Thread: Shared Dreaming Debate

Originally Posted by Lucidpotential

A few practical issues have been nagging at me, primarily the issue of shared dream security.
As with any metaphysical communication, we want to validate the source of the incoming message. Perhaps some kind of psychic TLS (Transport Layer Security) is needed. I expect if the defences of the inner sanctum are not adequately maintained, the dreamscape could potentially become a schizophrenic orgy with long term negative repercussions to mental stability. To maintain sanity the mind has evolved a protective firewall that repels intrusion with the default security setting at maximum. For those who haven’t attained cognitive administrator status and can’t change the subconscious permissions it will be difficult to grant a network connection and thus limit the probability of participating in a shared dream. For those of you that have overcome this hurdle I would be interested to hear your methodology.

I think your thought here is spot on. You're not misapplying the computer metaphor, the problem you describe is real. I think that an upside is there's nothing unprecedented by the kind of psychic group-think we're talking about facilitating. On the downside, history is filled with disasters because of this sort of thing, in slightly varying forms. A couple of examples would be the Taiping Rebellion and Nazi Germany. And maybe Jim Jones is worth mentioning again, because the scale is closer to our case. I realize those developments probably sound a lot different to most people, more political. But I think a lot of people don't realize the extent to which they were about collective identity and mind control. And shared dreaming, as I experience it, works through shared identity. No, you can't just do a collective psychic clusterfuck first, trying to radically change the nature of human interaction, then decide if you're going to use it for great good or great evil afterwards. If you start off with that kind of ambition thinking that your aim is morally neutral or positive, you're already suffering from hubris, and already set for a fall. If you fall far short of your psychic ambition, your fall may be much smaller and more personal, but it will be a fall all the same. I guess I've got my own form of this, so thanks for helping make that clearer.

As far as methodologies go....I've always had a fair degree of independence in the face prevailing trends. Not drinking alcohol or smoking weed despite being non-religious would be an example of this. Maybe this protects me a little, or maybe it just gives me a false sense of invulnerability and in the end I'm as vulnerable as everyone else.

Another characteristic of my case is that I'm not really sharing dreams directly. Fate or my higher self or something like that acts as a buffer, coordinating the experiences and filtering them. It also warns me of the dangers. What I've done so far has seemed like something I have to do. Maybe like gaining immunity to a more serious affliction by exposing myself to a lesser one. But I feel the difficulty you describe, and fear where it goes. It seems that a lot of other people fear it too, and not just skeptics. People in this forum that are philosophically open to shared dreaming still have walls up also. I'm thinking they're not wrong.

I know that fear is a dirty word in many New Age circles, but fear is nature warning you not to do something stupid. Sometimes the fearful reflex is a mistake, and it's best to push through it. But usually the voice is worth at least listening to.

I still think it's worth thinking about and dabbling in this stuff a little bit though, for those of us who are drawn to it. Shared dreaming, at least in subtle and limited forms, is a part of life, there's no escaping that. And maybe we need to remind ourselves periodically why its limited for us. But it seems clear to me that the really big, world changing ambitions are a mistake. And I include my own in that. I know what I want, and in some way I won't give it up. But now is not the time or place to see it fulfilled except in small ways. If the foundation isn't right the tower will fall, irrespective of what you call your motives or what you decide later.

Anyway, thanks for the timely input.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

No, you can't just do a collective psychic clusterfuck first, trying to radically change the nature of human interaction, then decide if you're going to use it for great good or great evil afterwards. If you start off with that kind of ambition thinking that your aim is morally neutral or positive, you're already suffering from hubris, and already set for a fall. If you fall far short of your psychic ambition, your fall may be much smaller and more personal, but it will be a fall all the same.

I'm not too sure about that. People don't always know the direction they're going, they just want to go. Also, once more information presents itself, it makes it easier to formulate a destination.

Usually you can't simply toss random ingredients into a blender and expect something tasty. Though there are the few rare occasions where the right ingredients have been made available and what's tossed in is ripe and compatible.

Thanks for your thought Belle, I'll try to clarify more what I meant. I'm not saying all of this to you personally, my use of the word 'you' here will be rhetorical. I think you made a reasonable point from where you're coming from.

Originally Posted by Belle

People don't always know the direction they're going, they just want to go.

That can either be a good idea or not when exploring, depending on what a person is exploring. We're talking about a fairly specific kind of exploring. 'Shared dreaming' involves immediate access to other people's minds, and as such there are strong but subtle temptations to bend it towards one's own emotional gratification. From the beginning its just built into what it is. Furthermore other people's desires are blending with your desires and doing the same thing to you. If you open the door wider, can you handle that? And if you find out that you can not, can you close the door again? My experience and observation is that the door can not be completely closed again, your brain doesn't go back to the way it was previously.

If a person wants to "induce shared dreaming" in relation to another person, that other person deserves to warned beforehand what they're getting into. If we don't care about understanding the difficulties that come with that kind of development, if our philosophy is to just do it and not think about or debate such things, then I think we're denying this responsibility of honesty. Its like conceiving a child with someone without being willing to face the lengthy responsibilities of parenting. This isn't a hypothetical concern, I'm saying that I know from my experience that psychic development is like this. And if we're talking about inducing mass shared dreaming, rather than performing limited experiments between a few individuals, these issues multiply.

If someone offers you an unfamiliar drug, you don't have to try it to find out whether its going to improve or destroy your life. You can get some idea by looking to the example of other people who have gone down the same road for a ways, particularly if you know a few who you can trust to be honest with you. But if you're attracted to drug experimentation but disinclined to that kind of caution, I only see two ways this can go. You can hurt yourself in some startling but relatively superficial way, then change your attitude. Or you can ruin yourself. Or some combination. This is what I'm saying about shared dreaming: if you don't exercise that kind of conscientiousness, you will almost undoubtedly hurt yourself and other people. Its as inevitable as it is when sharing drugs. The main thing that protects people with that kind of attitude is limited access, or laziness in creating their own.

Originally Posted by Belle

Also, once more information presents itself, it makes it easier to formulate a destination.

Saying what I said in another way: more information is presenting itself. These kinds of discussions contain a kind of information. "The bridge is icy, it might be a good idea to slow down." Charging over it without reading the sign isn't the best way to find that out, even if that's how the first person did it. Or to push the metaphor a bit further....When I first went over the bridge, I was lucky that there was still fresh wreckage from other recent attempts, so I was able to avoid hitting the ice full speed, and spared partially. Those who come later don't have the benefit of observing misfortunes of those who came ahead of me.

To illustrate using a slightly different metaphor, about 15 years ago I had the following dream:

My friends and I are burgling a building. I have a circular saw and begin cutting into something. Its noisy, and its not clear what my aim is, but I think I've got I've got the audaciousness, the reckless courage, to pull it off. My friends, who got me into burgling to start with, are like "whoa, that's going a bit too far for me", and leave the building. I keep cutting. After a little while the saw hitches on something, a surprise. Its caught on something that I'm attached to, and begins relentlessly drawing me towards the blade. Somehow I can't turn the saw off. The dream ends with me almost upon the blade, and sobbing for my friends to save me, but they're long gone.

If you can intuit how this self-crucifixion feels, by feeling what I feel behind my words, how it feels to be me, this is what I'm suggesting happens to a person who approaches 'spiritual growth' with arrogance. And to some extent its what happens to less arrogant people who trust them.

I think another relevant metaphor is the one in Beowulf, if you've read it or seen one of the movies. I saw the quasi-animated movie with Angelina Jolie in it. At the beginning, the king has copulated with a demon and produced a hybrid half-man, half-demon which is rampaging in the King's court. If you think about how that man-demon feels, that's like how something in you that you're deeply connected to feels after you have consorted with demons. It won't feel quite like that, for the same reason that Beowulf's demonic offspring is different from the first king's, even though the mother is the same. But if you're pursuing knowledge outside the physical realm of men, which is the case with dream telepathy, you're effectively consorting with spirits. Since men aren't purely physical, some degree of this sort of thing is just a part of life. But if you're trying to take things deeper in some area than others have taken it, that's more like Beowulf. My appeal is for people to have compassion for the king's subjects and the demon offspring, and forsake dreams of epic heroics. Otherwise their suffering will be ours, without the glamor.

To be clear here, I've never tried to 'channel' spirits or gods or conjure up demons or open chakras or have exotic experiences. I went for self-knowledge, with a starting assumption that higher worlds exist and we are all something more than human beings, and this is what happened.

Again, pushing the metaphor further....For me, exploring and interacting with people in relation to supernatural phenomena is part of how I try to care for what lives in my quasi-subconscious. Maybe my initial spiritual escapade was a mistake, or maybe it was a blessing in disguise, but as with a child you don't just turn it off again. My point is that our metaphorical progeny deserve some love and consideration, both after and before they're conceived. And if you think that what I'm saying here sounds flaky or melodramatic or even cryptic, you're probably right, but this also may be more evidence that you don't know what you're getting into.

Thanks again Belle. Like I said, I'm clarifying my comment in response to yours, but I have no reason to think that you personally have the hypothetical viewpoint that I was speaking to.

This bit got me thinking, Shadowofwind:

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

That can either be a good idea or not when exploring, depending on what a person is exploring. We're talking about a fairly specific kind of exploring. 'Shared dreaming' involves immediate access to other people's minds, and as such there are strong but subtle temptations to bend it towards one's own emotional gratification. From the beginning its just built into what it is. Furthermore other people's desires are blending with your desires and doing the same thing to you. If you open the door wider, can you handle that? And if you find out that you can not, can you close the door again? My experience and observation is that the door can not be completely closed again, your brain doesn't go back to the way it was previously.

I'm not sure if this is what you meant here, so here is another thought on this subject:

When we dream -- especially when we lucid dream -- we are within our own universes, and we generally understand that during the dream (well, I do, anyway). When we're strongly lucid, we know this place is all our own.

So what happens when we enter the dream realm of another dreamer? Do we maturely accept that we are a visitor in a different place, or do we continue assuming that this new place is still our own unique universe? If we choose the latter, then I think a door does indeed open for bad things to happen, especially if we try to assert ourselves as singular owners of a shared-dream.

Thanks for the detailed response, Shadowofwind. Interesting ideas.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

If you open the door wider, can you handle that? And if you find out that you can not, can you close the door again? My experience and observation is that the door can not be completely closed again, your brain doesn't go back to the way it was previously.

I've found it's very challenging to forget ideas once they're understood. So I agree, the door cannot be completely closed; save a lobotomy.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

If a person wants to "induce shared dreaming" in relation to another person, that other person deserves to warned beforehand what they're getting into. If we don't care about understanding the difficulties that come with that kind of development, if our philosophy is to just do it and not think about or debate such things, then I think we're denying this responsibility of honesty. ... And if we're talking about inducing mass shared dreaming, rather than performing limited experiments between a few individuals, these issues multiply.

Not sure I agree with you so easily here. Consent is for things like surgical procedures. When one enters the realm of shared dreaming, there are many techniques a person might employ to say, "No, this isn't ok." It's like dating and sex. You partake in the festivities and if it becomes too much you hold up your safe word and opt out. Mass shared dreaming (I'm thinking in terms of 30+ participants) is a shade more complicated with the abundant supply of imagination. I won't touch that one, haven't gotten to that level yet.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

But if you're attracted to drug experimentation but disinclined to that kind of caution, I only see two ways this can go. You can hurt yourself in some startling but relatively superficial way, then change your attitude. Or you can ruin yourself. Or some combination. This is what I'm saying about shared dreaming: if you don't exercise that kind of conscientiousness, you will almost undoubtedly hurt yourself and other people. Its as inevitable as it is when sharing drugs. The main thing that protects people with that kind of attitude is limited access, or laziness in creating their own.

There's more than two possible results. Comparing shared dreaming to drugs might not be ideal. It doesn't have to be as dangerous as you're suggesting. Yes, as will all things we do (think driving, flying, even eating ((for those with food allergies)) ) there are risks. Yet it doesn't mean one should avoid jumping in and trying out the water.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

If you can intuit how this self-crucifixion feels, by feeling what I feel behind my words, how it feels to be me, this is what I'm suggesting happens to a person who approaches 'spiritual growth' with arrogance. And to some extent its what happens to less arrogant people who trust them.

Your explanation makes sense. Although we're all noobs initially, of course there will be many errors. That's how you learn to tweak the methodology. If what you're trying to say is be careful, sure, use caution. The downfall of caution though is the limiting affect it has on success. A balance might be nice. Extend longevity at the cost of speed.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

My point is that our metaphorical progeny deserve some love and consideration, both after and before they're conceived. And if you think that what I'm saying here sounds flaky or melodramatic or even cryptic, you're probably right, but this also may be more evidence that you don't know what you're getting into.

I think what you're saying here sounds cautious. Every action deserves love and consideration, yet how people express those emotions vary with the individual.

Originally Posted by Sageous

When we dream -- especially when we lucid dream -- we are within our own universes, and we generally understand that during the dream (well, I do, anyway). When we're strongly lucid, we know this place is all our own.

For me dreams are never all my own, there has always been a foreign element. Maybe I don't even know what isolation is in that sense.

Reminds me of a time when I was about 20, not really asleep, but with my attention inward, and it seemed there was another spirit there with me, slightly a part of me but also not a part of me, hiding just behind my awareness so to speak. It asked if it could stay, then blocked my response, directly in my mind so that I didn't know what my response was. That always bothered me a little bit. I guess I'm OK with it now, if it needed that space and didn't want a negative answer or an unfairly informed assent.

Originally Posted by Sageous

So what happens when we enter the dream realm of another dreamer? Do we maturely accept that we are a visitor in a different place, or do we continue assuming that this new place is still our own unique universe? If we choose the latter, then I think a door does indeed open for bad things to happen, especially if we try to assert ourselves as singular owners of a shared-dream.

Our vocabulary fails us here, so to some extent I must be saying the same thing that you are in different words. But for me a dream is not a place I go into. Its more like I am the other person a little bit, and I dream from that standpoint. Or like there's something that usually flows into them that's flowing into me a little bit, like their karma has splashed over the side into a different bucket.

I don't really see how a person can not have a difficulty with this sort of thing. Part of my nature is being an aggressive asshole, and I would like to change. But it seems that to a significant extent who I am is not even me, everybody else is in me in microcosm. So how do I change when I can't change them? At some point the "who am I" question doesn't even seem to make any sense. It seems that who I am as a human being filters who 'we' are, and I have some power to change that by changing the way I think. But it seems that to a significant extent its just built into necessity and what we are biologically, and none of us can change it, at least not in the short run.

You can't just "go into someone's dream" and then come back, as if returning from an expedition. At least that's not how it works for me. By experiencing something of who they are, and making that a part of my memory, I become that a little bit. Separating again would be like trying to un-mix paint. And I think there's probably a consequence on their end too, whether they want it or not, that they can't ever completely get 'me' out of them again. That's not a good thing if its not something that they understand and agree to.

I would go with maybe I have had a shared dream. But not by choice. It's been the same person from age 3-16, then not again till age 21. He has changed through the years. Grown. Claims he is real and feels different than any other dream character. I will have to see where this goes.

My only concern is he showed up as around 16 when I was 3 and stayed such till almost age 10. Now he didn't show up every night but often enough for me to recall it. His explanation for it is that time is irrelevant.

My husband and I have been discussing this. He looks at the brain like a super magnificent computer and the possibity is very much there for shared dreaming, telepathy, ect. It's a matter of opening or downloading the file that is necessary to open such. He said as for my dream guy that maybe we are tuned to the same "wave length".

I don't know exactly how I feel about this quite yet. Interesting to read about this and compare notes of my own experiences.

Originally Posted by Cheysdreamer

I would go with maybe I have had a shared dream. But not by choice.

For me these things are never completely clear cut. You might consider the possibility that part of what he represents is the subconscious, masculine side of yourself. That would fit with the persistence, and the age evolution. If time is irrelevant for him, that doesn't fit with him growing, unless that part of it reflects your own growth. And it doesn't make sense to me that a human being or other entity would stalk you for that long. If he had a huge impact on you at some point in your life, the premonitions could come that early. But that seems implausible to me that anything that important to you wouldn't be a part of yourself.

To whatever extent that the character is not 'you', maybe you should decide if you want him around, and if you don't, he should leave. To reiterate, the idea that he is you is not mutually exclusive with the idea that he is someone else, both elements are almost certainly present in my experience. If he were entirely you, maybe you would experience him that way more. But if he were entirely not you, I don't see how he could even get into your dream, much less do it so often. It seems to me that he's likely more you than not you. But you should be able to find that out by thinking about how he feels. Also, even if you're not lucid enough during the dream, you can ask question before you go to sleep and the experience is likely to change in a way that tends to answer them. Such has been my experience anyway.

Sageous, here's another thought. Suppose you were to have a shared dream with me, and from then on your solitude would be gone, I would always be there a little bit. And after me, other people. How would you feel about that? I think we agree you wouldn't be totally OK with that, or at least you wouldn't have been in the past. And I think this is a reason not to share a dream.

That ship has long since sailed for me though.

Originally Posted by Belle

Thanks for the detailed response, Shadowofwind. Interesting ideas.

Thanks, no problem. I appreciate the stimulating input, and I think I've been learning from it.

(By the way, for anyone who might be wondering....One reason I never 'like' anyone's posts is I've been posting to internet forums since USENET back in 1991, and the whole like/dislike thing comes after my communication habits got established, along with OMG LOL! and emoticons that jump around. Also, even though I'm a fairly judgmental person in a way, in another way I know I'm unqualified to judge anything and it doesn't occur to me to decide what I like or not. Generally the only time I 'like' something is if I've already posted in response, and I think what I said might come across as more critical than what I intend. Otherwise, if I have an opinion on something I'll just respond with a post.)

Originally Posted by Belle

Consent is for things like surgical procedures. When one enters the realm of shared dreaming, there are many techniques a person might employ to say, "No, this isn't ok." It's like dating and sex. You partake in the festivities and if it becomes too much you hold up your safe word and opt out.

By consent I mean not knowingly sucking people into doing things that they wouldn't do otherwise. For instance, its wrong to tell someone that you like them more than you do for the sake of stimulating the affectionate response that you crave at that moment. And its wrong to openly manipulate person by overcoming them with your 'wares', if this goes against what they seem to want. Its true that life is messy, and things are never this clear cut, there's always some element of wrong, intended or otherwise. But its also true that there's always a price that is paid for that. I've used sex that way, and I've suffered for this. Even in cases where you think the tradeoff was worth it for both people, and you'd do it again, you still pay the price.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that if things are to the point where 'safe words' are needed for sex, something has already gone badly awry. What's wrong with 'no' or 'stop'? It seems to me that if there's any confusion on the issue at all, then the relationship between the two people isn't sufficiently intimate for that kind of contact. Yes I realize that life isn't that simple for everyone, but if 'no' and 'stop' mean something else, then it seems to me that there's already enough self-deception and sadistic and masochistic power dynamics in the relationship that its very unlikely to end well. I hope you don't take offense at my comments here, moral dilemmas are just generally the kinds of things I'm interested in talking about. Also, for me its somewhat of a proxy for discussing shared dreaming, since being on the same page morally is important there. Shared dreaming is largely theoretical for a lot of people, but sex less so.

I guess we can't be squeamish about this sort of thing if we're willing to expose intimate parts of our minds in dreams. So to try to illustrate with an example....About 20 years ago I had the following experience with a lady friend who stayed over at my apartment for a weekend. She indicated that she wasn't ready for sex, so I just took that at face value. I woke up at night, and she was sitting up and looking at me, with her eyes open but still asleep, and she said "I didn't understand". She never told me what she meant, and maybe she never even told herself, but she sent me a letter the next week saying that she never wanted to see me again. With retrospect I think that among her other possible complaints she had wanted me to fuck her, and had I recognized that I would have. Maybe she was looking for more persistence, or more likely, more romance, though I would have been more romantic had she expressed interest in a romantic relationship. To me 'no' really did mean 'no', not 'try harder to overpower the no'. But I think she was conflicted enough that it never would have worked out anyway, and we both would have been hurt more had I had enough social intelligence to do that. All relationships are hard, and I think if a relationship has enough potential to go somewhere very healthy and meaningful, it can overcome this sort of thing. There are a lot of different aspects to social intelligence. I think that just being sincere is worth more than the rest put together.

Originally Posted by Belle

Comparing shared dreaming to drugs might not be ideal.

I agree its different in the sense that I'm way more negative about drug use than I am about shared dreaming. Drugs are just poison in my view. Besides that I still think its an apt comparison.

Originally Posted by Belle

Although we're all noobs initially, of course there will be many errors. That's how you learn to tweak the methodology.

Though this may just be a limitation of words, it seems to me that you're thinking too much in terms of methodology. To use the sex metaphor again. If you're deeply in love with someone, and they're just using you for a fun weekend, you're going to get hurt, and this doesn't depend on what clitoral stimulation technique you use. Conversely, if your motives are on the same page your approach is unlikely to be a serious problem, you'll find one that works. Likewise with shared dreaming, I don't think the methodology makes much difference at all. The harm flows out of the inappropriate attitudes about power in our intentions, the unavoidable weakness of our moral wills, and our ignorance of our own natures.

Originally Posted by Belle

If what you're trying to say is be careful, sure, use caution. The downfall of caution though is the limiting affect it has on success. A balance might be nice.

Maybe I can say this better. In a lot of ways I'm not a very cautious person, and am not opposed to risking the unknown. What I'm try to say is to pay more attention to the heart, to the feelings, for that which deserves to be nurtured. People on this site tend to talk a lot about what's going to work in a mechanical sense, what to do that will induce a desired experience like astral projection or whatever. I think what matters a lot more is to listen to the parts of ourselves that want these things, and try to answer them more directly. And for me, this kind of openness is the whole key to something like shared dreaming anyway. When that openness is there, it just happens automatically.

Its looking to me that the primary barrier to shared dreaming for most people on this site is that they don't want to do it. But they shouldn't just try to overpower that by proclaiming their invulnerability and suppressing the fear. If they're inclined to do anything about it at all, it would be better to look into it and see what they can learn about themselves. And eventually its essential to do that with patience and compassion, as another poster reminded us a couple of years ago.

This is the origin of the shadowofwind handle: It alludes to a verse in a Dio (with Black Sabbath) song that says "If words had names like red and green, and two for sympathy, like black and white and in between, then you'd be misery. Every day is an inquisition, who are you what are you why? I'm alive I belong I'll be back, its a half truth, still a whole lie. In the garden of good and evil, you'll go, but you know: the spider only spins, the shadow of the wind." Literally this doesn't even make sense, but to me, at the moment I picked the handle, it describes pushing for occult answers rather than being able to just let things be what they are while taking care of what I can care for.

This also ties into to why I'm generally against drugs. They can seem helpful at a level that is sort of like methodology, but the spirit underneath looks and feels badly skewed to me. Undoubtedly drugs are an inevitable part of life for a lot of people, but I don't think this is what progress really looks like in a better world. Likewise with shared dreaming, I think I'm not really arguing for caution so much as for humility.

I hope that made some sense, and that I didn't go too overboard with the raunchy analogies. Thanks again for your thoughts.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

For me dreams are never all my own, there has always been a foreign element. Maybe I don't even know what isolation is in that sense.

I don't know if I've said this lately, Shadowofwind, but you are truly a unique individual! ... and I mean that in the best of terms. In a sense, for you dream-sharing is not a goal to achieve, but simply a condition to perhaps define, or remember. I think these discussions would go much more smoothly if more dreamers had your experience, or at least chose to hold your views (and, for what its worth, the scary things that accompany overzealous egos likely would have trouble happening).

Reminds me of a time when I was about 20, not really asleep, but with my attention inward, and it seemed there was another spirit there with me, slightly a part of me but also not a part of me, hiding just behind my awareness so to speak. It asked if it could stay, then blocked my response, directly in my mind so that I didn't know what my response was. That always bothered me a little bit. I guess I'm OK with it now, if it needed that space and didn't want a negative answer or an unfairly informed assent.

You're likely not surprised, but that makes sense to me, as I have had a few experiences remarkably similar to that. Indeed, something like that spirit is a regular in my delta sleep (NREM) LD's. I have tried to intellectualize it into some sort of DC, or perhaps just an echo of my own consciousness (and it certainly could have been either), but at the time, when I am sensing its unique presence and feeling its, um, projection of belonging, I can't help but wonder if it is something more than just another part of me. That presence never asked me if it could stay, though, and if I tried to get closer, or to pull it directly into my perception, it was gone; or never there? So maybe it was something different. Or not. Someday maybe I'll pay enough attention to have a conversation -- or at least understand.

Our vocabulary fails us here, so to some extent I must be saying the same thing that you are in different words. But for me a dream is not a place I go into. Its more like I am the other person a little bit, and I dream from that standpoint. Or like there's something that usually flows into them that's flowing into me a little bit, like their karma has splashed over the side into a different bucket.

I don't really see how a person can not have a difficulty with this sort of thing. Part of my nature is being an aggressive asshole, and I would like to change. But it seems that to a significant extent who I am is not even me, everybody else is in me in microcosm. So how do I change when I can't change them? At some point the "who am I" question doesn't even seem to make any sense. It seems that who I am as a human being filters who 'we' are, and I have some power to change that by changing the way I think. But it seems that to a significant extent its just built into necessity and what we are biologically, and none of us can change it, at least not in the short run.

See now, if Rocketrick were still with us, I think this is a bit he would find most interesting, as it seems to speak loudly of non-dualism, at least from an identity perspective... especially because you're implying that there really is no shared-dreaming as much as there is simply a shared consciousness or existence... or have I drawn too much of Carl Jung into my consideration?

You can't just "go into someone's dream" and then come back, as if returning from an expedition. At least that's not how it works for me. By experiencing something of who they are, and making that a part of my memory, I become that a little bit. Separating again would be like trying to un-mix paint. And I think there's probably a consequence on their end too, whether they want it or not, that they can't ever completely get 'me' out of them again. That's not a good thing if its not something that they understand and agree to.

Agreed. However, what if you do "...'go into someone's dream' and then come back, as if returning from an expedition," or, rather, assume upon waking that that is what you did? Does it mean that a communication never happened, or has your personality been subtly changed and you are simply not able to recognize that change? And, if you do contact someone who does not understand, or can't see you there, will they change anyway? That sort of makes me wonder about possible new sources for otherwise unexplained onsets of mental illness.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Sageous, here's another thought. Suppose you were to have a shared dream with me, and from then on your solitude would be gone, I would always be there a little bit. And after me, other people. How would you feel about that? I think we agree you wouldn't be totally OK with that, or at least you wouldn't have been in the past. And I think this is a reason not to share a dream.

I realized you posed that question to Sageous but that is a very intriguing thought. I've been ok with that. I've learned to love the demons which haunt me. They become a part of me and myself a part of them. There's usually a useful trait you can mimic in others and apply to your own life to make things easier. Also, having a variety of voices in ones head makes for lively parties, no? Obviously I'm a fan of shared dreaming.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

By consent I mean not knowingly sucking people into doing things that they wouldn't do otherwise. For instance, its wrong to tell someone that you like them more than you do for the sake of stimulating the affectionate response that you crave at that moment. And its wrong to openly manipulate person by overcoming them with your 'wares', if this goes against what they seem to want. Its true that life is messy, and things are never this clear cut, there's always some element of wrong, intended or otherwise. But its also true that there's always a price that is paid for that. I've used sex that way, and I've suffered for this. Even in cases where you think the tradeoff was worth it for both people, and you'd do it again, you still pay the price.

It's interesting you have such fixated views of right and wrong. I'm not sure I see it as clearly as you do. There are few things I consider wrong and I admit, my psyche is not the norm. Yet it's challenging to view the world as black and white, there are shades of gray scribbled between the lines. All 'wrongs' can be explained and justified. I do see your point, I just don't think it's as easy and organized as you're making it out to be.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that if things are to the point where 'safe words' are needed for sex, something has already gone badly awry. ... Yes I realize that life isn't that simple for everyone, but if 'no' and 'stop' mean something else, then it seems to me that there's already enough self-deception and sadistic and masochistic power dynamics in the relationship that its very unlikely to end well.

Heh, I keep forgetting there are still normal people out there in the world. You're right, of course, usually something has already gone badly awry. Yet sometimes people need to learn how to have healthy relationships. People don't magically become 'normal'. They emulate others, practice, are shown how to communicate and express themselves. It's a process.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

To me 'no' really did mean 'no', not 'try harder to overpower the no'. But I think she was conflicted enough that it never would have worked out anyway, and we both would have been hurt more had I had enough social intelligence to do that. All relationships are hard, and I think if a relationship has enough potential to go somewhere very healthy and meaningful, it can overcome this sort of thing. There are a lot of different aspects to social intelligence. I think that just being sincere is worth more than the rest put together.

Sometimes being sincere means people have to successfully navigate out from their own bullshit. Yes, relationships can be challenging for those who have a lot of bullshit to work through. They can also be pleasantly easy. Not all things are challenging. Sometimes it's as simple an act as standing in an open field and breathing oxygen into our lungs.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Though this may just be a limitation of words, it seems to me that you're thinking too much in terms of methodology. To use the sex metaphor again. If you're deeply in love with someone, and they're just using you for a fun weekend, you're going to get hurt, and this doesn't depend on what clitoral stimulation technique you use. Conversely, if your motives are on the same page your approach is unlikely to be a serious problem, you'll find one that works. Likewise with shared dreaming, I don't think the methodology makes much difference at all. The harm flows out of the inappropriate attitudes about power in our intentions, the unavoidable weakness of our moral wills, and our ignorance of our own natures.

The harm flows out of the inappropriate attitudes about power in our intentions. For example, by not understanding that your partner has a difference in interests. To use the sex metaphor you began with, it shouldn't matter if one wants a weekend fling or a relationship. Each person has their own reasons for what they want. Being hurt shouldn't be an issue. Each person should respect one another regardless of their intent.

The 'weakness of our moral wills and ignorance of our own natures' doesn't apply here. It's an irrelevant factor. Why should it matter what another intends? How their morals align with yours? If you truly believe there's a better way to live or dream, demonstrate it and allow the other person to either shift closer to your world view or hold their own. Sometimes the weakness resides in not being flexible enough to transition into anothers world.

Yes you've made sense and your analogies were fine, demonstrated your point clear enough. You're obviously educated and formulate your thoughts well, it's just a shame you have a good vs evil complex.

Originally Posted by Sageous

you are truly a unique individual!

Well thank you, so are you. Everyone is unique obviously, amazingly so to me, even while in another way we seem to all be fundamentally the same. But then there are things like what I said last week about feeling the loss of a second spine, and I wonder if I really understand anybody.

Originally Posted by Sageous

You're likely not surprised, but that makes sense to me, as I have had a few experiences remarkably similar to that. Indeed, something like that spirit is a regular in my delta sleep (NREM) LD's.

I would not have guessed that, since this is a little bit more of a 'demon' or 'familiar spirit' kind of experience, and less of an 'other people in my dreams' kind of experience such as I have seen you describe.

Maybe in the yin and yang of 'they' and 'I', the spirit is a little bit like the 'they' dot in the yang of 'I'?

Originally Posted by Sageous

I have tried to intellectualize it into some sort of DC, or perhaps just an echo of my own consciousness (and it certainly could have been either), but at the time, when I am sensing its unique presence and feeling its, um, projection of belonging, I can't help but wonder if it is something more than just another part of me. That presence never asked me if it could stay, though, and if I tried to get closer, or to pull it directly into my perception, it was gone;

Could a projection of belonging be interpreted as a question of being allowed to remain present? If you take the belonging and interpret it through a feeling of insecurity?

Originally Posted by Sageous

See now, if Rocketrick were still with us, I think this is a bit he would find most interesting, as it seems to speak loudly of non-dualism, at least from an identity perspective... especially because you're implying that there really is no shared-dreaming as much as there is simply a shared consciousness or existence... or have I drawn too much of Carl Jung into my consideration?

It seems to me that if contact at a distance is possible, being in two places at once, then this kind of partial unity follows from that as a consequence. In other words if there is some kind of direct telepathy, not like sending a signal but like being there, then identity is shared to some extent also. Or I guess its more conventional to start with the unity of consciousness and say that all other sharing is derived from that. But that doesn't seem to me to account for the fragmentation as well. Both seem to me to be sort of topological in nature, built into the structure of things. What I've still been wanting to know is whether the fragmentation is unavoidable. It seems to me that it must be, at least to some extent. Otherwise there would be no complexity to anything at all. But I doubt that it can be everywhere unavoidable to the extent that we experience it. The awareness of the absence of the awareness of unity is just too strong. In nature, a species typically either uses a characteristic or else quickly looses it. And even for individual animals, something like the sense of sight can't develop if its not exercised. Yet for us, the spiritual connection is always right there, even though it seems that almost all of our practical interactions are sensate and external. I realize that the psychic connection is still critically important even though it seems weak. Yet it still seems weaker than it should be somehow, like our whole universe is in a spiritual winter or something. In other words, if you're in the desert and you find a little bit of water, which is essential to your life, how did it get there? It seems logical to guess that there must be a whole lot of water somewhere.

Originally Posted by Sageous

However, what if you do "...'go into someone's dream' and then come back, as if returning from an expedition," or, rather, assume upon waking that that is what you did?

If you bring something back with you, it changes you. If you don't bring anything back with you, then you can't remember it. And if you don't remember it, then I think this is the same as what we're doing all the time, every minute. Its like in Feynman's physics, where a particle is everywhere at once, constrained not even by the speed of light, but the phases cancel out everywhere except for where you observe it.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Does it mean that a communication never happened, or has your personality been subtly changed and you are simply not able to recognize that change? And, if you do contact someone who does not understand, or ant you there, will they change anyway?

I'm certain that there are subtle influences that strongly affect everyone. Its part of the basis of race and culture and religion. I also think that there's way more shared experience in sex dreams than most people realize, they just don't have any objective way to connect it to particular people. And there's more shared experience with something like pornography than most people realize, even though its less obvious because your imagination isn't floating as freely and trying to illustrate what is going on while you are awake. Yes I think we do affect people in ways that they do not understand. As we become more conscious of this kind of thing, various subtle forms of psychological rape become a more obvious problem. We don't know how to deal with it, so most of us try our best to shut it down.

Yet we also suffer from our isolation, we need the contact also. And as we try to satisfy that need, which we don't understand, we do things externally which are more destructive than a modest amount of contact psychic contact would be. In other words, we try to satisfy the craving for contact through a medium that's inadequate to support it. So it gets distorted, and exaggerated, and ugly. We can't just fix this through increased psychic interaction though, because the distortion is built deeply into our genome, and even into our physics. So then when we do the psychic contact, that distortion is present there also, and we get sick personality-cult dynamics and whatnot. Have to take it slow I guess, maybe like trying to kick a bad Valium addiction, except that the scale of the problem is almost incomprehensibly longer.

So then another challenge is how to keep our hope up, when what we desire is so far away. We can trick ourselves into thinking the goal is closer, and we do that. But then that distorts the way we aspire to the goal and makes it harder to reach it. I think all religions are like this, and this is one interpretation of the buzz-saw metaphor I gave yesterday. I discovered that in almost any human sense of time we're damned, that our best philosophies only pretend to save us, and can't be tweaked so that they'll work. Maybe I've got enough transcendent perspective to bear knowing this. And obviously I'm guessing that you all do also, to the extent that what I'm saying here even connects. I think its a necessary understanding at some point. But its painful to the extent that we're still trapped in our temporal way of looking at things, while being morally awake enough to feel the horror of it. The horror comes from the contrast between our present objective reality the vague awareness of what is ultimately possible. We're caught in the middle. At some point we've just got to go for it, even though 'going for it' in any real way requires extraordinary patience.

I'm not sure if I'm making much sense here, and maybe it seems off topic from shared dreaming. But its the same kind of concern about identity and about what helps and what doesn't help that dominates my thinking about shared dreaming. Also, I think if you want to know what I'm saying, you have to read my mind, it requires either shared dreaming or the same thing in the waking moment. And, to whatever extent I'm thinking about these things in a true way, and not just babbling distorted nonsense, I get all of it through something like shared dreaming, through that exploration of what it means to be 'I'. When I share that space of feeling with someone else, their 'I' augments my 'I', and from that enhanced standpoint I feel these things that I've been trying to describe.

These last few paragraphs are closer to how I think in more of my 'core' identity than how I usually write. But I can see that it must be pretty hard to follow, the way the ideas run together, and don't really stand by themselves as shorter bite-sized pieces.

Maybe 'core' identity isn't the right concept. Maybe all honest identity is real in some sense. But its closer to the part of me that feels other people. And if I work at it a little bit, though I haven't done this for a while, I can move far enough in that direction to speak for something greater than my human personality. Maybe the difference between this and megalomania is that I know that its limited and distorted, I don't have that kind of self-righteousness, I hope.

Part of my point here is just to try to illustrate the movement of identity, by moving mine and writing from a bit of an alternative state, since its this kind of thinking that makes the shared dreaming possible, such as I do it anyway.

This identity is closer to my animal instinct. I feel fear, I want to bite. I feel joy, its close to my awareness of immortality. I am an angel. I am a witch. I love and hate, white and black, its very close together. I want to tell you about the beauty I know of, from somewhere far beyond, to share the truth, to share who I am. I am that message, was born to be this message. I also want to warn you to stay away, I am death, I can kill you in ways you can't begin to understand. I am completely sincere, and also so utterly dishonest that I can't even tell if I'm telling you the truth or lying. Its close together. And the things I don't know, I can't tell if they're hidden from me or if I know and I'm hiding them from myself. I know that we're OK, and I want you to know this also. And I fear that I'm not OK, and need to know that I'm OK. I am like the moon. A reflection of the moon.

Usually for me there is not much 'I' in my experience, only 'we', but at the present moment it is joined and centered more strongly, more of an 'I'. More who I would be if I didn't have to try so hard to fit in with all the others who I don't understand, who don't understand me. Maybe this is why I have some trouble finding my 'I' usually.

I think that if there were something suppressed that I felt like needed saying, it would be easier for me to get into this state of mind. But today it seems like everything is done for the most part, there's no reason for it. Maybe that's a truer state of mind always, but its harder for me to recognize, because its not as sharp because its not as twisted.

As I perceive him, this state of mind I'm in now has some things in common with what WakingNomad does all the time, though of course there's also more to him that I don't see. Its more direct, not as encumbered by intellect. And paradoxically, its both remarkably pretentious and lacking in pretense.

This part of me values the other parts also, and sees their role, not necessarily for everybody but for who I was born to be, and generally. So I put the other parts of my personality back on again.

I'm not sure if that made any sense at all, but it has been a while since I've tried to think that way while writing, so I thought I'd try it once. I realize that if you can't go there for it, then it just looks like vain rambling, since it has an element of that in it also. But maybe if you do go there for it, you'll know me better, and your dreams tonight will be different. Even if you didn't understand much of anything I said, if you felt the movement, then you felt what movement is, in a way that might be a little bit different than what you already know, since we're a little bit different. And that movement is part of what makes the exotic dreams possible. Maybe its better to try to do it this way, while awake, since maybe you can make clearer choices now than when asleep. So this does amount to something of a methodology after all.

Originally Posted by Belle

Why should it matter what another intends? How their morals align with yours?

Thanks again for your thoughts. Relatively briefly, since I need to be able to think at work in the morning....Irrespective of what the other intends, if there's some intersection in your intentions, there will be an experience. To make up an extreme example, if you're looking for romance, and someone else is looking for someone to chain up and steal a kidney from, there's enough common ground there for an experience. There's even something positive there for both people, if you look for it. But there's an ugly side to it also.

Some people think of right and wrong in terms of what God wants. I don't think about it that way. Its more a recognition of how things work, and a choice about what I want that's in harmony with what I see that's inherent in the way things work. I choose, it really comes down to personal preference, though its inspired in part by an impersonal understanding.

I recognize that there's value in your amoral perspective also. And its at least as important as my moral perspective. Both have limitations. But I'll say this, and I hope you don't take it wrong, because I don't have a problem with you personally, and in a way I don't mean it. Here I'm speaking more as I normally would if I weren't concerned about people misunderstanding me. My morality is not a matter of timidity, of some kind of karmic ass covering. I love those who would be injured by your amorality. As fate, as a demon, I'll hunt you down and crucify you to teach the value of morality, you won't even know I'm there until its too late. If you don't love justice, you'll learn to love power first, at the point where power becomes justice. Or recognize it another way, if you will, if you ask to.

I would also like to learn your amorality, because I intuit the value of it, if you can show me. Please don't hurt me though.

There's a fairly radical difference in the two perspectives I just spoke from. In the first part I'm sort of channeling something larger than myself that I experience, and that part of 'me' already knows all about amorality. Then there's another, smaller me, that recognizes that I'm totally fucking helpless in the face of that kind of power, and can only appeal for a sort of moral empathy, respecting my desire not to be hurt because I endeavor not to hurt others. If what I said seems strange or didn't make much sense its because I turned the filter off for a moment. But maybe you said earlier that you know what its like to be a demon, so maybe I don't have to worry about that so much with you.

Don't think of my desire not to be hurt as weakness or timidity in the face of the unknown. I know what pain is, and I can bear a lot of it. I experience something of the pain of the life of every animal I eat. I've been sincere, not from selfish motive, and have had that betrayed to harm me. I wonder if you even know if you know what that is. Or maybe that you know it better than I do, so well that you can hardly stand it, and that's part of what drives your amorality. Real at one level, reflected at another, feigned at another.

As an angel of death, indirectly, I feel the pain of every person I necessarily kill. As a priest and as god, indirectly, of an ancient religion, I feel the pain of every human I've murdered, and I feel remorse. And I know the pain of having a good vs evil complex, though I doubt that I have it in quite the sense that you imagine. I don't pretend, for instance, that situations have 'right' and a 'wrong' alternatives to choose between, usually its a mix of different half-wrong alternatives, and you choose whichever one you will, and suffer whatever may follow. Always there are two sides, almost any evil can be reinterpreted as a good if you perceive and respond to it in the right way. I choose the pain of having a good vs evil complex because its hard for a single human personality to support both this and the amoral alternative. I choose one willingly because somebody should; I see its value. Maybe my view here will make more sense after my previous post.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

For me these things are never completely clear cut. You might consider the possibility that part of what he represents is the subconscious, masculine side of yourself. That would fit with the persistence, and the age evolution. If time is irrelevant for him, that doesn't fit with him growing, unless that part of it reflects your own growth. And it doesn't make sense to me that a human being or other entity would stalk you for that long. If he had a huge impact on you at some point in your life, the premonitions could come that early. But that seems implausible to me that anything that important to you wouldn't be a part of yourself.

I have given the thought he is a part of me. "protector" from age 3-10. "friend" from age 10 ish- 14. background but there from 14-16. Left at 16. Came back as more a "lover" at 21. He suggests that at age 16 (his age 16) he actually remembered "us". He also remembered another entity that was coming to take away my memories as a child. Or to the tune, he always remembered but it wasn't until he turned 16 he understood how to get to me. He suggests that as time is irrelevant he was able to go back to me at 3 but already after the other entity took my memories, and he showed up to work on reminding me. Until my age 21 dreams with him have had little conversation. He says that is because we are now in the same time and place, therefore it is able to be more vivid. He suggests we have been together for "lifetimes". He swears he will get me to remember the past. Also, upon kissing in dreams we share memories. Some that seem very waking life memories, and others that I'm in are in the dreamscape. He does feel independent of me. As in I do not control him nor can I even when I feel fully lucid. I do not know yet how I feel about all his explanations. Time will tell I suppose.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

But if he were entirely not you, I don't see how he could even get into your dream, much less do it so often. It seems to me that he's likely more you than not you. But you should be able to find that out by thinking about how he feels. Also, even if you're not lucid enough during the dream, you can ask question before you go to sleep and the experience is likely to change in a way that tends to answer them. Such has been my experience anyway.

He has said he can't always "get in". He describes it like looking through a keyhole in a locked door. He tries to get in but unless I'm open for it he can't get in. I personally don't do this with any intent. One way or the other.

I've had to wonder about past lives in this, I haven't decided how I feel. Again I suppose with time it will be revealed. If I am so connected to this guy. To the point lifetimes have been spent together and our souls are now part of the same, which is what I suppose would happen after so long. That could explain how easy it is for him to access me. Almost like a well-worn path straight to the door of my inner world. At the same time it seems I would have answered your question if he is me... maybe maybe not. Can it be possible for two souls to be nearly one yet be completely separate?

Keep this debate going. I am finding everyone's thoughts interesting, and helpful.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I would not have guessed that, since this is a little bit more of a 'demon' or 'familiar spirit' kind of experience, and less of an 'other people in my dreams' kind of experience such as I have seen you describe.

Correct. This presence is quite different than the "Other peoples' dreams" phenomena (coincidentally, I just posted another curious experience of this on that thread today). The other peoples' dreams in which I find myself are indeed actual REM-type dreams, even if perhaps not mine, while this presence would be more of the familiar-spirit variety, though I am hesitant to use such a term, given the non-context of its delta-sleep context (yeah, that made sense!).

Maybe in the yin and yang of 'they' and 'I', the spirit is a little bit like the 'they' dot in the yang of 'I'?

Maybe, but without the negative-positive (western) connotations of yin and yang -- and much more singular; like a "he or she" and "I" encounter, I think.

Could a projection of belonging be interpreted as a question of being allowed to remain present? If you take the belonging and interpret it through a feeling of insecurity?

Yes, it could be interpreted that way, I suppose ... I'll have to take that thought with me when I'm next in delta. However, I doubt it would be interpreted through a feeling of insecurity, because, aside from my first accidental youthful forays into it, delta is a bastion of peace and security for me, and that presence complements the moment, rather than negates it (which, given my love of solitude, is why upon waking I assume it to be an echo, because wouldn't another presence at least disturb me?).

It seems to me that if contact at a distance is possible, being in two places at once, then this kind of partial unity follows from that as a consequence. In other words if there is some kind of direct telepathy, not like sending a signal but like being there, then identity is shared to some extent also. Or I guess its more conventional to start with the unity of consciousness and say that all other sharing is derived from that. But that doesn't seem to me to account for the fragmentation as well. Both seem to me to be sort of topological in nature, built into the structure of things. What I've still been wanting to know is whether the fragmentation is unavoidable. It seems to me that it must be, at least to some extent. Otherwise there would be no complexity to anything at all. But I doubt that it can be everywhere unavoidable to the extent that we experience it. The awareness of the absence of the awareness of unity is just too strong. In nature, a species typically either uses a characteristic or else quickly looses it. And even for individual animals, something like the sense of sight can't develop if its not exercised. Yet for us, the spiritual connection is always right there, even though it seems that almost all of our practical interactions are sensate and external. I realize that the psychic connection is still critically important even though it seems weak. Yet it still seems weaker than it should be somehow, like our whole universe is in a spiritual winter or something. In other words, if you're in the desert and you find a little bit of water, which is essential to your life, how did it get there? It seems logical to guess that there must be a whole lot of water somewhere.

Perhaps that fragmentation isn't fragmentation at all, but simply the first whispers of a new form of communication developing in our ever-evolving minds? In other words, we are tasting that bit of water in the desert for the first time, and its source has yet to be exposed; the evolutionary mutation (albeit a spiritual rather than genetic one this time) might have just revealed itself. So, perhaps the new sense simply hasn't begun to be used yet, and, given its novel nature, might still take a few more generations of exposure before a well can be properly tapped over that bit of water in the desert.

If you bring something back with you, it changes you. If you don't bring anything back with you, then you can't remember it. And if you don't remember it, then I think this is the same as what we're doing all the time, every minute. Its like in Feynman's physics, where a particle is everywhere at once, constrained not even by the speed of light, but the phases cancel out everywhere except for where you observe it.

Agreed, and well described!

And Belle reminds me that I did not respond to something I should have:

Originally Posted by shadowofwind:
Sageous, here's another thought. Suppose you were to have a shared dream with me, and from then on your solitude would be gone, I would always be there a little bit. And after me, other people. How would you feel about that? I think we agree you wouldn't be totally OK with that, or at least you wouldn't have been in the past. And I think this is a reason not to share a dream.

Yes, That on its face is a reason I am not a great fan of shared dreaming -- I like my solitude! I would not be totally okay with that, I think, especially at first. However, solitude is a goal, not a requirement. I think that, if bits of other souls commingling with mine became the norm -- or if it already is the norm -- I would find a way to separate a sense of solitude (if not literal solitude) from the soup of my manifold identity, and enjoy some peaceful alone-time anyway -- just as I already do in waking life. Also, I think that if I were to put these two things on a balance -- pure solitude on one side, and an identity constantly changing and growing from the influence of others on the other -- I think the scale would tilt in favor of inviting others in with me; solitude is nice, but it also can become quite empty and stagnant.

As for the rest of what you wrote, I think I'm going to have to print it out and reread a couple of times to properly digest. I think it's mostly things you've already shared, though not quite so succinctly... thank you for doing so!

Originally Posted by Belle

I'm not too sure about that. People don't always know the direction they're going, they just want to go. Also, once more information presents itself, it makes it easier to formulate a destination.

Usually you can't simply toss random ingredients into a blender and expect something tasty. Though there are the few rare occasions where the right ingredients have been made available and what's tossed in is ripe and compatible.

This sounds a lot like me. Have spent my life training and exploring my mind, mostly for training and explorations sake. Only recently have I taken a hard look at some possible destinations and stepping stones or goals to reach those destinations. I have also only recently started seriously considering the moral questions. For the most part I tend to look at things from an open-minded and neutral perspective. I'm so used to witnessing or hearing about the horrors of this world that I've reached a point where I simply don't care what people do here anymore. I don't spend much time in this reality anyways these days. I try to neither condone nor condemn. Even if someone were to murder my whole family it wouldn't be a huge deal to me. I could simply recreate them in my own worlds. Guess it shows how much I've been losing touch with this place.

Lets just assume that someone can and will use this for evil. We can even assume that the person is me after going completely nuts from existing for way too long. If I could induce mass shared dreaming and use it for mass terrorism through extremely long, mind warping nightmares, then what could be done to stop me or someone else? If it were done on a large enough scale, huge numbers of people could potentially go insane overnight.

Perhaps the best way to prevent something like this is to simply hinder others from reaching such a point, though that may not be possible. Perhaps if there were other skilled and ancient beings then there could be a sort of struggle of wills, with the more dominant winning control over the dream plane, or perhaps it would end in a sort of stalemate. Not really sure where I am going with this, but I am interested in hearing other people's thoughts, especially their ideas of right and wrong assuming mass SDs are or will be possible.

Know ye not that ye are gods? Do what though wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Additional comments....

Though this must be obvious, for me a requirement for the discovery and free expression of 'self', such as can make the quasi-sharing of dreams possible, has been a willingness to show weaknesses and even glaring flaws. I think the same is true for acquiring knowledge also. If appearing to be wrong, to others or to yourself, is worse than actually being wrong, then you try to cover up your errors, which prevents you from fixing them. Better in my view to put the ugly out in the open where it can be dealt with, rather than being a can of worms with a shiny exterior. In the end you can't hide anyway. Havago's post a few weeks ago about her 'enlightenment' experience is relevant here, though off hand I don't know what thread that was in.

I think that its a common, almost universal mistake to confuse darkness with destructive desire. There's nothing evil about darkness. Its true that predators hunt in darkness, and thieves steal in darkness, but bad things happen in light too. Darkness is something that we all need. And as I have pointed out previously, perfectly bright and smooth light is actually darkness physically. I have a Tarot deck that has a beautiful 'moon' card featuring a pregnant woman. The moon card in my other Tarot deck features some creepy water monster with long teeth and many eyes and tentacles. Both are moon principles, the yin to the sun's yang, but one is twisted and scary and one is not that way at all. So if you're a person who is drawn to the 'dark side', one possible thing to consider is to start distinguishing dark from deranged a little better, and find ways to cultivate that 'dark'. Why should the cool of the night by synonymous with self destructive stupidity? A lot of glamorously 'bad' behavior, if you're not under its spell, simply appears as limiting and foolish.

I think there's a necessary role for evil in the world too. But that role is ultimately much, much smaller than the role of darkness. In a saner reality, evil is sort of like the washboard at the edge of the road that warns you that you're in danger of going into the ditch. Your heart can't feel what's 'right' without the discomfort of a very slight movement in aim and imagination towards what's 'not right'. Its like you're thinking 300+300=900 for an instant, but you can't quite bring that into focus, then change your thought to 300+300=600 and you're good to go. You adjust and you're back on the road.

I think in our reality, its usually more like you're already off the road and crashing through boulders and trees, so far off that there really isn't a 'road' to get back onto. The best you can do is find a relatively flat stretch that might eventually lead back towards the road.

Suppose that there's a meta-universe, infinite in size, which is characterized by 'evil' that is no more than the slight warning of intuition that helps you avoid potential mistakes. A utopia with telepathetic, shape-shifting animals, where eating is consensual, for instance, and being eaten is a process of positive transformation. Now take that entire cumulative fringe of minor, fleeting 'mistakes' in that universe, and project it onto a smaller universe. That universe is still infinite, but is nothing compared to the first universe. Sort of like a line compared to a plane. I speculate that this is like our universe. We're still an integral part of the larger universe, and in a sense still in it, but we don't see it because of the way our condition distorts and limits our experience.

In some major eastern religious dogmas, our world is cyclically infinite, and involves pervasive suffering, but seems to have no discernible purpose or real relationship to the conscious 'self' (by whatever name). In major western dogmas, our world involves extensive suffering, but this is the result of an unnecessary act of will, and the situation will be corrected before long. In western scientific dogma, our world involves suffering, but that's just how it works, and likely the only way a world can work. In my scheme that I'm suggesting, our world involves pervasive suffering, but this has a necessary and in a sense a permanent role in a much larger and much better context. Our personal struggles to 'heal' our world are still necessary though, because they have a correspondence to what would be seen as movement to heal the momentary wrinkles in the larger multi-verse.

I didn't explain my idea well here, but tried to keep it as short as possible. I also don't think the idea is true, but I have some reason to think its closer to the truth than the other ideas. I called it my idea because I didn't read it anywhere, but no doubt other people have thought of it also, and I'm pretty much just responding to what circumstances seem to conspire suggest so its not really mine in any case.

I do not believe there is a right answer for everything. Some questions don't have answers. Some questions have no right answers, only wrong answers. Most questions have multiple answers that are partially right and partially wrong. Also there is freedom. Questions that have right answers usually have multiple right answers. For me, believing in right and wrong, in the manner that I do, is not a matter of being uncomfortable with alternatives. I hate chess, there are only a couple of plausibly good moves each turn. Some people who love chess hate go (wei qi) because they can't see how to decide where to play. I love go, compared to chess you can play almost anywhere you want, its like painting.

"We are born upon the cross....you can release yourself but the only way to go is down." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fld-5OuiNZk) In this admittedly lame song, desire that is dark in the sense of being destructive is regarded as essential to enjoying life. Let's suppose that your life starts like this song, all light and sunny but boring, and you decide to spice it up with dangerous adventures that lead to suffering. Contrast that to mine, where external circumstances provide the suffering for me. I don't think it makes much difference at all, we're the same in either case, and the process is essentially the same in either case. In your heart, you feel the darkness, your darkness, and everyone else's darkness. You choose to come alive by expressing it. For me, fate expresses it for me. But fate is also in us, and its just the path of expression that is slightly different. Though the external causes of my childhood suffering involve other people, your internal darkness is connected to other people also. Other people are in you, just as they are outside of us also. The darkness that motivates your expression is theirs as much as your own. For me, my own darkness is also to some extent a reflection of what I experienced externally, but is there really a difference, whether the mirror is viewed inside or outside?

Actually my life started sunnily also, the dark wave didn't really sweep me under until I was about 4, so experientially its the same in that regard also, even though the time-frames are slightly different. And in my life I get a fair amount of self-destructive 'life' experience vicariously through other people anyway. I don't do drugs, but I listen to songs written by people who do drugs, and I feel in their emotional space. In a way its a bit of a cop-out. If they weren't doing the drugs I might have to step into that role myself, just so that the destructive desire can find some outlet of expression. I don't mean that the desire for drug abuse is ultimately necessary. I mean that its there, and 'as above, so below', to quote Crowley favorably, (since I plan to say he was an idiot a later post). Given that the desire is there, it must find expression. Desire isn't quite the right word here, but maybe its close enough.

I don't think that the blending of identity that we've been talking about with shared dreams is entirely different from what we already experience as our own desire and instinct. Normally the connection is sort of compacted to a point, without distinguishable parts of it coming to life freely in our imagination, but its there.

Summarizing my main assertions:

Its worth exposing the inside of the cup. Hiding who you are is paralysis.

Darkness is not evil. Seek how to feed your desire for darkness while minimizing the evil.

Evil is ultimately unavoidable also, in very small doses, though its not easy to see how this ideally works from where we are now.

My destructive desire expresses itself also, notwithstanding my outwardly 'clean' lifestyle. Like individual expression, fate is inextricably connected with who we are.

The potential perils of shared dreaming are things we already deal with anyway. Our efforts might make the problem worse, but we won't create a new problem.

My avatar is the Expecto Petronum spell. So folk who attempt share-dreaming on my sacred beach (geological location, Henley Beach, South Australia) experience no attacks from any hungry anythings.

Here is the story behind the Expecto Petronum and how it was cast:

***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YznI...e_gdata_player

***

(Acts like a shield with the Dementor feeding on {the nourishing light} rather than him)


Here he/we precognate and cast the spell in the now from the future

***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiWR...e_gdata_player

***

It is hard for me to express what I know but as people begin participating in Waking Nomad's 50 remote viewing thing... what I'm trying to express will start manifesting and be felt.

Originally Posted by Mylynes

Even if someone were to murder my whole family it wouldn't be a huge deal to me. I could simply recreate them in my own worlds. Guess it shows how much I've been losing touch with this place.

I think we can be pretty much certain that your ability to create your 'own worlds' is dependent on your existence in 'this place'. There's a kind of schizophrenia in the dissociation, but the essential unity remains. The love you have for yourself and for others, or its absence, is in you, its not in this place or that place.

Originally Posted by Mylynes

Lets just assume that someone can and will use this for evil.

As I see it, as you are presently, were you able to obtain any such power you absolutely would use it for evil. I think that anyone with any human insight can see this. Might as well stop presenting it as a hypothetical?

I realize that you're trolling a little bit, but I don't think that shared dreaming matters much here. Its a minor plot device in a more essential story.

Originally Posted by Mylynes

Do what though wilt shall be the whole of the law.

The rest of this is "Love is the law, love under will."

It seems to me that if you love truly, morality flows from that, and no other standard is necessary beyond your sincere will and reason, informed by experience.

If will isn't informed by reason, and if the wills of separate individuals aren't tempered and coordinated with some degree of intelligence, I think its pretty clear that this produces results that no lucid person can honestly will. As I see it, immorality can be understood as a form of stupidity. Many people think that they can reap some results of who they are and not others, but watch a while and see it come back around, in one way or another. You can't run away from yourself.

I said that I think Crowley was an idiot, but I guess I don't feel like defending that perspective at the moment. Its hard to separate a historical figure from their image, especially where their writing is not intended as a straightforward, true reflection of who they actually are. And the way a radical teaching characterizes itself is pretty much never an accurate account of what it actually is and does. Annalee Skarin, a renegade Mormon who named her first book after your "Ye Are God's" passage, waxed eloquent about virtue and truth, even while her story was almost wholly a fabrication.

If people and dream characters have become almost as interchangeable parts for you, I'm not suggesting that you're to blame for that. Maybe its the result of circumstances that are outside of your control. But I think its nevertheless a really serious problem that leads downhill fast. If I were you I would forget about shared dreaming and start talking about that, its where you need the help. I wish you the best in any case.

Just showing up shortly without having read everything - or even a lot.
I find it honest and consequential that here are people, which do also see the theoretically following dark sides of esoteric practice in general.

This is rare, in my experience - including real life experiences with "New Agers" - so many are too deluded to think their own beliefs through completely.
Just once more to make it clear - I do not believe any of that.
But if I would - I would instantly also consider scenarios like Mylynes´ in another thread - (mass) influence over other people with malign intentions and potentially seriously dangerous results.
By inducing nightmares directly with forced shared dreaming - or other really arcane practices.

Just - on the other hand - you believers with a farther reaching sight-line - where are these phenomena?
There have been adepts of all sorts over the ages - why do we not see some disasters like that over and over?

You can invoke Hitler and Jones - but with these - the methods were from this world and observable.
I do not say, there is no mass-hypnotism and psychological engineering going on - there surely is - but for that you do not need any "psychic powers".
This can be done in broad daylight, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by StephL

Just - on the other hand - you believers with a farther reaching sight-line - where are these phenomena?
There have been adepts of all sorts over the ages - why do we not see some disasters like that over and over?

You can invoke Hitler and Jones - but with these - the methods were from this world and observable.

Hi Steph! Let's suppose that there have been such disasters over and over. How would you be able to tell? If there's an externally visible side of it, then you can just point to that and say see, that's what's going on, nothing mysterious or psychic. I think there was a huge psychic side to Nazism for instance, but what you see is what you can understand in terms of the external propaganda and coercion. If, on the other hand, there is no external side, then there's no way to demonstrate that anything was going on at all. Suppose for example that Mylynes were able to give a million people a nightmare. How would you ever know? Of the probably hundreds of millions of people who have dreamed about falling, for instance, or feeling paralyzed while fleeing a danger, how many ever posted about that to an internet forum? Dozens? Suppose that one or two of those people who had the dream from Mylynes posts it here or on dreammoods, and Mylynes or somebody else notes the similarities. You would tend to attribute that to chance, or both people having been influenced by seeing the same movie or news event. And then if additional people report having the same kind of experience, it appears plausible that this is because they have been reading about and discussing such experiences. Its not easy to nail down what's really going on.

If there is something paranormal going on, and you want to know about it, that amounts to seeking for objectively paranormal results to be a part of your experience. You've made it clear that you don't want this, and I support you choice. But then, if there are any psychic disasters going on you're not going to know about them. That's OK, but there's your answer.

Actually, the hypothetical situation I described, where multiple people independently have the same dream and a couple of them post it, that does happen a lot. I could give at least a dozen examples from the dreammoods sight that don't connect to external stimuli like TV shows. Recently, for instance, someone had a dream about going to the moon on a bus which I think is convincingly related to WakingNomad, whom they know nothing about externally. Maybe it could look to someone like a coincidence, but as you've agreed, an additional volume anecdotal evidence tends to weigh against that uncertainty. And I've avoided presenting you with more evidence out of respect for your expressed desire not to be dragged into those kinds of experiences. Maybe I should continue respecting that desire more than I am now. But you made an argument that I think I can answer, and its hard for me to say no to that. (Had you remained agnostic without arguing for the unreality of shared dreaming, then I would have left it alone. If you had merely argued for why you think shared dreaming might be a bad idea, then I would have left that alone too, aside from addressing any misconceptions I think I see about what shared dreaming actually is. But its in your nature to state your thought about the absence of historical evidence, just as its in my nature to try to answer it, so I'm still at fault to some extent for sucking you into it.) If you change your mind and you do want more evidence, then I can give you more. Otherwise, I think that logically you have to concede the point: the absence of historical evidence might be because mass psychic phenomena are unreal, or it might not be, but you can't tell either way without being willing to make a sacrifice that you don't think its prudent to make. So you have to accept not knowing. Obviously, if you're right that the phenomena are unreal, then there's no sacrifice, you'll open the door and there will be nothing behind it. But I've already warned you that based on my experience that's not how it would pan out. And whether I'm right or wrong about that I guess you know that I'm telling the truth as I see it.

Maybe it seems like I've given excessive attention to this point of motives and willingness, but for the last half dozen people who have argued against the reality of shared dreaming on this thread, this is what it came down to. When presented with a potential opportunity to gain evidence that answers to their objections, they all backed off, without even trying to offer bogus pretexts. So as I see it, this is point is the only real point to be made here, aide from whether their choice to back off is the right one. And I agree that their choice is the right one, if that's the one they're making, and not because of any fault or weakness on their end.

There is one other aspect to this that I think is worth mentioning also, and which maybe concedes part of the point you were making. I don't think that Mylynes can actually wreak serious havoc in the dream world, not by much more than people are already doing anyway. He's just one guy, and furthermore he's limited by a kind of disinterest in relation to 'worldly' effort, which isn't compelling to him in the way that paranormal stuff is. I think the apathy in that outward area somewhat circumscribes his psychic development also, though not in a way that would be obvious to someone with a more conventionally spiritual or occult outlook, as I understand this. Is he psychically stronger than I am? I doubt it, and I'm just one person also, and I can't do much either. We don't have to speculate about a cosmic conspiracy to block his misuse of his abilities. I think that one or two other people could cause him enough trouble to mostly shut him down. And they wouldn't have to bother, because the semi-subconscious, muse-like, fate-like sides of ourselves would take care of that. Plus he'd be picking a fight with the subconscious self-protective reflexes of a billion people who don't want to be manipulated with nightmares. How could he stand a chance? He may think of them as if they're sheep, easily manipulated. But there are 7 billion of them, and collectively there's a lot of will and intelligence there. Hitler didn't do what he did by himself, he was channeling the aspirations of a large number of people. In an important sense he wasn't really in control, he was a puppet of other people's destiny. Similarly, we can't really do very much either besides help give expression to what other people are desiring anyway. And I think I've been at this long enough to have some idea what it is that people are desiring, and what the limitations are. Consider how many people there are with internet access, and how many people have dreams that they consider worth posting on forums like dreamviews for discussion. We're a tiny, tiny, tiny minority, billions against hundreds, and there are reasons for that. Its not as if dreaming was just recently invented. And at least hundreds of thousands of those other billions are as strong willed and intelligent as we are. Psychically we are really quite weak.

When I said that fate would shut Mylynes down if he had power to induce mass shared dreams I meant it. But I actually think that the red line would be crossed a long time before reaching that kind of capability. And the result would be messy and painful. More often than not providence doesn't just drop a piano on you from six floors up. Time isn't an issue from that vantagepoint, it takes as long as it needs to. And it wants to help you by giving you a chance to understand what's going on, and for other people to see and understand. If those points can't be made intellectually, because of the way your beliefs filter your perceptions, then the point needs to be made emotionally. And that commonly requires a lot of suffering for an extended time period.

By 'providence' I'm not making assumptions about God, if you don't believe in God. I'm describing something of the character and collective impact of our subconscious minds, as I experience it, in relation to who 'I' am. And I guess someone who intends to mess with shared dreaming must either already believe that this sort of thing is real, or must be on the brink of believing it, because it follows almost immediately from the shared activity. I'm presumptuous enough to say I'm relaying a threat, if it comes to that. Otherwise, its a friendly warning based on my own equally limited and flawed understanding, as a person who has suffered a lot and seen other people suffer. And I hope its helpful. I fear pushing people in that direction by making it a matter of pride, but I'm not sure that leaving it alone is good either, if they're already headed in that direction.

Fascinating considerations all around the board.

From a different perspective, people should be allowed to play with guns. Let them hold one in their hand, load ammo into it, lick the metal. It's a lethal weapon but when given the proper respect it's also a useful ally. Just like shared dreaming.

Shared dreaming is the gateway drug into mind-bending power. Forget lucid dreaming where you're essentially just playing with yourself (subconscious). Shared dreaming opens the doors to other participants. You're granted access into numerous minds and are free to pluck as many apples from the minds of others as you desire. One of the best things about shared dreaming is most people have no idea you're NOT them! All behavior is excused. The only person you answer to is yourself. It's a wonderful playground.

Should beginners use caution? Nah. Let them run around and skin their knees a few times. They'll get the hang of it. If not, they'll be lost in the asylum and perish a pitiful death.

Or.

They'll go on a shooting spree due to blending reality and imagination.

I agree with all that. If you see a novice playing with the clip out, not understanding that there's still a shell in the chamber, and you know someone else who has blinded and mentally crippled themselves that way, then compassion may require you to try to say something. And if they have clear psychopathic tendencies, then maybe it requires a little more attention than that even. But I agree that its mostly harmless exploration, and a matter of personal freedom. It wouldn't be good to shun all shared dreaming exploration, and I don't want to give that impression.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

I think we can be pretty much certain that your ability to create your 'own worlds' is dependent on your existence in 'this place'. There's a kind of schizophrenia in the dissociation, but the essential unity remains. The love you have for yourself and for others, or its absence, is in you, its not in this place or that place.



As I see it, as you are presently, were you able to obtain any such power you absolutely would use it for evil. I think that anyone with any human insight can see this. Might as well stop presenting it as a hypothetical?

I realize that you're trolling a little bit, but I don't think that shared dreaming matters much here. Its a minor plot device in a more essential story.



The rest of this is "Love is the law, love under will."

It seems to me that if you love truly, morality flows from that, and no other standard is necessary beyond your sincere will and reason, informed by experience.

If will isn't informed by reason, and if the wills of separate individuals aren't tempered and coordinated with some degree of intelligence, I think its pretty clear that this produces results that no lucid person can honestly will. As I see it, immorality can be understood as a form of stupidity. Many people think that they can reap some results of who they are and not others, but watch a while and see it come back around, in one way or another. You can't run away from yourself.

I said that I think Crowley was an idiot, but I guess I don't feel like defending that perspective at the moment. Its hard to separate a historical figure from their image, especially where their writing is not intended as a straightforward, true reflection of who they actually are. And the way a radical teaching characterizes itself is pretty much never an accurate account of what it actually is and does. Annalee Skarin, a renegade Mormon who named her first book after your "Ye Are God's" passage, waxed eloquent about virtue and truth, even while her story was almost wholly a fabrication.

If people and dream characters have become almost as interchangeable parts for you, I'm not suggesting that you're to blame for that. Maybe its the result of circumstances that are outside of your control. But I think its nevertheless a really serious problem that leads downhill fast. If I were you I would forget about shared dreaming and start talking about that, its where you need the help. I wish you the best in any case.

I don't see myself for sure using this for evil, at least not for a very long time, though my perspective of what is/isn't evil may be different from yours. I tend to look very far ahead, and not just at one possible outcome or 1 side of a decision. Also, I kinda like my version of the law of thelema a bit more, is less restricting. And not trying to troll, i just like to think outside the bun, or box, or whatever.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Hi Steph! Let's suppose that there have been such disasters over and over. How would you be able to tell? If there's an externally visible side of it, then you can just point to that and say see, that's what's going on, nothing mysterious or psychic. I think there was a huge psychic side to Nazism for instance, but what you see is what you can understand in terms of the external propaganda and coercion. If, on the other hand, there is no external side, then there's no way to demonstrate that anything was going on at all. Suppose for example that Mylynes were able to give a million people a nightmare. How would you ever know? Of the probably hundreds of millions of people who have dreamed about falling, for instance, or feeling paralyzed while fleeing a danger, how many ever posted about that to an internet forum? Dozens? Suppose that one or two of those people who had the dream from Mylynes posts it here or on dreammoods, and Mylynes or somebody else notes the similarities. You would tend to attribute that to chance, or both people having been influenced by seeing the same movie or news event. And then if additional people report having the same kind of experience, it appears plausible that this is because they have been reading about and discussing such experiences. Its not easy to nail down what's really going on.

If there is something paranormal going on, and you want to know about it, that amounts to seeking for objectively paranormal results to be a part of your experience. You've made it clear that you don't want this, and I support you choice. But then, if there are any psychic disasters going on you're not going to know about them. That's OK, but there's your answer.

Actually, the hypothetical situation I described, where multiple people independently have the same dream and a couple of them post it, that does happen a lot. I could give at least a dozen examples from the dreammoods sight that don't connect to external stimuli like TV shows. Recently, for instance, someone had a dream about going to the moon on a bus which I think is convincingly related to WakingNomad, whom they know nothing about externally. Maybe it could look to someone like a coincidence, but as you've agreed, an additional volume anecdotal evidence tends to weigh against that uncertainty. And I've avoided presenting you with more evidence out of respect for your expressed desire not to be dragged into those kinds of experiences. Maybe I should continue respecting that desire more than I am now. But you made an argument that I think I can answer, and its hard for me to say no to that. (Had you remained agnostic without arguing for the unreality of shared dreaming, then I would have left it alone. If you had merely argued for why you think shared dreaming might be a bad idea, then I would have left that alone too, aside from addressing any misconceptions I think I see about what shared dreaming actually is. But its in your nature to state your thought about the absence of historical evidence, just as its in my nature to try to answer it, so I'm still at fault to some extent for sucking you into it.) If you change your mind and you do want more evidence, then I can give you more. Otherwise, I think that logically you have to concede the point: the absence of historical evidence might be because mass psychic phenomena are unreal, or it might not be, but you can't tell either way without being willing to make a sacrifice that you don't think its prudent to make. So you have to accept not knowing. Obviously, if you're right that the phenomena are unreal, then there's no sacrifice, you'll open the door and there will be nothing behind it. But I've already warned you that based on my experience that's not how it would pan out. And whether I'm right or wrong about that I guess you know that I'm telling the truth as I see it.

Maybe it seems like I've given excessive attention to this point of motives and willingness, but for the last half dozen people who have argued against the reality of shared dreaming on this thread, this is what it came down to. When presented with a potential opportunity to gain evidence that answers to their objections, they all backed off, without even trying to offer bogus pretexts. So as I see it, this is point is the only real point to be made here, aide from whether their choice to back off is the right one. And I agree that their choice is the right one, if that's the one they're making, and not because of any fault or weakness on their end.

There is one other aspect to this that I think is worth mentioning also, and which maybe concedes part of the point you were making. I don't think that Mylynes can actually wreak serious havoc in the dream world, not by much more than people are already doing anyway. He's just one guy, and furthermore he's limited by a kind of disinterest in relation to 'worldly' effort, which isn't compelling to him in the way that paranormal stuff is. I think the apathy in that outward area somewhat circumscribes his psychic development also, though not in a way that would be obvious to someone with a more conventionally spiritual or occult outlook, as I understand this. Is he psychically stronger than I am? I doubt it, and I'm just one person also, and I can't do much either. We don't have to speculate about a cosmic conspiracy to block his misuse of his abilities. I think that one or two other people could cause him enough trouble to mostly shut him down. And they wouldn't have to bother, because the semi-subconscious, muse-like, fate-like sides of ourselves would take care of that. Plus he'd be picking a fight with the subconscious self-protective reflexes of a billion people who don't want to be manipulated with nightmares. How could he stand a chance? He may think of them as if they're sheep, easily manipulated. But there are 7 billion of them, and collectively there's a lot of will and intelligence there. Hitler didn't do what he did by himself, he was channeling the aspirations of a large number of people. In an important sense he wasn't really in control, he was a puppet of other people's destiny. Similarly, we can't really do very much either besides help give expression to what other people are desiring anyway. And I think I've been at this long enough to have some idea what it is that people are desiring, and what the limitations are. Consider how many people there are with internet access, and how many people have dreams that they consider worth posting on forums like dreamviews for discussion. We're a tiny, tiny, tiny minority, billions against hundreds, and there are reasons for that. Its not as if dreaming was just recently invented. And at least hundreds of thousands of those other billions are as strong willed and intelligent as we are. Psychically we are really quite weak.

When I said that fate would shut Mylynes down if he had power to induce mass shared dreams I meant it. But I actually think that the red line would be crossed a long time before reaching that kind of capability. And the result would be messy and painful. More often than not providence doesn't just drop a piano on you from six floors up. Time isn't an issue from that vantagepoint, it takes as long as it needs to. And it wants to help you by giving you a chance to understand what's going on, and for other people to see and understand. If those points can't be made intellectually, because of the way your beliefs filter your perceptions, then the point needs to be made emotionally. And that commonly requires a lot of suffering for an extended time period.

By 'providence' I'm not making assumptions about God, if you don't believe in God. I'm describing something of the character and collective impact of our subconscious minds, as I experience it, in relation to who 'I' am. And I guess someone who intends to mess with shared dreaming must either already believe that this sort of thing is real, or must be on the brink of believing it, because it follows almost immediately from the shared activity. I'm presumptuous enough to say I'm relaying a threat, if it comes to that. Otherwise, its a friendly warning based on my own equally limited and flawed understanding, as a person who has suffered a lot and seen other people suffer. And I hope its helpful. I fear pushing people in that direction by making it a matter of pride, but I'm not sure that leaving it alone is good either, if they're already headed in that direction.

I would agree with you that mass induced nightmares, especially ones that actually leave a major impact on its victims, would normally be impossible. The only way I see such things as being possible is through conscious manipulation of perceived flow of time. This would be essential both to attaining such abilities in the first place, and making the nightmares much more memorable. A regular mass induced nightmare could merely be shrugged off by most people. But with TD taken to the extremes, if all of those nightmares were to fill a single rem period with a near-eternity, then peoples minds could be completely warped, huge chunks of memory completely lost, could be driven utterly insane overnight. So instead of mass numbers of ppl simply waking up from a bad dream, they are warped, changed, and come back dangerously psychotic. The chaos that could follow after such an event would be much more intense than just having a bunch of people wake up from a bad dream.

People could go to a literal hell for eons, by the time they are released they could even potentially believe that they are demons themselves returning to earth on a mission to carry out the apocalypse or something.

Just something to think about. Row row row your boat.