Quote Originally Posted by LabyrinthDreams View Post
That seems less like telepathy and more like memetics to me.
From Wikipedia:
The term meme was coined in Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene, but Dawkins later distanced himself from the resulting field of study.[2] Analogous to a gene, the meme was conceived as a "unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc.) which is "hosted" in the minds of one or more individuals, and which can reproduce itself in the sense of jumping from the mind of one person to the mind of another. Thus what would otherwise be regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief is seen as an idea-replicator reproducing itself in a new host.
Yes, that sounds right, but what would be the transfer media? I think he was talking about ideas getting to large numbers of people via something like TV or the internet or water cooler conversation. But what would cause people to dream the same thing without any such media connecting them? Unless the people had spoken to each other or seen the same show or movie or something, telepathy would have to be the connecting medium. And why would 2 people share the same dream and immediately think of each other and email each other about it? I suppose it would be a telepathic meme. But of course some people will accept that as a possibility - at least theoretically, and some won't.