Thread: Shared Dreaming Experiment: Space Explorer and Waking Nomad

Originally Posted by Raven Knight

This is not correct. The human mind will automatically try to interpret and understand anything it sees. So if two people see the exact same thing they may interpret it differently. Just look at this optical illusion...

Some people look at it and see a vase while others look at it and see the sillhouettes of two people faing each other. This is just one example of how two people can see the same thing and have their minds interpret it differently. So if it can happen in this physical world, why wouldn't it happen in the dream state? It does happen in the dream state.

Well that optical illusion is kind of famous, because it's demonstrates that when the subject matter ambiguous, the mind can shift between definitions. In reality, almost everyone can see both... which is why it is so famous. I think you'd be hard pushed to find someone who couldn't see the faces. Sure different people may see different things at first.

I agree completely with your first statement, only I think it applies moreso to the fact that people can find patterns where there are none, down to the way the mind works.

It's actually funnily enough, a great demonstration as to how the human mind searches for meaning in the ambiguous... which seems to be exactly what people are doing when they try to make two different dreams match up. I see a dog, you see a cat, both obviously different, but if you are looking to find similarities your mind can generally find connections.
If i dreamt of petting a Cat and you dreamt of feeding a dog, and we were both trying to dreamshare, we may conclude that our dreams are similar enough to have been shared... when in reality, the connection was made in retrospect because we WANTED to find a pattern.

To conclude that an ambigious optical illusion demonstrates that people will have shared dreams and have different interpretations of the SAME dream, is a big strech of the imagination. It makes far more sense to conclude that people have DIFFERENT dreams, and the mind (being a a great pattern finding device) fills the gaps and makes connections where there are none, it requries far less rewriting of the laws of physics, psychology and all the rest.

I think we can all agree, that any answer that requires more unprovable steps, or leaps of faith... is a weaker answer than one that requires none.

There is a famous experiment where two groups of people are shown ink blots (in fact I think it's mentioned in one of LaBerge books) the first group are simply shown the ink blot and asked to see what they see, the other are told a story about sailing first, then shown the ink blot.
The first group, generally see all sort of unrelated images in the inkblot.
The second, generally see more nautical related images... because their minds have been already been primed to be more receptive to that kind of imagery.

If you prime your mind to find patterns, it will.
Simply choose a random word say "sky", and suddently if you decide it has meaning... it will almost magically seem to crop up everywhere.
The same thing happens with that classic psychological illusion where people start noticing the time 11:11

This is not to rule out the possibility of shared dreaming, perhaps it is possible. But if you are looking for truth, it really pays to be discerning. No one wants to draw false conclusions, and then look like a fool when someone points out a far more sensible and obvious answer.

People who make up excuses, or try to make the subject vague and beyond testing, weaken their argument. It comes across as deliberate deceit... even if it isn't. The truth has nothing to hide from asking difficult questions, it is only that which is false that needs protecting, because its foundations are weak, and it will crumble under hard questions...
Which, as an aside, is a the exact reason i find the deep dreaming forum highly dubious.

spaceexploer, what do you think about The Cusp's suggestion of attempting to wake one another up?

I definitely agree with what you've said in the above post.

For me it takes a bit more to even entertain the idea that it's not mere coincidence. The reason I do entertain the idea that dream sharing exists, is because I personally have experienced a handful of incidents that seem unlikely to be coincidental. In the "shared dreams" I was able to make specific observations about a place or an article of clothing or jewelry that it would have been impossible for me to know about previously.

If you are ambiguous and say that a gold watch in a dream might be the same as a silver watch in real life, just being perceived differently, then that (in my opinion) makes it seem exactly as what spaceexplorer was talking about. You're trying to make things fit together. A gold watch in a dream should be a gold watch in real life. If you look at things that way, then that's the only way (again, just my opinion), you're going to find any proof.

Originally Posted by Aquanina

spaceexploer, what do you think about The Cusp's suggestion of attempting to wake one another up?

I think that would actually be a fantastic idea.
I'm trying to think it through, just to rule out any reasons why it may have problems... not to be skeptical for the sake of it, just to give it the respect of thinking it through.
The only thought that first jumps to mind, is that upon waking, there should be a grace time, of say 5 minutes... allowing both dreamers to record their waking time, before calling each other. This could help rule out any cases where you are actually awoken by the phone ringing... and like the classic alarm clock becoming a dream siren were all familiar with, the phone ringing could, at a strech, cue a dream about the other person. Which is best avoided.

Obviously, you'd need to be able to repeat this enough times to rule out chance, and also record any occasions where you wake up thinking you've had a shared dream, but not getting the call.

Otherwise, it's a nice direct way to casually experiment. As long as people are aware enough to realise one example, is not proof in itself, like dreamqueen said, in such cases you need to gather a big enough pool of experience and evidence to avoid statistical flukes and chance occurences.

Originally Posted by Aquanina

I definitely agree with what you've said in the above post.For me it takes a bit more to even entertain the idea that it's not mere coincidence. The reason I do entertain the idea that dream sharing exists, is because I personally have experienced a handful of incidents that seem unlikely to be coincidental. In the "shared dreams" I was able to make specific observations about a place or an article of clothing or jewelry that it would have been impossible for me to know about previously.

This is the same case for me, I've had two seemingly shared dreams in my life. Both many years ago now, and unfortunatly I only have my memories, and no dream diarys of the events. They were more than enough to spark my interest, but cleary rare enough that they could also be put down to a statistical fluke.

I'm well aware of the strange nature of coincidences too, for example, my friends consider my incredibly lucky... I literally find money all the time.
The other day, whilst discussing my odd luck with a friend, he joked that maybe i had some kind of odd Karma... as a month before i'd found £100. This is not a common conversation I and this friend would have, but fueled by the odd events the month or so before.
10 Minutes after having this discussion, on my walk home, I decided to take a different route... as I walked back, I noticed a £50 note on the floor, I was gobsmacked... even more so when I picked it up and discovered it was 3 £50 notes, so £150 in total. Very odd considering the conversation we just had.

Do i consider that divine intervention, some kind of karma, or magical luck?
Not really, I just consider it to be a strange combination of chance, self programming to expect to find things (so i keep an eye out), and my own natural observant nature. I've literally developed a skill at being seemingly lucky... if you program yourself right, and are an observant individual... seeming miracles can happen to you.

Interesting how you responded only to my method, but not the example of the dream.

A dream is not an image or a theme. It is an experience.

If you cannot see that it's nearly impossible to have so many "coincidences" in two different dreams, I give up.

I withdraw.

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

Well that optical illusion is kind of famous, because it's demonstrates that when the subject matter ambiguous, the mind can shift between definitions. In reality, almost everyone can see both... which is why it is so famous. I think you'd be hard pushed to find someone who couldn't see the faces. Sure different people may see different things at first.

The point I want to make is that sometimes in a dream we only see somethiing briefly. So what we see first is the only thing we see before the image is gone. The equivilant would be if we both were in a car and saw an animal run across the road. You saw a small dog; I saw a cat; in reality it was a rabbit. In reality we caught a glimpse and our minds filled in what it was. Most people aren't as aware in a dream as when awake (me included), so it would happen even more easily there. Another optical illusion: What do you see?

I know this isn't direct physical proof, but I would swear on... well anything... that I am telling events as they happened. Yes, I would swear it in a court of law. Having said that...

Nomad and another friend of mine that I know physically in person recently shared a dream. In that dream he was lucid and she was not. She didn't remember the dream. Nomad did. Since she didn't remember the dream, she asked for more information from Nomad. She asked for a more detailed description of her. And he nailed it! He didn't describe her as she physically looks in this world, but he described how she sees herself in her dream state and got even small details right such as her height, her hair length and color, and a specificly unique piece of jewelry she was wearing. She is not sure if she believes in shared dreaming, and she is officially creeped out by that. There is no way Nomad could have known these things! And I don't see how this could be faked (they never met or knew each other) or coincidence (there were too many accurate details). I don't know if you will consider this event as evidence since you didn't personally experience it, but I thought I would relate it to you.

And again, I would swear in a court of law that I did not make that up!

Raven, I definitely get what you are saying. But isn't it much more convincing when someone says "I dreamt about a black dog" and then the other person says "I also dreamt about a black dog" ...rather than, "Oh, I dreamt about a black cat. But since we both dreamt about a black animal it must have been the same thing just perceived differently."

My point is...if you actually can get extremely accurate details shared by two people, then why muddy the water with all this "different perception" stuff?

Originally Posted by Aquanina

Raven, I definitely get what you are saying. But isn't it much more convincing when someone says "I dreamt about a black dog" and then the other person says "I also dreamt about a black dog" ...rather than, "Oh, I dreamt about a black cat. But since we both dreamt about a black animal it must have been the same thing just perceived differently."

My point is...if you actually can get extremely accurate details shared by two people, then why muddy the water with all this "different perception" stuff?

Actually I would need more similarities than just a black animal to convince me of a shared dream. On the ones I accept as shared there are more similarities than that. For example in one dream I was sick and riding a horse while Nomad and some others were fighting Templars attacking us... he dreamed that I was sick and on a horse while he and some others were fighting random enemies. I saw Templars because I am obsessed with Assassin's Creed so that is how my mind interpreted it. Mostly the same with a few differences. And you are right; exact matches are much more convincing! I've experienced quite a few of those, too!

Ok, glad we got that cleared up.

The idea of proving that shared dreaming is possible is awesome! Spaceexplorer, Wakingnomad, I hope you get the proof you need!

Raven, that picture is a woman and a man with a beard, that's not really a human head. Looks like it though if you glance at it...attention to detail