A couple of years ago some here argued that if 'shared dreaming' were real, there would be scientific proof of it. I've argued that even though it is real and objectively demonstrable, there are understandable reasons why it hasn't been established scientifically.

Last week a paper was published in Nature about a 130,000 year old human site found in San Diego. I think this otherwise unrelated story illustrates some aspects of the kind of thing I'm talking about. The site was escavated in 1992, but the discoverers spent that long carefully establishing their case before publishing, because the find goes against the scientific consensus that the first humans came to North America about 15,000 years ago. The 15,000 year consensus is essentially a reasonable hypothesis that has stood because of lack of contrary evidence. There is nothing 'extraordinary' about the new claim other than it being new, and to some, unexpected. Their methods are completely standard, and carefully applied. Humans are already accepted to have been on various Asian islands 180,000 years ago, which implies the use of boats. It doesn't contradict the genomic record. The absence of other evidence really doesn't contradict the archeological record either: only a tiny portion of bones or other artifacts survive that long. But it still took 24 years to even take the first step of having a conversation about their discovery.

Contrast that to the situation with 'shared dreaming'. Establishing that in a 'scientific' setting would require careful development and application of new investigative methods, not merely further application of old ones. No plausible mechanism can be proposed to support the claim, it stands completely outside of everything that is scientifically known about how the world works. The subject doesn't even fall within any qualified researcher's field of study, much less within any funding mandate. It's almost completely untouchable.

In any case, those people worked on their project for most of their careers, and it finally paid off. So maybe we'll get our shot eventually if we keep after it. There's a season for everything.