Shared Lucids

[Mickeys_Elbow]

Ok... I know to a lot of you shared dreams sound like complete bullshit, and I know that some of you also claim to have had them. I am one that likes to believe the ones that have had them, since they have actually had the experiences (and the ones opposed have not). I personally have never had one. To get to the point though, assuming shared dreams are possible, there should be the ability to have a shared lucid. If two people are experiencing the same dream simultaneously, or if someone is causing another person to dream of a specific thing, then there should be the possibility of both participants to be lucid during the dream. I think this could be an extreme breakthrough as far as dreaming goes! The way we would need to start this experiment is to get several people together that have either had or induced shared dreams in the past. Then the normal procedures to induce lucids should be applicable to shared dreams (I'm guessing here since personally I havn't knowingly had one) and a shared lucid will either be created or not. Shared lucids would be amazing!

[Placebo]

Actually I already want to do this, but my wife (who I shared a dream with) isn't particularly focussed when it comes to things like this. She has to be 'in the zone' Anyway, in our shared dream, she was lucid, but I wasnt. So all it needed was for her to *make* me lucid. Slap me and tell me I'm dreaming. Or summon a demon or something.. Unfortunately she didn't do that

[Howie]

If shared dreaming is infact possible there would almost have to have a third party relay the dream and have the two participants in two differant locations. This would in fact prove this to be true. I am not saying you are a lier Placebo (I hope you would already know this In fact I too have tried to get my wife to meet me at a certain location in a dream in order to have a shared dream. So I obviously don't disscount this as a possibilty. But for the sake of proof don't you feel that would be the only way to truely prove shared dreaming?

[Mickeys_Elbow]

That's exactly why this needs to become an actual study instead of just something people talk about. If we study it then we can proove or disproove it.

[Howie]

Originally posted by Mickeys_Elbow That's exactly why this needs to become an actual study instead of just something people talk about. If we study it then we can proove or disproove it. How do you suggest we begin?

[Mickeys_Elbow]

I'd suggest that a group of people who are proficient at lucid dreaming collaborate on this (I plan to once I improove) and attempt to share dreams nightly. Like you said there would need to be a third party to recieve the findings of the two (or more) participants and compare their results. I'm not sure if distance is a factor or not because so little is known about sharing, so there would need to be close groups and seperated groups. Couples would be the key to the close groups but they couldn't talk to eachother upon waking, they might even need to sleep in seperate rooms. Anyone could be in a seperate group. My hypothesis is that the seperate groups could be as large as the number of people who volunteer for them. The close groups are the ones that the most ground will be broken in because there are less factors involved and the participants will know eachother more intimately (i.e. close friends, relatives, lovers etc.). I think it would be difficult to hone in on eachother if you don't know the person very well and are on different sides of the globe, but then again little is known about this and distance may not be a factor at all. Experimentation will be the key to finding new questions to be answered and new answers to the questions we have. All that's really needed is volunteers and a set regime on where and how to "meet" eachother, which I don't have a clue where to start on that path since there are no maps in dream world.

[Placebo]

Howwie, regarding the 3rd party, etc I agree with you. I was trying to be careful to not allow her version to affect mine (by first recalling my version silently before she continued recalling hers) But to research it properly, we need third parties, etc. My example wasn't controlled enough at all Perhaps just writing down the journals as private entries online, and after both are up, turning them public for all to see? About my wife and me participating: Like I've mentioned before, my wife isn't really... focussed... when it comes to stuff like this. She has to be 'in the zone', 'zenlike' and all that stuff I've been trying to get her to repeat what she did since that day, and she's only once been like that. And I wasn't dreaming So.. while the concept is sound, it's gonna be hard to do in practice

[Howie]

Originally posted by Placebo Perhaps just writing down the journals as private entries online, and after both are up, turning them public for all to see? About my wife and me participating: Like I've mentioned before, my wife isn't really... focussed... when it comes to stuff like this. She has to be 'in the zone', 'zenlike' and all that stuff I've been trying to get her to repeat what she did since that day, and she's only once been like that. And I wasn't dreaming So.. while the concept is sound, it's gonna be hard to do in practice I think you have a good idea. Afterall we have a trust factor hear. And what would someone have to gain by lieing anyway. And as far as the wife thing Placebo, as you would put it, what you said was verbatim to my situation. So if you figure out somthing to motivate her, tell me

[Mickeys_Elbow]

Once my lucid dreaming improoves I'd like to start this experiment and find as many volunteers as I can. If anyone else wants to go ahead and take off with this that'd be great; I'd just really like to be involved as a guinea pig as well so I really need to get better at this before hand.

[Howie]

Thought we could combine efforts here on this topic !!! By Docthory shared dreaming Also an interesting theory on the possibilties and plausablities of shared dreaming. E=DV2

[Peregrinus]

If you do this experiment with the resources you have now, a lot of it would rely on trust, making it scientifically unsound, but probably quite interesting to the people on the board. Whoever is in charge of the experiment would have to know and/or interview possible subjects to at least get a feel for their trustworthiness. If possible, you want skeptical people-- not true believers and not firm doubters, because members of either of those groups would be more likely to, um, "edit" their results. And of course they should be adept and fairly consistent lucid dreamers with excellent recall (2-3 dreams per night average, if possible). Also, they should be within one or two time-zones of each other to ensure that their REM cycles overlap somewhat. As far as the actual experiment goes, I'd recommend that you have each participant set up a journal on the DV forums, one that is private and uneditable (new entries can be added, but old ones can't be changed or removed). You'd need at least two and preferably three people to be the third parties who each day will review the entries of the participants for similarities. (Having more than one reviewer helps neutralize personal biases) The subjects should record in each entry whether the dream was lucid or non-lucid, and it should be stressed that any interaction with another subject during the dream should be described as accurately and in as much detail as possible so that significant comparisons can be made. For example, if subject A says that subject B was in their dream and they had a series of interactions, X, but subject B does not report subject A being anywhere in his or her dream, then that particular dream would test negative as a shared dream. However, if for some reason, subject B remembered only vaguely the appearance of subject A in his or her dream but decided it was too insignificant to report, that dream might have been a false negative. By recording whether each dream is lucid or non-lucid, during the final analysis phase of the experiment, you can test whether the rate of shared dreaming (if one turns out to exist) varies between lucid and non-lucid dreams. After a week, you should reevaluate the experiment and determine whether you’re getting enough recorded dreams to warrant continuing the experiment. If you are, you should probably continue the experiment until the total run-time is 3-4 weeks to ensure a good sample (of course, this depends on how many dreams you're getting per night). Your control group could be a random sample (of equal size as your experimental group to avoid having to use too many statistics during your analysis) of existing DJ’s from the forum. Obviously, you’d need the express permission of the owners of those journals to use their dreams as part of your experiment, but I doubt it’d be too hard to find such people. The experiment wouldn’t be too inconvenient for the experiment’s participants, either, because all they’d be doing is writing down their dreams in a DJ, which is encouraged practice anyway, and perhaps reaffirming their intention to share dreams or using some other technique as they fall asleep. The trust aspect comes in b/c you’d have to trust the participants not to communicate their dreams with each other via email, IM, etc. (even after you have them electronically sign a form promising as much). That’s where the scientific controls break down and why this experiment isn’t very rigorous, but if you get enough trustworthy participants, it could still be quite interesting.

[Howie]

Very well put Peregrinus So who is up for this I myself average maybe four Lucids per month. If I am focused six to seven. I somtimes can have some very active streaks and other times dry spell. I don't think I am consistant enough to be one of the participants.

[Mickeys_Elbow]

I'm definately up for it, though I also am not consistant enough to be a participant. I would gladly be a reviewer though. Thanks Peregrinus, you so succinctly stated a way for this to happen that sounds like it will work great. My recall is growing quickly and I've had 2 lucids in the past week I think(give or take a day), so hopefully soon I may be able to be a participant!

[Placebo]

I'm not consistent enough right now, although perhaps I was a while back. I had 2 weeks of an average of 1 a night. The trouble is, it was only an average. I'd have 4, then nothing for 3 days, and so on... Here's a thought, I used self hypnosis to get that right. It might be worth a shot for some of you guys I've been pretty lax about LDing lately... perhaps I should make the effort to get back into it, for this

[Peregrinus]

I’ve come up with a small addendum to the experimental design. If we can’t come up with at least 10 people with both excellent recall and consistent lucid dreams, we could have 5 people with excellent recall and 5 people with good recall and consistent lucid dreams. The experiment would then be done with a sender/receiver set-up. The 5 consistent LDers would act as “senders,” who, upon becoming lucid, would attempt to join the dreams of the “receivers,” namely those 5 people with excellent recall. I think the ideal, if the experiment is done this way, is to have each sender assigned two receivers, and thus each receiver would also have two senders. The receivers would not be told who their 2 assigned senders are to minimize the “placebo effect,” for lack of a better term. During this experiment, there will likely be non-shared dreams where the participants dream of each other simply because that’s on their minds and has filtered down into their subconscious as a desire. However, if the receivers do not know who is trying to join them in dreams, they won’t have a particular person to focus on, so my hypothesis is that they will be less likely to have non-shared dreams about the other participants. So what do you think? Better or worse than the original plan? I like this one more simply because it places less stringent requirements on who can participate (we won’t need über-dreamers), and it is more organized. Instead of telling the participants, “Okay, here are the other X-many people participating in this experiment. Try to crash their solo dream parties,” we give them focus, a specific goal which I think the mind will have an easier time interpreting and achieving. Of course, that’s speculation b/c I’m far from a dream expert, but it seems consistent with other things I’ve heard and experienced. There seems to be a decent amount of interest in this, so we might want to start a sign-up sheet (either in this forum or perhaps a sticky in General Discussion if that’s allowed) where people can list their consistency with lucid dreaming and their average dream recall per night. That way we can see what we have to work with and revise the plan if need be. Also, out of curiosity, what do you all consider to be average and excellent consistency with lucid dreaming and dream recall? I was hoping for people who have at least 3 LD’s per week as the “senders” and people who remember 5-7 dreams per night as the receivers. Is that doable or unreasonable and hoping for too much?

[Mickeys_Elbow]

Sounds very doable to me. My recall has been skyrocketing lately so maybe I could be signed up as a reciever, though I'll have to see if it remains consistant. The sticky in the gen. discussion is a good idea to get volunteers because only a small fraction of the people on this site frequent the research team forum. As far as what I consider good recall, on a night where I can get a full nights sleep using the MILD technique I have around 3-5 dream periods per night. So I would consider anything 5 or above per night excellent recall. I feel pretty confident in my recall ability so far and usually remember quite a few details (just go check out my journal), so if I keep working at it I can only improove. This experiment may be pretty close to getting off of the ground !

[Placebo]

The only trouble I see here, is that I feel that shared dreaming isn't a 'send/receive' thing... its a 2 way connection where both parties are just as important. Of course, it doesn't necessarily require both parties to be lucid, so in that way people like Mickeys_Elbow should do well

[Michaelx]

if you were to believe this possible(which i also do) u would need to agree that telepathy is to some degree real also....that being said...is there a limited DISTANCE to which ones mind could reach another? i believe its possible for 2 ppl in the same room to share a dream but VERY VERY HIGHLY unlikely that u can share one with someone half way around the world, or even a few hundred miles away...if you could the dream world may very possibly be as crowded with real ppl as the real world... then there is the chain idea...but that would require alot of people...making "pitstops" or "dream boosters" with other people like a chain....dividing the distance into smaller segments...but thats just my thought for the day on this =) maybe i'll elaborate more later if anyone responds lol.

[Peregrinus]

Originally posted by Placebo The only trouble I see here, is that I feel that shared dreaming isn't a 'send/receive' thing... its a 2 way connection where both parties are just as important. Of course, it doesn't necessarily require both parties to be lucid, so in that way people like Mickeys_Elbow should do well So you think the personal relationship between the participants is important? If it's a two way connection, does one person still initiate? If so, I think this could still work. If both people have to somehow be thinking about it at the same time to simultaneously form some sort of \"meet half-way\" connection, I can't see how shared dreaming could happen often enough to be testable. Honestly, I'm skeptical about these sorts of things, and when a phenomenon goes from being something easy and natural to something that's finicky and hard to pin down as soon as it comes under scrutiny, that skepticism starts to tilt toward doubt. I'm not in any way implying that I think you're being deceptive about your experiences, so I hope you don't take my comments the wrong way. I've probably just misunderstood what you're saying about how to initiate it. Originally posted by Michael if you were to believe this possible(which i also do) u would need to agree that telepathy is to some degree real also....that being said...is there a limited DISTANCE to which ones mind could reach another? i believe its possible for 2 ppl in the same room to share a dream but VERY VERY HIGHLY unlikely that u can share one with someone half way around the world, or even a few hundred miles away...if you could the dream world may very possibly be as crowded with real ppl as the real world... then there is the chain idea...but that would require alot of people...making \"pitstops\" or \"dream boosters\" with other people like a chain....dividing the distance into smaller segments...but thats just my thought for the day on this =) maybe i'll elaborate more later if anyone responds lol. I don't know about a distance limit. From the claims I've read, many people seem to think it can be done over long distances. I've got no reason to believe that the claims of people who say it can only be done between two people in close proximity are any more or less veritable than the claims of people who say it can be done half way around the world.

[Howie]

Originally posted by Peregrinus I don't know about a distance limit. From the claims I've read, many people seem to think it can be done over long distances. I've got no reason to believe that the claims of people who say it can only be done between two people in close proximity are any more or less veritable than the claims of people who say it can be done half way around the world. I agree with you Peregrinus. If this does infact work, whatever information through whatever process that this information is transferred would seemingly be viable via next door or another state. If it was processed at a close range maybe esp, telekinesis or mind reading might be part of the equation. If that is possible as well. Basically it comes down to if there is some type of astral plain which our concious minds could use as a way to comunicate on a level we do not understand. And I think Lucidity would be a factor. Otherwise the other participant would not be concious of the fact that the entire procedure is going on. I guess it could effect their normal dream. So many loop wholes.

[Placebo]

Originally posted by Peregrinus+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Peregrinus)</div> <!--QuoteBegin-Placebo The only trouble I see here, is that I feel that shared dreaming isn't a 'send/receive' thing... its a 2 way connection where both parties are just as important. Of course, it doesn't necessarily require both parties to be lucid, so in that way people like Mickeys_Elbow should do well So you think the personal relationship between the participants is important? If it's a two way connection, does one person still initiate? If so, I think this could still work. If both people have to somehow be thinking about it at the same time to simultaneously form some sort of \"meet half-way\" connection, I can't see how shared dreaming could happen often enough to be testable. Honestly, I'm skeptical about these sorts of things, and when a phenomenon goes from being something easy and natural to something that's finicky and hard to pin down as soon as it comes under scrutiny, that skepticism starts to tilt toward doubt. I'm not in any way implying that I think you're being deceptive about your experiences, so I hope you don't take my comments the wrong way. I've probably just misunderstood what you're saying about how to initiate it.[/b] I feel that it the ' half-way meeting point' (if I can call it that) is not necessarily 50/50 - it can be weighted one or the other way. But chances are greatly increased if both parties are able to do their bit, and meet in the middle somewhere. This is why a personal relationship helps *a lot*! ... but is not necessarily a prerequisite As you said, the moment it bcomes finicky and hard to pin down, it becomes doubtful. It already is a controversial subject, and expecting one party to do all the work is going to make it even more finicky. In the experience I had personally, my wife initiated it primarily. But I feel that it wasn't a 'one-way street' - I was helping the experience along due to our closeness and understanding of each other's mind (ie. how the other thinks) You have to keep in mind that a dream is a complete scene of 3D complexity, generated from our fleeting thoughts and beliefs. To merge two dreams would imply that both parties' thoughts and beliefs have to COMPROMISE on the dream content. (or be identical, which seems impossible) Neither party is going to 'get their own way' 100%, because it's one dream made from 2 minds. Just my thoughts

[Howie]

Ok. To try and get the ball rolling. Because Lucidty is not always a sure thing for anybody then you add another person to the mix. This makes it more difficult. So I suspect time will be an issue in this experiement. But time we have. We need someone to act as the third party. Who would like to do this? We don't know what factors are important for shared dreaming. The possibilities include what? Just brain storming here. Add to the mix if anyone thinks of another factor. I don't think we have twins in the forum? boyfriend/girlfriend husband/wife friends over the forum Same interests same sleeping patterns* Date of birth boy/boy girl/girl girl/boy Having said all that. If we can find two participants and a third party to relay the dreams. We need to discuss wether techniques are important. More brain stroming. Do both individuals follow the same methods for becoming lucid? Opon becoming lucid; both have a predetermined set of proceedueres a place to meet? ???????????

[Howie]

Originally posted by Placebo You have to keep in mind that a dream is a complete scene of 3D complexity, generated from our fleeting thoughts and beliefs. To merge two dreams would imply that both parties' thoughts and beliefs have to COMPROMISE on the dream content. (or be identical, which seems impossible) Neither party is going to 'get their own way' 100%, because it's one dream made from 2 minds. What are the possibilties that dream sharing exists on a plane much like astral projection. Rather than an actual dream. This would allow for the two individuals to simotaniously exist without the compromise on a dream scene.

[Placebo]

Originally posted by Howetzer+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Howetzer)</div> <!--QuoteBegin-Placebo You have to keep in mind that a dream is a complete scene of 3D complexity, generated from our fleeting thoughts and beliefs. To merge two dreams would imply that both parties' thoughts and beliefs have to COMPROMISE on the dream content. (or be identical, which seems impossible) Neither party is going to 'get their own way' 100%, because it's one dream made from 2 minds. What are the possibilties that dream sharing exists on a plane much like astral projection. Rather than an actual dream. This would allow for the two individuals to simotaniously exist without the compromise on a dream scene.[/b] Sure, but I see no reason to believe that

[Howie]

Originally posted by placebo Sure, but I see no reason to believe that What gives us reason to believe any of it at this point?