consciousness thing but I definitely suggest that book (The Dreaming Brain) in terms of understanding what our brain's doing when we're out flying, killing DC's and banging anything that moves. (lucidly of course).

Originally Posted by kenietz

Now then, i am scientists of sort but i still do not understand why one needs scientific prove for the possibility of SD. Personal experience is the best prove of all. Is like love no one can prove to you scientifically that you love someone but still you know that it is true,no? How? Eh, you just know that it is true. The same is with SD. One experiences and then knows.

Although I haven't yet, if I did have an SD experience that would be all the proof I need for myself. However, the implications of proving shared dreaming scientifically are huge. You'd prove to the world that our brains are connected in some way other than the 5 senses! That's a notion that, without a huge amount of proof, would get you laughed off the scientific scene very quickly. That's why, when Zebrah started this thread I was so enthusiastic. Unfortunately, that project never got off the ground, and the forums we started for it basically died (it still exists, but I don't remember the URL and it's invite-only.).

Originally Posted by lotsofface

That Princeton study actually looks pretty interesting, I'll have to check that out.

I have not completely discounted shared dreaming, but I just feel I have reasons to feel it doesn't exist.

This is my reasoning

you say (Man of Shred) Shared Dreaming exists because there is a dream plane and we have dream bodies. I explained that there is scientific research that defines how we dream and it involves no such plane or body.

So unless you are saying that our current research or science isn't credible, I don't see how you could try to replace it with a completely separate idea of how dreams work.

"AND even according to science the brain is still a very mysterious organ"

Um..... ok. Isn't that just more of a subjective opinion on the matter. The brain is mysterious and complex yes I agree, but we do understand how we dream. There are plenty of things about the brain that we have yet to discover and that's why neuroscience or psychophysiology seem like very appealing fields to me, but in terms of how we dream, please read the studies and the research, I think it's very interesting. I'll definitely take a look at that global consciousness thing but I definitely suggest that book (The Dreaming Brain) in terms of understanding what our brain's doing when we're out flying, killing DC's and banging anything that moves. (lucidly of course).

Actually, there is no scientific research about where we go when we dream. All the research is about what we do while dreaming, not where the dreams occur.
And, dream science isn't very advanced. We have never had any studies about the possibility of shared dreaming. Until someone actually does a study and gets it published, there is no proof at all one way or the other (beyond personal experience, which is not credible scientific proof).

Oh, and by the way:

Originally Posted by lotsofface

I have not completely discounted shared dreaming, but I just feel I have reasons to feel it doesn't exist.

You did a few posts ago:

Originally Posted by lotsofface

Everything that goes on in a dream is a product of your mind. Their isn't such a thing as the "dream realm". Don't get me wrong I'm a huge fan of dreaming lucid and non-lucid, but essentially all it is is a paralyzed hallucination. For me I would have to personally experience something for me to even entertain the idea.

It think it's good to be skeptical, but the mind is an amazing thing...

I'm open-minded, so to be honest, I don't stand on any side of this debate. Although I'm tipping towards the idea that shared dreaming could be real

But, let this be an experiment. There's a Shared Dreaming Class that's just started up, right? Well, it may take awhile, but how about you guys speak to some of the people involved after a few months? Although it might take a loooooooong time. Afterwards, if there is absolutely no success within this class, do what you will with the results. If there is success, you've got your proof. The class won't make up pretend shared dreaming journals because they're expecting the real thing and if they don't get it they're gonna be pissed.

Raven, you're involved in that, right?

So, I'll be hoping this experiment works

Let's not get too arguementative, ok?

"Actually, there is no scientific research about where we go when we dream"

Well technically speaking it has been shown that our visual sensory areas in our brain are active during dreaming so technically we're just hallucinating, or creating a perception without stimulation. the only place we're going physically is in our bed.

I think it's nonsense to just dismiss the idea of shared dreaming, there is not enough evidence as of now to make a decision either way. I *hope* that shared dreaming exists, but am not sufficiently convinced. I am also skeptical of the idea of a dream realm, but I could very much have a way that a dream realm exists:

We have a soul. MANY people disagree on this, but you must agree that it exists (though you may call it by a different name). There are two reasons that we can prove the soul MUST exist: cells and ideas. The easiest reason we can argue is that cells exist. When Darwin invented his Theory of Evolution, he thought cells would be made of some homogeneous jelly-substance. With this belief, he viewed each cell as just parts of us, not guided by some mysterious force. The whole concept of cells disproves evolution. Anyways, we now know that cells are VERY complex systems, with each cell being more complex then New York City. But what guides the cell? No one truly knows. Scientists believe that DNA controls the cell. In fact, it's basically become a theme of theirs to attribute everything of the human life with DNA. DNA is said to be the instruction manual to the cell's processes. How at all does this explain how the DNA tells the cell what to do? Without DNA, a cell still functions. There must be some unphysical thing telling the cell what to do! How does the cell in the eye know that it's in the eye so it needs to produce eye-color pigmentation? I'm not saying that any kind of God is telling it what to do, just an unphysical "thing" I would call a soul.

The second of these arguments is the nature of ideas. What is an idea? Is it physical? It can't be. If it's physical, then it must be made up of atoms and/or energy (what our brain is composed of). So we must have some kind of unphysical "thing" in our brain called an "idea." We are also born with some ideas naturally. Some would call these instincts, but no matter how you justify their existence to yourself, they do exist without you experiencing them before. There are basically two ways we know/possess ideas: naturally and experienced. A natural idea would be basic concepts that we don't even think twice about, such as individuality and differentiality. When we are born, we naturally know the difference between different objects. For example, when we view an item on a table, we can tell that the item is not a part of the table, even when we are babies. This is also the concept of consistency, that the tabletop is consistent with itself and remains a flat plane. We can also see two different objects that are identical and tell that they are not the exact same object, that they are mere replicas. Without these concepts, every time we would see a new object that wasn't exactly the same as when we last saw it, we would not know what it was. For example, if you had only seen one kind of pen your entire life, and saw another pen that was a little different (i.e. different colored ink) you would know that they were both pens. These items seem basic to us, only because we were born with them, so we have been experiencing them our entire lives. We are born with these, and these in addition to other items make up our souls.

If you've come this far without falling asleep, and have come to agree with me that we indeed do have souls or some other underlying, guiding entity, then we can now see how this relates to shared dreaming! Since we do, indeed, have souls, and our souls are not physical, then they *may* be able to interact with each other on a different level. I have no way of proving this, but it could very much be true. This would explain how a theory of dream planes exists (IF they exist); they are not a dream realm, but rather a soul realm. We do indeed have souls, and since the soul is not physical, why then must it be confined to physical confinements? Just something to ponder on.

Originally Posted by Zelgius

I think it's nonsense to just dismiss the idea of shared dreaming, there is not enough evidence as of now to make a decision either way. I *hope* that shared dreaming exists, but am not sufficiently convinced. I am also skeptical of the idea of a dream realm, but I could very much have a way that a dream realm exists:

We have a soul. MANY people disagree on this, but you must agree that it exists (though you may call it by a different name). There are two reasons that we can prove the soul MUST exist: cells and ideas. The easiest reason we can argue is that cells exist. When Darwin invented his Theory of Evolution, he thought cells would be made of some homogeneous jelly-substance. With this belief, he viewed each cell as just parts of us, not guided by some mysterious force. The whole concept of cells disproves evolution. Anyways, we now know that cells are VERY complex systems, with each cell being more complex then New York City. But what guides the cell? No one truly knows. Scientists believe that DNA controls the cell. In fact, it's basically become a theme of theirs to attribute everything of the human life with DNA. DNA is said to be the instruction manual to the cell's processes. How at all does this explain how the DNA tells the cell what to do? Without DNA, a cell still functions. There must be some unphysical thing telling the cell what to do! How does the cell in the eye know that it's in the eye so it needs to produce eye-color pigmentation? I'm not saying that any kind of God is telling it what to do, just an unphysical "thing" I would call a soul.

I'm not necessarily arguing against the existence of souls, but this argument is flawed. First, we do pretty much know what guides a cell. The DNA doesn't directly control anything, but the DNA is transcribed into RNA, which is read outside the nucleus to build proteins. These proteins do all the work of the cell, with each doing its own thing (which it does because of the specific order and twisting of the amino acids it's made out of) and together producing a working cell. If all of the DNA in a cell suddenly disappeared, it would continue to work for a time, but it would never be able to divide and eventually the proteins would denature and the cell would die, since it wouldn't be able to produce new proteins. And the cell knows to produce pigment because it's received instructions from proteins telling it which DNA to activate and which DNA not to use (I'm not exactly sure how this works, but I think that the cell receives its instructions in the form of certain chemicals which cells can use to communicate between each other. For example, a cell in the eye would produce a certain chemical which, in enough of a concentration, would tell all the cells in the area that they're in the eye. Again, I'm not sure the exact mechanisms of it, so I can't really respond if you have any questions about that). Another flaw in your argument is that you say that cells are proof of a soul, yet bacteria, fish, insects, birds, trees - they all function well, and I'd assume you don't think a bacteria has a soul.

Originally Posted by Zelgius

The second of these arguments is the nature of ideas. What is an idea? Is it physical? It can't be. If it's physical, then it must be made up of atoms and/or energy (what our brain is composed of). So we must have some kind of unphysical "thing" in our brain called an "idea." We are also born with some ideas naturally. Some would call these instincts, but no matter how you justify their existence to yourself, they do exist without you experiencing them before. There are basically two ways we know/possess ideas: naturally and experienced. A natural idea would be basic concepts that we don't even think twice about, such as individuality and differentiality. When we are born, we naturally know the difference between different objects. For example, when we view an item on a table, we can tell that the item is not a part of the table, even when we are babies. This is also the concept of consistency, that the tabletop is consistent with itself and remains a flat plane. We can also see two different objects that are identical and tell that they are not the exact same object, that they are mere replicas. Without these concepts, every time we would see a new object that wasn't exactly the same as when we last saw it, we would not know what it was. For example, if you had only seen one kind of pen your entire life, and saw another pen that was a little different (i.e. different colored ink) you would know that they were both pens. These items seem basic to us, only because we were born with them, so we have been experiencing them our entire lives. We are born with these, and these in addition to other items make up our souls.

If you've come this far without falling asleep, and have come to agree with me that we indeed do have souls or some other underlying, guiding entity, then we can now see how this relates to shared dreaming! Since we do, indeed, have souls, and our souls are not physical, then they *may* be able to interact with each other on a different level. I have no way of proving this, but it could very much be true. This would explain how a theory of dream planes exists (IF they exist); they are not a dream realm, but rather a soul realm. We do indeed have souls, and since the soul is not physical, why then must it be confined to physical confinements? Just something to ponder on.

Another thing is that you seem to be confusing a soul with sentience. A soul includes, but also encompasses more than just sentience. A soul is by definition able to exist without a body, whereas sentience does not need to meet that requirement. Sentience can be destroyed by physical means, a soul cannot. Ideas cannot exist without sentience, but they can exist without a soul.

But I would like to say that I don't totally disagree with you. I have heard stories about OBEs in which a person is able to "see" something that they never could see before, and later learn that they were seeing something which actually happened (which is how I'd hope shared dreaming could be proven - pair two people, give one a code word, have him/her tell the other person in a dream (of course, you'd have to repeat it with many pairs (and if I suspected I was sharing a dream, I'd tell that person my email address and tell the person to email me, since that would instantly convince me that it's real and possible (obviously (sorry about these nested parenthesis - I do tend to go off on tangents often, and the result is the five close parenthesis characters in a row after the period.))))) and if the other person woke up and got the code word right, you would have proved shared dreaming (along with a great many other things that go along with shared dreaming).

Originally Posted by Raspberry

Raven, you're involved in that, right?

Yeah, I'm working on that with WakingNomad. This is the first time I've tried to examine and explain how the shared dreams work, but hopefully it will prove to be something everyone can experience if they want to. I already believe in shared dreaming through personal experience, but I don't expect skeptics to take my word as proof... It would be awesome if the class could result in some more solid evidence to prove what I have already experienced to be true. I don't know if new people are still being accepted into the shared dreaming class or not, but I would say it's a good place to start for anyone looking for answers as long as they are willing to treat others with respect, even if they don't share the same beliefs.

Shared Dreaming Class Application

Originally Posted by lotsofface

The difference in this discussion about shared dreaming is that we already know from scientific research and studies why and how the brain sleeps and produces dreams.

That is why the idea of a dream body/plane is ridiculous. It's an unnecessary explanation for something we can already explain.

If you are interested in the science behind dreaming I suggest this book The Dreaming Brain by J. Allan Hobson

Amazon.com: The Dreaming Brain (9780465017027): J. Allan Hobson Md: Books

I wouldn't pay 27 bucks for it though, just do like me and stop by the local library and hope they have a copy. It contains most of the research that's been done as to the neurological explanations for how we dream. And I'll go ahead and warn you it has absolutely nothing to do with a dream body, or dream plane.

This research shows what activities are going on in the physical brain during the dreaming process, but it is only able to monitor the physical body. So, as far as I can see, that evidence neither supports nor discredits the possibility that a person's consciousness departs from their body and moves through other dimensions in the dream state. I have shared dreams with other people, recorded the dream separately, and then when we compared the journals, the two versions were virtually identical. There were some differences, true, but if two people experience something IWL and then each journal what happened, there will be differences there, too. I feel that as people delve deeper into the theories behind shared dreaming that science may produce the evidence you are looking for, but for right now I really think the only way to be sure is to experiment with it and decide based on your own personal experiences.

And I'll have to take a look around for that book. That science has documented the brain's reactions to dreaming sounds fascinating. Hopefully I can find time to read it between work, school, homework, studying, housework, documenting my dreams... it seems like I am always falling behind on something!

Originally Posted by Dogod

I'm not necessarily arguing against the existence of souls, but this argument is flawed. First, we do pretty much know what guides a cell. The DNA doesn't directly control anything, but the DNA is transcribed into RNA, which is read outside the nucleus to build proteins. These proteins do all the work of the cell, with each doing its own thing (which it does because of the specific order and twisting of the amino acids it's made out of) and together producing a working cell. If all of the DNA in a cell suddenly disappeared, it would continue to work for a time, but it would never be able to divide and eventually the proteins would denature and the cell would die, since it wouldn't be able to produce new proteins. And the cell knows to produce pigment because it's received instructions from proteins telling it which DNA to activate and which DNA not to use (I'm not exactly sure how this works, but I think that the cell receives its instructions in the form of certain chemicals which cells can use to communicate between each other. For example, a cell in the eye would produce a certain chemical which, in enough of a concentration, would tell all the cells in the area that they're in the eye. Again, I'm not sure the exact mechanisms of it, so I can't really respond if you have any questions about that). Another flaw in your argument is that you say that cells are proof of a soul, yet bacteria, fish, insects, birds, trees - they all function well, and I'd assume you don't think a bacteria has a soul.

Actually, I would argue that plants, animals, and bacteria all have souls. However, their souls would be a lot simpler than our souls. Anyway, your refutation to my arguments have already been addressed, just I hate to go into more detail then I already tend to. Neither the DNA nor the RNA still explain how the cell functions. You're looking too much at the bigger picture of such a small thing. Although the DNA/RNA would tell the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) exactly what it's duty is, it doesn't tell the ER exactly how to carry out this process. We know a little of how a cell functions, but how exactly do the organelles function? You also said that the 'eye-cells' receive special 'eye-cell' chemicals to tell it that it is an 'eye-cell.' This still doesn't explain how the body knows to send that chemical to that particular cell. We think we know so much about the world, when really we know nothing. We know just as much as the Ancient Greeks and Romans did.

Also, I have a teacher who once told me that he knew a scientist who was basically excommunicated from the scientific community because what he found contradicted what millions of hours of work has supposedly shown. This scientist took DNA out of a frog zygote while it was still a single cell, and the frog still grew to become a living frog. Although, it was retarded and sickly, it still grew to be a frog. Without that original DNA that seems to be so necessary to our lives and makes our emotions and determines every single little aspect of our lives. I've never looked for this research beyond a few minutes of Google searches, but I'm going to ask this teacher to contact his friend for his research. But since I don't have proof or citation, I can't use this argument, but it shouldn't be ignored.

Originally Posted by Dogod

Another thing is that you seem to be confusing a soul with sentience. A soul includes, but also encompasses more than just sentience. A soul is by definition able to exist without a body, whereas sentience does not need to meet that requirement. Sentience can be destroyed by physical means, a soul cannot. Ideas cannot exist without sentience, but they can exist without a soul.

Where ever have you seen someone without a soul? I'll agree that a soul does and can exist without a body, but you cannot prove that sentience is not a product of the soul. As I said earlier, we think we know a lot, but we really don't. We don't know how exactly the brain thinks. We know what happens when the brain thinks, but we don't know how we are actually able to think. If you believe that souls are separate from sentience, then you believe that when you die you won't be able to think? Granted, if you believe in a life after death.

Originally Posted by Zelgius

Actually, I would argue that plants, animals, and bacteria all have souls. However, their souls would be a lot simpler than our souls. Anyway, your refutation to my arguments have already been addressed, just I hate to go into more detail then I already tend to. Neither the DNA nor the RNA still explain how the cell functions. You're looking too much at the bigger picture of such a small thing. Although the DNA/RNA would tell the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) exactly what it's duty is, it doesn't tell the ER exactly how to carry out this process. We know a little of how a cell functions, but how exactly do the organelles function? You also said that the 'eye-cells' receive special 'eye-cell' chemicals to tell it that it is an 'eye-cell.' This still doesn't explain how the body knows to send that chemical to that particular cell. We think we know so much about the world, when really we know nothing. We know just as much as the Ancient Greeks and Romans did.

As I said, I don't Know that much about the subject. But, I have myself changed around the DNA in bacteria and microscopic worms, and seen them grow into different things than what they originally grew into.
And my point in my last post was, the DNA doesn't tell the ER and other organelles what to do, because that isn't its function. The proteins in the organelles are of the specific shape that they do their function without needing instruction. It really is amazing that it works properly, but it can work by itself. It's also proven that if you mutate the DNA even a little, the cell either turns cancerous or can't do its function.
And the body tells cells what type of cell it is through hormones.

Originally Posted by Zelgius

Also, I have a teacher who once told me that he knew a scientist who was basically excommunicated from the scientific community because what he found contradicted what millions of hours of work has supposedly shown. This scientist took DNA out of a frog zygote while it was still a single cell, and the frog still grew to become a living frog. Although, it was retarded and sickly, it still grew to be a frog. Without that original DNA that seems to be so necessary to our lives and makes our emotions and determines every single little aspect of our lives. I've never looked for this research beyond a few minutes of Google searches, but I'm going to ask this teacher to contact his friend for his research. But since I don't have proof or citation, I can't use this argument, but it shouldn't be ignored.

If you can find a credible source, I would be interested to read this.

Originally Posted by Zelgius

Where ever have you seen someone without a soul? I'll agree that a soul does and can exist without a body, but you cannot prove that sentience is not a product of the soul. As I said earlier, we think we know a lot, but we really don't. We don't know how exactly the brain thinks. We know what happens when the brain thinks, but we don't know how we are actually able to think. If you believe that souls are separate from sentience, then you believe that when you die you won't be able to think? Granted, if you believe in a life after death.

I cannot, and I'm not trying to prove that. I don't know either way (I'm agnostic). What I'm saying is, it is possible that souls do not exist, and sentience exists, but is tied to a body (and that there is no afterlife). I think it would still be possible to share dreams, but they wouldn't be a product of a separate dream plane, they would be a product of our brains being connected in some way other than the 5 senses. I'm not trying to prove this, remember, and I'm also not trying to disprove your beliefs, I'm just saying that it's possible,

I guess my last note for pondering actually comes from "The Dreaming Brain" by J. Allan Hobson

"Artificial REM Sleep and Dreaming: Chemical Activation of the Brain-Stem Generator

Can we fool the REM-sleep generator chemically? And does changing the molecular climate of the brain increase the chance of dreaming? The answer to both questions is yes. The reasoning is as follows: if the reciprocal interaction hypothesis is correct in its proposition that REM sleep and dreaming are the consequences of the release of cholinceptive neurons from aminergic inhibition, and if there is a focus of excitation beginning in the breain stem, then it should be possible to cause the system to produce REM sleep and dreaming by artificially increasing the cholinergic drive within the brain stem"

or in laymans terms:

We know chemically what induces REM, and therefore dreaming, since this is the case, we can artificially alter someones chemical climate in the brain and cause them to dream.

I think that's absolutely fascinating.

Really consider the implications there in terms of this discussion.