A few questions for those who have shared a dream!

Hello :P

As a relatively experienced lucid dreamer, lately I have been wanting to have a shared dream with my friend(with his permission of course). And for those who have already done so in the past, i have a few questions!

1. Was your shared dream deliberate?
2. If you answered yes, how did you do so, and how long did it take you to be successful?

Thanks! :D

Okay, how can I explain...

I guess the first requisite is a "desire match." In my experience I truly wanted this person to come to me in a dream. And the desire was so strong that it was automatically sewed into my subconsciousness.

The next requisite was "single-mindedness." In my experience I just stuck with it because I had a feeling that it was going to work. And I simply allowed this feeling to grow.

The final requisite seemed to be "letting go." In my experience I simply left it up in the air. And in three months the shared dream came one night when I was least expecting it. It turned out exactly as I imagined it.

And I never really got her permission to do so. I just went for it. :banana:

I think you should know my motivation. Because I would never have met this person in real life so I realized this was the only way of coming in contact with her. So that played a part in the dreaming. I would imagine that if you have a friend in reality that this is much more fulfilling than sharing a dream with someone. So keep that in mind.

I had a shared dream completely on accident. There was no conscious effort on either side. It was one of the happiest moments of my life, and I was asleep for it.

Almost a year ago, I encountered an online broadcaster who streamed little-known horror movies. We grew to appreciate one another's character. Then we learned what one another's faces looked like, and there was a mutual appreciation followed by agreement that LDR's are terrible ideas. We behaved ourselves to the best of our abilities, which waxed and waned. I have no idea when or why, but at some point I began sleeping on my side holding a pillow and wishing it were her. Or just a woman exactly like her in every exciting detail. :D A few months later I dreamed that we were lying in bed together as close as two people could be when she said, "I... I love you." I smiled the biggest smile of my life, began holding her closer and said, "I love you too." Then it was like we pulled one another impossibly close. There were no visuals. Just an exchange of eight words and sensation of warmth that grew and grew. The setting was familiar and known, so like home that I didn't need to open my eyes to know who was there or where we were. I tried to fall back in to that dream for hours. I fell back asleep, but not into that dream. When I encountered the woman next she mentioned having had a dream in which she felt rather frightened. I immediately thought of the dream I'd had, in which she seemed completely vulnerable and genuinely concerned that she might be dealing with unrequited love. I wrestled for weeks over telling her about the dream. In the mean time, I asked her if I could pay a visit some time without expectations or obligations of any kind. She agreed enthusiastically :D Nearly two months later I told her about the dream I had, and when I had it. She said, 'That was no dream!!" There were more exclamation marks, but you get the idea. We had a shared dream.

In hindsight, I think I did exactly as JTM proposed. It was very much not the goal. Where she and I are at right now is in fact the exact opposite of our originally stated goals in this relationship. We're adjusting rather well to the fact that we're head over heals, irrationally in love with mysterious people we barely know but intend to marry and make a multitude of fat babies with. I absolutely thought that all of this soul mate talk was phooey until experiencing the sensation of merging on the deepest levels with a stranger five thousand miles away. I've still never even asked what her last name is, but she knows what I intend it to be.

For me, its not like me and the other person are sharing the same setting. Its more like both of us have the same dream but we interpret it differently. Its not lucid in the sense that I'm actively controlling the dream environment. Usually there is some information that I wouldn't have access to except in that dream. Occasionally the information is wrong, but its remarkably better than what I would be able to guess otherwise. The dream is more likely to happen if there's something that wouldn't be shared some other way. So, for instance, the only time I can think of having had an experience like that with my wife is shortly before we met. I think it doesn't happen afterwards because there's nothing to be shared that way that we don't get through other experiences, or just by thinking about each other. In my experience these kinds of dreams are a lot easier if both people want something from each other that the dream facilitates, but its not necessary that they want the same thing. I think its generally wrong to try to draw someone into a dream like this without their understanding and consent, its a kind of emotional rape. I think that one reason most people are so closed off from themselves and other people emotionally, is they're trying to protect themselves from other people by drawing in and shutting down the part of themselves that is connected to other people. When I say 'closed off', I mean relative to what would be possible if people didn't have to do that.