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I saw Inception recently. It's a great film and I'd recommend it to anyone. Go and watch it whenever you get the chance
But how much of is relastic, or even possible? Do you think shared dreams are possible? What about "stealing" an idea from someone? Is placing an idea in someone's head possible? If shared dreams are possible, is one person the "architect", and does another person fill the dream with their subconscious?
shared dreaming is a load of junk. there's nothing remotely possible about it.
plant your ideas while you're awake. it'll be much more effective.
So how would you go about planting an idea in a person who's awake?
And if a machine did exist that could link people's dreams together, could it be used as it is in the film?
You would write a script, buy some cameras, hire actors, and then start filming, then show it to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEvilToaster
What? How would anybody know? The machine is fictional, therefore the effects are fictional.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEvilToaster
You are going to get a lot of sceptics in here.
I'm neutral on it, but you are best looking here
Shared dreaming is talked about a lot in that section.
No. That's not how brains work. Duh.
Oh so you know how brains work, do you. You know absolutely everything about them?
Unfortunately our understanding of the brain shows that it is absolutely impossible.
Technology may make something similar possible but it's really nowhere near that stage right now. We don't even have any basic understanding of the language of the brain yet.
Yea, I just hope within my lifetime technology develops to a point where something "similar" is possible.
I think extrapolating from the current trends in technology, what you can expect is some kind of totally immersive virtual environments in which you can interact in real time with anybody connected to the net. In fact I'd imagine that's what the internet will end up looking like (or at least some subset of it).
It's not related to the dream state, but it is effectively the same experience as 'shared dreams'.
I think the OP wanted a scientific explanation for why it's not possible to hook our heads up to machines and synchronize our brainwaves. Think less fantasy, more sci-fi.
You're not helping.Quote:
No. That's not how brains work. Duh.
Advertisers do it all the time.Quote:
So how would you go about planting an idea in a person who's awake?
Yea, that will most likely be the first "close" thing to it.
I'm sure after that, there will be some sort of technology which goes a little bit further. Like, tech that actually uses your mind directly, rather than just your senses.
But really, a totally immersive virtual type thing... I would die happy to see that become reality.
Since we're more or less on the subject, it seems appropriate to post the newest TED talk, just posted today:
Edit: the youtube embedding didn't work. Here's a URL
http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_he...rainwaves.html
Well, this is a pretty cool first step.
ETA: Ooh, new TED talks? Thanks for the link, DuB.
Shared dreaming is one thing. Inception is another. I don't really get the movie why they show original ideas as something that only stems from a persons subconscious. That's just not the way it works! :cheeky:
Our thoughts and emotions are influenced all the time without us realizing it.
And yes, there are so many people who testify to shared dreaming. Saying it's all bullcrap is just an immature way to completely deny something that would burst your bubble. Why not talk to people who have had these experiences before pretending they never happen?
There are a lot of scientists now trying to uncover the science of psychic phenomenon, people sensing each others emotions, thoughts, shared dreaming. Or rather, a new science of how our thoughts interact with the rest of the world. The book the Intention Project is a good place to start.
We don't listen because it's so obvious they're mistaken, even though they may think they're being honest (confirmation bias runs rampant here. Even if the two of you both had a lucid dream in which you met the other; how do you know it was anything more than just a lucid dream? People jump to conclusions, or latch onto some coincidental thing which they think they 'shared' but on close inspection it turns out that they're just embellishing it and falling victim to retroactive memory).
It would be so easy to prove shared dreaming scientifically (give one person a password to give to the other), so the fact that nobody has done so makes it very clear that there is no such thing (and there's the huge amount of fame and money that would come with it to motivate such an endeavour; two things which don't usually turn people off).
That plus it's completely at odds with everything we do know about brain function, which is via electrochemical impulses; electrochemical impulses which you'd find it very hard to send to somebody many miles away through nothing but thin air.
:/
While it may be possible, at some point in the future, for people to directly interact with each other's brains via some electronic device or whatever, it is not possible for two brains to link together in any way shape or form remotely. I'm sure some fucked up shit would happen if you tried to merge people's nervous systems, but as far as interfacing remotely via a dream? That's pretty much completely impossible. And you can value personal testimonies all you want. As far as I recall, people make shit up all the time, for money, recognition, and for fun. It's called FICTION and DELUSION.
I once read someone who referred to parapsychology as "the control group for science," which I thought was a clever and interesting comparison. Think about it: this is a group of people who go through all the motions that regular scientists do, performing experiments, publishing papers, attending conferences, applying for grants, etc., but they happen to be studying something which as far as we know, simply doesn't exist. Of course, the vagaries of chance insure that they occasionally observe a positive result, and our increasingly outdated peer-review-based publication system sees to it that these make it into the literature. So it seems that when any other scientific discipline examines itself in the mirror, it ought to ask itself: Are we observing more reliable results than in parapsychology? Are we performing better than the control group?
Sorry, Xei, I didn't see this reply. I agree that this is more likely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Anyway, I don't want to get involved in the "Shared Dreaming: Real or Not" argument. I just wanted to point out that the OP was probably more interested in the technological side of things, and a couple people immediately jumped down his throat for starting what seemed like "yet another" shared dreaming thread.
It's ONLY obvious to people who have decided that these things could never be possible. Therefore every time they read a shared dreaming experience they do so WITH BIAS, and shade and color the interpretation of the shared dreaming experience to something that makes them happy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Can you honestly tell me you don't have a bias against shared dreaming?
From precognitive dreams, to dreaming about real time events as they happen - even if its happening miles away, to dreaming with another person and confirming the events in the morning - there are too many experiences world wide to shut out with out-dated science. At this point the only sane option is to be open minded and honestly admit that maybe our science doesn't understand YET. It's on the verge of understanding the mystery of thoughts and consciousness.
Correction, it's completely at odds with everything YOU know. Our understanding of thoughts and consciousness is still a work in progress, and there are promising experiments taking place leading to the conclusion that our thoughts are not confined to our brain.Quote:
That plus it's completely at odds with everything we do know about brain function
Yeah, that's the first steps in the kind of thing I'm talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by DuB
I didn't personally find the presentation that powerful. If they were able to show somebody synchronising basic movements, and then being able to completely manipulate something in 3-space (rotate, translate, possibly enlarge and shrink), essentially utilising multiple functions simultaneously, I'd have found it more exciting, but selecting from a drop down menu... well, you only need binary detection for that. You could do exactly the same thing by shouting 'disappear!' at a microphone, and have the program make the box disappear whenever it detects a sound.
I liked the part about video games detecting your emotional state and altering the game environment, such as weather or whatever, accordingly. That could make for some really freaky horror games. "Doom 2020," anyone?
I'm imagining the part where my computer does something stupid, and then has to go, "Meep! Please don't hurt me!" when I start to rage at it.
(Don't interpret the caps as shouting; they're just there for potency).Quote:
It's ONLY obvious to people who have decided that these things could never be possible. Therefore every time they read a shared dreaming experience they do so WITH BIAS, and shade and color the interpretation of the shared dreaming experience to something that makes them happy.
Can you honestly tell me you don't have a bias against shared dreaming?
From precognitive dreams, to dreaming about real time events as they happen - even if its happening miles away, to dreaming with another person and confirming the events in the morning - there are too many experiences world wide to shut out with out-dated science. At this point the only sane option is to be open minded and honestly admit that maybe our science doesn't understand YET. It's on the verge of understanding the mystery of thoughts and consciousness.
HOW MANY TIMES, juroara, will we have to explain the basics of the SCIENTIFIC METHOD to you, or indeed the UTTERMOST BASICS OF RATIONAL THOUGHT?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI
You lecture me on open-mindedness; just look at the ridiculous manner in which you quoted me. It's quite clear that single sentence assertions are the only things in my posts which actually make it into your consciousness. I provided an entire post of rational argument, and your response is to quote "it's obvious that it's not true" as if that was an honest representation of everything I'd said!
Please follow these simple bullet points. I pray in this blunt form you'll actually try to comprehend some of what I say instead of yet again prescribing to me some kind of ridiculous pre-formed caricature so as not to face up to what I'm really saying. Here we go:
1. I am COMPLETELY open minded to ANYTHING, as long as you can give me some kind of REASON to believe it's true. To believe that something is true without any reason, and even when people give evidence to the contrary, as you would rather do, is in fact THE COMPLETE POLAR OPPOSITE OF OPEN-MINDEDNESS.
The statement above is ALL that science is. Science is not a collection of prejudices. Science is not in fact a static collection of anything at all. Science is NOT a compendium of incontrovertible collected knowledge. To call science 'out-dated' is to show total ignorance of what science is.
SCIENCE: believe whatever there is evidence for. Don't believe what there is no evidence for.
How can you possibly argue with this?
2. Following on from the above, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY ZERO PREJUDICES WHICH WOULD CAUSE ME TO DENY SHARED DREAMING.
In fact I would find it incredibly comforting if such a wonderful, inexplicable thing were possible.
3. There is NO EVIDENCE of anybody having shared a dream, despite the fact that it would be EXTREMELY EASY TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE in rigorous experimental conditions, and that there is a HUGE MOTIVATION to try to do so.
Just think about it. How many famous scientists do you think only accepted the status quo of previous discoveries and speculated nothing new at all? Name one?
4. As there is no evidence, it follows that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to believe in shared dreaming, unless you have a BIAS to do so.
No, juroara, counter correction: science has provided evidence that consciousness functions based on electrical impulses. Science has provided evidence that electrical impulses have no mechanism by which to travel with intent across empty space. Therefore, science implies that shared dreaming can't happen.Quote:
Correction, it's completely at odds with everything YOU know. Our understanding of thoughts and consciousness is still a work in progress, and there are promising experiments taking place leading to the conclusion that our thoughts are not confined to our brain.
What you're saying is analogous to me justifying my ability to levitate via the statement 'it's only at odds with what YOU know about gravity. You're actually ignorant. You can't prove I can't do it'.
No, of course you can't prove it because you're not omniscient, nor is anyone. But if you believed that somebody could levitate based on the above statement you'd be a complete and utter goon. There's no reason to believe it!
As for your final statement: okay. Explain to me (in brief, if you want) a single experiment that has shown that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
I consider it delusion to deny thousands of human experiences (from precog dreams to shared dreaming) just because your science text book can't talk about it yet. :)
Actually this is a huge problem. The number of people who have experienced something out of the box is staggering, it's huge. People are uncomfortable talking about their experiences for fear of being ridiculed. Money, recognition? Not likely. The average person who has experienced a share dream doesn't share their experience with the populace. Any more, than the average lucid dreamer feels confident talking about their lucid dreams at the work place. I know I dont!
And just as the average lucid dreamer is happy with their own proof, so are the average people who dream share. When you research dream sharing - that means outside of DVs -you realize that dream sharing is more likely to happen between couples, best friends and close family members. Why do people who already have a close relationship need science to prove to them what they experienced, anymore than they need to science to prove to them that they love each other?
And why would they ever let science or nay-sayers take something so intimate away from them?
This mentality of labeling someone as either crazy, delusional, or lying because they experienced something outside the box helps no one. It generates the fear of being ridiculed. People remain silent about their experiences, and we lose the reality of how common it is.
We need to honor the human experience - in all of her various forms. And we need to realize that a text book doesn't define what we humans experience. WE TELL SCIENCE what a human can experience - by experiencing. Not the other way around.
To use science to say "Well yes lots of people have experience what you experienced but since we don't know how you experienced it, were going to say you're just lying". That's retarded!! If you don't know how someone experienced something, just be honest and say you don't know how.
It wasn't until very recently that science finally admitted that love is MORE than a chemical reaction. Something we romantic humans already knew (for thousands of years thank you)! :cheeky:
This new science suggests that our emotions are far-reaching. Literally interacting with the electromagnetic heart fields of others - influencing their own emotions. Were talking about emotions - which were once thought to be chemical reactions locked away in your body - to an energetic real-time communication between individuals across actual space!
There is a momentum happening in the world of biophysics. It's a very fascinating world, that could lead to the conclusion that thoughts are composed of light, and are not unlike our own computers using energy to carry information. No seriously! Think about wireless internet.
Do you have any idea how weird that is? Information just flying around being picked up by a device! Milestones in our technological advancement actually mimic an aspect of our biology BEFORE we discovered that aspect of our biology. The computer could very well be a mirror reflecting to us the secrets of our own brain. Including, it's wifi capability :cheeky:
We have been very slow to apply all the lessons of physics to our own biology. It is far too soon to write up the books on our brain. Biophysics could very well prove the psychic phenomenon as reality. But that is actually one of the least amazing things biophysics is studying.
Because science has been wrong before in the past I find it dangerous to use science to decide the limitations of the human experience. If thousands of people have experienced something, how can we conclude they are wrong simply because science doesn't understand the nature of their experienceQuote:
Originally Posted by Xei
No, science isn't anything except what we humans make of it. Is a human without prejudice?Quote:
Science is not a collection of prejudices.
I wasn't calling science out-dated, I said to use out-dated science. We are not just bio-chemical machines.Quote:
To call science 'out-dated' is to show total ignorance of what science is.
I'm happy to hear this!Quote:
In fact I would find it incredibly comforting if such a wonderful, inexplicable thing were possible.
I agree with you! Famous scientists did think outside the box. But here's the problem. How many famous scientists were ridiculed by their contemporaries? A lot of them were!Quote:
Just think about it. How many famous scientists do you think only accepted the status quo of previous discoveries and speculated nothing new at all? Name one?
Bruce Lipton has won an award for his work concerning biology and thoughts. But I can't even talk about Bruce Lipton on this forum without people shouting pseudoscience. I couldn't even get the people shouting pseudoscience to look at his video, book or website. It took Bruce ten years to get his research out to the public.
Pseudoscience is slander. There is genuine research being done that's slandered as pseudoscience just because of the nature of the research.
Do you know of any experiment that took place concerning shared dreaming, that proved it was impossible? I don't know of any! How can we have evidence for shared dreaming UNTIL the experiments happen?Quote:
4. As there is no evidence, it follows that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to believe in shared dreaming, unless you have a BIAS to do so.
But that doesn't mean there is no reason to believe in its possibility. We don't have to wait for science to do a experiment to form our own ideas of whether or not something is real. We didn't sit and wait around for science to talk about lucid dreaming - most of us knew it was possible because we experienced it first hand as a child.
Knowing how powerful and affirming it is to experience something yourself, you honor the experiences of others. Especially if there are promises that you can experience it yourself!
Well, that's a kind of fishy analogy to what I said. Levitating is supposed to be a real time phenomenon. If someone says they can levitate, okay, show us. What I'm talking about is honoring the SUBJECTIVE experiences of others.Quote:
What you're saying is analogous to me justifying my ability to levitate via the statement 'it's only at odds with what YOU know about gravity. You're actually ignorant. You can't prove I can't do it'.
How do I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the lucid experiences you've shared on this forum aren't all made believe to boost your ego? Imagine if I felt this way about everyone who shared a lucid dream, and my reasoning was "well if you can't prove to me objectively that you lucid dreamed, then you're just lying" At some point, that's just paranoia. Numbers matter! It makes a huge difference if only one person in the world testified to shared dreaming versus one million.
That's what I'm talking about. It's however hard to get an accurate reading on how many people have shared dreams, because from what I've seen its generally something that happens between close friends. And that makes the experience even more personal - why do they want to open their personal experience for public ridicule?
I am terrible at explaining experiments. I chop them up and make them sound horrible because I never use the right words. But here's my best shot. In one experiment they wanted to know if the intention to heal someone did anything - anything at all.Quote:
As for your final statement: okay. Explain to me (in brief, if you want) a single experiment that has shown that.
They grabbed what they thought would make the best healers, reiki healers, chi masters, shamans. And as for a control, they grabbed ordinary people untrained in the art of healing. They started out with their theory, which made them place the healers and the healee in a big box of a room made specially for the experiment. To block out interference.
First they thought they found electrical energy emanating out of the healers. But that could not explain the healing phenomenon that both the healers and the healees testify too. Then they reasoned the electrical energy was the by product of magnetic energy coming out of the electromagnetic human field. But that still did not explain the testimonies of spontaneous healing, when the healer was thousands of miles away.
Still optimistic that they could find something on the intention to heal another, they came up with a new theory based on what they had already found. That healing another uses light. Light on the spectrum outside of our vision.
They get new sensitive equipment, and they find evidence for their theory. Coherent light was emanating out of the healers hand that was more intense than any light the control group could produce. Not only did they find light a part of the healing process, but the healee's brain waves would often mimic the brain waves of the healer, as if the healer is conditioning the healee.
They even put green algae in the same room as the healers to see if the algae reacted differently.
I read about this in the Intention Experiment.
The book also reviews the old lie detectors on the plants, bringing to light the entire story. Sure people laugh at these experiments, the man wasn't even a trained scientist. But the book talks about how he conducted hundreds of experiments. In one live shrimp were dropped in boiling water. At the same moment the the plants register an enormous spike. Were it a human spike it would mean an intense emotion was just felt.
Now naturally people laughed at these experiments. How can plants have emotions when they don't have brains, let alone, how could plants know that live shrimp were being boiled alive when they don't have eyes? So everyone just laughs! End of story.
But a physicist today thinks there is something to look at here. His theory is our thoughts are composed of light. Plants absorb the light, the light which is still carrying the information of the intention or thought.
The ramifications are huge if it turns out to be true. And now that they have formulated a theory that thoughts or intentions are composed of light, they can make even better experiments.
Bear in mind that most things scientists believe now were laughed at when they were first proposed. Darwin's theories didn't sit well his peers, but over time they've come to be excepted. Even to take a more modern theory, the Gaia theory. Scientists scoffed when they first heard this theory years ago, but now many scientist are starting to seriously consider some parts of this hypothesis as fact. To outright deny anything is foolish to say the least. It's better to approach with an air of sceptisicm, no matter how ridiculous the thing may be.
But that's not what this thread was supposed to be about. I'll ask another question...
If you had to plant an idea in someone's mind, with zero budget, how would you do it? What about a close friend or a complete stranger? To keep to plot of the film, the person must think that it's their idea.
get them interested.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEvilToaster
most of the students in my fencing class didn't come because a friend told them to; they came because they saw us practicing and said 'that's awesome! I want to try'.
the same with Dreamviews. I convinced a friend of mine that couldn't stand online forums to join dreamviews just because lucid dreaming was an interesting subject.
I see what you're saying, but what if the person isn't interested? To give an example, if someone thinks dreaming is a waste of time, and never remembers their dreams, and says they don't even like dreaming, how would you convince them go from this, to starting a DJ?
again, get them interested. subconsciously force them to love it.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEvilToaster
if they enjoy reading/watching sci-fi or fantasy, then slowly introduce the concept of lucid dreaming then. another strong counterpoint would be 'what else are you doing during that time?'
you just have to get creative if you want to persuade people. hnnng social telepathy.
Darwin may have been laughed at, but his ideas were always science, and those who denied them did not represent science. The reason is simple: he provided clear physical evidence which was totally at odds with other theories. There's a difference between somebody who claims to be a scientist, and a true scientist.Quote:
Bear in mind that most things scientists believe now were laughed at when they were first proposed. Darwin's theories didn't sit well his peers, but over time they've come to be excepted. Even to take a more modern theory, the Gaia theory. Scientists scoffed when they first heard this theory years ago, but now many scientist are starting to seriously consider some parts of this hypothesis as fact. To outright deny anything is foolish to say the least. It's better to approach with an air of sceptisicm, no matter how ridiculous the thing may be.
I don't think the Gaia hypothesis is truly a hypothesis. It doesn't make any predictions.
You still don't understand what science is. If you did you wouldn't be making statements like these.Quote:
Because science has been wrong before in the past I find it dangerous to use science to decide the limitations of the human experience. If thousands of people have experienced something, how can we conclude they are wrong simply because science doesn't understand the nature of their experience
How can science possibly be wrong? True science always acknowledges any areas of doubt if there are any, and all evidence comes with provisos.
Give me a single example of when the scientific method has led to an incorrect statement.
I honestly don't care to discuss what people may say about the work of others.Quote:
I agree with you! Famous scientists did think outside the box. But here's the problem. How many famous scientists were ridiculed by their contemporaries? A lot of them were!
Bruce Lipton has won an award for his work concerning biology and thoughts. But I can't even talk about Bruce Lipton on this forum without people shouting pseudoscience. I couldn't even get the people shouting pseudoscience to look at his video, book or website. It took Bruce ten years to get his research out to the public.
Pseudoscience is slander. There is genuine research being done that's slandered as pseudoscience just because of the nature of the research.
If some research is called pseudoscience because it happens to be in a particular area, that is wrong. However, if is being called pseudoscience because the people doing the studies are making unverifiable claims without publishing evidence, then that is correct.
Again, you haven't listened to me.Quote:
Do you know of any experiment that took place concerning shared dreaming, that proved it was impossible? I don't know of any! How can we have evidence for shared dreaming UNTIL the experiments happen?
But that doesn't mean there is no reason to believe in its possibility. We don't have to wait for science to do a experiment to form our own ideas of whether or not something is real. We didn't sit and wait around for science to talk about lucid dreaming - most of us knew it was possible because we experienced it first hand as a child.
Knowing how powerful and affirming it is to experience something yourself, you honor the experiences of others. Especially if there are promises that you can experience it yourself!
Science is equivalent to reasoning and evidence.
How can you justify believing in anything if you don't have any evidence for it (to yourself, let alone other people)? It's simply nonsensical.
ANYTHING might be possible juroara. It's possible that gravity randomly stops functioning tomorrow. It's possible that there are blue men living on a planet orbiting alpha centurai. It's possible that I can levitate. And OBVIOUSLY you can never PROVE that any of these things AREN'T true.
That's distinct from the fact that there is absolutely NO reason to BELIEVE that they ARE.
But lucid dreaming was proven, juroara. Never heard of Stephen LaBerge? That's why lucid dreaming is scientifically excepted whereas shared dreaming is not.Quote:
Well, that's a kind of fishy analogy to what I said. Levitating is supposed to be a real time phenomenon. If someone says they can levitate, okay, show us. What I'm talking about is honoring the SUBJECTIVE experiences of others.
How do I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the lucid experiences you've shared on this forum aren't all made believe to boost your ego? Imagine if I felt this way about everyone who shared a lucid dream, and my reasoning was "well if you can't prove to me objectively that you lucid dreamed, then you're just lying" At some point, that's just paranoia. Numbers matter! It makes a huge difference if only one person in the world testified to shared dreaming versus one million.
That's what I'm talking about. It's however hard to get an accurate reading on how many people have shared dreams, because from what I've seen its generally something that happens between close friends. And that makes the experience even more personal - why do they want to open their personal experience for public ridicule?
Incidentally it's hugely more difficult to test lucid dreaming than it is to test shared dreaming. Doesn't that tell you something?
I'm not asking for something complicated. Just anything that shows it's something more than a dream with another person in; the kind of standards of proof that any sane person would ask for.
You make incredibly weak arguments for why nobody has done such an experiment. There are several huge flaws:
- Even if there were only a small number of people who could do this, it's extremely unlikely that none of them cares a single bit about all of the praise, fame, and money they would get. They could give all the money to charities if they wanted. The fact that they haven't would make them extremely selfish.
- Even if they didn't care about the money; if this experience is so marvellous, why don't they want to share it with the world, and let everybody do it?
- Lucid dreaming is just as 'personal', yet people had no problem with scientifcally proving that.
Along with the fact that shared dreaming is against our current understanding of how the brain works, there is literally no reason at all to believe that shared dreaming is true.
Firstly, nothing you've said has anything to do with what I asked for, which is an experiment which showed people could have shared dreams.Quote:
I am terrible at explaining experiments. I chop them up and make them sound horrible because I never use the right words. But here's my best shot. In one experiment they wanted to know if the intention to heal someone did anything - anything at all.
They grabbed what they thought would make the best healers, reiki healers, chi masters, shamans. And as for a control, they grabbed ordinary people untrained in the art of healing. They started out with their theory, which made them place the healers and the healee in a big box of a room made specially for the experiment. To block out interference.
First they thought they found electrical energy emanating out of the healers. But that could not explain the healing phenomenon that both the healers and the healees testify too. Then they reasoned the electrical energy was the by product of magnetic energy coming out of the electromagnetic human field. But that still did not explain the testimonies of spontaneous healing, when the healer was thousands of miles away.
Still optimistic that they could find something on the intention to heal another, they came up with a new theory based on what they had already found. That healing another uses light. Light on the spectrum outside of our vision.
They get new sensitive equipment, and they find evidence for their theory. Coherent light was emanating out of the healers hand that was more intense than any light the control group could produce. Not only did they find light a part of the healing process, but the healee's brain waves would often mimic the brain waves of the healer, as if the healer is conditioning the healee.
They even put green algae in the same room as the healers to see if the algae reacted differently.
I read about this in the Intention Experiment.
The book also reviews the old lie detectors on the plants, bringing to light the entire story. Sure people laugh at these experiments, the man wasn't even a trained scientist. But the book talks about how he conducted hundreds of experiments. In one live shrimp were dropped in boiling water. At the same moment the the plants register an enormous spike. Were it a human spike it would mean an intense emotion was just felt.
Now naturally people laughed at these experiments. How can plants have emotions when they don't have brains, let alone, how could plants know that live shrimp were being boiled alive when they don't have eyes? So everyone just laughs! End of story.
But a physicist today thinks there is something to look at here. His theory is our thoughts are composed of light. Plants absorb the light, the light which is still carrying the information of the intention or thought.
The ramifications are huge if it turns out to be true. And now that they have formulated a theory that thoughts or intentions are composed of light, they can make even better experiments.
Secondly, all the experiments you talk about are classic pseudoscience.
If you want to prove somebody has healing powers, then you let them meet with sick people and then see if the sick people heal at a greater rate than would be statistically expected. It's extremely easy.
Those studies unashamedly use all of the classic techniques of pseudoscience like using isolated data points instead of groups of data, use nonsensical technical sounding phrases (magnetic energy as a byproduct of electric energy causing long distance effects is totally meaningless), and make up all kinds of 'theories' which don't even have testable or meaningful results.
I stand correct. Science by it's very nature can't be wrong. What I should of said is the scientists who made certain claims are wrong. It is also impossible to scientifically prove/disprove something technically. Because the human sphere of experince is so small, it is possible that everything we have observed up to this point is some flukey coincidence.
There are many things that scientist believe, even without much evidence. How much evidence is there for the multverse theory? (That's a genuine question, I don't know, but I don't think there's a lot)
Shared dreaming could be possible (without technology).
We're a long long way away from even the most basic scientific understanding of consciousness (the first personal quality of it).
Nope, I'm pretty sure we have a basic scientific understanding of consciousness.
Gives a whole new meaning to getting a virus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
WARNING: INCOMING GAME. WARNING: INCOMING GAME.Quote:
Gives a whole new meaning to getting a virus.
A little Reboot, anyone?
No we don't, read some philosophers of mind - Colin McGinn, John Searle, Roger Penrose, - on this subjectQuote:
Originally Posted by Samael
Although I agree we have little scientific understanding of consciousness, I also think John Searle and Roger Penrose are totally wrong about their opinions. I haven't read McGinn.
I think this all has much more validity and testability when it's concerning shared OBE's, rather than shared dreams (Although LaBerg did acknowledge shared dreams, calling them "mutual dreams").
I'm pretty confident to say that this can be probably be done at the Monroe Institute and make very realistic and practical claims.
Nice web page below shares some relevance on this topic:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread596260/pg1
Shared dreams are 100% testable... as are shared OBEs. Easily.
I don't know what your post is about.
What's your point?
I think OBE's can potentially be more distinctive and objective in terms of evidence and collective data, since they can take place in real geographic locations in real time, whereas dream content is typically very diffuse, colorful, sporadic and unique.
Are you saying it's possible to detect an OBE body, or what?
All you need to do is get one person to share some information with another. It's extremely to test both, with very persuasive evidence (if they were true).
It's also extremely easy to test if OBEs are possible, by putting some kind of information outside of a sleeper's room.
However these experiments always give a negative result.
What was the nature of the experiments done to detect shared OBEs? I wouldn't be surprised at all if they waited for the OBEs to happen and then looked for vague similarities between experiences with no statistical critique at all.
Concerning OBE research that's supposed to be positive I only know of the Monroe Intitute that was founded after Robert Monroe wanted to work scientifically again, so with independent researchers and a few physicists as far as I know. (One being Thomas Campbell)
The Monroe Institute
Can't tell you anything about the actual research though.
Yeah I should've mentioned, Dajo. Thanks for bringing that up.
I'm not so sure about "detecting it", since it isn't exactly physical. What I'm talking about is the connection with the real world. If you are going out of body and are going to collect information or travel together, then it is easy to verify the information collected and come to see how accurate your findings are. Dreaming, on the other hand, is most often scrambled and independent of external reality, rendering it much harder to rely on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Yes, I'm pretty sure that's true.Quote:
All you need to do is get one person to share some information with another. It's extremely to test both, with very persuasive evidence (if they were true).
It's also extremely easy to test if OBEs are possible, by putting some kind of information outside of a sleeper's room.
Hugely more difficult? I don't think you really meant that.Quote:
Incidentally it's hugely more difficult to test lucid dreaming than it is to test shared dreaming. Doesn't that tell you something?
An explanation would help, I don't believe that.Quote:
However these experiments always give a negative result.
I've heard that people at the Monroe Institute may work together in a group projects, for example; e.g. agree to meet somewhere or do activities (may or may not be in the ordinary physical world, as far as I know). Actually, that's probably how they/you can confirm that you actually went out of body in the first place, and didn't simply drift off to sleep in a fanciful dream. You may be surprised of the correlations between people's activities and their observations.Quote:
What was the nature of the experiments done to detect shared OBEs? I wouldn't be surprised at all if they waited for the OBEs to happen and then looked for vague similarities between experiences with no statistical critique at all.
i think that with the advance and importance that dreaming is getting in modern times shared dreaming will become possible i the near future, i mean we are all ready able to read the brain waves and stuff like that so i dont think it is entirely impossible.
Did you guys know that brain waves synchronize during good conversations? I thought that was pretty cool :)
Sure I did, I could do an experiment for no cost at all to confirm shared dreaming using no equipment at all except a pen and paper, but to prove lucid dreaming you need to develop expensive equipment to monitor eye or brain signals.Quote:
Hugely more difficult? I don't think you really meant that.
Nope... no, that's not how science works.Quote:
An explanation would help, I don't believe that.
If you've got an experiment that gave a positive result, tell me.
Otherwise I'll assume they're all negative.
Nice, you got any links for that? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by dajo
Oh right ok. I've been presuming shared dreams = shared lucid dreams, in my case.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Assuming they're all negative is not how science works either. You shouldn't assume a conclusion about something without knowing what has happened. Do you acknowledge what I said in my previous post? There have been some complementary instances, just listen to peoples experiences with each other and it is obvious. Better than a pen and paper.Quote:
Nope... no, that's not how science works.
If you've got an experiment that gave a positive result, tell me.
Otherwise I'll assume they're all negative.
I don't see how that matters. I was presuming they'd be lucid too. But you don't need to prove a shared lucid dream is lucid in order to prove that it's shared.Quote:
Oh right ok. I've been presuming shared dreams = shared lucid dreams, in my case.
No, that is how science works. Until somebody provides evidence for an extraordinary claim, you have no reason to believe it.Quote:
Assuming they're all negative is not how science works either. You shouldn't assume a conclusion about something without knowing what has happened. Do you acknowledge what I said in my previous post? There have been some complementary instances, just listen to peoples experiences with each other and it is obvious. Better than a pen and paper.
I don't feel like repeating myself fully all over again, but basically the lack of any positive experiments for shared dreaming, when there is such high incentive to produce one, and it is so easy, is extremely hard to reconcile with the idea that it's possible.
Anecdotal evidence in this case is totally useless, because it's so easy to imagine how two people could fool themselves into thinking something is a shared dream. If they both preordained to meet each other at some location, and then both had dreams in which they did so, their reaction would probably to be to tell everybody that they'd had a shared dream. However they'd have no way of knowing if this was actually a shared mental environment, or if they were both just having separate dreams about the same thing (which wouldn't be surprising at all as they'd preplanned it). That's why they have to share some kind of information. This isn't excessive, it's just basic damn standards of rigour which any sane person would ask for.
That's kind of beside the point but whatever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Yes, but having lack of a reason is not the same as assuming a negative reason, which is bias. What you said here is fine, but not what you said before.Quote:
No, that is how science works. Until somebody provides evidence for an extraordinary claim, you have no reason to believe it.
What do you mean "and it is so easy"?Quote:
I don't feel like repeating myself fully all over again, but basically the lack of any positive experiments for shared dreaming, when there is such high incentive to produce one, and it is so easy, is extremely hard to reconcile with the idea that it's possible.
Remember, I am talking about OBE's in this instance. We both agree that evidence is important, but you seem to be ignoring that there have already been positive correlations between personal experiences, and as far as I know, they're not exactly suggestible by predefined ideas or goals.Quote:
Anecdotal evidence in this case is totally useless, because it's so easy to imagine how two people could fool themselves into thinking something is a shared dream. If they both preordained to meet each other at some location, and then both had dreams in which they did so, their reaction would probably to be to tell everybody that they'd had a shared dream. However they'd have no way of knowing if this was actually a shared mental environment, or if they were both just having separate dreams about the same thing (which wouldn't be surprising at all as they'd preplanned it). That's why they have to share some kind of information. This isn't excessive, it's just basic damn standards of rigour which any sane person would ask for.
E.g. Let's say you agree to travel to a destination with another friend via OBE. Some time after meeting and traveling together, you notice that your mate is limping at some point and is walking slower. This was not specified as part of the deal, but it is not wrong either. Afterward and unasked, your friend spontaneously confirms it is true that she was limping and says that she found it hard to walk. How is this suggestible beforehand? There are only two things to remember: 1. Staying with a certain person and 2., traveling to a location together. They can go further to the destination and find out something; collect information. Easy. Afterward, they can even talk about everything that happened, in 'real life'. It is then very easy to spot how accurate the whole mission was, and understand how unlikely this was to be independent program or imagining. If this was all somehow a hallucination, you would need more evidence to support that instead, because the depth of correlation is enough to conclude that the experiences were actually not separate; the experiences were shared via out of body.
I've already explained this a few times. Experiments to test for shared dreaming would be very inexpensive and easy.Quote:
What do you mean "and it is so easy"?
Uh yeah if you actually have any evidence of this happening.Quote:
E.g. Let's say you agree to travel to a destination with another friend via OBE. Some time after meeting and traveling together, you notice that your mate is limping at some point and is walking slower. This was not specified as part of the deal, but it is not wrong either. Afterward and unasked, your friend spontaneously confirms it is true that she was limping and says that she found it hard to walk. How is this suggestible beforehand? There are only two things to remember: 1. Staying with a certain person and 2., traveling to a location together. They can go further to the destination and find out something; collect information. Easy. Afterward, they can even talk about everything that happened, in 'real life'. It is then very easy to spot how accurate the whole mission was, and understand how unlikely this was to be independent program or imagining. If this was all somehow a hallucination, you would need more evidence to support that instead, because the depth of correlation is enough to conclude that the experiences were actually not separate; the experiences were shared via out of body.
And of course you have to be careful about people retroactively embellishing their memories, and about confirmation bias which leads people to pick up on one small detail which was shared but forget the myriad other things which were disparate, when it could have been just chance.
Like I say. If there's so much anecdotal, statistically noteworthy evidence out there, why can't anybody replicate that solidly and unambiguously in a lab? It's really pretty obvious why.
Yet somehow, you seem to be biased about whether the "very inexpensive and easy" method is going to be reliable. I should be giving you the impression that, in most successful cases, it quite likely is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
That, in itself, is the form of the evidence. OBE's are very personal experiences, they're not about picking a flower while out of body and waking up in bed with it. It is experiential, and as for what you might have implied, collecting information about that experience is sufficient, provided that the patient is honest and has good memory.Quote:
Uh yeah if you actually have any evidence of this happening.
You seem to have a biased presumption about all this. For what good is putting these people in a lab? That sounds expensive and misguided. But let's say you put them in a lab. What do you think is going to be different or beneficial? The Monroe Institute is already quite suitable.Quote:
And of course you have to be careful about people retroactively embellishing their memories, and about confirmation bias which leads people to pick up on one small detail which was shared but forget the myriad other things which were disparate, when it could have been just chance.
Like I say. If there's so much anecdotal, statistically noteworthy evidence out there, why can't anybody replicate that solidly and unambiguously in a lab? It's really pretty obvious why.
Here is the study:Quote:
Originally Posted by really
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/07/13/1008662107Quote:
Originally Posted by Abstract
And the article
Mind meld: Brain cells synchronize during good conversations - Science Fair: Science and Space News - USATODAY.com
I don't know what you're talking about. I've not said anything about cost or ease making an experiment any more or less reliable.Quote:
Yet somehow, you seem to be biased about whether the "very inexpensive and easy" method is going to be reliable. I should be giving you the impression that, in most successful cases, it quite likely is.
...what is? What evidence are you talking about?Quote:
That, in itself, is the form of the evidence.
Putting them in a lab is just a metaphor for doing a proper experiment.Quote:
You seem to have a biased presumption about all this. For what good is putting these people in a lab? That sounds expensive and misguided. But let's say you put them in a lab. What do you think is going to be different or beneficial? The Monroe Institute is already quite suitable.
These conversations always seem to end up turning into lengthy exercises in misdirection. It's really very simple: if you have any evidence with some kind of standard rigour about it of shared dreams or OBEs, tell me about it. Otherwise, I have no reason to believe in them (and neither do you).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUc_kATGgg
Applicable to shared dreaming.
<3 Tim... I made a thread on him a while back. I love the 'Storm' one.
It is quite simple and I don't know what you have a problem with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
We were talking about shared dreaming and OBE's, but I went into more detail about how OBE's are more reliable than dreams, in terms of evidence. You say that it is very easy to produce evidence/collect data in either case, which I am not disagreeing with, yet despite this, you seem to be implying that nothing I've said counts as evidence. My questions: Do you have a better idea? And what is the beneficial difference of using a laboratory or "proper experiment", if obtaining evidence is already so incredibly easy and sufficient?
You haven't posted any evidence for chrissakes. What evidence? Just some kind of record of an instance in which two people clearly shared a piece of information.
The benefits of a properly controlled double blind peer-reviewed experiment is that it eliminates the possibility that people are just bullshitting; a possibility which has constantly become a reality uncountable times throughout history.
Again, misdirection. It's simple: if somebody has ever confirmed shared dreaming in a controlled experiment - a controlled experiment which is extremely cheap and easy to set up, and which has a massive incentive for the participants - tell me about it. If there isn't one, then nobody has cause to believe in shared dreaming (unless they've experienced it themselves, in which case for their sakes they should contact an academic institution pretty sharpish).
Both sharing information and collecting information, which is fine for me. It is all about the experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
By the way, did you get a good look at that link Dajo posted? On the site, there is a tab called "Research", which you should check out if you haven't already. That is to do with OBEs in general, but I presume what I said about shared OBEs still holds.
Edit: Here's just an example, which is a three part Youtube video. Not a great example because of the amount of mixed talk, but there are instances where she describes correlations with other participants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8lIH8CpuY0
Right, well 'collecting information' would probably fit into that category wouldn't it? It is easy to say that a lot of participants, especially new ones, have no clue about what things they will encounter (apart from what is suggested), and that includes the actions/behaviors of their friends, including any communication.Quote:
The benefits of a properly controlled double blind peer-reviewed experiment is that it eliminates the possibility that people are just bullshitting; a possibility which has constantly become a reality uncountable times throughout history.
Okay, nothing.
I'm sorry, but I don't see any way to obtain objective evidence pertaining shared dreaming. It just seems this one will have to remain outside of science for now. In the meantime, could we please refrain from pretending to know for fact whether or not shared dreaming is possible?
Also, I don't see why people keep bringing up the fact that there's no experiment we know of on shared dreaming. That is no evidence for either side. That means no scientist thought it would be worth theIr while (how many scientists usually buy stuff like this) or didn't believe they could gather objective proof.
There's no way you could have said any of that if you'd actually read the posts.
No way to prove shared dreaming? How about asking one person to give a code word to the other through a shared dream? That would do it. Easy. Seriously, how hard was that to think of? And how hard would it be to do?
There's plenty of evidence for being sceptical. Like the fact it contradicts everything the evidence tells us about how brains actually do function.
Nobody's ever run an experiment to find if there are any teapots orbiting the sun. Do we think that there are any? No.
Even more bulletproof would be to have one person carry out a highly specific action, such as drawing a giant smiley face in the sky using fireballs or rearranging the stars, since some people have trouble recalling specific dream dialogue. It'd be kind of hard to miss something big like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I know it's old thread, but I heard that DreamHackers from Russia managed to share their dreams. I think that They were much more better in LD than anybody here, because they WOULD BE ABLE TO CURE PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE BY ENTERING TO LABYRINTS. They also said that there are so entities in more specific LD world were they CAN HURT YOU IN PCHISICALL WORLD WITH DISEASES.
Hmm it seems there is alot of conversation here.
Inception is possible and is easier than you would think.
You don't even have to do it in dreams.
Shared dreaming is real but obviously doesn't have all those weird rules they made up in inception.
peoples thoughts effect one another.
If thats possible than surely inception is possible.
we are often influenced by outside sources and are not conscious of it.
I dont think its very realistic that the deeper u go the slower time goes... Because actually it wouls mean that if you go so deep yo dawg cant form a proper sententace, ur brain would need to imagine so fast it would liek maik magnetigal field and overheat
1. No. Shared dreaming is a load of shit, and Inception was even more illogical than that concept alone.
2. Get your ass over to Deep Dreaming
Not sure about shared dreaming as shown in the movie (peeople showing up in each other's dreams as whole avatars), but another possibility is telepathy between two dreamers, of which there has been some evidence of. If anyone was ever on Lucidity.com, there was an article posted about how a test subject viewed a Christian-themed picture (IIRC it was Jesus feeding the crowds, with boats in the background, etc), and somehow made a connection with a sleeping person, who's dream journal the next day had dreams involving boats, fishing, Christianity, etc. While the picture in it's original form did not appear in the dreams, concepts of it did. Maybe that is a possibility of shared dreaming? Where dreamers share details of each other's dreams telepathically?
EDIT: Here it is:
Dreaming, Illusion, and RealityQuote:
The most famous among these were the experiments in dream
telepathy carried out in the Dream Laboratory of the
Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn by Dr. Montague Ullman and
Dr. Stanley Krippner in the late 1960s. These dream
researchers monitored sleeping subjects. During the periods
that the subjects were in REM sleep, a person in another room
focused on an art reproduction and attempted to
telepathically transmit an image of the painting to the
sleeping subjects, who were awakened for dream reports at the
end of each of their REM periods. Afterwards, judges were
able to match which picture went with which dream report with
an accuracy significantly above chance.
One night the target picture was The Sacrament of the Last
Supper by Salvador Dali. The painting shows Christ at the
center of a table surrounded by the twelve disciples, with a
glass of wine and a loaf of bread on the table, and a fishing
boat visible in the distance on the sea behind them. Dr.
William Erwin was the subject. His first dream was about an
ocean which he commented had a "strange beauty about it..."
Remembering his second dream, he said, "boats come to mind.
Fishing boats. Small-size boats...There was a picture in the
Sea Fare Restaurant that came to mind...It shows, oh, I'd say
about a dozen or so men pulling a fishing boat ashore right
after having returned from a catch." Erwin's third dream
seemed to relate to the Christian theme: he was looking
through a "Christmas catalogue." His following three dreams
were about doctors (Christ the healer and spiritual
physician?) His last two dreams of the night dealt with food.
In the morning Dr. Erwin's reflections on his dreams put the
pieces together in a way that is very suggestive: "The
fisherman dream makes me think of the Mediterranean area,
perhaps even some sort of Biblical time. Right now my
associations are of the fish and the loaf, or even the
feeding of the multitudes....Once again I think of
Christmas...Having to do with the ocean-water, something in
this area..." [6]
As for other aspects of Inception (time dilation and dreams-within-dreams): Been there and done both. ;)
My $0.02.