Is it possible to dreamshare with a friend ? ( probably not haha)

**Vesterguard** · 10-17-2011 08:58 PM

I admire your honesty, and wish you all the best in your scientific endeavours, but I do think if you're pursuing this topic just because you want it to be true, and not because you have any reason to suspect there is any truth to it, then you could be wasting your time.

Nothing tangible within current scientific theories, bar the few radical examples already mentioned, gives me reason to suspect that shared dreaming is possible. Anecdotal evidence, the research that actually is available pn psychic phenomena and a snippets of syncs here and there provide my motivation and gut feeling that it could be true.

then it would be unlikely that natural selection would not have harnessed this capacity years ago, before we went to the trouble of developing language

You might be right, but a word of caution is in order.

I already mentioned that meditation (here considered an activity taught and mediated through sociocultural history and language) actually alter an individual's brain anatomy. Some theories (here I am talking about recognised psychological, scientific theories) claims that our ability to communicate via language is a constituent element to consciousness humans posses, as social interactions get internalised (and alter our neurolocial structure) through development. Look up Mead, Vygotsky and Leontiev for details. My point here is that even before monks became able to meditate, via this practice attain the superior perceptive skills and alter their brain anatomy (No I am NOT claiming that monks are telepathic, studies DO show they are perceptively superior though) they had to be individuals communicating with one another in a social setting (to gain their human consciousness in the first place).

Natural selection have provided us with a remarkable and precious brain, but this organ does not exist independently of the environment around it and is in fact shaped physically by the activities we engage in on a social level. In fact the greatest credit goes to selection for favouring people with high levels of neuronal plasticity.

That being said, I suppose what I am trying to get at is: we might have simply not stumbled upon the right practice to develop the brains capacity to be sensitive to whatever it is that could enable telepathy. This might actually be a fairly good explanation for why you in the Ganzfeld experiement see statistically highly significant results (better than chance alone), but only a small effect size (because only a few have figured out how to do it).

I respect and understand why one wouldn't follow in the pursuit of shared dreaming though, because as I have mentioned already: the evidence is very scarce. I must be a nutter for disappointment, but I am having fun along the way

To clarify my position a bit. I am not advocating a "spiritual body" that travels externally from the body, I am thinking more in the lines of connections being utilised that have existed since before the big bang, evoking similar perceptions/experiences. HOWEVER! my infant beginings in formulating a theory that could explain the phenomena, is limited due to my minimal understanding of neurology and completely absent understanding of quantum physics. I am woking on the neurology side as of now and hope to venture into the physical stuff at some point. I definetely will be more open to exploring these trails of thought should I have a succesful shared dream ^^

**unda** · 10-17-2011 10:34 PM

As I understand it, you're advocating the idea that the mind is not a blank slate as tabula rasa suggests, but is predisposed to learn language during childhood, as in Chomsky's theory of universal grammar. If this is the case then I happen to agree with you, though I think it only supports my earlier comment. Natural selection harnessed the capacity for language by selecting humans predisposed to develop language, if telepathy were possible and some humans already in fact have the capacity for it, then why not harness that instead? The survival value would obviously be far greater than language. I'm not entirely sure what you're saying about monks, do you mean that they must develop language socially before they are able to meditate?

Despite my scepticism I think you're going about this in absolutely the right way, from what I've seen most people who believe in shared dreaming tend to entirely ignore science and could learn a lot from you.

**Vesterguard** · 10-17-2011 11:35 PM

but is predisposed to learn language during childhood, as in Chomsky's theory of universal grammar

Yes and no. People are predisposed to learn language, absolutely, however chomsky's theory of universal grammar in the beginning claimed to explain too much, which was since discovered could also be learned through other more traditional mechanisms. Predisposed in my view is the notion that we have a body and a brain that will learn language and develop the neural structures to support it, provided we are exposed to it. So the selection criterion is on people to have A: The size of brain that we have and B: the plasticity needed to "mold" the developing brain to make it fit and work in the environment it is exposed to and finaly C: that it be situated in a normal social environment.

I differ from Chomsky in one very crucial way in pointing to the fact that if you were not a human being, growing up in a social environment engaging in interactions with your significant others, you WOULD NOT develop the charactaristic self-reflective consciousness found only in Homo Sapiens Sapiens. To a lot this sound like a radical notion, and furthermore it is fairly difficult to test empirically for obvious ethical reasons. There is already some support for the hypothesis though as mentioned before and I strongly suggest you read George Herbert Mead for a thorough epxplanation on how our higher psychological functions develop through the process of internalisation of real social interactions. In short it means that the product that is your higher psychological functions, cannot be reduced to workings in the head but is a combination of sociohistorical, phylogenetical and ontogenetical processes intermingled (see point A,B and C in the above section).

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying about monks, do you mean that they must develop language socially before they are able to meditate

This is sort of where I am trying to get to. If you weren't situated in a social environement, you wouldn't, first of all learn how and what meditation was, but at a more fundamental level you wouldn't develop the capacity to volitionally direct your awareness on to a topic for meditation (as it requires self-reflection, which is the crucial aspect of our consciousness that is learned through social interaction). If you couldn't engage in the activity of mediation, you wouldn't be able to modify your brain structure via directed action.

A lot of work and theories postulate that our brains are the sole creator of our psychological funtions, but what I am pointing at, is that these won't develop independently of social factors, but if exposed to a normal environment the brain will form the connections needed to support normal human consciousness.

All I have said so far is scientifically sound and well described in the litterature. Where I am taking a quantum leap of faith (pun inteneded) is by hypothesising that through directed conscious training (of some sort or the other) we might be able to make our brains either more perceptive or able to sync up quantum field style. But then again I am moving waaaay out of my comfort zone and hence I approach my personal endeavours in shared dreaming by relying on "alternative pseudo/non-scientific" books that describe how to achieve it. If you will.. I skip part of their explanation for how it is possible and get to the nitty gritty practical stuff to see if it will work for my friends and I =)

@ unda: By the way I like your comments mate, I hope you find my comments useful, as I certainly enjoy formulating my ideas.

A couple of theories you may find useful are: Edelman's notion of a primary and secondary element of consciousness. Allan J. Hobson investigates this notion during dreaming and hypothesise that normal REM dreaming can be compared to the "primary" (unreflective) consciousness and that the Secondary (self-reflective, constiuent of volitional action) is unique to human beings and is activated during lucid dreaming. Hobson focus primarily on the physiological aspects of these things, but I am about write my bachelor project basically testing the same notion, but where I hypothesise that what he terms Secondary consciousness is a product of the A: Primary consciousness (shared by mamals and birds who also experience REM sleep) and B: the capacity and activity involved in human linguistic communication. I am working under the framework of Dynamic Systems Theory which basically means that Secondary consciousness wouldn't emerge without the constiuent elements, but cannot be reduced to them either. Contrasting normal REM dreams (NLDs) versus Lucid Dreaming (LDs) gives us as a species a unique paradigm for actually exploring these notions

So as you can see, and as I mentioned in the first post. My scientific work is far FAR from shared dreaming as I have a fuckload of explantions to provide for so many things in between, at the minute I am sticking myself firmly in the knowledge delivered by classical physics/biology/psychology and if I should experience shared dreaming I will have to include more esoteric notions such as quantum gravity/fields/consciousness in order to make sense of my experiences. HOWEVER, what I also have in mind is that I wouldn't be able to experience the esoteric stuff without first having gone through all the "basic" stuff (basic is by no means a way of saying it is easy or isn't complex).

There.. I still can't quite limit my answers...

**unda** · 10-18-2011 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by Vesterguard

I differ from Chomsky in one very crucial way in pointing to the fact that if you were not a human being, growing up in a social environment engaging in interactions with your significant others, you WOULD NOT develop the charactaristic self-reflective consciousness found only in Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

This is an interesting idea, not something I've ever really considered. Could you by any chance point me in the direction of what Chomsky has written about it, and why he disputes it? There's an interesting BBC Horizon documentary "Why do we talk?" which you might enjoy, though obviously it's aimed at laymen, you can find it on youtube.

A couple of theories you may find useful are: Edelman's notion of a primary and secondary element of consciousness. Allan J. Hobson investigates this notion during dreaming and hypothesise that normal REM dreaming can be compared to the "primary" (unreflective) consciousness and that the Secondary (self-reflective, constiuent of volitional action) is unique to human beings and is activated during lucid dreaming. Hobson focus primarily on the physiological aspects of these things, but I am about write my bachelor project basically testing the same notion, but where I hypothesise that what he terms Secondary consciousness is a product of the A: Primary consciousness (shared by mamals and birds who also experience REM sleep) and B: the capacity and activity involved in human linguistic communication. I am working under the framework of Dynamic Systems Theory which basically means that Secondary consciousness wouldn't emerge without the constiuent elements, but cannot be reduced to them either. Contrasting normal REM dreams (NLDs) versus Lucid Dreaming (LDs) gives us as a species a unique paradigm for actually exploring these notions

Hobson's work on dreams looks interesting, I'll definitely check that out, thanks! Your project sounds great, good luck with it. I certainly enjoy your comments, you clearly have an impressive knowledge of this area and I'm sure you'll produce a great project.

**Vesterguard** · 10-18-2011 06:23 PM

This is an interesting idea, not something I've ever really considered. Could you by any chance point me in the direction of what Chomsky has written about it, and why he disputes it? There's an interesting BBC Horizon documentary "Why do we talk?" which you might enjoy, though obviously it's aimed at laymen, you can find it on youtube.

I haven't actually seen anything from Chomsky where he disputes it. He is primarily focused on language aquisition and not consciosness as such. The primary critic of the notion of "Universal grammar" is a guy called Tomasello, as far as I recall, but I am not really working with language learning as such, more of how it is used to store cultural concepts that then become internalised and used as psychological "mental tools" in the individual. I hobe you enjoy Hobson, he has quite a funny slightly arrogant writing style, even in his scientific publications ^^

**unda** · 10-18-2011 07:06 PM

I just read this paper co-authored by Hobson (SLEEP - Lucid Dreaming: A State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming) which studied EEG recordings of lucid dreaming compared with REM sleep and the waking state, it also mentions Edelman: "We are tempted to interpret this finding as evidence that the substrate of what Edelman calls secondary consciousnessis turned on and conveys the many aspects of waking consciousness that characterize lucidity." You've more than likely already come across this but if you haven't it could be useful for your project.

To return to the paranormal, are you aware of the Randi challenge? The challenge offers one million dollars to anyone who can prove their paranormal ability objectively. Since 1968 when the challenge was initiated, initially with a smaller reward, nobody has been able to claim the prize. To the believers amongst you, why do you think this is?

**Baron Samedi** · 10-19-2011 01:38 AM

If you turn your words backwards and upsidedown, then things make sense. Otherwise, all you can see is imaginary magical scrolls.

**Aspieoriginal** · 07-03-2013 01:46 PM

Yeah. Me and my boyfriend went to sleep and I had one of
My nightmares, but it was lucid dreaming and there was a bad spirit there. The spirit was an ex boyfriend who was possessive. I was scared and my boyfriend popped into my dream and protected me and argued with this guy allowing me to leave. We woke up at the same time a few mins later and both described the same thing.
His uncle and aunti also had the same things happen all the time, with their children involved.. Like saving his family from being run over by a truck... But it was the wife's dream but the husband could enter as he pleased. At times the daughter had the exact dream as well, but these are very gifted people. I believe someone sets the scene (matrix) and a protective loved one can feel when something's not right and can be projected into the others matrix. This is in the same room tho.

**jblb2424** · 07-04-2013 04:39 AM

I made a possible method to increase the odds of a shared dreaming to occur between two participants. Unfortunately I have never gotten the chance to try it, but if you want to try it you can possibly find out for yourself if its real

http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dre...-dreaming.html

**ridethespiral** · 07-10-2013 11:58 AM

I read something on the Astral "realm" and it said that it settles into "dream pools"..so each person has their own, each area (not sure how big or if there is a limit..maybe it's based on population concentrations) and probably every country or land mass etc..and these pools overlap so if you have a LD, and someone else is at the same time and place, hypothetically that could mean your dream "pools" intersect with eachother and it would be a combination of both your dreams, within the area,within the continent or whatever..I don't remember exactly though, it could've just been in terms of projecting but at least for me, whenever I have a LD I always see tons of people and I've definitely seen people I've seen and met that live in this area. It's an interesting concept, it'd be cool if it were true.

**DarkFlatTop** · 07-20-2013 05:33 AM

Originally Posted by yuppie11975

Personally no, not being negative, I even joined the shared dreaming group, to see if I could be proven wrong. It just seems ridiculous, being lucid is possible because it's YOUR mind, and your mind can't link with someone else's. This is just my opinion, don't troll me ^.^

Don't we link with each others minds every day? Talking can be considered a form of telepathy, just that we communicate with sound. Think about that, not only can we make sounds which are meaningful to ourselves, but we can make sounds and be understood by other people, thus changing someone else's perception of the world.

**Darkmatters** · 07-20-2013 06:20 AM

^ If that's the kind of dream sharing you're interested in you should be on the Dream Journals section of the board..

**Tradl3s** · 07-21-2013 06:30 AM

Just a thought, Maybe shared dreaming has something to do with Astral Projection? I dont know if that was discussed, because i dont usually read reply's unless there is a small amount.

**dreamcatcher81** · 08-03-2013 06:26 PM

I've never tried shared dreaming before but I'm more motivated then I was a year ago. Not for myself because I can easily see how it could work. I'm more interested for my co worker who has been a materialist for 60 years of his life. He says if I can share a dream with him it would change his whole out look on things. That alone is worth a few attempts from me. (-;

**user5659** · 08-06-2013 11:16 PM

Hello, if you will agree with your friend to meet at some place you will find him there, he will find you there. The problem is that both of you will be in different realms, or different realities. So in real you will see him because you wanted to, he will see you because he wanted to see you, but you will not be able to exchange any information unless you somehow dream in the same reality or realm(call it as you wish).

I did a lot of experiments with my friend, we lived in the same apartment when i was in the university. We tried to meet in the place we both know well, we agreed to write down or read a number that will be on a note attached to the wall. We successfully met each other in dream, however it was different him there and different me with him. I saw my number, when i came number was already there and he was there, he said that he also saw a number when he came. We woke up and both wrote our numbers on paper, they were different. Later i found why, in different realities both of us are different, that is the reason why you cannot predict exact future in dreams - because you are not in your home realm.

This might sound confusing but this is my explanation.

**dreamcatcher81** · 08-06-2013 11:24 PM

I appreciate you taking the time to share your experience on this matter with me as I have never even attempted something like this before. I'll give it a shot just to see if my results match what you experienced. Thank for your insight flowofmysoul.

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

Hello, if you will agree with your friend to meet at some place you will find him there, he will find you there. The problem is that both of you will be in different realms, or different realities. So in real you will see him because you wanted to, he will see you because he wanted to see you, but you will not be able to exchange any information unless you somehow dream in the same reality or realm(call it as you wish).

I did a lot of experiments with my friend, we lived in the same apartment when i was in the university. We tried to meet in the place we both know well, we agreed to write down or read a number that will be on a note attached to the wall. We successfully met each other in dream, however it was different him there and different me with him. I saw my number, when i came number was already there and he was there, he said that he also saw a number when he came. We woke up and both wrote our numbers on paper, they were different. Later i found why, in different realities both of us are different, that is the reason why you cannot predict exact future in dreams - because you are not in your home realm.

This might sound confusing but this is my explanation.

**user5659** · 08-07-2013 12:36 AM

Originally Posted by dreamcatcher81

I appreciate you taking the time to share your experience on this matter with me as I have never even attempted something like this before. I'll give it a shot just to see if my results match what you experienced. Thank for your insight flowofmysoul.

Will be waiting for your results