Thread: Shared-Dreaming Debate of 2015

Originally Posted by cooleymd

While lucid dreamers try to go cave man with their favorite anime girl

Speak for your self man, you can't put all lucid dreamers in one category.

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

Speak for your self man, you can't put all lucid dreamers in one category.

And what category that'd be?

He meant that while people play in their lucid dreams, scientists in Japan are building machines that try to record what's happening inside your head.

I think it's unfair though, to compare the common folks with scientists. Obviously we're not doing that, we don't work in that department. For anyone but scientists that study the brain, all we have is ourselves and our brains and the possibility that that is enough.

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

And what category that'd be?

Tho I work as a computer programmer I lump myself into the Biochemist/Molecular Biologist category as most of my many years of college are in that field.

I think that science is relevant as my position is clearly that shared dreaming as I define it (same dream, same time, from brain to brain via a conduit) doesn't exist YET!

So these dream machines seem relevant to me.

If shared dreaming is defined some other way then I don't think it means much. For instance I had a dream about Kiira Korpi before I ever met her, if you dreamed of her too is that a shared dream. Is it a premonitory dream? Guess if I go to her next ice stating competition but we end up at a construction site and then take a train ride across Russia, it will have been, but until then I'll remain on the fence. Interestingly I didn't even know who she was when I had the dream, but maybe I had seen her on the web or news and just didn't remember.

I'm not one of those people who has a weird dream, and then thinks my dreams can't be weird there must be something wrong with the world and everyone else in the world. NO, I'm pretty sure that dreams are weird and people who want to infer great meaning and purpose from every stray thought they can remember while sleeping are the ones far beyond the help of science.

Originally Posted by cooleymd

People who want to infer great meaning and purpose from every stray thought they can remember while sleeping are the ones far beyond the help of science.

I am curious, what are the negative consequences of wanting to infer great meaning and purpose from every stray thought they can remember while sleeping? Why would they need help out of this behavior?

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

I am curious, what are the negative consequences of wanting to infer great meaning and purpose from every stray thought they can remember while sleeping? Why would they need help out of this behavior?

I believe that dreams help us integrate our memories and serve as a threat simulator. Teaching us different possible responses to situations. But to believe that they are actually filled with importance and meaning in their own right seems a bit much. Is my last dream this morning, of overhearing a coworker talking about me in a meeting and then me yelling into the meeting you F..... B..... is supposed to be some sort of subconscious breakthrough. In the dream I immediately begin dreaming that I better go report what they said about me before they report what I just yelled into the meeting, clearly the threat simulator in action, adapting itself to poor office politics and the inherent threats therein.

If you truly believe that everything in dreams has meaning, yes you probably need help. Sometimes a dream is just a dream, and often we don't remember enough to know what the brain was doing with the information it was processing, and the possibility definitely exists that those aren't tonight's winning lottery numbers but just random thoughts.

DThoughts:

If people had exactly the same dream at different times I suppose it would be a shared dream, but I still think it would require a brain scanner, brain recorder, and playback to actually occur.

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

And what category that'd be?

He meant that while people play in their lucid dreams, scientists in Japan are building machines that try to record what's happening inside your head.

I think it's unfair though, to compare the common folks with scientists. Obviously we're not doing that, we don't work in that department. For anyone but scientists that study the brain, all we have is ourselves and our brains and the possibility that that is enough.

Not everybody is going to cave man playing with favorite anime girl. There were times when all I wanted from lucid dream was fun, because options were unlimited. When I started lucid dreaming, to me it looked like a lot of fun and only fun, nothing else. Later when all dreams started to be lucid, I had so much time to waste there, 4 years later I understood there is much more then only fun. Since then I did try and study many things, including solving equations..

And I know few people from DV who are doing the same, that's why I said don't put us all in the same category.

Sometimes common folks have more knowledge of beyond dreaming stuff then most scientist

Originally Posted by sivason

This brings an on topic thought to mind. Do we really trust most lucid dreamers not to loose their sanity/focus and 'go cave man on us?

Even if you trust a shared dreaming partner, subconscious mind might bring up some surprises. For example, something basic can turn over into a nightmare for your partner, even if none of you are intending to share a dream that night. You do share a dream few times and want it or not, you are somehow connected now.

Something funny and sometimes scary happens to us from time to time. One of us is watching an intense movie, of course other parties does not know about it. Such movie will provoke certain images, certain thoughts in your mind and when your partners are going to sleep, they catch up on those thoughts, images and events.

A horror movie might cause a nightmare to your partner on exactly same theme that you saw in a movie. A comedy can cause some funny dreams to him/her. And movies on fundamental questions of humanity can cause some interesting shared dream experience and discussions.

Now add your daily life here, your daily events and emotions, your thoughts... any of those can become dreams for your partner. And they are not going to see that emotion, experience, thought as an imagine. They will feel it completely, most probably more intense then you did.