Shared Dreaming

Has anyone here ever experienced a shared dream? I certainly have, and have been researching the subject for several years now. I don't believe it's possible, I know it is.

Right off the bat, the most common misconception is that shared dreaming occurs in a stable dream realm, or perhaps in some sort of astral plane. This is most definitively NOT the case. Each dreamer experiences their own independent dream. One would naturally expect both accounts of a shared dream to be identical, but again, this is not the case. There are differences, yet this differences essentially describe the same thing on an archetypal level.

Allow me to give a waking life example. An animal lover and someone who was mauled by a dog are not going to see the same thing when they look at the same dog. What they see is determined or filtered by their own personal archetypal structures.

In one shared dreaming account involving a father and a son, they went to a restaurant. In the father's version it was a Denny's, in the son's version it was a Burger King. Every other aspect of the dream was identical, yet they both experienced a different restaurant. Yet in both cases it was a restaurant.

Another shared dreaming example involving a father and his very young son, the dream was identical up until the point of physical contact between the two. The father saw his son run and bump into him, and was concerned he would fall and hurt himself. A typical mindset for any good parent. But from his young son's perspective, he walked over to his father, who bent down and kissed him on the head.

As rare as claims of shared dreams that contain both dreams are, the majority contain these archetypal differences that are different yet the same. In fact I seriously doubt the veracity of any shared dreaming claim that doesn'tcontain these types of archetypal differences.


How do you initiate a shared dream? Beats the hell outta me. I haven't found a way to make it happen regularly, although I suspect the ease with which dreams are forgotten makes proper experimentation fairly difficult. One of the rare occasions I've managed to find my shared dreaming target, I rushed to her online dream journal only to find "I have the feeling that forgot a really important lucid dream".

There is a website called the Lucid Crossroads that attempted to create a stable location where shared dreaming could occur, where fellow dreamers could meet up with each other. It's been around for years, and in my opinion, it has been a complete failure. Perhaps because it is based on the assumption of a stable dream world where everyone sees the same thing, which is clearly not the case.

I know of a very proficient shared dreamer who seems to have inadvertently created what the lucid crossroads set out to do. He goes by the name of WakingNomad on the Dreamviews web forum. The majority of his shared dreams take place on the moon, and it's my theory that the moon is such a desolate place, there is nothing else to distract your attention. Dreamers are naturally drawn to each other because there is just nothing else of interest. While I don't agree with many Nomad's views on dreaming, I can't deny he's freakishly good at shared dreaming.


A lesser form of shared reaming is what is known as "Dream Meshing". This is very common amongst people who keep public dream journals online. It's inevitable that social cliques form, made up of people who read each other's dream journals. Within these cliques, members begin to dream of the same elements with a frequency that seems to be beyond mere coincidence. Many times this could be accounted for logically by one person reading about something in their peer's dream journal, which influences them to dream about it themselves. But in many cases, it's apparent that no such "contamination" was possible, yet the same elements show up in the dreams of both parties none the less.

reply to post by The Cusp


I believe it's possible.

You might want to check out an author by the name of Carlos Casteneda.

He was an anthropologist (I believe) who went to Mexico to study plants and met up with an old indian named Don Juan , who schooled him in the use of hallucinogens .

He authored several books , but I don't recall the title of the one that dealt with this subject in particular.

All of his works that I have read are well worth the time if you are interested .

Originally posted by okbmdYou might want to check out an author by the name of Carlos Casteneda.

It's thanks to Castaneda that I started keeping a dream journal and had my first lucid dream (although I was unfamiliar with the term) over 15 years ago.
I managed to find my hands, and when I looked, objects that you might normally hold in your hands began to flash in and out of existence like flipping one of the paper corner animations. I've since discovered that was due to the archetypal nature of dreams. Everything is an archetype, and everything I saw in my hands was just one of the links or associations that form the body of my hand archetype.

Another book about shared dreaming (one of the few) is by Linda Lane Magallón, titled "Mutual Dreaming", but I've yet to get my hands on it.

reply to post by The Cusp


KOOL .

Always great to run into someone who has read Casteneda . I had quite a collection of his work at one time , but house fires don't discriminate and burn around your library , so , I lost about 3,000 books .

That's amazing , for it was also due to Casteneda that I started keeping a dream journal !

And I had my first ever Lucid dream after starting to read him .

Like you , I wasn't sure what it was at first .

The most amazing experience I have ever had was a lucid dream which was three levels deep !

Each time I would 'wake' in the dream , only to realize that it was a dream and then 'wake' once more to see this was also a dream .

Hope to see this thread take off !

I have shared multiple dreams with a member of the military from another branch. He now thinks I work in Military Intelligence and I haven't had the nerve to correct him.

One possible commonality is that we have both been abused. These dreams also occurred when the VA had me on some psychotropics that screwed up my life pretty bad. I remember not sleeping for several days and having regular nightmares when I did sleep. It could be related to those prescribed drugs.

I think the reason for the different experiences in dreams is the fact that we all live in multiple dimensions but at exactly the same time. Its hard to understand/believe etc., but i think its 100% true.

its not that there is a different me in each dimension, but more like there is a million copies of myself and in each dimensions i understand what im doing relative to that dimension.

When you go lucid, you're body is trying to understand and grasps the concepts, but it hasn't fully released itself from the physical world(OBE).

What happens in an OBE, is that you're body releases from the real world and you see the world as it really is, a multi-verse with higher energies.

So although you live your life through dimension A, lets say, you're subconscious is creating another version of you in dimension B, C and so forth. Some of these dimensions would not make any sense to you, but your mind knows this so it has triggers in place to make sure you can't see it going on.

With meditation you can sometimes see and/or hear these changes.
This is also the reason why your fate can be seen, but your mind has free will, creating reality itself.

Thats probably more than you'll want to hear, but i can go on if you'd like.

reply to post by demonseed


Posts like that make me want to jump up and shout Hell Yea ! .

I love it when I see someone say things like you just did . I've been saying stuff like this for years and everyone just gives me the .

Humans have been 'dumbed-down' for so long that I hardly ever meet anyone who is able to think in terms of what you just expressed .

Thank you , thank you , thank you ...

A friend of mine in the UK started a small dream group and initially the results were quite astounding - we are both psychic empaths and perhaps some of the others in the group were as well ? Hence the ability to pick up on each others dreams / thoughts ? It was heeps of fun The dreams were frequent and extremely intense - but as time progressed everyone just lost interest - I must admit during that time frame I did become extremely drained and tired - perhaps others in the group were feeling the same way ?

But I was so intrigued by the experience I did go in search of other dream groups and stumbled across this one :

Awakening in the dream groups by Paul Levy



[edit on 16-4-2010 by destiny-fate]

Originally posted by LuxFestinusOne possible commonality is that we have both been abused.

That's may very well be it. While the dreams don't have to be identical, there does need to be some common ground. The residual emotions associated with that abuse could also play a important role as well.

Dreams progress by an individual focusing on an archetype, which causes random things associated with that focal point to manifest. This process continues until a new archetype captures the dreamer's attention, and the whole thing just keeps repeating. Associations or links with strong emotions are much more likely to manifest in that manner.

Perhaps just being in a similar dream space is enough to trigger a shared dream?

Originally posted by demonseed
I think the reason for the different experiences in dreams is the fact that we all live in multiple dimensions but at exactly the same time. Its hard to understand/believe etc., but i think its 100% true.

its not that there is a different me in each dimension, but more like there is a million copies of myself and in each dimensions i understand what im doing relative to that dimension.

I haven't come across much to lead me to believe of multiple dimensions existing in parallel. Although there was one exception. A dream about this girl I was totally in love with, and I suddenly remembered other dreams (within that dream) where I was leading another life with her. When I woke up, I felt so bad that I could ever have forgotten about her. In 15 years of dream journaling, that was only 1 of 3 dreams that have left a major emotional impact on me.

I am fairly certain however that we each create our own individual universe while awake, just like in shared dreams. Especially once I understood how dream control works and how it applies to the waking world in exactly the same way it does to the dreaming world (but that's a topic for another thread). The only difference between waking reality and dreaming is the number of people we share it with.

Originally posted by demonseed
What happens in an OBE, is that you're body releases from the real world and you see the world as it really is, a multi-verse with higher energies.

I'm still not sure about the whole multi-verse thing, but I propose that dreams are an expression of duality particle/waveform duality. We have the waking world made up of solid particles, and the dream world is the waveform counterpart. I think a good metaphor for a waveform probability is an archetype.

According to physics, collapsing the waveform is done by observing it or focusing your attention on it. That's exactly what happens when you focus on an archetype in dreams (as I explained briefly above). Although they the term "collapsing the waveform" to me implies that it can only be collapsed once. From my dreaming experience, it can go off several time, much like a capacitor that gets charged up by focusing your attention on it. I need to ask some physicists if the capacitor analogy is more accurate than the collapsing one.

Originally posted by destiny-fate
The dreams were frequent and extremely intense - but as time progressed everyone just lost interest - I must admit during that time frame I did become extremely drained and tired - perhaps others in the group were feeling the same way ?

That's the first I've heard of that happening. I know a group of very active shared dreamers over on Dreamviews, and from what I can tell, they're picking up steam as they go.

[edit on 16-4-2010 by The Cusp]

Originally posted by okbmd
reply to post by demonseed

 

Posts like that make me want to jump up and shout Hell Yea ! .

I love it when I see someone say things like you just did . I've been saying stuff like this for years and everyone just gives me the

.

Humans have been 'dumbed-down' for so long that I hardly ever meet anyone who is able to think in terms of what you just expressed .

Thank you , thank you , thank you ...

lol thank you for your response.

I am not sure if it is the dumbing down or simply the ignoring of these concepts. To be honest, these ideas and concepts are very tribal rather than social. Probably because of the tightness of these groups they realized they where sharing their own waking reality in some kind of higher form.

Social(society as it is now and has been for the last two centuries) is more based on God/Heaven/Hell retribution etc. Its not necessarily wrong, but its a much more Grandeur yet simplified form of i what i guess you could call Karma.




[edit on 17-4-2010 by demonseed]

Originally posted by The Cusp

Originally posted by LuxFestinusOne possible commonality is that we have both been abused.

Originally posted by demonseed
I think the reason for the different experiences in dreams is the fact that we all live in multiple dimensions but at exactly the same time. Its hard to understand/believe etc., but i think its 100% true.

its not that there is a different me in each dimension, but more like there is a million copies of myself and in each dimensions i understand what im doing relative to that dimension.

I haven't come across much to lead me to believe of multiple dimensions existing in parallel. Although there was one exception. A dream about this girl I was totally in love with, and I suddenly remembered other dreams (within that dream) where I was leading another life with her. When I woke up, I felt so bad that I could ever have forgotten about her. In 15 years of dream journaling, that was only 1 of 3 dreams that have left a major emotional impact on me.

I am fairly certain however that we each create our own individual universe while awake, just like in shared dreams. Especially once I understood how dream control works and how it applies to the waking world in exactly the same way it does to the dreaming world (but that's a topic for another thread). The only difference between waking reality and dreaming is the number of people we share it with.

Originally posted by demonseed
What happens in an OBE, is that you're body releases from the real world and you see the world as it really is, a multi-verse with higher energies.

I'm still not sure about the whole multi-verse thing, but I propose that dreams are an expression of duality particle/waveform duality. We have the waking world made up of solid particles, and the dream world is the waveform counterpart. I think a good metaphor for a waveform probability is an archetype.

According to physics, collapsing the waveform is done by observing it or focusing your attention on it. That's exactly what happens when you focus on an archetype in dreams (as I explained briefly above). Although they the term "collapsing the waveform" to me implies that it can only be collapsed once. From my dreaming experience, it can go off several time, much like a capacitor that gets charged up by focusing your attention on it. I need to ask some physicists if the capacitor analogy is more accurate than the collapsing one.

\

[edit on 16-4-2010 by The Cusp]

understanding the concepts of parallel universes is very hard to imagine. The current scientific understanding is actually quite wrong.

Current scientists are combine parallel universe with hyper-dimensional space. But what actually happens is that once you see and understand hyper-dimensional space you start to see parallel universes as well.

For example, when i had an OBE i actually saw my cat in multiple different places at once. During the OBE, i actually pet her and she purred. After i woke up she was looking at me purring. It did not matter which version of my cat i went up to and petted, either way it would induce that reaction in my cat.

I am also 99% confident that cats and dogs can sense and feel these higher dimensions. Hence why my cat purred when she felt me pet her even though i was doing it in an OBE state.

Originally posted by The Cusp

Originally posted by LuxFestinusOne possible commonality is that we have both been abused.

That's the first I've heard of that happening. I know a group of very active shared dreamers over on Dreamviews, and from what I can tell, they're picking up steam as they go.

[edit on 16-4-2010 by The Cusp]

Thanks I checked that site out - Waking Nomad has some pretty intense dreams lol thought mine were jam packed full of detail ? Funny my lucid dreams mainly seem to consist of symbols or feelings certainly not as much detail as Waking Nomad's ? I will put it this way I would not be able to recount my dream in a story fashion like he does ?

[edit on 17-4-2010 by destiny-fate]

Originally posted by destiny-fateThanks I checked that site out - Waking Nomad has some pretty intense dreams lol thought mine were jam packed full of detail ? Funny my lucid dreams mainly seem to consist of symbols or feelings certainly not as much detail as Waking Nomad's ? I will put it this way I would not be able to recount my dream in a story fashion like he does ?[edit on 17-4-2010 by destiny-fate]

Yes his dreams certainly are. Which is one of the reasons I don't like dream sharing with him. He tends to turn everything into an epic fantasy battle, which I find distracting. You don't need to run off and fight every demon of monster that rears it's head, just ignore them and they'll cease to exist.

But the level of detail isn't that strange, keep a regular dream journal and it comes naturally. Although I'm certainly no stranger to abstract dreams that defy description.

Do you by any chance sleep on you left side? I have a theory that sleeping on your side causes increased blood flow into one half of the brain, causing that hemisphere to become dominant. Sleeping on you left side (right brain) leads to more abstract dreams, and sleeping on your right side (left brain) leads to more sequential action dreams. Basically the left brain right brain schism. (www.funderstanding.com...)

Do you by any chance sleep on you left side? I have a theory that sleeping on your side causes increased blood flow into one half of the brain, causing that hemisphere to become dominant. Sleeping on you left side (right brain) leads to more abstract dreams, and sleeping on your right side (left brain) leads to more sequential action dreams. Basically the left brain right brain schism. (www.funderstanding.com...)

I toss and turn all night - what I have noticed is some of my more detailed and amazing lucid dreams occur when I am lying on my back. I wonder if that is because both sides of the brain are firing ?