Thread: Shared Dreaming Debate

Originally Posted by Fechtel

My reply has nothing to do with your post.

I just wanted to say that I love your username.

Thanks lol, I like yours as well. That name actually was spoken to me in a ayahausca ceremony, then I looked it up found out it was an archangels name.

Originally Posted by Jakob

Yet the same people who believe in shared dreaming despite the lack of scientific evidence are most of the time the same people who mock Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc., for believing in God and the after-life. It truly is hypocrisy.

how did you come to this conclusion, last time I checked most people in the beyond dreaming section actually do believe in a higher force or creative energy. Anyways comparing shared dreaming to religions is impossible, other than lack of scientific evidence they share barely any similarities. The only reason a controlled test has never been undertaken is because it seems like such an uncredible idea. How many certified scientists would want to risk losing their reputation and time trying to prove something like this.

Yet the same people who believe in shared dreaming despite the lack of scientific evidence are most of the time the same people who mock Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc., for believing in God and the after-life. It truly is hypocrisy.

Except there's a difference between believing in shared dreaming and believing in God and an afterlife. The former doesn't require blind faith, assuming you've experienced it for yourself. So what you're basically saying then is that anyone who has experienced it for themselves is a hypocrite because of the lack of formal scientific evidence. Whether they're mistaken or not has yet to be proven, but you're kind of jumping the gun by calling everyone who believes in it a hypocrite without having made the effort to even find out the truth for yourself. So, who's the real hypocrite here?

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

how did you come to this conclusion, last time I checked most people in the beyond dreaming section actually do believe in a higher force or creative energy. Anyways comparing shared dreaming to religions is impossible, other than lack of scientific evidence they share barely any similarities. The only reason a controlled test has never been undertaken is because it seems like such an uncredible idea. How many certified scientists would want to risk losing their reputation and time trying to prove something like this.

LaBerge certainly didn't risk his reputation by trying to prove Lucid Dreaming, and he did it successfully. A long time ago I had a PhD professor tell me that "lucid dreaming is bogus." Then after reading LaBerge's book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, he started believing in it, then began practicing, and now he's in love with it.

So why not take it one step further and do a study on shared dreaming? Because the outcome would most likely be negative.

Originally Posted by MindGames

Except there's a difference between believing in shared dreaming and believing in God and an afterlife. The former doesn't require blind faith, assuming you've experienced it for yourself.

Nonsense. There is no blind faith for the person who experienced something extraordinary. You easily dismiss other people's personal experiences as far as religion/God is concerned, yet somehow shared dreaming experiences have a higher value.

So what you're basically saying then is that anyone who has experienced it for themselves is a hypocrite because of the lack of formal scientific evidence.

Not even close. I am saying that 1.) it might exist, 2.) i have never experienced it, and 3.) i have not seen one single study confirming it.

I have never ruled out it's existence.

Whether they're mistaken or not has yet to be proven, but you're kind of jumping the gun by calling everyone who believes in it a hypocrite without having made the effort to even find out the truth for yourself. So, who's the real hypocrite here?

You are, sir. You are quick to jump and label religious people as idiots with "blind faith", easily dismissing the personal experiences that made them into believers.

Then you want others to not demand evidence for shared dreaming, but simply accept someone's stories without any doubt.

Jakob

You should stop begining every single argument without "nonsense".

Originally Posted by Ezrael

Thanks lol, I like yours as well. That name actually was spoken to me in a ayahausca ceremony, then I looked it up found out it was an archangels name.

The archangel is actually spelled Azrael.

But either way, I love your name because it sounds like Israel.

Originally Posted by Jakob

Nonsense. There is no blind faith for the person who experienced something extraordinary. You easily dismiss other people's personal experiences as far as religion/God is concerned, yet somehow shared dreaming experiences have a higher value.

The difference between religious experiences and shared dreaming is that the latter can be confirmed or disproved since there are two or more people involved.

Not even close. I am saying that 1.) it might exist, 2.) i have never experienced it, and 3.) i have not seen one single study confirming it.

I have never ruled out it's existence.

Then we're in agreement.

You are, sir. You are quick to jump and label religious people as idiots with "blind faith", easily dismissing the personal experiences that made them into believers.

Quit putting words into my mouth, I never called religious people idiots. I don't deny the possibility of the existence of God or an afterlife, but there is a difference between religious experiences and shared dreaming experiences which can be confirmed between two people.

Then you want others to not demand evidence for shared dreaming, but simply accept someone's stories without any doubt.

Jakob

I never said that. Where are you getting this from? I don't believe in shared dreaming, but I think it's possible and I'm open to be convinced either way. I'm just not going to immediately rule out the possibility of shared dreaming.

And to clarify on this post:

Originally Posted by MindGames

Except there's a difference between believing in shared dreaming and believing in God and an afterlife. The former doesn't require blind faith, assuming you've experienced it for yourself. So what you're basically saying then is that anyone who has experienced it for themselves is a hypocrite because of the lack of formal scientific evidence. Whether they're mistaken or not has yet to be proven, but you're kind of jumping the gun by calling everyone who believes in it a hypocrite without having made the effort to even find out the truth for yourself. So, who's the real hypocrite here?

My point, Jakob, is that you were calling everybody who believes in shared dreaming hypocrites regardless of whether or not they've been convinced of it for themselves through personal experience, basically equating believing in shared dreaming to blind faith when it is not the same thing as believing in a God. There is a major difference between believing in a God and believing in shared dreaming. It's possible to prove it by doing it yourself and talking about the shared dream afterward.

Originally Posted by MindGames

The difference between religious experiences and shared dreaming is that the latter can be confirmed or disproved since there are two or more people involved.

That doesn't make the religious experiences of any lower value. You also ignore the fact that there are religious experiences that involve close friends and/or family members, which makes the experience mutual.

Quit putting words into my mouth, I never called religious people idiots.

Well, maybe not you, but you did use the term blind faith, which is a very sort of dismissive thing.

I don't deny the possibility of the existence of God or an afterlife, but there is a difference between religious experiences and shared dreaming experiences which can be confirmed between two people.

As I just pointed out to you, really there is no difference. You have to look at it from an objective, unbiased point of view. But sometimes, this is difficult to do.

I never said that. Where are you getting this from? I don't believe in shared dreaming, but I think it's possible and I'm open to be convinced either way. I'm just not going to immediately rule out the possibility of shared dreaming.

I never ruled out the possibility either. I just want to see something other than "me and my friend do it on a regular basis."

And just to be clear: If I personally experienced shared dreaming with someone, then I wouldn't give a rat's ass about scientific evidence.

Originally Posted by MindGames

My point, Jakob, is that you were calling everybody who believes in shared dreaming hypocrites regardless of whether or not they've been convinced of it for themselves through personal experience,

I didn't call all shared dreamers hypocrites, but only those who mock religious experiences, and at the same time want others to ignore the lack of scientific evidence for shared dreaming.

They proudly declare "Prove to me that God exists!", "You have no evidence!", "You have blind faith!", etc., etc., yet when someone demands scientific evidence for shared dreaming, they get all pissed off.

Not all are like this, but there are many. At least in my experience it has been so, through internet discussion.

basically equating believing in shared dreaming to blind faith when it is not the same thing as believing in a God. There is a major difference between believing in a God and believing in shared dreaming. It's possible to prove it by doing it yourself and talking about the shared dream afterward.

I strongly, strongly disagree. As I said earlier, there are religious "paranormal" experiences that sometimes involve more than one person.

And even if only one person is involved, I find it sad that people jump so quickly to label someone's faith as "blind". To someone who has had visions of God accompanied with an otherworldly feeling of happiness, in combination with an extraordinarily high number of prayers answered, etc., his faith in God is all but blind to him. I am not that person, but I am simply giving you an example.

So if you can't respect someone's religious beliefs, and why they believe in God without "scientific proof", then you also shouldn't demand that people accept shared dreaming without scientific proof either.

Because doing so would be hypocritical.

Jakob

Now I don't want this thread to turn into a "atheism is better than theism" debate, or "does God exist". I made my points clear in regards to shared dreaming. Here it is again:

1.) I have never experienced it.
2.) I have not seen one single study confirming it's existence.
3.) I have honestly having doubts about so many DreamViews users having shared dreams.
4.) I am not ruling out the possibility of it's existence.
5.) I would absolutely love to see a study, such as the one I proposed (password + eye movements).

Yeah, that would be it.

OK, guys, a couple of things.

1. Please don't shout.
2. There is way too many smileys of the non-smiling kind in here. Excessive smileys are discouraged.
3. Absolutely no personal attacks are allowed.
4. If you find some opinions offensive and you can't handle them, please don't participate.
and
5. Stay on topic.

Thank you.

I see. For clarification, what I was referring to as blind faith was believing in God and the afterlife without having any reason other than indoctrination to believe so. In which case it would be blind faith. That would be different from believing in shared dreaming if you've experienced it for yourself. In that case, you wouldn't need scientific evidence to back up your experiences.

So if you can't respect someone's religious beliefs, and why they believe in God without "scientific proof", then you also shouldn't demand that people accept shared dreaming without scientific proof either.

Because doing so would be hypocritical.

I don't think people should accept shared dreaming without scientific proof. Personal experiences that have been confirmed between two people "scientifically" also count as scientific proof, by the way. The problem with religious experiences is that you can't really have them and confirm them the same way that you can with shared dreaming.

Originally Posted by Jakob

But here we have nothing to hold on to except "talk". Lucid dreaming was proven in a controlled study by LaBerge using specific eye-movements during REM sleep. The same could easily be done for shared dreaming, but for some reason, after all these years, it hasn't been done.

I am not intimately familiar with studies done about anything since ive never personally been involved with one. However, I have read Laberge's book and other books whose authors underwent in depth study in their respective subject. The problem with studying shared dreaming is that no institution in their right mind would approve of such a study at this point in time. The accepted view of science as it stands cannot accept the idea of shared dreaming, let alone actually supporting serious research on the topic. That is why, in my view studying shared dreaming like Laberge studied lucid dreaming is nearly impossible.
Of course, people here on dream views and other "unofficial" groups have formulated shared dreaming experiments but that has no backing by any serious educational institution.
I think replicating Laberge's study with shared dreaming would be an excellent idea. The amusing part would be to watch someone try to convince the general populace that they actually proved shared dreaming assuming they collected the necessary evidence.

So you believe in the existence of God, but at the same time that all religions are false. I can understand that.

Hmm. I'm not sure how that would work. Believing in Hinduism and Christianity at the same time would be very irrational, seeing how one religion completely contradicts the other. Therefore I don't see how someone can accept everything as truth. It is illogical.

This perspective comes from viewing the world from a "big picture" perspective. Nothing is true and everything is permitted. This is because as humans we cannot truly know an objective reality because our sensory perception is limited. On the other hand, our experience is all we have, therefore every experience must be true simply by its existence. If you were to reduce all religions to their most basic elements, you would see they all strive for the same goal. All the crap that gets piled on top is generally considered "dogma".

The only issue here is this: You all want to make shared dreaming "unsuitable" for a study, and make up tons of excuses why it wouldn't work in a study. The only reason is to justify the fact that all these years of research hasn't shown a shred of evidence for shared dreaming.

We are not making it unsuitable for study, we discuss and study this phenomena at length. Unfortunately, the intellectual powers that be have made this topic unsuitable for study in any serious setting. I hope this changes in the future but that requires a paradigm shift in respect to how people view unconscious reality.

It is not just my personal experience which may explain. It is also running that experience through a fact filter to see if what is experienced is legitimate. Here are a few facts that were in times past considered ridiculous.

1. One can be conscious inside a dream (lucid dreaming)
2. Everyone is connected through an invisible(to us) energy field that permeates the entire universe. There are no boundaries between matter.
3. Human beings communicate unconsciously on a daily basis in waking life through body language, social cues, tonal inflection, and other very subtle forms of communication.

The more we as humans observe the world, the more we realize how connected we really are. To say it is not possible is simply willful ignorance.

There was a thread about a year ago on these forums that cited a study about shared dreaming in which subjects shared up to 30% dream material while attempting shared dreaming as opposed to 5% shared material when not attempting.

There are many people who have looked into the subject and they deserve serious consideration. It seems though, that you are more serious about proving yourself correct than actually finding any proof. That is probably why you have received the "trying to find ways to make shared dreaming unsuitable for study" response.

In other news, you got me interested in this and I am gonna track down some legitimate shared dreaming research in case anyone really wants to research this. I'll post that on a different thread in the beyond dreaming forum...it will probably take me a few hours...

if shared dreaming were shown to exist, the implications would be huge. It would mean that there are channels through which information/energy can flow that we don't yet know about. I've seen comments here that no scientist would stake his reputation on studying such a thing, but if you looked into it you'd find that this sort of thing has had the shit studied out of it. So far, there is no real evidence in support of it. And it seems (to me) that if it existed it would have been proven by now. Kind of like ghosts, bigfoot... whatever. If it's out there and you simply have to observe it under controlled conditions, it should have been done long ago.

You can say that two people can prove it between themselves, but that's called anecdotal evidence. For something to be scientifically proven it has to be repeated a number of times, recorded, and verified through outside sources. This has never been accomplished with shared dreaming or any similar phenomenon.

and the burden of proof lies on those making the claim, not the other way around.

deleted

Originally Posted by Fechtel

"MindGames" is not an atheist but actually an anti-theist. His hate for religion sometimes prevents him from writing coherent sentences.

He posts on freeratio.org under the username "jonJ".

...if that was a joke, it wasn't very funny. Why the sudden personal attack?

e: And no, I'm actually agnostic.

Thanks, by the way, you're about the fourth person on this site today to treat me badly. (Not talking about anybody else on this thread) Definitely feeling the love on here. I suppose you get your good morals from your religion?

I saw this coming a mile away, and i don't need to know who started it, i already made my decision not to deal with kids here changing topics to cause havoc here. And i bet this very person is happy now for doing such a thing. (we all know who i am talking about)

Originally Posted by MindGames

Thanks, by the way, you're about the fourth person on this site today to treat me badly. (Not talking about anybody else on this thread) Definitely feeling the love on here. I suppose you get your good morals from your religion?

Originally Posted by zombiesarebad

if shared dreaming were shown to exist, the implications would be huge. It would mean that there are channels through which information/energy can flow that we don't yet know about. I've seen comments here that no scientist would stake his reputation on studying such a thing, but if you looked into it you'd find that this sort of thing has had the shit studied out of it. So far, there is no real evidence in support of it. And it seems (to me) that if it existed it would have been proven by now. Kind of like ghosts, bigfoot... whatever. If it's out there and you simply have to observe it under controlled conditions, it should have been done long ago.

You can say that two people can prove it between themselves, but that's called anecdotal evidence. For something to be scientifically proven it has to be repeated a number of times, recorded, and verified through outside sources. This has never been accomplished with shared dreaming or any similar phenomenon.

and the burden of proof lies on those making the claim, not the other way around.

I am not asking for the study to be repeated a large number of times etc.

One time would be enough, as long as it's successful.

Originally Posted by hathor28

I saw this coming a mile away, and i don't need to know who started it, i already made my decision not to deal with kids here changing topics to cause havoc here. And i bet this very person is happy now for doing such a thing. (we all know who i am talking about)

I hope you are not talking about me.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

How could you do that through shared dreaming?

If you can make the claim that you can share information with another person on the other side of the world in a shared dream, then my god, why am I spending money on a cable connection or a telephone monthly plan?
All I have to do is get my mom to connect to my dream and... I no longer have to use Facebook.
If I were a military leader, all I need is a spy behind enemy lines, and I no longer have to use electronic means of communication to get secrets back home to me.
Communication would be instant, cost-free, and untraceable.
Of course, this isn't being done... which leads me to think it *isn't real*.

Originally Posted by Mindraker

If you can make the claim that you can share information with another person on the other side of the world in a shared dream, then my god, why am I spending money on a cable connection or a telephone monthly plan?
All I have to do is get my mom to connect to my dream and... I no longer have to use Facebook.
If I were a military leader, all I need is a spy behind enemy lines, and I no longer have to use electronic means of communication to get secrets back home to me.
Communication would be instant, cost-free, and untraceable.
Of course, this isn't being done... which leads me to think it *isn't real*.

It don't mean if it isn't being done that it isn't real. There are things being done in secret service that we don't know. Media really has a knack for hiding stuff too, are you really believing the crap on TV and media? Most people do. But i don't. Technology taking over is only benefit for the market and a selling product, corporations don't care about our questions for science they only care for what they do to make money. Science does make money, once they catch that shared dreaming is possible, do you know how much they will get? Once making a product just for this will make billions of dollars, or more. I wouldn't be surprised if they did find out secretly and then hit us with a "wow" one day in the future.
A product is now made for controlling your dreams better what's next right?