Shared Dreaming, Anyone?

[makidas]

I just thought i'd start a thread for anyone who would like to share any experience they have with shared dreaming. I've never experienced this phenomenon but I'm very interested in hearing from anyone who has. Ty :)

[Agriff]

I havent but one time when I was at my grandparents house with my aunt and my uncle (and my parents) and they all woke up at the same time and had a similar dream.

I think it would kick ass to have a shared dream, but it would also be kinda freaky. Then again, isnt hypnotism in itself freaky? :wink:

[Tangy]

[Tangy]

[KIY]

I've never had a shared dream, as far as I know. I've had one or two which might have been precognitive (or maybe more). With those it would depend upon how close the dream would have to have been to what did happen-- and whether or not it was my mind making an intuitive leap, or if I read something and forgot about it, etc.

Put me down as a "maybe" for an experiment. I need to think about it, plus it would depend upon what time zones folks are in, whether or not I want to mess with the stuff on my music player, etc.

[Tangy]

[Tangy]

[Sociological]

I have encountered "shared dreaming" many times. The thing that throws people, and makes it difficult to recognize and verify, is that our minds tend to auto-correct anything it doesn't think should be there. Hence the Rorschach tests. In dreams it is usually not so much what it is as how you think of it. Two people dreaming the same thing will see things differently and it is still shared, only viewed differently like two people looking at one coin that see it as different. It has more than one side. This is the less common one in my opinion and is more subjective.

Other cases are where three or more people sort of "mesh" their dreams. In this case one perspective/mind tends to become the predominant one, and the others involved in it are usually very much aware of what is happening. This is the most common form that I've encountered. Some think of this as "dream walking" though I think that term is more spiritual than mental. Most of the time people who encounter this are awoken as it starts. Those who have long histories of meditative practices, or those who have practiced altering or adjusting their own mental patterns usually may choose to stay.

The overall result (if your not the predominant one) is a bit uneasing. You are forcing your mind while in a subconscious state, to choose something with active awareness; in order to remain in that dream. I can't think of a way to describe the askew feeling that shared dreaming in this way causes.

It seems to be like inverted hypnosis. entrancing to bring the subconscious acceptance of a conscious event, or to consciously change a subconscious response. Choosing a dream is making your subconscious mind accept your conscious reasoning. Similar to using hypnosis to make your conscious mind to take different subconscious reasoning. If hypnotized in a dream do you change your conscious self, just like hypnotizing your self awake lets you change your subconscious self; type of theory. I'm afraid that I lack the ability to be more clear on that unless you have "woken up" in a dream and stayed in it. That is the easiest way to start that sort of activity, and once you do it a few times most of the things posted here will make much more sense.

It's about as common as having your feelings follow your rationale or as successful as having your reasoning follow your heart. Honestly, how often does someone take their own advice and mean it after all?