Thread: Is it Possible to dream with someone?

Yeah, it's called shared dreaming.

Hmmm.... You know any good guides on the topic?

There's a subforum dedicated to it, there is also this guy on here with shared dreaming links and stuff on his signature. I couldn't find him though.
http://www.dreamviews.com/f144/

Several members, such as Linkzelda, Alyzarin, and kaomea are all attempting this.

Hope the guides help.

Personally I am unsure of what I believe regarding shared dreaming, but I believe the user Metallicuh is referring to is WakingNomad- I have seen many of his posts regarding shared dreaming.

No. There is no real reason to believe it's possible.

I love how most of the answers in this thread have been either outright yes or no. I don't think one can so easily confirm or deny it.

Dream sharing is a heavily debated topic throughout the entire forum, and there is experiments and tutorials in the Beyond Dreaming and IOSDP forum areas. Really though noone can definitively tell you yes or no - it is something that you really need to make up your own mind on, experiment with and judge from your experiences. Since there is only objective reports from those who have done it, there's no way to prove that it happens, you can only try to trust that it does unless you experience it.

Personally, I've had a couple of dreams that I believe to have been shared. Both were with the same person, who says they have also had shared dreams with their siblings. We confirmed the dreams through the same events, settings, characters and very specific details such as a change in hair style and colour.

EDIT: [14:34] <+no-Name|Away> there is literally 0 evidence for shared dreaming and telling people that it exists is the same as telling them god or jesus exist[14:34] <+no-Name|Away> it is all bullshit

This is essentially what I was trying to say - it's impossible to prove and something you have to make up your mind on yourself, noone can tell you what to believe in,

There is scientific basis and evidence for lucid dreaming. There is scientific basis and evidence AGAINST shared dreaming.

I find it incredibly unlikely that shared dreaming is possible. I think that the human brain is able to come up with realistic enough facsimiles of real people to the point that it seems on par with a shared dream, but the existence of shared dreaming would invalidate so many principles of biology, psychology, and basic science that I find it is almost certainly false. Extraordinarily claims require extraordinary evidence. The idea that one can somehow telepathically share a dream with someone else is a very extraordinary claim.

Originally Posted by AjWasHere

There is scientific basis and evidence AGAINST shared dreaming.

I think that the human brain is able to come up with realistic enough facsimiles of real people to the point that it seems on par with a shared dream, but the existence of shared dreaming would invalidate so many principles of biology, psychology, and basic science that I find it is almost certainly false. Extraordinarily claims require extraordinary evidence. The idea that one can somehow telepathically share a dream with someone else is a very extraordinary claim.

Can there really be any scientific evidence against a subjective event? I have a very high degree in a science based feild, and can not imagine any evidence that could disprove a subjective experience. How about objective? Shared dreaming is 'a very extraordinary claim' but so is the idea that certain metals can explode with enough force to destroy entire cities. How would you prove metals can not explode? Picture 1920, me and you are trying to disprove that uranium can explode, we smash it, we burn it, we freeze and then smash it, nothing we can think of makes it explode. Have we given evidence that uranium is not a good bomb making metal? No, we would be wrong, because we would lack the knowledge and tools to even understand what we are doing.
I do not want to sound quarelsome. I am curious what principles of science would shared dreaming invalidate? Biology. Animals can precieve things using specialized organs such as their eyes. Animals have brains so complex that we barely have a grasp of what is what, and that bare grasp started forming less than 100 years ago. Physics. Things can be non-visable and yet exert strong influences on the world, such as radio waves and sound. So, if you want to, please give me an example of a scientific prinicple that shared dreaming would violate. All fun and games here, no hard feelings.

Sarimdesert, I have never shared a dream with another person from my waking life who remembered me being in their dreams. It seems like both parties would have to be good lucid dreamers, who both became lucid at the same time. That makes the idea of dreaming with another specific person a huge challenge. I do not even personally know anyone other than me with the needed skill, except for members on this forum, whoI have never actuaally met. What I have done hundreds of times is have other enties ranging from other dreamers to god-like beings interact with me in LDs. While the chance of youu and a friend becoming lucid at the same time is tricky, thousands of people will be lucid at the same time any given moment. It is therefore much easier to have shared dream experiences with who ever is currently lucid, even though you do not know them
Prove it? Who the hell cares to prove anything? I certainly do not care if a doubter wants to stay doubting. If I can share wiith someone who just wants to know, I am happy to help, but I do not care who believes what. Think about this. Does love exist? You probably know it does, because you have experienced it. Now, prove it! Or, better yet, just enjoy the feeling, and have a happy life.

Moved to beyond dreaming.

Yes you all are right in your opinion's but i believe if a person has believe in something then he will have a higher chance of attaining it.We all have faith in God we cant actually see or hear him but we know he is there same goes with other phenomenon's of life.One cannot be utterly sure unless he himself tries to prove that what he believes in is right.

Shared dreaming, It is quite a fictional claim that it exists but i think we should not go upon what other people say about it but go try it for ourselves and see what the result can yield.Some might say its not real or damn right impossible and they might just give up on it but the one who believes in it will surely not give up and try their best to prove that what they believe in is right.

Thank You All!!
Your opinion is highly appreciated.

Hi, I believe shared dreaming can be done. It is not scientifically proven yet but I have had some crazy experiences.

You were looking for a tutorial on how to share a dream. You can find one at this link. You can also find shared dreaming FAQs right here. I hope you look into it and have your own experiences you can talk about! Good luck

There exists 11 proved dimension now(from string theory and other)All are vibrating in different frequency .While sleeping our brain also have different frequency.It might be possible same frequency get in tuned.Imagine a radio as a body and waves as dimensions.Two person listening to radio in the same frequency hear same thing same thing is with shared dreaming.
Study some String theory, M theory Modern physics and cocept of parallel universe then mind would be more open.
I am open minded cuz i have got some confirmed premonition through dream.

I do not believe shared dreaming is possible.
Shared dreaming requires extended communication between two brains without any physical interaction.
If i were to believe shared dreaming exists, i first want scientific evidence about how it is possible.
I would be happy to hear your arguments about how it could be possible though.

I've had a couple shared dreams, and am attempting a shared LD every night... I KNOW it is possible... but there are always nay-sayers. Decide for yourself.

Originally Posted by sivason

Can there really be any scientific evidence against a subjective event? I have a very high degree in a science based feild, and can not imagine any evidence that could disprove a subjective experience. How about objective? Shared dreaming is 'a very extraordinary claim' but so is the idea that certain metals can explode with enough force to destroy entire cities. How would you prove metals can not explode? Picture 1920, me and you are trying to disprove that uranium can explode, we smash it, we burn it, we freeze and then smash it, nothing we can think of makes it explode. Have we given evidence that uranium is not a good bomb making metal? No, we would be wrong, because we would lack the knowledge and tools to even understand what we are doing.

You're right, there can't be scientific evidence regarding a subjective event-because science is not subjective. Science is an objective, theory and data based process. Nuclear weapons were not invented because for decades lots of people had believed that specific metals could level an entire city because it felt like they could. They were invented after decades of slowly gathered data, observation, and theory based in the scientific method and years of work on radiation and the properties of matter. As for evidence against shared dreaming, I encourage you to ask people with high degrees in fields of biology and neuroscience about what telepathy would mean for their field. The idea of human communication over some kind of ethereal, non physical medium hitherto unknown to mankind would absolutely revolutionize not just the field of biology, but basic human perception of the natural world in general. That's not to say that tomorrow a biologist won't announce they found a part of the human brain that emits some kind of wave impulse that somehow communicates with other people. Despite the fact that the standard model doesn't have any gaping holes that would indicate the existence of other spectrums of waves that would allow for such communication, it's always theoretically possible that a discovery could turn everything on its head. But Occam's Razor says it's far more likely that lucid dreams with people you recognize are the result of you dreaming about those people yourself, not of them being in your dream. I'll stop here to avoid going into a lecture on how the past century of scientific development has made it harder to declare unknown phenomena as based on an undiscovered property of nature such as was the case with the development of nuclear weapons and the famous equation therein.

You're correct, if you want to continue to believe that it is possible for two people to share a lucid dream despite a lack of proof and are content with that belief then you have every right to it. But don't call it science. I hope that somewhere along the lines of attaining that degree you learned that assertions without proof are faith, not science.

Originally Posted by francis148

There exists 11 proved dimension now(from string theory and other)All are vibrating in different frequency .While sleeping our brain also have different frequency.It might be possible same frequency get in tuned.Imagine a radio as a body and waves as dimensions.Two person listening to radio in the same frequency hear same thing same thing is with shared dreaming.
Study some String theory, M theory Modern physics and cocept of parallel universe then mind would be more open.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, sir.

Originally Posted by AjWasHere

You're correct, if you want to continue to believe that it is possible for two people to share a lucid dream despite a lack of proof and are content with that belief then you have every right to it. But don't call it science. I hope that somewhere along the lines of attaining that degree you learned that assertions without proof are faith, not science.

No, of course nothing gets the title of "law" without repeatable proofs. Things do get the title "Theorum" if they can be assumed to be law, but an absolute proof is wanting. The idea of atomics would not have counted as either before this century. No proof, or seeming proof = unback assurtions. However, the topic is not really if something can be proved. Many people would claim psycology is not actually a science, and not with out reason; dreams are in the same area. You would have trouble proving that hallucinations exist, but if you gave a test subject 300 mcg of LSD they would know hallucinations exist. They would not be going on 'faith' they would be basing it on experience. Now anyone who they told about them, would be going on faith if they choose to believe based off anothers word. Shared dreams are like that. Have them and you believe you 'know' that they are real, but will never be able to prove it.

Oh YES we will

When C. Dreampt of saying in here dream:

"Why would anyone put a sea water swimming pool so close to the beach"

and the rest is hisyory

Check-out my Synchronicity Game Relaoded.

Hit my profile

Then hit "Started Threads"

Then hit "Synchronicity Game Reloaded".

When you guys feel up-to-it follow my instructions and see what happens.

Originally Posted by Freda

If i were to believe shared dreaming exists, i first want scientific evidence about how it is possible.
I would be happy to hear your arguments about how it could be possible though.

The first example of how it could be possable is not my own view, but is easy to follow. We know energy can be transmitted in various forms, such as wave lengths of light, electromagnetic. We clearly have in the past discovered energy types that would have been magical seeming. radiowaves havee allways been here, but now we can use a reciever to get extreamly complex and exact sounds broadcast in our house. The scientific argument here is that we have not found or mastered every form of energy. Energy can be used to convey complex messages if the correct equipment is employed. People say they have these dreams, so we can safely therorize that possably a poorly understood form of energy and a undiscovered aspect of our brain could convey information to and from the brain.

My own belief is much harder for atheists to swallow, but is a scientifically sound hypothesis. Here is the logic. The nature of the universe is poorly understood. We have a few cosmilogical problems that oppose everything we understand. We are discovering quantum physics and it seems to say our understanding of physics is limited and flaws exist in our current models. Examples, the galaxies are moving apart faster than light. The big bang seems to have become a massive universe in no actual time. If it started at one place, it expanded at millions off times the speed of light. In fact it kind of seems to have just appeared everywhere all at one time, out of nothing.
So, E=MC2 says everything in physics is actually energy. The physical nature of things results from complex layering and folding of energy on levels we do not understand, but in truth all there is is energy and the appearance of a physical world. So, the hypothisis is, the connection between the two humans would not be so much on the level of a transmitted energy, but would happen because of a unknown flaw in our current model of physics. Just like the universe suddenly appearing everywhere (or within 1 second) the physical world does not actually have the limitations we believe to be true, the shared dream would take place because distance is part of the illusion created by the energy, and in this hypothisis the connection happens based on "quantum type physics" or something like that, but not yet understood.

I am pursuing a technical scientific degree at the moment. There's quite a lack of real scientific thinking going on here, so I'm going to rigorously explain how the scientific method actually works and how it can be applied to shared dreaming.

I'll start with a misconception of scientific thinking which appeared early on in the thread:

Originally Posted by Dark_Merlin

I love how most of the answers in this thread have been either outright yes or no. I don't think one can so easily confirm or deny it.

Dream sharing is a heavily debated topic throughout the entire forum, and there is experiments and tutorials in the Beyond Dreaming and IOSDP forum areas. Really though noone can definitively tell you yes or no - it is something that you really need to make up your own mind on, experiment with and judge from your experiences. Since there is only objective reports from those who have done it, there's no way to prove that it happens, you can only try to trust that it does unless you experience it.

This statement is true in the sense that shared dreaming cannot be proved or disproved via any conceivable demonstration. However, nothing can really be proved or disproved on an absolute scale. For example, if I told you I'm best friends with an invisible unicorn you'd be inclined not to believe me. But how could you prove that invisible unicorns don't exist? You can't. So how can you form an opinion when you can't prove it one way or the other?

The answer lies in assessing probabilities. You must estimate the probability that a theory is true, and compare it with the probability that a theory isn't true. If one side seems heaviliy stacked, believe the one that seems more likely - even if you can't "prove" it one way or the other.

So we come back to shared dreaming. How could we even begin to assess the probabilities that shared dreaming is possible? I'll start with how likely it seems that shared dreaming is possible.

In order for shared dreaming to work, I would assume that you would need some form of physical communication between both parties. In waking life we use things like pen/paper, talking, or even body communication. In sleep we don't get any of those things. The most obvious choice for physical communication would be electromagnetic waves. The brain actually does emit EM waves, this is a well-studied phenomena. Brainwaves can even be measured by an EEG. Unfortunately these waves are very weak: from wikipedia, "A typical adult human EEG signal is about 10µV to 100 µV in amplitude when measured from the scalp." (source: wikipedia page for Electroencephalography). During sleep the brain emits delta waves which have a frequency of around 1-4 Hz. The wires in your walls have a voltage about a million times as strong at a frequency within the same order of magnitude (60 Hz). If the brain could detect EM fields emitted by brain waves, you would surely notice every electronic device within a hundred foot radius.

So far I have failed to mention the amount of information that would have to be packed into these waves to work. The source of a brainwave comes from electrical currents between neurons. The human brain, on average, has about 100 billion neurons, with each neuron ending in about 7000 synapses. The average adult has roughly 100-500 trillion synapses total (source: wikipedia page for neurons). Any particular state of imagination could be represented as the specific electrical activity between different neurons at any particular time. So even if person A could emit brain waves strong enough for person B to somehow "detect," person B would have to discern between up to 100 billion individual signals, which differ for each individual. Person B's brain would have to read those signals in real time, dream about them in real time, and have person A discern B's signals in real time to keep the dream consistent and up-to-date for both parties involved. This seems incredibly unlikely.

So maybe EM waves aren't the way to go. Maybe it's quantum physics. Or string theory. Or something nobody knows about yet. And just maybe, this can allow for that speedy and information-dense communication between brains that allows for shared dreaming. This line of thinking is very unscientific - it has the format "here's my theory, what ways can I think of to back it up?" The correct format for science is "here's the available evidence, which conclusion is most likely?" Of course there are episodes in science where the conventional wisdom was overturned and the crazy theory won in the end. But in those cases, the crazy theory had crazy evidence to go along with it. There's no crazy evidence for shared dreaming, only anecdotes that could easily be a result of misinterpretation.

I could write another three paragraphs about why some people seem to have very strong anectodal evidence (and in fact, why strong anecdotal evidence would be likely.) But I won't - this post is already getting way too long. If you're interested you should read "Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer. He talks a lot on this subject (not shared dreaming, but misinterpretation of evidence).

tl;dr - I can't prove that shared dreaming is impossible, but the chance that it's real is statistically insignificant. You shouldn't believe in it.

@ skeptic
Being a scientist and having an urge to explain and prove everything is fine. But maybe humankind is not at the level of development yet, when we can explain and prove things like this. So just because we can't prove it, doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist.

Before discovery of microorganisms, people knew about diseases, but had no idea, they are caused by something invisible. Maybe we are still waiting for our discovery.

And fortunatelly, we are all free to believe in whatever we like. By same token, you are free to believe in whatever you like and I'm sure, nobody will ridicule you for your beliefs, or try to force his beliefs on you. So please don't tell us, what we should and shouldn't believe.

Originally Posted by skeptic

I am pursuing a technical scientific degree at the moment. There's quite a lack of real scientific thinking going on here, so I'm going to rigorously explain how the scientific method actually works and how it can be applied to shared dreaming.

I'll start with a misconception of scientific thinking which appeared early on in the thread:



This statement is true in the sense that shared dreaming cannot be proved or disproved via any conceivable demonstration. However, nothing can really be proved or disproved on an absolute scale. For example, if I told you I'm best friends with an invisible unicorn you'd be inclined not to believe me. But how could you prove that invisible unicorns don't exist? You can't. So how can you form an opinion when you can't prove it one way or the other?

The answer lies in assessing probabilities. You must estimate the probability that a theory is true, and compare it with the probability that a theory isn't true. If one side seems heaviliy stacked, believe the one that seems more likely - even if you can't "prove" it one way or the other.

So we come back to shared dreaming. How could we even begin to assess the probabilities that shared dreaming is possible? I'll start with how likely it seems that shared dreaming is possible.

In order for shared dreaming to work, I would assume that you would need some form of physical communication between both parties. In waking life we use things like pen/paper, talking, or even body communication. In sleep we don't get any of those things. The most obvious choice for physical communication would be electromagnetic waves. The brain actually does emit EM waves, this is a well-studied phenomena. Brainwaves can even be measured by an EEG. Unfortunately these waves are very weak: from wikipedia, "A typical adult human EEG signal is about 10µV to 100 µV in amplitude when measured from the scalp." (source: wikipedia page for Electroencephalography). During sleep the brain emits delta waves which have a frequency of around 1-4 Hz. The wires in your walls have a voltage about a million times as strong at a frequency within the same order of magnitude (60 Hz). If the brain could detect EM fields emitted by brain waves, you would surely notice every electronic device within a hundred foot radius.

So far I have failed to mention the amount of information that would have to be packed into these waves to work. The source of a brainwave comes from electrical currents between neurons. The human brain, on average, has about 100 billion neurons, with each neuron ending in about 7000 synapses. The average adult has roughly 100-500 trillion synapses total (source: wikipedia page for neurons). Any particular state of imagination could be represented as the specific electrical activity between different neurons at any particular time. So even if person A could emit brain waves strong enough for person B to somehow "detect," person B would have to discern between up to 100 billion individual signals, which differ for each individual. Person B's brain would have to read those signals in real time, dream about them in real time, and have person A discern B's signals in real time to keep the dream consistent and up-to-date for both parties involved. This seems incredibly unlikely.

So maybe EM waves aren't the way to go. Maybe it's quantum physics. Or string theory. Or something nobody knows about yet. And just maybe, this can allow for that speedy and information-dense communication between brains that allows for shared dreaming. This line of thinking is very unscientific - it has the format "here's my theory, what ways can I think of to back it up?" The correct format for science is "here's the available evidence, which conclusion is most likely?" Of course there are episodes in science where the conventional wisdom was overturned and the crazy theory won in the end. But in those cases, the crazy theory had crazy evidence to go along with it. There's no crazy evidence for shared dreaming, only anecdotes that could easily be a result of misinterpretation.

I could write another three paragraphs about why some people seem to have very strong anectodal evidence (and in fact, why strong anecdotal evidence would be likely.) But I won't - this post is already getting way too long. If you're interested you should read "Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer. He talks a lot on this subject (not shared dreaming, but misinterpretation of evidence).

tl;dr - I can't prove that shared dreaming is impossible, but the chance that it's real is statistically insignificant. You shouldn't believe in it.

1) I trust nothing from Wikipedia

2) Do you realize how much we don't know about the human brain and body?

3) You shouldn't tell people that they shouldn't believe in something, I could say you shouldn't believe in the exsistence in microbial organisms because you don't see them with the naked eye.

Microbial organisms existed forever, but we haven't always had the TECHNOLGY to PROVE that they existed, maybe shared dreaming is the same way, i don't really care about proving it, you just shouldn't tell people what to believe in

Originally Posted by skeptic

This statement is true in the sense that shared dreaming cannot be proved or disproved via any conceivable demonstration.

Skeptic, I can think off-hand of at least one experiment that could easily be set up to test shared dreaming. I would also bet that it has been set up many times:

All you need to do is take four or more subjects, and have them go to sleep. At the last minute before sleep, the examiner gives half the subjects a unique object, like a hat or an apple, to imagine when they do their shared dream -- in this case two different objects (one for each of two subjects). Come morning the examiners wake up the subjects who were not given an object, and ask them what they dreamed. If either of the two objects were in their dreams -- specifically -- then shared dreaming likely occurred. It might take a few tries before the objects are actually dreamed of by the "told" subjects, but that would be expected.

I'm sure there are other simple tests like this that can be done, and again, I would bet that they have. Funny, though, how little documentation there is of successes...

...I really didn't want to get involved in yet another "I'm right, you're wrong, so there!" shared dreaming conversation -- I realized long ago that there was no point in taking the side of "no proof" or "I believe because it happened to me (or because it sounds so cool)" because both sides, in all eleven bazillion threads there have been about this subject, are apparently unassailable, just as fact and faith are both logically unassailable. And I'm firmly in the camp of each side, so it gets confusing sometimes. But this statement caught my eye...


p.s., skeptic, this has nothing to do with shared dreaming, but if you really want to sound knowledgeable and sincere, don't list wikipedia as a source!

OK, I'll throw in my usual two cents on this topic.

Stuff that's hard to rigorously control is hard to study and publish scientific papers on. The realm of scientific knowledge is almost the realm of stuff that's easiest to measure reliably or model. (Of course the math that goes into physics models is really, really hard, but its still limited to problems that can be decomposed into a very narrow class of solvable equations. That limitation is part of what makes the math hard.) It doesn't follow that everything else that can't be dealt with that way is unreal.

All scientific research, with very rare exceptions, has to be funded. Science is as limited by what it benefits people to fund as it is by what is tractable to study. To get funding to study shared dreaming, a scientist would have to convince someone that it could be monetized somehow. That scientist, and the administrators who approve their research, would also have to consider their need to continue receiving funding in the future. Trying to publish an affirmative result on shared dreaming, even if it appears well supported, would be a very risky career move. By natural selection, scientists tend to make safe career moves - funding dries up for the ones that don't and they're no longer scientists. Consider for example what happened to the guy in charge of the neutrino velocity measurement program in Europe. He didn't err as a scientist, and he didn't claim faster than light neutrinos. But because of the way the press hyped and distorted the speculation surrounding their results, he wound up getting fired when it didn't pan out as they had hyped it. If someone published a well supported positive study on shared dreaming, and then other labs failed to produce the same results when appearing to follow a similar experimental setup, as would be likely, the same thing would happen. It doesn't matter if he was right or not. So the absence of scientific evidence for something is not the powerful counter argument that many skeptics assume it is.

Generally speaking I'm good with wikipedia as a source by the way. Its true that it has a lot of errors, but conventional sources have a lot of errors also. Papers in refereed journals are usually behind pay walls, and a lot of those are surprisingly bad also.