NO AD HOMINEM ATTACKS
If you don't know what that means, please learn.
Learn some rules of debate, too, and debate tactics, so you can see through bullshit better.
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NO AD HOMINEM ATTACKS
If you don't know what that means, please learn.
Learn some rules of debate, too, and debate tactics, so you can see through bullshit better.
PHWEET GO!
I think there should be another option:
"I might've experienced it"
That's what I'd vote for.
WakingNomad, is there a place on here I can go to see the evidence?
Might be possible with aid of technology; an incredibly advanced one.
Can someone give me an actual definition of "shared dreaming" because I typed it into Google and it just comes up with "Inception"
*Facepalm*
i voted 'i need to experence it'
I cannot make such a broad statement as "I need to experience it", so I chose the one below it.
I would believe it if I would experience it myself, but only if it was incredibly accurate. As in, if I found out I had a shared dream with someone, and they could tell me in detail everything that happened without errors. And due to the short nature of most of my dreams, maybe a more than a couple of times too. One or two somewhat relating dreams wouldn't be enough to convince me. Don't tell me I'm not being open minded, I am technically. Everything I currently think I know just goes against the very aspect of shared dreaming as people like wakingnomad put it, so I need the appropriate proof of its existance before I consider it "the most probably explonation".
Basically, I currently think that it's quite unlikely. But a couple of good experiences would push me in a position where I wouldn't know what to believe. In that situation, I would probably try to do experimentation and see where that leads me.
But the last thing I would ever even think of doing is try to explain it away with some pseudo-science and shove it in other peoples faces. No. I am not an expert on any subject fit to this matter, so I don't find myself worthy of even a say in how it all would work.
Voted for "Yes, because I have experienced it."
I'm lucky, because if I had any doubts on this matter, it would eat me up.
Sorry WakingNomad, my crystal ball is missing. Where do I find Shared Dream FAQ? I looked at the FAQ menu up the top, I looked in the DJs and I looked in Beyond Dreaming. Where is it?
I personally believe in shared dreaming. a long time ago, I was playing some online game. I met someone there who was interested in shared dreaming when I talked about it. If I remember correctly, our dreams synced up by the second time we tried it, and worked at least twice more before we fell out of contact.
Edit: I also have apparently had several appearances in nomad's old dream journal, although I did not remember any of it.
How many times does something need to be able to be able to be reproduced before it is no longer coincidence? for me, I've repeated shared dreaming enough to prove to myself that there is more than just coincidence going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Y363-gPX8
It's a coincidence that I see this video and the author has zzz zzz in his username. It's a coincidence that 222 keeps reappearing in my life. Another coincidence yesterday, is when I was talking about UFO's to my family last might, my uncle awoke from a dream, and said, "I just had a dream about big silvery ball in the ground. I was on a construction team, and we were trying to get it out of the soil. A big silver orb thing."
Coincidence means 2 things coinciding. My life is one big giant coincidence. It's a coincidence that after 22, 222, and 2222 keep reappearing in my life I find out I was conceived on November 22, 1974. It's a coincidence that my mom is a twin, and I was conceived on her birthday. It's also a coincidence that my ascendant birth sign is Gemini. It's a coincidence that my mom and my aunt both have four children, the first from one father, the last three from another. That's a coincidence.
Coincidences happen to me all the time, all around me. When people hang out with me, coincidences always happen, and then they nervously laugh. I laugh madly and tell them I am magic.
Yo, Im not trying to criticize you at all...but I this is what I want you to think about. Drink 4 shots back to back with a friend, then go to the movies, then out to dinner, 2 more shots, then walk around in the forest for a while, then walk back home. 2 days later I want you to ask them what they remember of the experience, NO ERRORS. If they can't remember 3 out of the 5 things that happened in perfect detail, the experience didn't exist, because you guys didn't agree on the details. Thats basically what you are telling me with that comment. Its not that you are not being open minded, you aren't just thinking it through. If a person can't tell you the details when they are fully awake of an experience 2 days later, what makes you think they will remember something the next day when they are half asleep? And a short one at that. Remember exactly what happened yesterday at 3:30 pm. Exactly, no errors, remember? I mean think about it...if you can, then lets share a dream( something which I don't normally do, I hate people close to me when I sleep, physically and mentally). In any case, something to think about.Quote:
I would believe it if I would experience it myself, but only if it was incredibly accurate. As in, if I found out I had a shared dream with someone, and they could tell me in detail everything that happened without errors. And due to the short nature of most of my dreams, maybe a more than a couple of times too. One or two somewhat relating dreams wouldn't be enough to convince me. Don't tell me I'm not being open minded, I am technically. Everything I currently think I know just goes against the very aspect of shared dreaming as people like wakingnomad put it, so I need the appropriate proof of its existance before I consider it "the most probably explonation".
To say shared dreaming is possible is to say that transmission of information between 2 or more minds is possible. Since we have no knowledge at all about how this is even remotely possible, we can set up a controlled experiment whereby a dreamer is assigned the task of sending a distinct and random message to another dreamer also under the same conditions. An empirical experiment like this is a simple way of obtaining the relevant information regarding the validity of shared dreaming. Under these particular settings, no dream practitioner have been able to produce the desired results.
Of course these sorts of experiments are by no means definitive because it may just turn out that shared dreaming is very much possible. There are still vast areas of the human brain that we haven't the faintest idea what purpose or function they serve. It could be one of those things where we think it exists, but just do not have the means to prove it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EHrIsyWZMo&feature=related
skip to 7:40, if you don't want to watch the whole thing.
Apparently, if I'm interpreting this correctly, there is some evidence that thoughts can go from mind to mind.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say Nomad, why are you pointing out the numbers?
I admit I didn't notice that one, but when I do notice things like that I usually take it as something I should pay attention to.
I've had two possible shared-dreaming experiences. I'm not sure if this might count for something, but the same person I had these two dreams with, both of us came up with the same idea at around the same time.
Ive had many posible ones, Ive had two confirmed.
I really agree with this. I once went to see a trial with my society studies teacher, and I was extremely surprised by how different the witnesses stories were, despite the fact that they'd all been at the exact same place, experiencing the same event. I've said this many times and I'll say it again: Subjective reality is a fact.
As a kid, I vaguely remember having 'shared dreaming' experiences with my best friend - in that we would talk about having similar experiences in dreams. Being older, though, I wonder how much of those accounts were identical, and how much of it might have just been two kids happily corroborating each others' stories.
I still find the subject interesting, but I know that - in such a topic - it is so easy to be fooled by one's own mind, and people tend to forget how vulnerable to suggestion and faith that we really are. It is for this reason, that I chose the "maybe, but it must be scientifically proven." Now, you must understand that this does not mean that a mainstream, scientific community must officially sign off on the concept. It means, at the very least, that I have to have proven it to myself, through some pretty rigorous testing. Personally, at this time, I don't have a belief that information can travel from mind to mind, although I'm quite familiar with some of the more plausible theories as to how it could, and I remain open-minded.
In the past, I have dabbled in trying to accomplish metaphysical goals while lucid (placing cards around in waking life, face down, and trying to read them while I'm lucid to see if I could guess them right; etc.). So far, I've never been able to confirm anything as statistically significant. Granted, it wasn't a rigorous, prolonged practice, but I just haven't seen anything enough to convince me that it's physically possible, yet.
O, you just reminded me of a possible shared dream I had once in high school.
I had dreamed that I was walking with a friend through a public square and we saw a woman pushing a baby carriage. A couple of people walked up to peer at the baby and ooo and aaah at it, but suddenly a rattle struck them from under the baby's blanket and they died horribly (don't remember details after so many years). The baby's head came up into view and it was an adult-sized skull with a leering grin. It was Death, and its weapon was it's Death Rattle. I knew that a single touch of it meant the end, and now it was staring straight at me and my friend. It threw the rattle at us, and thinking fast I jumped up onto a slide that deflected it upwards, and I used some kind of scarf or cloth to sort of catch it without slowing it and swing it around sling-style so it was now flying straight back at Baby Death. It struck him and he imploded or something.
Well, this felt like an "important" dream, and I jumped on my bike and pedalled over to his house as fast as I could. When I got there, he was standing in the driveway talking to another friend and telling him about a dream he had had that me and him had killed death... !! :shock:
Wha... ?
Hardly able to contain myself, I listened. His dream was very different from mine though... it was more of a swords and sorcery adventure taking place in an old stone tower and we fought a traditional Grim Reaper with swords. Still, it's an amazing coincidence. I thought long and hard about things we had seen on TV the few days previous, conversations we had that might have provoked such a dream, but I never came up with anything feasible.
Yeah, I agree with the others who said "I might have experienced it." Because I had a dream the same night as one of my best friends with many similar features (we were both in a car, it was raining, driving down a dark road lined by trees...) but the dreams diverged later on.
The coincidences are very... coincidental. I'd need to experience it lucid and have confirmation though. But yeah... I won't forget that dream or the conversation we had afterwards.
i might have had one before as well. There was a baby that took part in 4 dreams in 1 night, and he had an inexplainable presence to him unlike other DCs
Voted for "Yes, because I have experienced it."
Look at my Avatar
One day, when you want to have a short nap, look at my Avatar for a minute or so. Then as you drop-off notice any hipnagogic imagery. When you wake, note any dream snippets and post them.
I will go to the beach where the Mandala is. I wiil look around for anything that sync's with your hipnagogs and dream snippets.
This is the beggining.
Once it (the remote viewing) happens, you will begin to trust the Avatar mandala.
When you trust the Mandala it will not just be a remote viewing camera to where i am, (Adelaide, South Australia) but it will become a portal that you are welcome to step into.
The Mandala will gently teleport you onto the beach between the Henley Beach Jetty and the Grange Jetty. Then you will have 100% verifiable shared dreams.
The mandala IS the expecto-petronum charm, so every dark thing will be satiated and float-away blissfully and harmlessly.
So
Nothing will harm you and nothing will be harmed.
Love DebraJaneDixon
It is 8:18pm now here.
Maybe the 'collective consciousness' could account for the dream/astral plane?
I voted for "Maybe, I am yet to experience it".
It would be very difficult to prove, hence people call it coincidence. I think what Nomad is saying is at what amount of coincidences does it no longer become a coincidence? Big fat grey area that is.
Go check out the results, but like I said, it's a personal decision on what is a coincidence and what isn't.
Hell yeah I hope so.
I also voted for "Maybe, but id have to experience it" and believe me, I am planning on trying.
Ive read through the Dj entries of WakingNomad and RavenKnight, MoSH and others and find the entire thing absolutely fascinating. I'd love to believe in this being real, but the only way to find out is to try. Im not an amazing LD'er and am still fairly new to the whole concept but when I increase my LD count, control etc i will be attempting it xD
http://www.dreamviews.com/f144/results-119299/
Are some of them coincidences? Probably, but they can't all be.
I've read through all of those too, Atras. And yeah you right, some/most of them COULD be coincidences but after a while it seems there are just too many for it to be random. Like I said though im rather stubborn and will have to experience it. I plan to try, im just not good enough at general LD'ing yet xD
I'm voting: maybe you should start to realise you're allredy experiencing it.
Liked nomad's answer to teh comment: "where's the shared dreaming faq" - "it's all around you" (in this facebookverse likes are what count. If you say it's unlikely, you're really meaning it's unliked ;-)
This is a short version of lucid dreaming faq:
The Matrix Of Illusion - YouTube
so stay lucid also when you're in the dominion of time, and i don't mean the dreams when time is chaotic, but observe it when it acts like clockwork. Good wendesday to you all. It's the next realm you're most likely to experince
and before you flame me, remember to do it outside beyond dreaming
If I could actually "share" a dream with someone else, then I could completely crash the communications industry, espionage, revolutionize warfare, and become a multibillionaire overnight.
Having a similar or even the same dream is not the same the same thing -- it could merely be a coincidence brought on by environmental circumstances or pre-dream suggestions. Or we may both be reinterpreting our dreams after we wake up. "I thought I saw a loaf of bread."... "Oh... so that's what that brown dot was... yeah I guess I saw a loaf of bread, too."
I voted 1st one. It is recurringly happening to me, with a guy i used to know in school. It's all in my DJs :)
:imslow: :withstupid: :hijack: :thumbdown2: :blahblahblah:
Did you actually read what wakingnomad said on his Thread? I feel you are skeptic to actually want evidence and a Faq.
Quote:
NO AD HOMINEM ATTACKS
If you don't know what that means, please learn.
Learn some rules of debate, too, and debate tactics, so you can see through bullshit better.
I chose the first one because I had a pretty good emotional bond with my shared dreaming partner. Though I didn't find her, she found me, and the environment was the same.
A school designed like a mall, and there was another attempt where I was at some pet school waiting for someone, but didn't know it was her until I read her DJ entry.
Sooo, when does the debate start?
Aside from a couple of tepid posts that essentially say. "maybe shared dreaming can't exist," this entire thread is far more echo chamber than an exchange of opposing ideas and opinions (aka: debate).
I personally can't argue honestly against it because I want to believe that shared-dreaming exists, and have a feeling I have experienced it many times. To be fair: though I've never argued against its existence, I have argued for empirical proof for that existence -- which I think matters, but also feel is not the subject set for debate here.
But it would be nice if someone came on to prod us into thinking of reasons why shared dreaming exists (other than "Because I said so," or "Because WakingNomad said so"), and how communication between minds using energy that is neither electromagnetic or responsive to known laws of physics and can be directed to and understood by specifically targeted minds is even possible.
And then there are the potentials of shared dreaming, were it to become commonplace or at least readily doable ... Aside from Mindraker's post above that went pretty much ignored, not much debate there, either. Why discuss a thing if its definition must stop at simply "something" getting communicated between two dreamers?
tl;dr: This thread doesn't speak so much of a debate as a pro-shared-dreaming echo chamber. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but is it really what you wanted, Nomad?
This seems to me to highlight a worthwhile point. A person's beliefs strongly determine their personal experience, not merely their interpretation of experience, and this is particularly clear with dreams. Looking entirely to one's own experience as the only useful evidence would be tantamount to basing one's 'facts' entirely on personal opinion. Everyone tends to get stuck in their own echo chamber. To fertilize it with new ideas requires going outside of that and considering other perspectives that are not yet confirmed by one's own experience. That happens in internet discussions, and, ironically, also in shared dreams. For myself both arenas are linked, and the process is largely the same in both cases.
EDIT:
Never mind, what I said isn't going to help anything xP
I think it would be awesome if shared dreaming was real, but I don't believe in it. Dreams exist within the subconscious. How is shared dreaming possible, then? You're supposed to somehow leave your mind and enter someone else's subconscious? Impossible.
I'd be convinced if there was scientific evidence or I experienced a definite shared dream myself (as in, we can both recall the same conversation and events in detail, to make sure it's not just a coincidence), but I still voted no because I believe that it's impossible and there never will be solid proof.
You don't have to necessarily "invade" or enter someone's mind to try and have a shared dreaming attempt.
If you think about the dreaming dimension/plane as a medium where two or more people who can pick up on each others' dream signature or frequency instead of one going into a person's mind, then it can be somewhat more rational than thinking dreams exists only within the subconscious.
Of course, I can just say that there's more to dreaming than just the unconscious linking with the subconscious to manifest repressed thoughts, etc., but that won't be enough.
You said you would be convinced if you both recalled the same conversation and events in detail, that is possible. It depends on your shared dreaming partner's invitation for you to see certain portrayals of their subconscious to you that would normally be filtered out.
You also have to consider that by having a bond (doesn't have to be intimate) with your partner to try and find the frequency, or energy signature to find each other, it can help with finding them faster, which is why certain projects like the IOSDP focus on understanding certain qualities of participants to find them on the dreaming plane.
I don't know if you are open to the possibility of the dreaming plane and others, and only believe that dreams are only confined in the subconscious, but a connection with the partner is not required, but it helps a lot.
Think of it as being in a void, all you feel is emptiness, being saturated by repressed thoughts that are slowly portraying themselves to you. And to find that person you're looking for, you can either try to imagine what it would feel like to be around them, or think of it as turning the knob on the radio to find their frequency, because if you don't tune in to the right channel, you most likely will not receive feedback.
I know the analogy isn't unique, but I believe that it's more of an intuition endeavor rather than logic, based on that intuition itself helps with understanding your true self. And by understanding your true self, whether you think it's the superconscious or something else, you will realize that the potential for shared dreaming being real isn't so far-fetched if you change how and where dreaming can exist.
I like to believe that it might exist, I also like to argue the possible means as to how it could exist and how it operates. In the end this is because I think its a cool idea and not because it might be within the realms of science. It is no more justified than arguing the possibility of aliens landing on earth. None the less it is still interesting to imagine the possibilities it could open.
I think you don't study, what telepathy really is if you think "to leave your mind to enter someone elses subconscious" is considering impossible. Actually being in someones mind is possible. Do this in dreams and it can lead to shared dreaming. One thing leads to the next like a chain reaction. And never say never, because scientists proved lucid dreaming, and i think shared dreaming is next, now that i am seeing more experiments going on at the internet and promoting it, also needing people to volunteer. Google "shared dreaming experiments" and you'll see.
Or you may be trying very hard to find "patterns" in your life, and that way you are much more likely to notice 22, 222, and 2222 appearing, than to notice 0, 239, 4938, or 239819.
On a more serious note:
Honestly, no I don't believe in shared dreaming. And if it does exist, I think it would be extremely rare, limited only to individuals with extraordinary telepathic/ESP abilities. These two "shared dreamers" would also have to be in REM sleep at the same time in order for it to work. I am not saying it cannot exist, I am simply saying I don't see any evidence for it's existence at this time. So many studies have been done on dreams, by Celia Green, Stephen LaBerge, etc., and there is no study which confirms this supposed phenomenon. It's also a bit funny to me to see all these threads on DreamViews, with people claiming they have shared dreams. Some people on DV are even claiming that they're having it on a regular basis. Something like this would actually be easy to prove if it did exist, and it would be a potential candidate for a succesful victory at the James Randi Foundation (google "randi challenge" for more info). Here's the setup:
1.) Find two experienced shared dreamers (there are supposedly many here on DreamViews).
2.) Arrange a setting where they can't communicate with one another, and make sure they fall asleep approximately at the same time, in order to be in REM around the same time.
3.) Tell subject A, to give a certain password to subject B, once they are together lucid in the dream state.
End of story. If they are for real, they'll be able to give information to one another from the dream state. So what are the shared dreamers waiting for? James Randi will give them one million dollars if they can prove it.
I don't mean to sound arrogant, since I actually believe in ESP and many other things which are "out there", so I am not a "skeptic" at all. The thing is, this shared dreaming thing annoys me very much, just because I see so many threads with people claiming they experienced it, and others claiming it's easy to experience it, and others supposedly having it on a regular basis.
I am simply being as honest as I can be. I am very annoyed when I see threads on this forum such as "The Etiquette of Shared Dreaming."
It makes me really angry. No offense intended.
Jakob
Hi Jacob,
You might be less angry if you got some more background on the discussion first. About once every two weeks someone comes in and posts the same 'test' that you did. Then people explain why it doesn't apply to what they're talking about when they speak of shared dreaming. Then a couple of weeks later it comes up again with someone else, ad nauseum. OutlawPig is the last example before you. (Though I see you've been registered for longer than me. Maybe you usually read different threads.)
There are also a number of problems with the Randi challenge, except as a device for feeling smugly superior to superstitious people. For instance, to avoid having people randomly try stuff until they get lucky and win the reward, the confidence criteria are extremely high, much higher than for most scientific studies. That's understandable, but it precludes the demonstration of difficult phenomena. You can google for other criticisms, or maybe someone less lazy than me can repost links that have been posted here before.
Also I don't understand your outrage about shared dreaming if you accept the possibility of ESP. For me that's all it is, the only difference is in the 'shared dreaming' case you're generating images from your imagination instead of from what is coming through your sense organs. Granted not everybody interprets shared dreaming in the same way, but there does seem to be some general agreement about this.
Regarding your critique of WakingNomad's pattern recognition....Your criticism here is typical also. Yes, many people aren't objective about how they recognize patterns in things. But other people are aware of the possible fallacies, and they look at them and weigh them carefully. For example, I'm not at all into numerology, but my son pointed out that my cell phone number starts with the same four digits as my address, then when I got a new job a few months later, my 5 digit employee ID matched the phone number, with two of the phone digits added/sandwiched into the middle of it. These are issued sequentially, so that's pretty hard to do. If this was the only thing like that had ever happened, then I'd attribute it to random luck. But if numerology is your thing, and you have a moderate degree of psychic development, this sort of thing can happen a lot, as in nearly every day. So although I have significant disagreements about WakingNomad about dream interpretation, and would probably disagree with WakingNomad about the significance of 2's in his life, I see no reason to doubt the claim.
Of course, its reasonable for you to doubt it if it doesn't fit with your experience and if the only people you've ever met who make such claims are objectively lying or deluded. A lot of what people are going to claim about paranormal experience is just fabrications. Unfortunately, there is good deal of overlap between the fabricators and the real psychics, because the absence of self-doubt makes the phenomena a lot easier.
If you believe that shared dreaming might be real, but that some people are twisting or exaggerating their tales of it for self-aggrandizement, maybe we should refocus the discussion on that. Maybe this is what bothers Sageous about the topic also.
Unfortunately that would be extremely ineffective as we would have no idea ass to how both dreamers will interpret the dream and the password. Here is a more appropriate test
1.) Find two experienced shared dreamers
2.) Tell that once they communicate in the dream they must both perform a particular eye-movement.
If both dreamers simultaneously did the eye signal there is evidece of its existence.
I think the real reason is that here on dreamviews when someone new pops in they decide to express their heart and soul as to how they believe that dream sharing is impossible. Over time they realise that denying its existence is just as ingnorant as stating its existence without evidence. Therefore unlike in the spirituality section we have all come to a general agreement. We are rarely trying to convince others here that their views on the subject are wrong. On the other hand go the the R/S section and the debates will never stop because no one wants to admit they are wrong.
This is nonsense. There is nothing to "interpret" if one is given a simple assignment to remember a word and write it down after waking up.
They meet in the dream, and the rest is a piece of cake:
Subject A: There you are! Awesome, we're both lucid now.
Subject B: Ok, here we go. Let's prove it to them. What's the password he gave you?
Subject A: The password is "Buckchaser".
Subject B: Buckchaser, buckchaser, buckchaser... alright.
Subject A: See ya later.
Subject B: Bye bye.
And that's it. The experiment can be repeated once more, but the "other way around", so that the other subject has the password this time, but it isn't necessary. This would be enough for the James Randi Challenge, so I don't understand why these hundreds if not thousands of shared dreamers do not want to be rich.
In any case, similar eye-movements can be written off as coincidences, but if the two dreamers can transfer passwords such as (for example) "Buckchaser", or "Fox 88" or "Dream 97", then this is 100% proof.
Jakob
Oh please. It is on the shared dreamers to prove their case and show evidence for it's existence. A simple "me and my friend did it a million times" or "we gave passwords to one another" isn't good enough. The fact of the matter is: There is no study in the world, not by Celia Green, or Stephen LaBerge, or any other respected dream/lucid dream researcher, which has shown evidence for the existence of shared dreaming.
No one is saying it "cannot" exist. At least I'm not saying that. I am simply saying: At this time there is no evidence for it, except claims on internet forums.
Jakob
Your knowledge on the subject is obviously minute, firstly by stating that both dreamers will interpret the dream exactly the same you are stating that you as a disbeliever know exactly how the brain forms dreams and how it would go about sharing. If two people in a room both hear a sound they will probably interpret it differently in their dream. Who or what is telling you that this is different in a dream. How do you know how much control we would have in a shared dream. You act like your some kind of scholar on the subject but you really have no opinion on why or why not this could even work. Were here to assess different ways in which dream sharing could be possible not to listen to some ignorant idiot who has no idea about the complexity of neuroscience.
This is ridiculous. People on an internet forum claiming they exchanged "passwords" in a dream is not the same as a controlled study. I can't believe you are making this comparison.
If I were psychic, or a shared dreamer (which is essentially the same thing), I'd be the first in line to prove those a$$holes wrong.Quote:
There are also a number of problems with the Randi challenge, except as a device for feeling smugly superior to superstitious people.
Someone who has psychic abilities won't have any problem meeting the challenge. If you have the slightest telekinetic power to move a psi-wheel in a controlled setting, you will win the money. The same goes for remote reading, telepathy, and so on and so forth.Quote:
For instance, to avoid having people randomly try stuff until they get lucky and win the reward, the confidence criteria are extremely high, much higher than for most scientific studies. That's understandable, but it precludes the demonstration of difficult phenomena. You can google for other criticisms, or maybe someone less lazy than me can repost links that have been posted here before.
The outrage is in the fact that there is no evidence for shared dreaming at this time. No studies have confirmed this phenomenon that supposedly every 3rd or 4th DreamViews poster can induce at will.Quote:
Also I don't understand your outrage about shared dreaming if you accept the possibility of ESP.
On the other hand, there have been controlled studies in which telekinetic abilities have been demonstrated. These people (for example: Nina Kulagina), aren't alive today to meet the Randi Challenge.
Pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo that has little value. First we need controlled studies which support it's existence, and then you can tell me about "how it works."Quote:
For me that's all it is, the only difference is in the 'shared dreaming' case you're generating images from your imagination instead of from what is coming through your sense organs. Granted not everybody interprets shared dreaming in the same way, but there does seem to be some general agreement about this.
In other words: We need to see that it does work in the first place. And simple claims about doing it aren't good enough.
Are you saying these patterns are evidence of psychic abilities?Quote:
Regarding your critique of WakingNomad's pattern recognition....Your criticism here is typical also. Yes, many people aren't objective about how they recognize patterns in things. But other people are aware of the possible fallacies, and they look at them and weigh them carefully. For example, I'm not at all into numerology, but my son pointed out that my cell phone number starts with the same four digits as my address, then when I got a new job a few months later, my 5 digit employee ID matched the phone number, with two of the phone digits added/sandwiched into the middle of it. These are issued sequentially, so that's pretty hard to do. If this was the only thing like that had ever happened, then I'd attribute it to random luck. But if numerology is your thing, and you have a moderate degree of psychic development, this sort of thing can happen a lot, as in nearly every day. So although I have significant disagreements about WakingNomad about dream interpretation, and would probably disagree with WakingNomad about the significance of 2's in his life, I see no reason to doubt the claim.
I believe in the paranormal. Lots of it. I also believe shared dreaming might exist.Quote:
Of course, its reasonable for you to doubt it if it doesn't fit with your experience and if the only people you've ever met who make such claims are objectively lying or deluded. A lot of what people are going to claim about paranormal experience is just fabrications. Unfortunately, there is good deal of overlap between the fabricators and the real psychics, because the absence of self-doubt makes the phenomena a lot easier.
I just don't see an evidence for it at this time. Forum posts with people claiming they have it are really meaningless to me.
Yeah, I believe it might be real. I already said that. But until I see a good study on it, I refuse to believe these tons of DreamViews users who are writing spectacular tales of shared dreaming adventures.Quote:
If you believe that shared dreaming might be real, but that some people are twisting or exaggerating their tales of it for self-aggrandizement, maybe we should refocus the discussion on that. Maybe this is what bothers Sageous about the topic also.
Best wishes,
Jakob
I had to laugh after reading this. Really. :D If Subject A is unable to pass one single word to Subject B in a dream, then it is very unlikely that they are sharing one and the same dream. They are most likely simply dreaming of one another. I am able to recall clear conversations I have with dream characters, sometimes even word for word, and I'm not the only one, yet you are telling me it would be difficult for the shared dreamers to remember one single password? What an excuse, oh my God. :roll:
Because what you are doing now basically, is redefining what shared dreaming really is, in an attempt to make it "real", yet "unsuitable" for a controlled study. I do accept the fact that there could be minor differences between the two dreamer's stories, such as Subject A sees a blue wall instead of a purple wall, or Subject A sees stormy clouds and Subject B sees normal clouds, or Subject A's dream is more "vivid" than Subject B's dream, or Subject A hears sounds clearer than Subject B, but overall, passing one simple word to the other person shouldn't be a problem. Even if Subject A hears "Buckchanger" instead of "Buckchaser", it would still show evidence for shared dreaming.
What you are doing, on the other hand, is redefining shared dreaming. You are basically saying the two subjects can dream of each other in different ways, without the ability to exchange information. You want to take a normal dream where Subject A dreams of Subject B, and slap the "shared dream" label on it. I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable.
If he can't remember a simple word, then at least their stories should be able to match one another at least 90%, in terms of dream setting. But then again, as I said earlier, if I can recall clear sentences and conversations I've had with many dream characters, then shared dreamers shouldn't have difficulties recalling one single word. If he says he heard "Buckchanger" instead of "Buckchaser", that's fine with me. If he says he heard "Bugcatcher", I'd probably accept that as well. But if he says he heard "Tomato", then we have a problem.
People can recall dreams in the highest detail, recall pictures they see on a wall, recall sentences/words they read, and remember lenghty conversations word for word, yet your two shared dreaming subjects won't be able to recall one single word, because of... "complex neuroscience" ? :roll:
The excuses are just too lame. And resorting to ad-hominem attacks ("ignorant idiot") doesn't help your case either.
Jakob
And yet you completely fail to see the point being made. Wether it is unlikely or not we have no idea of how dream sharing could possibly work. We don't know if the dreamers can communicate, wether they interpret the dream the same, where the shared dream is held etc etc.
I actually don't believe that dream sharing is possible but I don't act like I know because no one does. You consistently act like you know how it works but none of us really do. How can you say for sure that if both dreamers don't hear the same word the dream was not shared.
I really don't give a crap wether you believe in it or not but don't insult the opinions of others that do by posting a solution to prove one possible way out of hundreds wether dream sharing is possible. Even if your test supposedly worked it wouldn't prove that dream sharing exists, it would just indicate that there is a high possibility.
First we need to know if it is possible at all, and then worry about the "how". My study would actually show evidence for it beyond a reasonable doubt. A study in which two people, separated from one another with no physical means of communication, recall the same dream, and recall a password. This would confirm the existence of shared dreaming, if not the existence of extraordinary telepathic ability.
On the other hand, your definition for shared dreaming seems a little... odd, to say the least.
You say: "We don't know if the dreamers can communicate, wether they interpret the dream the same, where the shared dream is held etc etc."
Which essentially means: Shared dreaming can exist with the two dreamers recalling different dream settings, recalling different activities, and not being able to communicate.
What you are describing my friend, is a regular, completely normal dream! There is absolutely nothing that's "shared" in the scenario that you describe, aside from the fact that Subject A "sees" Subject B, and vice versa. They are simply dreaming of one another, not "sharing" anything.
That's hilarious.
Jakob
Let me ask you this, why are you here?. What difference does it make discussing if it is real or not. You came here to justify your own idea and not to discuss at all. Currently we are on an internet forum discussing a phenonemon that is hardly going to be proved due to our opinions. With that in mind, knowing that you have made no contribution to the topic surely you can see that these threads are never about discussing if its true or not ( because we just don't know) but about discussing the how. Indeed these threads are essentially useless, what is more useless is your posts trying to convince people it should be easy to prove while you or I know nothing about it.
^^ Before the pissing contest and resume flinging begins:
Jakob, I think what Duthraptor might have been saying was that two people could be in the same dream, but their individual sets of perception may not be able to sync.
For instance, Subject A sees herself on a vast green pasture, peppered with orange cows and giant turtles. She sees one of the turtles approach a cow and shout, over and over, "Nafterschlipot." It makes no sense, and she puzzles about the turtle for a moment, perhaps even wondering if it's the subject B she's supposed to meet. Then she moves on, waiting for someone who looks like subject B to appear.
Subject B, meanwhile, is in a crowded 19th century ballroom, wading through unoccupied but dancing dresses and suits trying to find subject A. He begins to think the experiment has failed, but won't give up, choosing to shout "Buckchaser" at all the suits and dresses in the hopes that Subject A is one of them.
Absurd, maybe, but here is a case where a shared dream physically did happen, but the dreamers never knew it because their perception and individual dreaming minds do not speak the same language.
I think that actually being able to incorporate a recognizable avatar of your dreaming partner into your dream, and vise-versa, is the greatest hurdle of shared-dreaming. Communication cannot happen if we are incapable by nature to understand each other.
Also, none of this has to do with dream recall, and shouldn't -- which is why Dutchraptor's (and LaBerge's) suggestion of making similar movements is important.
Very well, but this type of scenario is something entirely different from the descriptions of shared dreams that DreamViews members are putting out. When I am reading about shared dreaming adventures on this forum, they are supposedly "shared" in the true sense of the word.
How about eye-movements AND a password? Subject A says the password to Subject B. Subject B repeats it, and then they both proceed to do the eye-movement thing. If the dream is really being shared, there would be no problems showing it in a study, using these two methods.Quote:
I think that actually being able to incorporate a recognizable avatar of your dreaming partner into your dream, and vise-versa, is the greatest hurdle of shared-dreaming. Communication cannot happen if we are incapable by nature to understand each other.
Also, none of this has to do with dream recall, and shouldn't -- which is why Dutchraptor's (and LaBerge's) suggestion of making similar movements is important.
Jakob
BTW, "Nafterschlipot" is an awesome word, I swear.
How'd you come up with it? :D
Yes, the actual condition of the shared dream, including perception, is often left out of the DV formula. Also getting little play are ideas like the possibility that we could all be sharing dreams all the time, but simply cannot recognize each other (and by extension shared dreaming becomes a much simpler act of paying attention, rather than a special mystical power), I've grown used to it, though I (and a few others, like Shadowofwind) will insert this stuff when I get a chance. I'm not sure if anyone notices, but what the hell, I tried!
That's not a terrible idea. The test would still be simple, and the problem of recall and reporting would be diminished.Quote:
How about eye-movements AND a password? Subject A says the password to Subject B. Subject B repeats it, and then they both proceed to do the eye-movement thing. If the dream is really being shared, there would be no problems showing it in a study, using these two methods.
I have been sharing dreams with family members since I was a little girl! It usually involved my dad, but my mom and brother were sometimes there, too. As I grew older these shared dreams diminished, although I do have some precognitive dreams every now and then.
He never experienced it and therefore thinks it can't be real.
Me and my dad used to have the same dreams, EVERY SINGLE DETAIL! This happened many times when I was a little girl. In the morning I would start telling my dad what I dreamt about, and he would just be amazed and complete my sentences, basically describing my dream from beginning to end! There was a repetitive dream in which me and my dad took revenge on our neighbors. We were in bad relations with them in real life, because the neighbor's son (Harold) was an idiot. He used to break our windows (on purpose), steal our belongings, and also tried to poison our dog! His dad was always jealous of my dad, because he had a bigger house and a better job. So in this dream, me and my dad decided to take revenge.
We broke into their house with weapons, and did anything and everything that we could think of. :lol: My dad recalled everything I recalled, and the other way around. This proves that our dreams were shared dreams indeed!
Neither of us was lucid in these dreams, but nonetheless they were amazing experiences. I wish I could re-create these shared dreams, but as I said, they diminished when I got a little older. I also had a couple of shared dreams with my mom and my brother, but they weren't that intense.
Nonsense. I never said it can't be real. I only said I haven't seen evidence for it's existence at this time.
I have a problem believing what you say. How old were you, if I may ask? Did your dad simply say "I dreamt the same thing!" or did he actually complete your sentences?Quote:
Me and my dad used to have the same dreams, EVERY SINGLE DETAIL! This happened many times when I was a little girl. In the morning I would start telling my dad what I dreamt about, and he would just be amazed and complete my sentences, basically describing my dream from beginning to end!
What exactly do you mean? :shock: What was the "anything" and "everything" ?Quote:
We broke into their house with weapons, and did anything and everything that we could think of.
Please tell me, Hathor, that you're not thinking I'm his sidekick.
If you are, then not only are you amazingly wrong, your snap judgment was more than a little offensive.
Attempting to maintain a conversation that doesn't come to cyber-blows, or simply being polite, should not label a person as a sidekick.
Hopefully you were referring to someone else, and if you were, please name them so they have a chance to respond to your reprehensible behavior.
Wow....
When two people see the same car accident, they will tell two different stories...Supposedly, its the same car accident, and yet the details seem different depending whom you speak with.
To understand shared dreaming and dreaming in general, looking outside of your own perspective is helpful. Dreams are much deeper than the imagery involved. The actual experience varies from person to person so shared dreaming may never be "scientific" as interpreted using the scientific method. What is possible is long term observation of patterns.
It seems most people look for a smoking gun like they would actually believe if they saw. Truth be told, they will look for an explanation against any unusual claim rather than accept the given evidence. That is why science proves itself wrong time and time again. It tries to find the holy grail of truth when we are all experiencing life subjectively. This "objective reality" science likes to fantasize about is ruled out simply with philosophical reasoning.
So is shared dreaming real? Only if you experience it, otherwise you will still believe there is no man behind the curtain. That really is the truth of science though. Those things we can experience are true. Ironically, experiments are usually conducted when there is at least minimal certainty a conclusion might be reached.
At any rate, even mapping out the mechanics of shared dreaming would take a massive perspective change for most people. Observing the unconscious is like watching the ocean; for every moment of time, there is a new ocean. Every second brings a new wave with new shapes and lines. How can science hope to repeat an observation of a snowflake or a cloud?
No skeptics, take your limited minds back to the rain forest. Your security blanket is waiting.
Personal testimony isn't evidence? That is all science has ever been. The only check or balance in science is the personal observation of others; aka peer review, which is exactly what we are involved in here right now. The only way to convince you is to bring our experience into your reality. Of course, you actually have to imagine these people are interpreting their experience correctly. If you are not willing to trust yourself and empathize, sharing dreaming or reality with anyone will be very difficult for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by jakob
I'll be your sidekick sageous, then we can make snap judgments about people making snap judgments together! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
btw...shared dreaming is bullshit...or something...it doesnt really matter what we say does it.
Nonsense. Personal testimony is just that -- a story someone is telling. A controlled study is something completely different.
People claim they have visions of Christ. People claim they talk to God. People claim God answers back. People claim lots of things.
Do you accept all these claims as "science"?
You condemn people for believing in God because of lack of scientific evidence, yet for shared dreaming the evidence is irrelevant. We should just all accept it as fact, simply because people on an internet forum say they experience it.Quote:
I'll be your sidekick sageous, then we can make snap judgments about people making snap judgments together! :)
btw...shared dreaming is bullshit...or something...it doesnt really matter what we say does it.
Hypocrisy at it's finest.
The whole concept behind discussing whether Dream Sharing is possible is completely useless, yet everyone persists. Can we not just all agree that it may be possible and drop the bullshit. I hope this thread matures and we can continue to hear experiences, and discuss the possible means by which dream sharing could be made possible.
Some people can't be bothered with, and i can tell you once those who don't agree and keep talking after my last post here now? They will look even more ignorant and just want to continue with off topic posts. People just want to show off here and have no back up in what they are saying.
Anyways happy debating, while i just watch Jakob and his other back ups look stupid :):shadewink:
^Keep telling yourself that :)Quote:
"@Hathor28: I'm sorry, but you're contributing nothing to this conversation. This thread is for mature debate about shared dreaming. If you're just going to insult anybody who disagrees with you without even listening to what they have to say, then please get out. You're not debating; you're just being immature and ruining the debate for everyone."
Btw, read my post at 2nd page, see why i voted and for what, seems like YOU are not listening or actually care what this debate is for honey.
Why didn't you debate on when i quoted you on page 3 top post? Fennecgirl? Is it because you don't know what i am talking about? I'm sure, because you obviously don't know what you are talking about and actually debating about. It does look very bad in your book.
Why would i have to repeat my experiences to people like you who don't believe in this and actually will try and insult?
I am not stupid to explain these things to stupid ignorant people.
Keep up with YOUR insults and Jakobs. I love to see foolish people look bad.
@Hathor28: I'm sorry, but you're contributing nothing to this conversation. This thread is for mature debate about shared dreaming. If you're just going to insult anybody who disagrees with you without even listening to what they have to say, then please get out. You're not debating; you're just being immature and ruining the debate for everyone.
You call them "claims". I call them experiences. The experience is valid because it has been experienced. However, the interpretation of that experience is where people get tripped up. For instance, when someone thinks only mainstream science should be accepted as fact without leaving room for any independent thought.
Isaac Newton invented calculus, by himself. His own personal experience led him to construct a mathematical portrait of gravity and physics. The point is truth comes from experience, not accepting a "fact" because it was found using the scientific method. On the other hand, there are many people smarter than us and in that, humility is a big part of accepting truth.
I accept repeated observation of specific experiential phenomena as science.
Interestingly enough, strict evidence based science led us to believe we had explained everything in nature by the year 1900. Many people claimed we were done mapping out the universe. If all you want to accept is what is being fed through your 5 physical senses, you are missing out. There is a lot of of me than you cannot see.
Also, saying "nonsense" as if you are dismissing everything I say out of hand is just as "hypocritical", geez.
Another also: I believe in god and im not sure when I condemned anyone for that belief. I certainly dont believe in any religious god but im not sure you would understand that point of view either.
Overall, I accept everything as truth and lie simultaneously. I am not perceptive enough to know any "objective reality". The truest truth I know of is the ever pervading love that fills the universe and I try to go from there. Accepting others experience rather than rejecting it off hand because it wasnt yours is very important. Being afraid of other's opinions will lead you deeper into your own fear.
You are saying we should take our limitless experience of the unconscious and subject that to "controlled" scientific study. Yeah, good luck with that.
With what I've read and experienced, I'm perfectly convinced it's possible. At heart I do believe dreams and lucid dreams both take place in the astral realm, and the look and feel of normal day-to-day life is just an illusion hence dream control is possible with practice. With that I am inclined to think that one can possibly walk right into another's dream depending on how conscious they are, and if they're both conscious then it's likely a shared dream will be remembered. I've heard multiple scenarios in the past about the event happening, and each time they both have a good amount of dream recall under their belt, they have described the same things. This isn't much of a powerful example but once me and my then-girlfriend woke up one morning and I told her that I had a dream about being surrounded by a SWAT team, I had a machine gun in my arms to imply that I was killing people with it, the over-all dream felt like I was anyway. In the dream, there was a metal transparent staircase leading to a higher floor but it didn't seem that important, it was just there. When I told her about this dream she asked me if I was being arrested, because she came down a staircase at the end of her dream and saw me getting surrounded by a SWAT team. If this dream was the same, then neither of us can remember what happened before or after.
I once Had what I believed to be a dream share,
The atmosphere of the dream was quite different than any other I have experienced at the time I thought it was a premonition of sorts. I was in this apartment parking lot. it seemed it was in south florida, the buildings were three stories high and off white. I'm standing in the parking lot with another person, I believe it is my boyfriend but I never look directly at him in the dream. A black lady in a cop uniform holding a bag of groceries comes up to us we start having a conversation with her.
Suddenly we hear someone screaming and theres a guy on the top story dragging this woman out of a room by her hair, he's holding a gun.
He now is holding her by the hair over the railing of the balcony, then he drops her and shes dead. Then he is downstairs suddenly in the parking lot with us and pointing the gun at us. the cop is doing the same at him, then he starts shooting he shoots the cop first then she shoots him as he shoots me. I'm unsure if my boyfriend was shot in the dream. I fade out, then I'm looking in a mirror at the holes in my belly there are 9 shots exactly. Then I wake up and I have this pain in my stomach.
This was about 3 months ago. I told my boyfriend about this and he said He had the same dream ( at this time we were separated by about 4 hours) but the cop was male, the person with the gun was female and had thrown a baby over the railing instead.
Thought it was very profound.
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.
So you believe in the existence of God, but at the same time that all religions are false. I can understand that.Quote:
Interestingly enough, strict evidence based science led us to believe we had explained everything in nature by the year 1900. Many people claimed we were done mapping out the universe. If all you want to accept is what is being fed through your 5 physical senses, you are missing out. There is a lot of of me than you cannot see.
Also, saying "nonsense" as if you are dismissing everything I say out of hand is just as "hypocritical", geez.
Another also: I believe in god and im not sure when I condemned anyone for that belief. I certainly dont believe in any religious god but im not sure you would understand that point of view either.
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.Quote:
Overall, I accept everything as truth and lie simultaneously.
I am talking about shared dreaming in a controlled study. A simple password along with eye-movements is all it takes. What is the problem with that? LaBerge has done it with simple lucid dreaming, now why not take it one step further when two individuals supposedly "meet" in a lucid dream?Quote:
I am not perceptive enough to know any "objective reality". The truest truth I know of is the ever pervading love that fills the universe and I try to go from there. Accepting others experience rather than rejecting it off hand because it wasnt yours is very important. Being afraid of other's opinions will lead you deeper into your own fear.
You are saying we should take our limitless experience of the unconscious and subject that to "controlled" scientific study. Yeah, good luck with that.
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.
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.
Ok i said i wouldn't post anymore here due to stupid people like you, but excuse me?! YOU don't know me and my beliefs! STOP assuming crap! And your debates are now getting PERSONAL! LIKE I SAID STOP GOING OFF TOPIC!....I'm done with this stupidity you are giving out, like dealing with a 5 year old!Quote:
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.
I was around 12 years old. Why is this important?Quote:
I have a problem believing what you say. How old were you, if I may ask?
He completed my sentences. He would also tell me about parts of the dream I accidentally left out, and also describe all the details I've seen. It all matched.Quote:
Did your dad simply say "I dreamt the same thing!" or did he actually complete your sentences?
Basically we did gross stuff to his family... NC-17 type of stuff. BUT... it was a dream, so calm down. :lol:Quote:
What exactly do you mean? :shock: What was the "anything" and "everything" ?
I believe dream share can be possible, but as my previous post presented how our dreams were similar but different. The way someone's minds perceives something is completely different than how another mind is perceiving.
I think the basic meaning of many dreams can be the same, as there is always a subconscious reference to what is being projected from someone. Then depending on the persons personal imagination and the things they think about, what they surround themselves with is what tends to appear in their dreams. So really you could be having the same distinct message as many other people out there, but your specific perception really decides how the dream appears to you. I can see having alike dreams if its with some one who thinks very similarly to your own thoughts and you are around them often, or even if you happen to be dealing with a situation thats affecting your minds the same.
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.
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?Quote:
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.
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.
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.
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.Quote:
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.
I have never ruled out it's existence.
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.Quote:
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?
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".
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.
Then we're in agreement.Quote:
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.
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.Quote:
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.
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.Quote:
Then you want others to not demand evidence for shared dreaming, but simply accept someone's stories without any doubt.
Jakob
And to clarify on this post:
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.
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.
Well, maybe not you, but you did use the term blind faith, which is a very sort of dismissive thing.Quote:
Quit putting words into my mouth, I never called religious people idiots.
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.Quote:
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.
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."Quote:
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 just to be clear: If I personally experienced shared dreaming with someone, then I wouldn't give a rat's ass about scientific evidence.
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.
I strongly, strongly disagree. As I said earlier, there are religious "paranormal" experiences that sometimes involve more than one person.Quote:
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.
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.
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.Quote:
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 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jakob
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.
Quote:
So you believe in the existence of God, but at the same time that all religions are false. I can understand that.
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".Quote:
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.
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.Quote:
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.
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...:banana:
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
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)
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?
Having recently held and above top secret clearance, and having worked in a building supposedly containing alien artifacts (from what I see on the internet), I say with a fair degree of confidence that secret government agencies don't know anything about this sort of thing. Its not at all glamorous like how Hollywood portrays such things. It would be like expecting the guys at the Department of Motor Vehicles to have superhuman powers. Some agencies like the CIA add a homicidal element to the mix, but aside from that its same ass-covering careerism that you'd find in any complacent, aging corporation.
I agree the post you were responding to was idiotic though. If you roll down your window when you're driving, and pay attention, you can hear the sound of your car engine and tire noise bouncing off of objects you pass, and can get some sense of what's near the road that way. But using exactly the same argument, the continued utility of eyes proves that this form of sonar doesn't exist.
In theory I shouldn't mention my clearance level, though in actuality 'above top secret' doesn't mean much, and is glamorous only in movies. I'm not exposing any state secrets to say the alien and paranormal ops stories are made up, and don't fit into that world as it actually is.
Government research is not currently at the forefront of technology, it lags behind a little. In that respect what is shown on TV dramas isn't real either.
Am I the only one who thinks that this thread is really a very good one? It has lots of great discussions, different points of view, and nice suggestions.
Agreed...except for one thing...
If it existed, it would have been proven by now....Thats probably putting a little too much faith in mainstream science. There is as much politics in science as there is anywhere else. If the culture doesnt want to know something, it will remove those attempting to spread that knowledge. Case in point: Galileo. And dont think people have changed since the church threatened his life for thinking and speaking differently. They may not kill you now, but they will certainly tar and feather you metaphorically.
At any rate, even if there was serious study done, the conclusions would be speculative at best. Dreams vary so much from person to person that identifying shared information by scientific standards would be a horrendous task. Not that it cannot be done. Personally, I have a few ideas that could bring us closer to the truth of the topic and I hope to carry out those ideas throughout the coming years.
The first step is exactly what we are doing here. Talk about what we are experiencing and attempting to construct some basis for collective observation. woot.
going to have to disagree that this sort of thing isn't studied. I'm only a Biology BA, so it's not like i'm rubbing elbows with Stephen Hawking or anything, but I have been around plenty of people involved in research and I can tell you that you will not be tarred and feathered (not even figuratively) for curiosity. As long as the scientific method is applied, it's looked at as legitimate in the eyes of many. You're probably not going to get a bajillion dollar grant to study shared dreaming, but it shouldn't take that. Compelling evidence for it, if it exists, should be pretty easily obtainable without tons of money or equipment.
I would be very interested to see some sponsored studies on shared dreaming. There is plenty of this being researched ya, but not in the mainstream like lucid dreaming or other sleep phenomena.
I agree entirely. People are just making excuses to justify the fact that there is not one study which confirms shared dreaming.
All that's needed are experiences/talented shared dreamers (supposedly there are many on DV), equipment to monitor REM, and people who will assign signals/passwords, as well as monitor the equipment. All of this could be easily documented, and wouldn't cost alot of money. The only thing that's missing: shared dreamers who are willing to engage in this sort of experiment.
Falling asleep around the same time also shouldn't be much of a problem, seeing how 25 mg of "Doxylamine succinate" knocks you out like a baby.
why would it need to be sponsored? If two individuals were ever able to wake up and report the same (or strikingly similar) dream, isolated from each other in a controlled environment, financial backing would be easy to get. But nobody has ever been able to do that.
Exactly right, and that's what I've been saying all along. If I had these shared dreaming abilities as many DV users claim they do, then I'd be the first in line, together with me fellow shared dreaming companion, to prove it.
And if someone offered me a huge amount of money for it like James Randi does, then that would give me much more motivation to do it.
Then we get the excuses, "I don't want to prove it, I don't need the money, etc."
Ok, i am going to give a challenge to all the disagreeing people here, because really you guys are not challenging us with proof to why you are disagreeing of shared dreaming. You tell us we need proof, now i tell you give us proof that an actual real scientist actually says "shared dreaming" is impossible, doesn't exist or is made up. :)
If none of you can give this proof from a true 100% legit scientific website in the end of today? Then it's best you be on your way back to your so called "religious" forums where you came from thank you!
This is ridiculous, and I'm disappointed that a very intelligent person like Sageous actually gave a "like" for your post.
Now I direct you both to a very good reply by zombiesarebad:
On another note, you are once again falsely assuming that I am claiming shared dreams cannot exist. I have not once on this forum said this. I only said that there is no study that confirms it, which is true.
How many times do I need to repeat myself by saying I am not ruling out it's existence? It seems like this has become like a mantra I have to repeat over and over again in order for some people to "get it".
.... I knew you were going to notice my "like", and say that! I was going to "unlike" just because of that, but I figured what the hell. :)
Is it that ridiculous, really? Think about it. Yes, Hathor is effectively asking us to prove a negative, which is never a good thing, but I think her point is a good one.
There are thousands of attempted scientific "studies," from perpetual motion to phrenology to cold fusion, that were looked into by actual scientists and recorded in the books as impossible or, at best, unlikely (I still hold out hope for cold fusion). Given that the actual empirical study for dream-sharing is quite simple on paper, and that the idea of dream-sharing has been around as long as humans have been dreaming, wouldn't it make sense that someone would have tested it, or tried to, and somewhere out there is evidence of the scientific community saying either "We tried that in the '50's, and it doesn't work," or "a century of psychiatric study and sleep lab results have revealed no provable trace of dream-sharing." You'd think there would be.
And you'd think, given that we all now have the world at our fingertips (some of us can even access university and government websites as well), somebody here could use their search skills to find just one scientist or psychologist (they are different) confirming or denying the existence of provable dream-sharing. Wouldn't you?
There are some studies, actually, I looked up a couple last night. There are some having to do with telepathy. One example is "Psychology and anomalous observations: The question of ESP in dreams.
Child, Irvin L.": (http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1986-13291-001), which has been disputed. You might be able to find the study free to read somewhere else. The problem is that it's not that cut-and-dried. You could probably find studies that show both results and non-results.
Its nice to see we all have moved a least somewhat on this topic concerning our opinions.
There are studies that claim it is true with evidence to back up that opinion. Im in the middle of compiling a butt-load of info to post on the forum to that effect. And once again I will say, you wont see mainstream scientific research attempting to verify shared dreaming.
However, we will see the response my research garners. The assumptions we all hold land us on either side of opinion yet we rarely question our own assumptions...
Now we are getting somewhere with this debating! :)
And to my knowledge, Jakob? You don't have to repeat yourself about making yourself clear about you never saying shared dreaming doesn't exist, i think some people here know this already from you, but we are actually getting mixed signals from you. Seems like when you are repeating yourself you just want attention or someone to even "quote" you back to alter another argument that won't go no where. Btw i didn't think zombiesarebad was even quoting you directly or even mentioned you in his post when you quoted him about the existence thing.
No that's not the part that's missing. I've e-mailed dream academics and haven't even gotten a response. And WakingNomad has done a fair amount of that also.
Its an easy thing to study in terms of cost of equipment, but it does require a significant investment of time and professional risk, for reasons that have been discussed at length elsewhere. It doesn't appear to me that most of you have worked in a research environment and had to find funding for your projects and get approval by the institution you work in.
Excuse me i am going to laugh now... > :laughtillhurts:
Go right ahead. The only thing that you could laugh about are your arguments, or lack thereof. Basically your entire argument for shared dreaming is a variation of "show me a study which disproves shared dreaming", and "show me a scientist who says it's impossible".
Very weak indeed.
The reason why I am disagreeing with shared dreaming is quite simple: You have a hypothesis ("shared dreaming is possible..."). But you've already concluded that this hypothesis is true, and you want others (like myself) to believe that this hypothesis is true, without having some kind of scientifically verifiable method to prove that your hypothesis is true.
Remember, the burden is on you to be able to prove your claim. It is not on me to disprove your hypothesis, even though I've already cast more than enough reasonable doubt upon it.
Look, if I were in your shoes, this is what I would do. I'd take several volunteers, split into two groups, hooked up to a EEG (electroencephalogram) while they are asleep in the same environment. I would monitor their brain activity while they are asleep. One group would attempt to perform dream sharing, the other would not. I would then compare the EEG results.
If I could see that the EEG graph showed remarkable coincidences between my volunteers in Group 1 that didn't show up in Group 2, then I would have an arguable case that dream sharing might be possible.
Look who's talking, you want evidence as well, so what's the point of even bringing this up? You are actually beating yourself UP. :lol:
And you want proof of this study right? Look it up! Stop talking and give me links about shared dreaming is impossible or made up.
Do i have to bring up your past quotes to remind you what you were talking about?
Reminder why i ask for proof of shared dreaming if it's impossible or made up, go find negative links to prove that shared dreaming won't work if you think that. If not then wait in the future for such studies! Btw i do have those rare abilities you talk about, so i guess you have to stop judging people here because you never know if one of them have those abilities aka esp. I am actually one step ahead of you and know what you are trying to do. nice try though.
You can't really make that claim if you don't know of any studies that have been done on it. I'm happy to take a look at any studies which show that there's no evidence for the existence of shared dreaming, though.
And my original post was directed at zombiesarebad anyway, since he's making the claim that nobody's ever been able to have a shared dream in a controlled environment. In which case he needs to back that up by providing some studies where this was done.
I do not have lack of arguments, ALL of my posts i have said here is 100% true and real, don't want to accept that i share dream and have telepathic abilities? That's fine with me, but i "don't have to" prove these things (once again i am saying) to stupid ignorant people who come here and start debating what they don't know and actually act like they know. <THIS angers me.
And your anger Jakob is not wanted here in this thread, as for what you just said when i quoted you, you said you get really angry seeing threads like these. Stop spreading your negative energy, it is obvious for me to know it and i do not respond to anger well.
But why leave out the assignment of a password along with coordinated eye movements? If the EEG graph showed "remarkable coincidences", that simply isn't good enough. It is not in any way comparable to having a password that's been given from one dreamer to another, and matching eye movements to go with it.
That would prove shared dreaming beyond a doubt.
With all due respect, I have problems understanding your posts, because you are somewhat incoherent.
I am saying that shared dreaming might exist, or it might not exist. Get it? I'm really not sure you are getting it.
I am not ruling out the existence of shared dreaming (for the 684531457523th time), but simply pointing out that I would believe in strongly if 1.) i experienced it, or 2.) i've seen a study by a good dream researcher which shows evidence for it (such as the study i suggested).
You on the other hand, are rambling on and on with incoherent assertions, and you demand that I show you evidence of it's nonexistence, which is pretty much pathetic (to say the least).
I suggest you take a class in logic and critical thinking.
Jakob
But in your case its evidence of ignorance, because there is evidence but you won't consider it.
Was there no knowledge in the world prior to peer reviewed studies? Where do you think scientific knowledge came from? People looked at stuff first, then it was rigorously demonstrated and explained much later.
Show me the evidence. Show me a controlled study which covers this subject.
I think it is pathetic to claim the following:Quote:
Was there no knowledge in the world prior to peer reviewed studies? Where do you think scientific knowledge came from? People looked at stuff first, then it was rigorously demonstrated and explained much later.
There are no studies which disprove shared dreaming.
Therefore, there is a high likelihood it does indeed exist, and we should believe all the fantastic tales from DV members who share dreams every night. :D
That is basically what hathor28 is putting forth. My reasoning, on the other hand, is this:
I have seen no documented studies on shared dreaming so far.
Therefore, I doubt it's existence, but I am not ruling it out.
Jakob
Like i said last post, wait for future studies, why are you acting so dumb really? You said there should be studies of this and yet you ask for evidence? You make no sense.
And so far you are actually doing this on purpose to get under peoples skin. This isn't debating what you are doing, it is causing an uproar in this thread only because you are angered by threads like these. Which looks very low and lame.
You say you won't believe in something unless it has been demonstrated by a controlled study. But you came in here saying not just that you are agnostic about shared dreaming, which would be perfectly reasonable, but that you are angry that other people talk as if shared dreaming is real. Apparently, you want other people to use the same standard of evidence that you use, and furthermore disregard their own experience if there is not yet a study supporting it. Without first attempting to hear and understand what their experiences are, you immediately speculate about their experiences and tell them what you think they experienced. Your speculations about possible fallacies that lead people to believe in shared dreaming completely fail to explain my experiences, but you can't know that, because you don't know what my experiences are, and don't even care. That's what makes you ignorant. Its OK to not care about what other people experience. But then when you make judgments about things you don't care to know about, you don't know what you're talking about.
Yet you mock DV members who shares dreams? OK bye. :poof:
Quote:
Mindraker >Shared dreaming is scientifically impossible
:laughtillhurts:Quote:
Jakob>That, I disagree with. After seeing many studies which fail to prove it, only then I might be able to say something like that.
But until that happens, I can't rule out it's existence, although I am doubtful of it.
Frankly, I really don't care HOW they attempt to prove that shared dreaming is real, as long as they give me SOMETHING. Right now, they're not giving me _anything_ credible, verifiable, or tangible, which tells me that I can crumple this up and throw it away without losing any sleep (pun intended).
Yes, a password shared dream test would be nice, but it would take incredible discipline on all parties involved. The problem with a password dream test is that it already puts a suggestion into people's heads what the dream is supposed to be about: passwords.
As we've said before, the duty is on the person who makes the claim to prove whether his/her claim is right. And we're just not seeing it happen. We're beating this thread to death. Shared dreaming is scientifically impossible.
I know I probably shouldn't keep getting involved in this against someone who clearly doesn't understand what a debate is, but I do have a few more points to make.
Oh really? I beg to differ; your "arguments" all seem to be either along the lines of "give me scientific proof shared dreaming doesn't exist" or simply just making fun of things other people, mainly Jakob, have said (which, by the way, doesn't make anybody look bad but you).
If your posts are all "100% true", like you insist, then you must have proof, correct?
Jakob isn't spreading any negative energy. He is simply bringing up logical counter-arguments, which you apparently don't want to address. You, on the other hand, ARE spreading negative energy with your constant insults and attacks directed toward him. Just because you disagree with someone is no excuse to act like a jerk toward them, especially in what is supposed to be a civilized debate.
This. Right here. You can't just assume shared dreaming exists because it hasn't been disproved. Well, you can, but you can't expect others to believe you just because you say so and call them ignorant and dumb.
I mocked them where? I just don't believe most of their stories. Sorry for being as honest as I could possibly be.
Do you believe everyone who claims they can do telekinesis?
Do you believe everyone who claims they can talk to God, and God talks to them?
Do you believe everyone who claims they can summon ghosts and talk to them?
You don't.
So please don't expect me to do the same for shared dreaming.
Duty is the wrong word. He shouldn't have used it.
Of course no one has a duty to prove or disprove anything to anybody. But we are talking about evidence, specifically scientific evidence which can be demonstrated through a simple study, and the burden of proof lies on those who are making the claim that shared dreaming exists. Why is this so difficult to understand?
Jakob isn't debating. He's cherry picking what appear to him to be the weakest arguments from the thread and arguing those, while ignoring everything he doesn't have an answer for. He is also responding to people's statements without first trying to understand what they were saying. That's not debating either.
This is complete bull. Show me what I haven't addressed. How about addressing my replies to you? Here: http://www.dreamviews.com/f19/shared...ml#post1918149
LOL, what an incoherent ramble. You guys really seem to be desperate with this shared dreaming thing.Quote:
He is also responding to people's statements without first trying to understand what they were saying. That's not debating either.
Shared dreaming, if real, can not be easily demonstrated through a scientific study. I understand why and I have previously explained why. The 'proof' of a phenomena has to be appropriate for what the claimed phenomena actually is, not for some other phenomena which is not being claimed. Is that hard to understand?
There you go again thinking that you know me and what i believe in, jakob you are looking very bad here to bring things like this up when it's obvious off topic, you are a run around kind of person and jumps to other things when the others don't come up with religion, ghosts and telekinesis.
And yes you just mocked this thread and who ever believes in shared dreaming. You and your friend is really pathetic bunch of people here just to start problems. we all know this but i am the only one bringing out honesty and talking it out. Good luck on more debating here which will lead no where with you and fennecgirl. all she does is like posts and respond in wrong times, like when i was done with this she comes along and starts it all over again, honey keep posted, stop coming late in this debate because seems like you are just coming here to help out your little jakob. I am not responding to anymore people who quotes me as of now.
It's very late, 04:34 AM, and I'm going to bed.
We'll continue this tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure I'll be faced with the same material: Shadowofwind and hathor28 will go around in circles, demanding scientific proof of the non-existence of shared dreaming. :D
Goodnight y'all!
^^ 'Night!
No you won't see me here debating with jakob and fennecgirl tomorrow or after that, i rather lurk and laugh at those 2. Calling us desperate about this shared dreaming stuff doesn't help too.
Do not reply or quote me, you twos, it will look even worse for you.
Jacob,
I didn't respond to your earlier reply because everything you said ignored what I actually said. It seemed pointless. I've got a couple of hours to waste now though.
I never said that any of the claims made here amounted to a controlled study.
If you were a psychic, you would understand your own abilities well enough to see that the Randi challenge is set up in a way that precludes a demonstration of those abilities. But OK, I'm reaching out to dream researchers again through e-mail to see if I can get any interest in collaboration on a study. No luck in the past.
No. I'm not even remotely that well controlled. Here's an idea I have for a study. The dream researcher at the respected institution finds some other people who are emotionally intelligent or developed and have an interest in personal growth. He gets one of them to give him a question about something they're trying to understand that they care about. They can't just make up any test question, it has to be something they actually care about at a fairly deep level. The next day I write down what I dreamed and send it to the researcher. Then he tries the next person, and I dream the next night. If he does more than one subject at a time I'll get confused, and I'll get confused anyway because all of the subjects already have those questions before they share them with him. But I might have images in the dreams that connect to the other individuals in convincingly specific ways. Or I might not. This works with only about half the people I try it with, and I haven't tried it in the context of a third party study that is trying to prove the phenomena. That's a different situation, because then the thoughts of the researcher and all the people who will read and be impacted by the study results are involved also. I'm willing to try it though.
I can't induce it at will. Every 3rd or 4th means half of posters, who are you referring to? Even someone who can induce it at will with a friend or lover won't necessarily be able to do much in a controlled study.
OK. I've only had one experience with moving an object, but it was partially involuntary, and I interpreted it as changing the history of where the object had been, in a manner inconsistent with the history of other objects, rather than applying a force that moves it. I don't have an opinion on what other people may have done with that in the past. I think they might have had trouble with the Randi challenge though, because of the modern thought climate, the need to be endorsed by a university expert before being accepted for the challenge, etc. Plus a lot of those guys were charlatans, and I don't know about any of them specifically.
OK, we agree at least that the 'how it works' explanations are all pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and not worth paying attention to. I understand physics theory well enough though to know that it doesn't contradict currently theory, even though it doesn't fall inside the current theory either. That explanation can remove a mental barrier for some people that then makes these other demonstrations easier.
OK. Not good enough for you. I can produce some evidence. For example I have an e-mail that I sent a few hours before the Hudson river water landing a couple of years ago that mirrors that event. Its in close metaphor, not like a literal film of it. For instance in the dream the 'engine' is a building about that same size with an opening and a metal contraption inside that vibrates and self destructs after a bird-sized blob is thrown into it. And the fuselage is a long, adjacent building with water on the floor. But of course that's subject to some interpretation, and I could forge the e-mail. Even a study controlled by respected scientists can be faked also, and sadly often are (clinical studies in particular). The fact that you didn't even ask about this sort of thing, but just responded with a bunch of assertions about things neither of us believe is why I didn't bother saying more.
Not the patterns I mentioned. Similar patterns can accompany psychic development though. As you being being more aware of the weak influence you have on your environment, you try to organize that influence into some kind of coherent scheme. Anything scheme that you cook up or try to work with such as numerology then starts working a lot better than it had previously.
Not so meaningless as to prevent you from replying at length though. I blew you off as incorrigible after you ignored the main points in my first response to you. Then I got back into it since you were so enthusiastically fighting with Hathnor and suggesting her arguments are illogical and unscientific. If you want scientific, engage with the scientist here. Otherwise you're just posturing. Maybe your responses to my posts have just been a matter of unfortunate assumptions and poor communication on my part. If so, I'm willing to try some more.
OK already, I understood that from the start. Nobody is asking you to believe, or certainly I'm not. Personally I think its better for you not to believe in things you have no evidence of, and I agree that the word of other people very often can't be trusted. But when you attack other people's personal beliefs as being irrational, when they have evidence which you personally lack, you're not being rational. Two hundred years ago almost nothing had been proved by scientific study. Had I lived then, I nevertheless would have believed many things, at least as working hypotheses. Now more things are known, and you're deciding to draw the line and say OK, only what has been rigorously established is what you believe. That may be fine for you, but for me it leaves out too much of my experience, things I have to deal with and make choices about almost every day. You came here not just to share what you think makes sense, but angry about the perspectives of other people who you don't know and obviously do not understand at all well. I've tried to explain something of where these other people are coming from. But so far it seems you don't want to understand. If you are interested, then its a misunderstanding, and let's continue. If you're not interested, then what are you doing here?
i've been doing a bit of research on my university database thingy (because, as i expected, a simple google search only brings up fantastical and obviously biased "studies" on this.) I will admit that there's not as much published as i expected there to be, but there's some good stuff. There's a pretty even split of studies that showed no evidence for dream sharing/dream telepathy, and the ones that say there is some evidence but further study is required. And of those, they unfailingly have slightly higher success rates that are barely statistically significant. I wish i could link to them, but they're on the U of Maine intranet. I was able to find one on the regular internet:
http://www.keithhearne.com/wp-conten...-TELEPATHY.pdf
I realize it's not specifically about shared dreams, but it does deal with the dreaming mind supposedly having some sort of "link" to information being sent.
OK OK. Haven't been to this site (or at least haven't posted) in awhile. But I just discovered this "debate" thread and it looked like a fun time to start posting again.
I voted for "Maybe, but it has to be scientifically proven.".
Just like everything else that should be accepted as reality, there needs to be evidence, and I haven't seen any up to this point. Feel free to present me with some. (I've seen this posted in this thread like 1000 times already but I just thought I'd make my stance clear.)
Hi, just popping in to make sure no one is being called a dick and that people are disagreeing without resorting to name calling. I'm sure everyone here can behave themselves, right?
Good. :)
If you run across any that look like they're still interested in studying it, I'd appreciate it if you send me the author's names or contact info.
That 1987 one is way too old to be useful probably.
Here are a couple references on precognition. I haven't looked at them to see if they're any good. All of my precognitive experiences are at least partially shared, and most of my shared experiences are at least partially precognitive.
Bem, D. L. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 407-425.
Ullman, M., Krippner, S., & Vaughan, A. (1989). Dream telepathy: Experiments in nocturnal ESP (2nd ed.). Jefferson, NC US: McFarland & Co.
Oh hey, an actual link to the paper:
http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf
Here's one against precognitive dreaming. Skimming it quickly, I think their methodology unsound though, that the conclusions they draw from their results only follow if several unexamined assumptions are true.
http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2000/Precog%20Dreams.htm
On the Randi challenge:
The Relentless Hypocrisy Of James Randi
Seriously. This guy is a stage magician, not a scientist. Besides, isn't science supposed to be objective? With something as fickle as and misunderstood as psychic phenomenon, don't you think going in with the stance of attempting to disprove it could affect the results? Plus, he demands 100% success rate in the preliminary testing. This far exceeds what any reasonable scientist would demand. Most would consider merely 3 or 4% over chance significant. Imagine if you had a very skilled archer shooting a bulls eye at a distance of a hundred meters. No laws of physics preclude this from happening, but it takes someone of great skill and training to accomplish it. You ask the archer to demonstrate his ability, but with the stipulation that if he does not have an 100% success in hitting the bulls eye, you will denounce his ability to shoot at a great distance a fraud. In fact a success rate of only 50% would be sufficient to demonstrate his ability.
I think a good dose of skepticism is healthy. I think we absolutely should question experiences and seek objective proof. I am also all for debunking fraudulent psychics, mediums, and anything else of that nature, since they obscure the real truth about these phenomenon. But, completely closing your mind to the possibility of something is as foolish as blindly believing in something. I think most people here aren't trying to have everyone blindly accept their claims of shared dreaming, they merely wish to convey their experiences and have others keep an open mind. The world quantum physics postulates is much stranger than we could have imagined; why not at least be open to the idea that there are things we don't yet understand that could be possible?
I often wonder how people so close minded as I see in these threads even ventured into lucid dreaming in the first place.
It didn't ignore what you said. It only ignored the same things I have to reply to over and over and over again, and I'm sick of writing the same thing 20 times.
You didn't say it directly, but I got the impression that you wanted to equate them as having the same worth.Quote:
I never said that any of the claims made here amounted to a controlled study.
No, that's just a cop out. If I could move a psi-wheel in my living room, or bedroom, or basement, I could also do it in a controlled setting with James Randi watching me. That is, if I wasn't a charlatain of course.Quote:
If you were a psychic, you would understand your own abilities well enough to see that the Randi challenge is set up in a way that precludes a demonstration of those abilities.
I sincerely hope you're able to reach them and get something started.Quote:
But OK, I'm reaching out to dream researchers again through e-mail to see if I can get any interest in collaboration on a study. No luck in the past.
It's "alright", but..... really... why is almost every believer in shared dreaming avoiding a much simpler study using just one freaking password in combination with coordinated eye movements!?Quote:
No. I'm not even remotely that well controlled. Here's an idea I have for a study. The dream researcher at the respected institution finds some other people who are emotionally intelligent or developed and have an interest in personal growth. He gets one of them to give him a question about something they're trying to understand that they care about. They can't just make up any test question, it has to be something they actually care about at a fairly deep level. The next day I write down what I dreamed and send it to the researcher. Then he tries the next person, and I dream the next night. If he does more than one subject at a time I'll get confused, and I'll get confused anyway because all of the subjects already have those questions before they share them with him. But I might have images in the dreams that connect to the other individuals in convincingly specific ways. Or I might not. This works with only about half the people I try it with, and I haven't tried it in the context of a third party study that is trying to prove the phenomena. That's a different situation, because then the thoughts of the researcher and all the people who will read and be impacted by the study results are involved also. I'm willing to try it though.
Let's just say there are too many posts, with people claiming they can shared dream. I don't see why someone who is very experienced with it wouldn't able to do it in a controlled study. Maybe not the first time, but after several attempts it absolutely has to work. Again, "it works in private but not in a study" seems to be just another copout.Quote:
I can't induce it at will. Every 3rd or 4th means half of posters, who are you referring to? Even someone who can induce it at will with a friend or lover won't necessarily be able to do much in a controlled study.
Nina Kulagina was controlled in several studies and they found nothing on her. Too bad, because back then there was no James Randi challenge, or anything similar. FYI, I believe in telekinesis, just so you know you're not talking to a hardcore skeptic here. I'm just sick of "everyone" doing TK, "everyone" doing astral projection, "everyone" shared dreaming, blah blah blah. By everyone I don't mean literally everyone, but tons of people on various internet forums (not only this one, but many others).Quote:
OK. I've only had one experience with moving an object, but it was partially involuntary, and I interpreted it as changing the history of where the object had been, in a manner inconsistent with the history of other objects, rather than applying a force that moves it. I don't have an opinion on what other people may have done with that in the past. I think they might have had trouble with the Randi challenge though, because of the modern thought climate, the need to be endorsed by a university expert before being accepted for the challenge, etc. Plus a lot of those guys were charlatans, and I don't know about any of them specifically.
And that's why I've been saying the entire time (and once again I have to repeat it, unfortunately), that I am not ruling out the possibility/existence of shared dreaming. If it works, there are several ways it could work, perhaps if there is an astral plane those two people are meeting there, or if there is a strong telepathic connection between the two, the shared dreaming could simply be this connection manifasted through a dream, etc.Quote:
OK, we agree at least that the 'how it works' explanations are all pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and not worth paying attention to. I understand physics theory well enough though to know that it doesn't contradict currently theory, even though it doesn't fall inside the current theory either. That explanation can remove a mental barrier for some people that then makes these other demonstrations easier.
But until I'm certain it does work, meaning until I experience it for myself, or see a good study on it, I do not want to work about how it works.
I have no problems believing you with this dream, but isn't this a precognitive dream of sorts? I thought we're discussing shared dreaming. I see a difference there.Quote:
OK. Not good enough for you. I can produce some evidence. For example I have an e-mail that I sent a few hours before the Hudson river water landing a couple of years ago that mirrors that event. Its in close metaphor, not like a literal film of it. For instance in the dream the 'engine' is a building about that same size with an opening and a metal contraption inside that vibrates and self destructs after a bird-sized blob is thrown into it. And the fuselage is a long, adjacent building with water on the floor. But of course that's subject to some interpretation, and I could forge the e-mail. Even a study controlled by respected scientists can be faked also, and sadly often are (clinical studies in particular). The fact that you didn't even ask about this sort of thing, but just responded with a bunch of assertions about things neither of us believe is why I didn't bother saying more.
But some people are paying way too much attention to numbers, wouldn't you agree?Quote:
Not the patterns I mentioned. Similar patterns can accompany psychic development though. As you being being more aware of the weak influence you have on your environment, you try to organize that influence into some kind of coherent scheme. Anything scheme that you cook up or try to work with such as numerology then starts working a lot better than it had previously.
I didn't ignore anything I didn't talk about before. As I said, I was just tired of repeating the same things many times.Quote:
Not so meaningless as to prevent you from replying at length though. I blew you off as incorrigible after you ignored the main points in my first response to you.
Of course her arguments are illogical. They are not only illogical, but absolutely ridiculous. She is basically stating, that because there is no study which fails to demonstrat shared dreaming, there is a high likelihood for it's existence.Quote:
Then I got back into it since you were so enthusiastically fighting with Hathnor and suggesting her arguments are illogical and unscientific.
Hmm, ok? :)Quote:
If you want scientific, engage with the scientist here. Otherwise you're just posturing. Maybe your responses to my posts have just been a matter of unfortunate assumptions and poor communication on my part. If so, I'm willing to try some more.
I said this once before in this thread: if I experienced shared dreaming personally, I wouldn't give a rat's a$$ about scientific evidence.Quote:
OK already, I understood that from the start. Nobody is asking you to believe, or certainly I'm not. Personally I think its better for you not to believe in things you have no evidence of, and I agree that the word of other people very often can't be trusted.
FYI, I voted "Maybe, but I have to experience it for myself."
I am being very rational, as believing someone's claims without evidence would actually be irrational. Someone saying he has an ability isn't evidence for me. With all due respect, someone claiming he/she can communicate telepathically with someone, isn't evidence for me, it's just a claim.Quote:
But when you attack other people's personal beliefs as being irrational, when they have evidence which you personally lack, you're not being rational.
But have all the scientific tools today which are necessary to prove a concept like shared dreaming, if it really exists. All we need is two people who transfer information from one another in a dream, and are able to recall it after waking up. A setting in which these people are separated from one another, REM-monitoring equipment, and people overlooking the experiment. That's all we need.Quote:
Two hundred years ago almost nothing had been proved by scientific study. Had I lived then, I nevertheless would have believed many things, at least as working hypotheses. Now more things are known, and you're deciding to draw the line and say OK, only what has been rigorously established is what you believe. That may be fine for you, but for me it leaves out too much of my experience, things I have to deal with and make choices about almost every day.
If LaBerge "proved" Lucid Dreaming through REM-monitoring and coordinated eye-movements, why run away from a similar study in which two experienced shared dreamers engage with one another in a dream world?
I don't blindly believe everything I read. That's the only issue.Quote:
You came here not just to share what you think makes sense, but angry about the perspectives of other people who you don't know and obviously do not understand at all well. I've tried to explain something of where these other people are coming from.
I have written in detail about what I "understand" and what I "don't understand", so I'm tired of typing everything again and again. I am a believer in the paranormal, but I don't accept simple claims that easily. To me, someone on an internet forum writing about his experiences of shared dreaming isn't enough to make me believe. Sorry, that's just the way it is, and I believe I am being completely rational when I say this.Quote:
But so far it seems you don't want to understand. If you are interested, then its a misunderstanding, and let's continue. If you're not interested, then what are you doing here?
Jakob
As I've described elsewhere, for me precognitive dreams all have a shared element, and most dreams with shared thought are partially precognitive, and it's the same process as waking ESP. Yes the papers aren't perfectly relevant, and I don't claim they're any good, I just posted them because they're the closest things I found in a quick search.
Jakob, You keep repeating the same point over and over again, as if people somehow aren't understanding that point. You interpreted nearly everything I said as if it were an attempted rebuttal of that point, rather than reading what I actually said. Nobody is expecting you to believe in shared dreaming. That's not what anyone is trying to say here.
shadowofwind,
This Jakob guy is not worth your time or energy debating - he is just trolling you. Notice he didn't even respond to my post. If he was truly interested in science or at least a consensus of understanding (which in my opinion is what debate should be about, not hammering someone with your ideas) he wouldn't have quietly ignored my criticisms of the Randi challenge.
I normally don't even get sucked into such vitriolic threads, but using the Randi challenge as an argument just really irks me.
I am not an associate of James Randi and therefore I felt no need to reply to your post. You didn't even direct the post toward me, or did you? I don't see my name anywhere in your post.
And I generally hate forum discussions where people start to post links to articles on the internet to prove their point. The article you posted points out only one single person who James Randi didn't want to deal with, and for obvious reasons. Claiming to be able to live only on water and air is... well, make up your own mind about it.
But since you posted a link, let me post one too:
"Psychic" James Van Praagh Demurs James Randi's $1,000,000 Offer | Suite101.com
If you take a look at "The people who James Randi declined" vs. "The people who declined James Randi's challenge", the picture becomes very clear.
Here's a thought, and maybe an attempt to go back to a debate:
What if nobody can shared-dream on purpose, but we can all shared dream by accident?
In other words, what if, as I mentioned earlier, shared-dreaming were a normal part of everyone's dreamlife, but we are simply not programmed to notice we're doing it, or remember that we did it? What if, also, the "unnatural" action of lucid dreaming has allowed a lucky few of us to notice (in addition to folks like Shadowofwind, who already did) that this phenomenon is happening?
That would make it very hard to prove scientifically.
Sure, I accept the fact that there could be shared dreaming which go by unnoticed, but those are not the type of shared dreams that are being discussed on DV. Here is an example of the "Dreamviews" type of shared dreams:
http://www.dreamviews.com/f32/i-shar...sister-133599/
In that thread above, we have three shared dreamers. The OP and her twin sister, and the person who replied.
In my reading, your impressions haven't been a very reliable reflection of what people have been trying to say.
I didn't say anything about hypothetical people who can move psi-wheels every time they try. I was talking about the abilities that people actually have.
Thanks. Two no's back so far.
Because this experiment is trying to test a type of shared dreaming that isn't what anyone I'm aware of is actually doing. My shared dreams, such as they are, aren't even synchronous.
If you become interested in what people are actually claiming to do, then you'll understand why its hard to do in a controlled study. Also, to get published, the controlled study needs an 'expert' who does dream research at a university or hospital to referee, and nobody has been able to find one who is interested. And not for lack of trying.
For a great many people astral projection is not that hard. I think its way easier than a fully lucid shared dream would be. If it bothers you that people post about compelling things that they've experienced, and that there seem to be more of those people than you think there should be, I don't really get that. It almost seems motivated by jealously. Some people are showing off and not entirely honest, and nobody's motives are utterly pure. But you seem to be painting with a very broad brush.
Yes we all understand that, you don't have to keep repeating it, you're only imagining that we don't understand that.
Yes we understand that too.
Its not a precognition of something in my own future experience, there's a shared element for me to be in that place and have that experience. That dream was several years ago obviously; more recently the shared element has been more pronounced and the precognitive element less so. As I have said previously, all of my 'shared' dreams are partially precognitive. When I experience the other person's mind, it sort of stands outside of the present moment, and the metaphorical images that get pulled in to support the experience come from future as well as past experience.
Sure. People make themselves nuts with it.
You've ignored things you haven't spoken to squarely even once, and instead repeated the same things many times.
No she didn't say that at all. She doesn't believe that, and it wasn't her point. You just twisted what she said into that, instead of trying to understand what she was trying to say. Her point was not that anyone should believe in shared dreaming on account of the lack of a study disproving it. Her point was that if someone believes in shared dreaming based on their own personal experimentation, then the absence of scientific studies proving shared dreaming does not affirm or discredit that experience any more than the absence of scientific studies disproving shared dreaming would.
And yet somehow you fault everyone else for making the same choice, to the point where their talking about their personal experiences makes you 'angry'.
Yes, once again, we all understand that. We have understood that from the very beginning.
You are still not paying attention to what people are saying they are doing when they shared dream. No that experiment will fail utterly.
Nobody that I'm aware of is running away from an opportunity to demonstrate what they actually do, which is not quite the same as what you keep insisting they're claiming to do.
If I could directly move objects around with my mind once a week or so when conditions were ripe, that would be a real ability. Still it wouldn't be demonstrable by the type of test you propose. Nobody that I'm aware of is that well controlled. Yet you keep proposing the same kinds of tests anyway, apparently without any interest in understanding what the necessary conditions are.
The only issue to anyone else is that you don't try to understand what you read, you project other things into it, then keep saying the same things over and over as if nobody understood you the first time.
Yes we are tired of it too.
What makes you irrational isn't your disbelief in shared dreaming. Its the way you attribute thoughts to other people which they neither have nor expressed, and don't listen to them when they try to clarify what they meant. Your earlier statement about me demanding proof of the non-existence of shared dreaming was a good example of this, though far, far from the only one.
I will work now.
Jakob,
No, I didn't address you directly in the post, I suppose I should have.
Did you read the rest of the post at all? Again, Randi is not a scientist and demands 100% success rate, which is ludicrous. Also, requiring someone to front all of the cost of the preliminary round seems a barrier as well to less famous and fortunate people of paranormal ability. Of course it is very likely that many (if not most) celebrity psychics are frauds, and like a said I'm all for debunking them. I am also quite suspicious of anyone who does this sort of thing for money and fame.
But, using the Randi challenge as an argument that no psychic phenomenon exists is beyond the bounds of reason.
Anyway, I don't enjoy debates that are pissing contest. I enjoy debates that result in an increased understanding for both parties. I completely realize some of my beliefs and ideas are radical, and am more than open to rational skepticism and criticism. In the same way, I expect to the skeptic to at least be open to radical ideas. I don't expect you to have an open, honest exchange in regards to what I am posting. The reasons I jumped in on this thread is so that others reading don't buy into the Randi challenge without having a critical look at the other side of the coin. Also, I guess don't like seeing shadowofwind drawn needlessly into close minded negativity, but that is his decision anyway.
I'm going to quote Wolfwood, as his stance is what I'm trying to convey as wish more people of a skeptical nature would understand:
When you start off wrong, nothing right will follow.
Where have I ever said that I believe psychic phenomena don't exist? I clearly stated several times that I believe in psychic phenomena. I only said that I believe them to exist in a much much smaller number than people presume.
I am looking at both sides of the coin. Right now as far as shared dreaming is concerned (the type of shared dreaming proposed on DV), I see extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. Actually, without any evidence.Quote:
Anyway, I don't enjoy debates that are pissing contest. I enjoy debates that result in an increased understanding for both parties. I completely realize some of my beliefs and ideas are radical, and am more than open to rational skepticism and criticism. In the same way, I expect to the skeptic to at least be open to radical ideas. I don't expect you to have an open, honest exchange in regards to what I am posting. The reasons I jumped in on this thread is so that others reading don't buy into the Randi challenge without having a critical look at the other side of the coin. Also, I guess don't like seeing shadowofwind drawn needlessly into close minded negativity, but that is his decision anyway.
Find me a skeptic who believes in God, Extraterrestrials, and Psychic Phenomena.Quote:
I'm going to quote Wolfwood, as his stance is what I'm trying to convey as wish more people of a skeptical nature would understand:
Because that's me.
And it's a good thing that you edited out the last sentence of your post about walking away from this thread. It would have been pretty rude.
This was his first post i read, and already when i read it, i knew i wasn't going to like you, and i don't know you. All the energy and reading from this made me interact in a way he is to this thread. Also talking about telepathy that he believes in it yet he just said now that he need evidence that i have this ability to read minds and people and energy.
Yet he comes to me and asks about religion and some sort that does not have anything to do with telepathy and esp. I do not like the way he is approaching this and mocking this thread with his anger.
The best bet is to ignore him and once he quotes you and it "feels" like his usual run around then just don't talk back, because all he wants is attention and more havoc once his attention is noticed. And if he does say that we are desperate and have no proof etc then so be it let him down play without attention. Thanks for reading this.