Shared Dreaming/Astral Projection

I noticed that a lot of people seem to have a fairly strong belief that shared dreaming is possible, or more broadly that dreams do not only exist within our brains/minds.

I see these claims as very extraordinary and don't really understand how anyone could believe them without strong evidence. I haven't really looked for evidence, so I thought I'd ask you guys directly: what is your evidence?

I'm interested in anecdotal accounts, but the best thing I could imagine would be if someone could offer to directly affect my dreams in some way. If anyone could astral project/share a dream with me, that would be f**king awesome. If you claim to be able to share dreams, but unable to share a dream with me, I am interested in why that is so and what I would need to do to facilitate the process.

Any takers?

Only anecdotal evidence, and personal experience. I only thought it was possible until I experienced myself a few years ago, then I knew it was real.

Could you describe your experience in more detail? Also, I take it you don't know how to do it on command and so can't really speak to any of my requests for sharing?

You can read about my experiences in my DJ, or you can read about our (there are many of us) experiences in the Shared Dreams Journal. If you want to learn how, there is a tutorial in my signature.

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Originally Posted by thegnome54

Could you describe your experience in more detail? Also, I take it you don't know how to do it on command and so can't really speak to any of my requests for sharing?

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I'll try for one with you Gnome, but you have to start keeping a dream journal first. Unfortunately I only get lucid every 1-2 months so it could take some time. Plus I have a hard time finding people in dreams, whether they be regular DCs or otherwise, but I have some new techniques I've been meaning to to try for finding people I'm hoping will work.

But please keep in mind that both versions of a shared dream are rarely if ever identical. They are usually full of archetypal differences that basically describe the same thing. For example, there was one incident involving a father and son where they went to a restaurant. For the father they went to a Denny's, but in the son's dream they went to a Burger King. Different, yet both restaurants.

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But please keep in mind that both versions of a shared dream are rarely if ever identical. They are usually full of archetypal differences that basically describe the same thing. For example, there was one incident involving a father and son where they went to a restaurant. For the father they went to a Denny's, but in the son's dream they went to a Burger King. Different, yet both restaurants.

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Is this sort of thing commonly accepted? I don't see how that could possibly be a shared dream - the restaurant setting is not trivial. They probably each remembered both of them eating different things, too. Where does it end? They can't possibly have behaved the same or even had the same conversation, right?

If two people both have a 'dream about a restaurant', doesn't it seem infinitely more likely to you that they were simply both thinking about restaurants that evening or something like that and so had similar dreams, than that they were in some nonphysical dream realm? Assuming that they must have been sharing a dream in this situation doesn't seem like it stands up to Occam's Butterknife, you know?

Also, that would be awesome if you tried to find me. I'll try to get more lucids as summer starts up, so hopefully I'd be available.

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Originally Posted by thegnome54

Is this sort of thing commonly accepted? I don't see how that could possibly be a shared dream - the restaurant setting is not trivial. They probably each remembered both of them eating different things, too. Where does it end? They can't possibly have behaved the same or even had the same conversation, right?

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Lol, I just knew you were going to say that! But in fact everything else about the dream was identical, conversation and everything. The dream ended after they entered, so I don't know what they ate. Another father and his young son example from this site, everything was the same up until the moment they made physical contact. From the father's perspective, his young son ran and bumped into him, almost falling down. From the kid's perspective, the father bent down and kissed him on the head. The differences are determined by the individual's personal archetypes.

In most cases, there are way more similarities than differences, and since the differences are essentially the same thing, it makes no difference to the plot of the dream. From what I can tell, both parties experience their own independent dream, yet it's still a shared dream. Do some research, find some shared dream examples, and you'll see what I mean. Personally, I don't believe any shared dreaming account that doesn't have those types of differences.

There are plenty of examples buried in this site, but good luck finding them, as shared dreaming is pretty much a spam key phrase when doing a search.

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Originally Posted by thegnome54

Also, that would be awesome if you tried to find me. I'll try to get more lucids as summer starts up, so hopefully I'd be available.

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Luckily, lucidity isn't necessary. In most shared dreaming examples I've seen, nobody was lucid.

Shared dreams journal has pages and pages of dreams that could fill a Fantasy Novel trilogy. Funny how you guys just simply ignore that it's there.

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Originally Posted by Man of Shred

Shared dreams journal has pages and pages of dreams that could fill a Fantasy Novel trilogy. Funny how you guys just simply ignore that it's there.

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With dreams posted at different points of time.

Well yeah there is the possibility of us "making it up". The first few times I thought Nomad was making his up. Because I would post my dream and then he would rush to post his after. Then one night I had a dream that someone came onto a street i was walking on and started fighting me. The next day after work I rea nomad's DJ that he came to find me in a dream wanting to fight to make me lucid. He found me walking on a street and pounced on me.

and then there's unintentional shared dreams. I've found quite a number of cases where 2 or 3 people had uncannily similar dreams, Who didn't know eachother and weren't trying to share dreams at all. and they matched up over the course of two days. Stuff like that CAN'T be faked.

So no one ever had a lucid shared dream ? Even if only one was lucid ?

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Originally Posted by NineSpires

So no one ever had a lucid shared dream ? Even if only one was lucid ?

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Not from the sounds of it for the first part, but, there have been shared dreams with one being lucid if I'm not mistaken :)

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Originally Posted by BigFan

Not from the sounds of it for the first part, but, there have been shared dreams with one being lucid if I'm not mistaken :)

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Oh so you are the guy who took my username! lol
well actually once i had a lucid dream where I was in complete control of the dream :) but sadly never had I experienced a lucid shared dream :( Does anyone know more info on how to induce it?

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Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Only anecdotal evidence, and personal experience. I only thought it was possible until I experienced myself a few years ago, then I knew it was real.

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Ah, I feel the exact same way. I had a shared dream just last night.

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Originally Posted by NineSpires

So no one ever had a lucid shared dream ? Even if only one was lucid ?

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Many times.

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Originally Posted by NineSpires

So no one ever had a lucid shared dream ? Even if only one was lucid ?

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Many times.