Fascinating stuff. Thanks, Jason. Thanks also, Ralf, Rob, Tracy, Peter, Ryan, Karen for the thought-provoking conversation.

I hope everyone who's reading these recent posts has also checked out the archives so they know what we're referring to, especially re: Jason's airport dream. You can also see my general comments about "anomalous perception" in dreams, to which I have little to add, except that I don't think it's really anomalous - just more subtle for most of us than the usual five senses.

As I alluded to earlier, I do have longer, more detailed and more specific precognitive, telepathic and shared dreams, but they have all been too personal and/or spiritual in content for me to want to post them publicly. I like posting the short, funny ones to amuse and encourage!

As a scientist I know the difference between anecdotal and experimental evidence, and my own little maxim about this is "An anecdote is a hypothesis begging to be tested." Meanwhile we do well to value our own personal experiences, to tell the stories and share ideas and insights, and to never let our thoughts be limited by what science has already succeeded in quantifying to date. If science were to subject itself to the same limitation, there would be no advances.

Joy

Dear Jason i am sorry i never wrote back but i don't have the internet anymore i am lucky if i can get on but anyways recently i was at my old house well i moved back home in LA, Ca to be with my brothers and sisters and friends and to finally go to college but anyways back to the subject my uncle was asleep on the couch in the living room and i was right next to him on the lazy boy recliner i had these headphones on with music kinda loud when i thought i heard something so i took off the headphones and i heard my uncle making these groaning noises like he was having a nightmare then he started crying but in his sleep and then he said my name . That really freaked me out that he was crying out my name like if he wanted me to wake him up so i began to call out to him and make all these noises to wake him up but no matter what i tried he wouldn't wake up. but he did calm down but every time that i would make a little noise by moving or something he would start making noises again so finally i got up and i started to shake him and say loudly " Are you okay Tio", "Tio are you okay" and finally he woke up just to fall asleep again. So before he would start doing that again i searched for a his lighter and i got my blue candle, lit it and said a little prayer. And after that he slept like a baby for the rest of the night anyways but he almost always talks in his sleep.

Amalia

Tracy:

Thank you for your comments, and for acknowledging that you read my words rather than simply reacted to them. I appreciate that.

Believe it or not, I am far less cynical about precognition, synchronicity, et al, than my postings imply. Indeed, I have stacks of notebooks crammed with experiences, dreams, and musings that reflect my decades-old search for the nature of these phenomena; I even wrote a novel (alas still unpublished) about the subject. I deeply believe that much explanation about all of this can be gleaned from dreaming in general and lucid dreaming in particular.

The problem is that hope and wishful thinking can easily overshadow real results. My caveats were not intended to dissuade anyone from their, um, dreams, but to suggest that we are careful to examine our experiences with the understanding that their true nature might be something completely different than what we want it to be.

I had hoped to coax the exchange back to an open discussion of these topics with the understanding that the ends we sought had something to do with lucid dreaming. However, I understand that the thread is stronger than my singular, skeptical voice, so I will back away quietly.

Peter

Hi all! I just wanted to post my thoughts on the subject at hand.

Can we really examine a system we are part of? Can we really examine it without altering it and thus affecting the results hence the conclusions we want to draw from our examination?

A dream is our creation, our fears, hopes, wishes. It's US. Can we really take it seriously besides the fact that in our dreams we face ourselves with masks off? I'm just very skeptical about synchronicity.

I usually find that when something happens and we suddenly think 'Hey, I saw that in my dream! Can it be precognition, synchronicity or whatever?' is because our attention was just brought to it and we fail to realise that it's been happening all along. It's just that we weren't paying much attention to it.

Just some thoughts, Nikolas

Peter, and all interested:

To my mind, this discussion definitely has something to do with lucid dreaming. The applications of lucid dreaming stem from two questions:

if [x] is an action that has potential value,

1. Can [x] be done in a dream?

2. If [x] can be done in a dream, can it be done intentionally in a lucid dream?

Here we have people exchanging stories about experiences with obtaining via dreams information not available to the usually-recognized senses, and encouraging one another to develop this ability. The implications of being able to do so intentionally are tremendous. Hence LaBerge's outstanding controlled experiments with remote viewing in lucid dreams (which I won't describe in detail here out of respect for his professional proprietary right).

I do examine my experiences with the careful critical thinking that Peter, Nikolas and others urge and I recommend that others do the same, so that you can recognize, appreciate and encourage in yourself instances wherein events are sufficiently unusual, otherwise-unknown and well-matched to your dream that telepathy or precognition is the most parsimonious explanation.

Joy

Rob

You commented:

The question isnt which came first, its which is which? Surely being able to discern between a self fulfilling prophecy and a precognition matters when to mistake one for the other can lead to a premature end?

Yeah, your question is a chicken and egg question because it seeks cause and effect...that's my point whether you frame it as a chicken/egg question or a "which is which" question. "Which is which" is still looking for cause/effect.

I don't think we can make clear separations between self-fulfilling prophecy and precognition...because dreaming and living are more complicated than a linear, either/or analysis provides.

Besides, this wasn't the major point of my post. I suggested there's perhaps something more important than focusing on whether Frankl's dream was precognitive or self-fulfilling prophecy.

Karen

Karen, Is the question, which dream was a lucid dream? and which dream was a non lucid dream? a search for cause and effect?

If it is challenging to discern between to similar things, does that really mean we shouldnt try or cant?

Does the thoery of causality exclude nonlinear causes and nonlinear effects?

Dream on

Rob,

I thought your question was--did the man's death stem from dream precognition or self-fulfilling prophecy.

Karen

Amalia, No explanations necessary. Life is a very complicated thing and sometimes we can't keep up with everything. I myself may be unable to go online soon. You have my best wishes.

Ralf, This morning I had a dream that may or may not have anomalous perception. It does not fit the pattern completely. I was on a bus (strange place or vehicle). The bus passed a large structure that looked like a factory or plant. There was a rumbling and one of the large pipes or smokestacks on this structure broke away from the building. It went crashing into an area I could not see (unseen but implied calamity). I felt the bus shake from the unseen impact. I thought that this may get worse. I thought that if people knew about this it might be avoided. I had the feeling that something could land on the bus and then thought that there would be nothing to fear if the bus were destroyed. I sat and examined this reaction to my circumstances and realized I was dreaming. My previous thought that this might be avoidable came to my mind again along with the idea that I might be in a dream involving possible future events. I remembered what you (Ralf) had written about talking to dream characters. I stood up and asked a woman what day it was. She looked confused and said "Monday". I said "No, what is today's date?" She said "September twenty third."

"Where are we?" I asked. The woman looked even more confused... or perhaps worried about the crazy man on the bus who doesn't know where or when he is. "Along Riggs road..." she stammers.

The dream begins to fade. I want to step out of the bus and have a look at the surroundings. I look the woman in the eyes and say "Don't worry ma'am, I'm from the future and I'm going to stop this!" and turned to step off the bus. I don't know the reasons why, but the woman appeared cheerful as I stepped off the bus.

I woke up as I stepped off the bus. When I went back to sleep again I did it with the intention of re-entering the dream bus or going to the dream factory. I had several other short lucid dreams and wakings but none of them on a bus or at the dream factory.

I have checked and found a listing for a Riggs road on Azcentral.com but searches of the valley metro bus system and Yahoo! maps yield no results so I still do not know where this Riggs Road is. I do not have a firm belief that this dream represented possible future events but I'm driven by curiosity to find out. Anyway, it will make for a cool reality check if I do find this dream factory while awake.

Joy, You wrote: "As I alluded to earlier, I do have longer, more detailed and more specific precognitive, telepathic and shared dreams, but they have all been too personal and/or spiritual in content for me to want to post them publicly. I like posting the short, funny ones to amuse and encourage!" Would you ever be persuaded to share these other experiences? Perhaps in a different forum? There are many of us who would be greatly interested.

Hi, folks!

Sorry I couldn't keep up the conversation. So now it might be not easy to take up and follow the different threads.

I promised to go into definition and discussion of psi - terms:

__________Space and Time

Space and Time are two of the key words in this thread. I quoted Jung on space and time. And what he saw or felt is what modern science tells us: We have to doubt the common sense understanding of space and time. Especially when we have to do with great masses, high velocities, high energies. This is what Einstein said in his theory of space/time relativity. But he said, that no information can be spread faster than with the speed of light. ESP seems to challenge this dogma. But keep in mind, that there is still not enough proof for the "instant transfer" property of ESP. In the scale of sub - atomar physics we find that matter acts like energy, we find discontinuity, weird hordes of quantum wavicles, seemingly indeterminable, but computable, that make up stable, predictable (re-) acting atoms. All these quantum processes are over and over used to explain anomalous occurrences like psi or even consciousness. I'm not sure, if that fits into what science has found out. At least when I talk to (main stream) physicists, they say, that the nonlocal effect, resp. quantum entanglement, can't be used for information transfer, BECAUSE nothing can spread faster than light. So in their eyes the quantum processes don't seem to support models for the understanding of psi effects. Radin quotes different sources, which support the effect of "quantum teleportation" (p. 286). And adds, that signals aren't necessarily bound to carriers like matter or electromagnetic waves. But at least the findings of quantum physics show that space and time and causality are not what they commonly seem to be.

To me it seems that we simply don't know, what psi is. So we have to be careful in using names of psi effects, like telepathy, clairvoyance, etc. Interesting to quote Radin once more. He says we should not mistake the map for the territory and (p. 16 f) "Keep in mind that the names and concepts used to describe psi say more about the situations in which the phenomena are observed than about any fundamental properties of the phenomena themselves. This is always true in science but is often glossed over for the sake of simplicity. ... But it is useful to remember that science deals with hypotheses, theories, and models, and not with absolutes."

Here is a kind of positive definition of ESP (p. 111): "It seems that we must think of psi perception as a general ability to gain information from a distance, unbound by the usual limitations of both space AND time."

________Precognition

The latter quote is a fine transit to the discussion of precognition. The evidence is, that "... the precognition effect had been successfully replicated across many different experimenters" (p. 114). In my eyes precognition is something very special. It shows, that we are able to transcend not only limitations of space, but of time. Precognition is very challenging the common worldview, especially the concepts of time - flow and flow of causality. Experiments with precognition are much easier to control: time is a radical shielding in the common worldview, the view of mainstream science. So I think the sceptics have a much harder time to suspect fraud here... Radin writes, that every psi perception may be regarded as precognitive in the sense that it means experiencing a future knowledge / state of mind. If e.g. I do a clairvoyance experiment and get immediate feedback on my guess I might actually perform precognitive abilities. Once one thinks in terms of precognition it gets harder to differentiate real time psi and psi through time.

________Synchronicity

Radin goes into synchronicity, too (p. 173), he uses Jung's definition. And for me it is, that this term is coined by Jung, I don't see any need for further definitions, I say: Use this definition so we understand each other. Synchronicity is not just coincidence, not just random events. Synchronicity has to be meaningful by definition. There has to be a meaningful and non causal connection between inner states (emotions, developments) and outer occurrences (happenings, objects, persons) at a point of time. (Don't know how "extended" a point is in this case...). Meaning is of course something which the hard sciences don't find cosy to work with. But I think they will have to. Synchronicity seems to be a special case of psi effects. Mind - matter interaction ("psychokinesis") might play a role, too. But it also includes the common mental factors of expectation, motivation, etc. The latter seems to count for most (all?) psi occurrences. There is no hard scientific proof for the existence of synchronicity effects. But Radin goes out into similar effects in the chapter "Field Consciousness". BTW I read on some website, that Sting was inspired by working on Jungian psychology regarding the title "Synchronicity" for the "Police" LP.

_______Remote Viewing

is used synonym with the terms: clairvoyance, extrasensory perception, remote perception. It differs from telepathy in the sense, that there is no "sender". Remote viewing is very good researched and successfully applied, e.g. by military intelligence services.

______Telepathy

Is the best known psi term, but it is hard to differentiate it from remote viewing and precognition. "Pure" telepathy is hard to prove, because at some point of time the "sender" must somehow write down, paint or in any way bring his mental target into a material form. Nonetheless telepathy effect is very intriguing. And dream telepathy's hit rates rank among the highest of all psi - experiments. This is why I find, that experiments in dream - telepathy are so promising. One question is, whether the lucid dream state differs from the normal dream regarding psi susceptibility. If we look at Jason's latest LD report in this thread being lucid might be helpful to gather additional information. But maybe the more conscious mind might filter or morph important details. The hit rates of ordinary (waking state) psi experiments are mostly lower, than those of experiments in altered states (dream, hypnosis, ganzfeld).

______Mind Matter Interactions, Mental Interactions with Living Organisms

I don't want to get too deep into that. It touches the subject of synchronicity and healing dreams. Just let me say, that our experience of distant healing might include psi effects. Experiments show consistent effects regarding the named interactions.

_____Out of Body Experiences and (Lucid) Dreams

These are purely my thoughts after working on the psi thing again: What is the difference between remote viewing and OBE? Radin doesn't go into this. For me it is that feeling, I'm out and correctly perceiving remote places wouldn't prove that I'm out. I say that despite I believe in OBE, in existence of consciousness without organic body. We have to take in account, that psi perceptions are as constructed, as all what we perceive. So from the scientific point of view we might find consent saying OB - like experiences are potentially psi dreams explainable in the above-mentioned terms. I don't want to conceal that some experienced subjects say, they feel or see a difference between LD and OBE.

_____The Organs of the Dreaming Mind

This is the greater picture, if I look at the results of psi research in consideration of our main subject here: Our (dreaming) mind has eyes able to see behind the borders of space and time, ears which can listen to waves crushing on extraterrestrial beaches, hands gently palming the hearts of our beloved ones.

Hope that these lines are informative and inspiring for you.

Live the dream!

Yours Ralf

P.S.

When Roberto Zuliani started this thread back in 1999 he reported experiences and asked, in which category they might fit.

I will try and put his experiences in the available drawers, very roughly:

1. The mirror and golden paper: Coincidence.
2. The first LD and the flyer: Synchronicity
3. The earthquake dream: Coincidence and/or precognition
4. The snake girl dream and picture: Coincidence and/ or psi of some kind

The examples in his second post I find rather weak cases for anything different than coincidence. The next posting by Adastra seems to be an excellent example of telepathy.

Wonder what you think

Jason!

Thanks for being open in your posting. I think we have to take in account the social component of what we do. Because most of us most of time don't have people near sharing experiences of LD or anomalous perception. In close relationships this can get a problem. If I'm not very clear about what dreaming means to me, there may be problems around dreaming with my beloved one(s). There have been times, when the impact of lucid dreaming shook me hard. I felt as if this was too much, too realistic, overwhelming, out of control. I felt alone with my fears and sharing them with my beloved one seemed to make it even worse. But this was one step in a process of opening up myself. Today I think I've done good to share not only my enthusiasm, but also my fears. Today I feel better with lucid dreaming and my sweetheart supports me better than ever. There have been times, when she felt, as if I'm sucked into the forum, into the "virtual" world of LD and internet. She feared, I could loose contact to her and to the waking world. That wasn't my impression. But I had to confess, that I spent much time and energy in dreamwork. That made clear to me, that working on (lucid) dreaming is essential to me, that I don't want to do without. It is a very important part of my journey through life. I can't say in detail, how we worked it out. Of course we struggled. Now I think that this struggle forced me to bring more lucidity and of course compassion and caring into my waking life.

And I'm glad that you tried to use talking to dreamcharacters to collect information. That is a good display of lucidity and self control. I wonder what else lies in this dream and its links to the waking world. And I wonder why you said you come from the future.

All the best for you and your beloved ones

Yours Ralf

Ralf, My wife fears I'll become unbalanced or "mislead" spiritually. She once got ahold of one of my dream diaries and hasn't been the same since. There were descriptions of OBE-like dreams and sleep paralysis and descriptions of examining things in much greater detail than is possible in real life. I think this more-real-than-real aspect of some of my dreams frightens her. There were dreams in which I became lucid because I could see things too perfectly. I could see every last stone, crack and shadow on a distant mountain in one dream and became aware because the mountain was perfectly formed and was not obscured by the distance. My one memory of last night's dreams is of becoming lucid because I could see every sparkle in the red white and blue paintjob on the Ford truck I was looking at. I've tried to explain that these dreams show that I am more able to separate fact from fantasy than she gives me credit for. Anyway, talking about dreaming often makes her uncomfortable so I usually avoid it. I wish it were different.

As for why I said I came from the future... I was just playing with the woman. At the time it sounded like a nice sci-fi thing to say. What good is a lucid dream if you can't play a little?

I also wonder what else lies in this dream. This dream does not fit the pattern completely... for instance, neither I nor any dream character seemed to remember the events from dreams and I did not think that the events were foretold by a dream or happening in the real world. In fact, once I became lucid I saw the events as manufactured by my mind. Maybe the dream factory is symbolic. Maybe not.

Hi, everyone -

Thanks, Ralf, for the concise definitions.

Do you have a good definition for "skeptic"?

The current issue of Scientific American is a special issue devoted to the subject of time. The article "That Mysterious Flow" by theoretical physicist Paul Davies says weird things like, "Given that most physical and philosophical analyses of time fail to uncover any sign of a temporal flow, we are left with something of a mystery.... Some researchers... have suggested that the subtle physics of irreversible processes make the flow of time an objective aspect of the world. But I and others argue that it is some sort of illusion. "After all, we do not really observe the passage of time. What we actually observe is that later states of the world differ from earlier states that we still remember. The fact that we remember the past, rather than the future, is an observation not of the passage of time but of the assymetry of time.... it appears that the flow of time is subjective, not objective."

In the same issue is a feature column called "Skeptic" by Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine. This month's entry is titled "Smart People Believe Weird Things" and reports in an appalled tone that 60 percent of adult Americans "believe in ESP." (And a shocking 88 percent "accept alternative medicine" - imagine that!)

So sometimes we "remember" the future instead of the past. Or we become aware of something that's happening at a distance. Is that so weird, given the intrinsic wierdness of space and time as physicists and philosophers describe them?

In my view, whenever we experience something that seems like maybe psi we should apply the scientific principle of Occam's razor - that the simplest explanation usually is the most plausible. Often it turns out to be pure coincidence; or matters of "expectation, motivation, etc." per Ralf above; or attention, as Nikolas described a few posts ago:

"I usually find that when something happens and we suddenly think 'Hey, I saw that in my dream! Can it be precognition, synchronicity or whatever?' is because our attention was just brought to it and we fail to realise that it's been happening all along. It's just that we weren't paying much attention to it."

But then there are those cases in which it would take a really convoluted effort to explain it as anything but a simple glimpse through the flexible fabric of space/time. Take my snot dream. I sure wasn't expecting or motivated to be handed an object with a wet glob of snot on it! Nor is it something that happens every day and I'm just not noticing. To check this, I've been doing an informal survey: I ask people, "When's the last time an adult inadvertently handed you something with a wet glob of snot on it?" So far the answer is "Hmmm... Never!" (Nurses excepted; thanks, Ralf!) It doesn't seem to be a common dream theme either.

Little, everyday, probably-psi experiences are so common that we take them for granted. Here's one of a type I think almost everyone's had: Last Thursday on my way to work I suddenly thought, "Susan! I gotta call Susan!" Susan is an old childhood friend; we barely keep in touch; we hadn't talked in three years. I wondered why that thought came to me. I got home that night and there was a message on the answering machine: "Joy! This is your long-lost friend Susan! You gotta call me! I have good news!"

"Coincidence" is possible; "some kind of psi thing" is really a bit more likely. Too bad the cultural bias of a skeptical society urges us to accept "coincidence" as the answer, when we could be observing and cultivating these perfectly normal abilities.

Jason, to answer your question, I can't imagine the public forum into which I'd toss a psi experience that has personal, spiritual meaning for me. Well, actually, I've posted one or two elsewhere in this forum, sharing them with the people involved....

Gotta go! Readers, when was the last time someone handed YOU a wad of moist mucus in waking life or dream?

Joy

Joy,

I don't know" you sound like one of those 16th century loons who insisted that the world was round in spite of society's constant confirmation that it had to be flat. You know, like Copernicus or Galileo.

People can be quite lazy, both physically and mentally. Disinterest in burning a few calories for deeper knowledge can tempt an individual to dismiss a difficult question with buzzwords like coincidence, thus avoiding any need to attempt to wrap their minds around a concept like precognition. Of course, that razor cuts in both directions ' it is also much easier to decide that there is no such thing as time simply because we're not yet bright enough to attach equations that define empirical evidence that betrays time's existence with each passing moment. And it is ultimately easiest to ignore all rational argument because you experienced a personal event that you are sure has defined the truth (well, psychically easiest anyway ' I don't imagine, for instance, that Joan of Arc had an easy time with her visions!).

I guess the trick is to be Copernicus, and not Johan Bessler (perpetual motion) or Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann (cold fusion), to avoid sidestepping the search for truth by settling on exciting but improvable anecdotal explanations.

I think experiencing ' and, yes, anecdotally sharing ' lucid dreams can be instrumental in that search for truth. LD's may present a unique opportunity to step back and consciously witness the foundations of our creative, perceptual, and emotional processes ' things that nature may not have intended us to see. I also believe that exposure to such basic mechanisms of personality will unfurl our souls, offering a real, provable, roadmap toward resolution of the puzzles we are discussing.

In other words, LD's may be the very tool we need to understand and consistently navigate synchronicity, precognition, and space and time.

What it will never do, though, is explain why you chose snot as your talisman for interdimensional travel!

Peter

Ah, just my talisman of the moment, my friend! - an amusing example, but apt, perhaps: easy to spread around; slippery when you want to get a grip on it...

P.S. Remember Copernicus and Galileo's big thing was not that the earth was round (which people did already know, counter to the pro-Columbus mythology we ingested in our youth) but that it wasn't at the center of the universe with everything else revolving around it. Heresy! (Relevant? Maybe...:-)

Joy:

Okay, so snot may after all have sincere analogical, even archetypical value. Who'da thunk it?

And thanks for the correction on Copernicus & Galileo! My addled brain's rusty filing system betrayed me again. Fortunately for me they still work as examples...

Peter

Dear Peter Just gotta tell you, I do enjoy reading your words! Whatta writer! Thank you (and Joy and Ralph and everyone else) for the insights and images. I constantly learn from you.

Here's to "...conciously witnessing the foundations of our creative, perceptual, and emotional processes" Personally, I liken us to Lewis and Clark : )

Profound ponderances to all of us Tracy

Yeah, me too: thanks, everyone! The quality of minds that meet here never ceases to amaze me.

I just rediscovered where I wrote on this topic before: under "Degrees of Lucidity - Lucid or Not?" which is under "Research, Theory and LI Experiments." On 31 October 2001 I posted a dream that went through varying degrees of lucidity and also happened to be likely precognitive, so I offer it in response to Jason's request. In subject matter it's a little more profound than a soggy booger. (Then I came back later the same day and held forth about Occam's razor and all that.)

A preponderance of fun profundity to all, Merriweather Joy

Tracy:

Thanks for making this morning that much brighter for me! I must admit though that it's the subject matter that's profound, not me; I only do what I can to project the thoughts about lucid dreaming that we all innately share.

Joy:

I read your dream from last October. It was indeed profound ' it seemed to be a tour de force of your personal quest for enlightenment and freedom. And yes, your reading that story on the same day is amazing" very inspiring. However (and I promise this is the last time I'll mention it), the, um, purity of that snot, and the incredibly unlikely event of your both dreaming and experiencing something that concise still may hold more water ' or whatever fluid you choose ' than the longer, deeper dream in terms of a personal proof of precognition. The mountain dream soars as example of your own success in dreaming and your recognition of your existence in dreams, and those attributes could arguably have given you a taste of precognition. But the simplicity of that booger, and the dearth of alternate explanations for its binary existence, might make it a better example of what we're exploring.

Here's hoping your next precognitive experience is a little less slimy,

Peter

Joy, in response to your posting of Sep 14 the last time was... Although I'm quite in danger due to my profession it actually never happened to me, other substances were handed, but never this...

I thought about "sceptic" for some days, but I doubt, no, let's say, I'm sceptic if I'll ever find a definition.

CU then

Yes, Peter, for me the snot dream was clear (if slightly green-tinted) evidence of something psi going on. But for anyone else, no proof! I only offer these dreams to inspire others to do as all good scientists do: try to replicate the effects for yourselves! Go to sleep asking to learn something about how space and time really work, and see what gets handed to you in response.

If we were Lewis and Clark we could shoot specimens of our dreams and send their skins back to Jefferson along with our descriptions. As it is, we can only describe them and inspire Jefferson to go west and see such strange creatures for himself.

And thanks, my possibly-psi dreams between the snot dream and now have been non-slimy: two were floral and one was mystical. Nothing too personal - I could describe them if anyone might be inspired.

Hey, Ralf, my dictionary gives "skepticism" as "an attitude of doubt or a disposition of incredulity either in general or toward a particular object," and Ayto's Dictionary of Word Origins traces "sceptic" to the Greek verb skeptesthai meaning "examine, consider." (I once read that it derived from the Greek for "fool"; I was skeptical about that!) I'm all in favor of doubting, examining and considering. I wonder when the word took on its modern connotation of refusing to examine or consider certain types of phenomena.

The fact that "skeptic" can be spelled in English with either a c (the British form apparently) or a k (preferred in the U.S.) has a parallel in my recent mystikal dream but it's probably koincidence - let'snot jump to konklusions -

Joy

Let'snot run too fast!

Just sitting here and working on Maui DreamCamp - the Second Day, updating my website. I really enJOYed your post again. Wish I could play with English subtleties. In German we say "es liegt auf der Hand" (it lies on the hand), if we want to express that something is obvious. Regarding semantic creativity of dreams: I had a funny (and deep) dream this night, wich created the name "Astit" for a beautiful magenta stone seemingly meant to represent my beloved Astrid (I use to call her "Asti") and/or our relation. At least we had fun, when I told her the dream.

More dreams with strange semantiks might lead to Luki-Dity or Lucky-Luke or some other Aborigine.

Greetings, Dreamers!

All this talk of snot reminds me of the tooth gun from eXistenZe...

Here's some imagery for ya...

Last week I found myself in a Central Kentucky Nature reserve called Big Bone Lick...

Native Americans told Lewis and Clark about this region. A sulfur rich spring had drawn creatures for thousands of years. The receding glacier left a valley of bones, preserving a tale tell record of the biodiversity in this part of the world.

Thomas Jefferson was fascinated by these animals, particularly the Giant Ground Sloths and Mastodons. One predominant species has aptly been named the Jefferson Sloth.

Historical topics aside, I do like the analogy. The original moniker "onieronaut" also connotes the notion of "Boldly going where no man has gone Before'.

When hit with the question ' What good are LD's', I often reply that this amazing phenomenon will prove to be a valuable scientific tool by which we can study the mind.

What better avenue exists to explore the thought processes that happen on the flip side of consciousness?

I am sure we all call attest to the potential that LD's offer towards understanding what motivates human behavior, towards exploring the causes of psychological defense mechanisms, compulsions and addictions, towards seeing who is "behind the mask'.

I find myself in a period of sober reflection these days. I finished a book called "Master of Lucid Dreams" by Olga Kharitidi. Initially I was let down by her lack of emphasis on the "fun" aspects of LD'ing. But after further reflection, I appreciate how the story described using LD's to relive traumatic experiences, and reprocess and explore emotions and reactions. What could be more valuable than this?

z z "Beyond the seas of thought, Beyond the realm of what, Across the streams of hopes and dreams Where things are really (S)not"

From "Journey to the Center of the Mind" by Steve Farmer of the Amboy Dukes (yes,Ted Nugent's old band) z z z Joe

Es liegt auf der Hand, but it'snot what it appears to be... Ralf, who says you can't play with English subtleties?

Good fun & wise words from Ralf and ZJoe.

Okay, about time I honored Jason's request for psi dreams about something other than snot.

Here's one of the four I dreamed between then and now: I dreamed I saw a round metal disk with a ring of little flowers engraved around its perimeter. That was the whole dream - all I recalled, anyway: it seemed to be presented rather forcefully, like, hey, look at this and remember it.

I saw it the next day: I was giving a series of talks at the high school and one of the classrooms had a typical industrial-strength tall four-legged round-topped metal stool, only the round top of this one had a ring of little flowers engraved around its perimeter.

See, another totally insignificant glimpse of the future! I did sit down with intent to tell of a good significant one but it's late and I have some dreaming to do, so will leave you with this for now.

Joy

Ralf has been "away" at a psi dreams cyber conference; I look forward to his report!

Now, from among my several psi dreams of trivial content since posting the mucosal one, here is the one that had intrinsic significance and value (beyond the immense value of every little reminder that time and space are not as they usually seem!):

I had been hoping lately to meet a "guide" in my dreams. Other people had them - why couldn't I? I thought I'd love to have some humanoid representation of "higher self" giving me practical and spiritual advice.

In this dream of 2 September I was in a big, crowded room in what seemed to be a school for troubled children and adolescents, with various arguments and concerns being discussed. I found a short, stocky, mature woman standing next to me, gazing at me and saying with quiet intensity, "I love you.' She repeated it twice. Why was this stranger saying that? Then I realized I was dreaming, and guessed that this could be one of my guides!

I asked, "Who are you?' She said her name twice, and I repeated it to myself (but by the time I woke, I'd forgotten). She seemed practical, wise and kind. She took me over to a little girl who looked frightened and lonely and began to explain her problems to me; I didn't understand why. Soon other people were calling for me and I was being drawn into their conflicts which I couldn't resolve, and I thought, "Since I'm dreaming, I can just leave.' And I did.

But one man and his son followed me outside and sought my counsel on a problem the boy was having with other kids. I asked the boy, "What can you do?' and between the three of us we came up with a solution which was mostly the boy's idea, with input from his dad.

I felt good about having guided the child to come up with his own solution. I knew that was much better for him than just telling him what to do. But what about my guide? Why did she just appear and lead me into this scene and vanish? Why didn't she give me any guidance? (Believe it or not, lucid friends, it was not until last week when I was thinking about posting this for you that I saw the obvious message! Don't you just love the dreaming mind?)

Next, non-lucidly, I was helping an uncle in Minnesota make a stained glass window; then suddenly I remembered I had something to remember from my dreams, and woke! But while I was waking, the guide woman seemed to be telling me something: "I like Kabbalah.'

I thought, "Isn't that Jewish mysticism? Are you recommending I read about it?" She confirmed this and added that it could be spelled with a K or a C, and not to confuse it with the epic Finnish myth, the Kalelava.

Fully waking, I wondered where I was going to find anything to read about Kabbalah. I live in a very remote, rural, desert place. There's a small library in town, 40 miles away, unlikely source.... I thought maybe I'd do a web search, maybe find something in Amazon.

I wrote my dreams, then got dressed and drove down to my neighbor's house 3 miles away to buy home-grown eggs. On his kitchen counter was a stack of brand-new books on Jewish philosophy. At the bottom of the stack were two books on Kabbalah. Believe me, this was totally unexpected ' he's not Jewish and I didn't know he had a philosophical bent; I would have expected books on gunsmithing. Of course I borrowed one!

Joy

Hi, Joy and Joe and Tracy and Peter and all you lucid psibers

It feels good to read your dreams and stories. Until I write more on the ASD conference, you might want to have a look at some papers at:

http://asdreams.org/telepathy/

look at the presenters and subjects:

http://asdreams.org/psi2002/

and may get some impressions in the open post conference talk at:

http://www.asdreams.org/subidxdiscussionsbboard.htm

ASD General Discussion :A PsiberDreaming Thread

Or:

http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.cgi?action=Read&BID=4&TID=4506&P=1&SID=7905

the latter seems to lead to the thread directly.

And REMEMBER!!

The Lucidity Institute will have psi - experiments in the upcoming DreamCamp in November!

Quote (Stephen in ASD Conference): As it happens, we are planning some pilot experiments in shared dreaming and psi at our next DREAMING AND AWAKENING program November 1-10. See you there or see you in dreamland! Scholarships available; visit http://www.lucidity.com/DAAK02/index.html Endquote

Another important quote (Stephen): For example, in Chapter 9 ("Dreaming, Illusion, and Reality") of my book LUCID DREAMING, I discuss "mutual dreaming" introducing what I think is an important distinction between shared scenes and shared themes. The entire chapter is available on the web at http://lucidity.com/LD9DIR.html and if you want to know what I think about dreaming and the paranormal, please read or re-read the chapter. Endquote

CU in LD

Yours Ralf

Here's a good one: I dreamed last night that I attended a piano concert at a school, sponsored by the local arts council, where an authoritative, convivial gray-haired man performed excellently. Today I called up my 91-year-old best friend and she described attending just such a concert and wishing very much that I'd been there. She said she'd been thinking all day of telling me about it.

This is not a common event. I did, once, attend a piano concert at a school, sponsored by the local arts council - it was a young woman pianist, and that was about 18 years ago....

Sorry it wasn't a lucid dream, but let me say again, I get this kind of thing much more often than ever before in my life, now that I'm intentionally seeking lucid dreams. There is something about wandering knowingly among states of consciousness...!

I did wake up with the strong feeling that something in the night's dreams had been telepathic or precognitive - maybe that's another variety of lucidity?

Hi, Joy

That feeling is something, I do sometimes have about a dream, and which can be sometimes confirmed by waking physical life events. It is very helpful to know, when you had a psi dream...

Feel connected

Yours Ralf

I do

Love, Joy

Joy:

Very impressive. Assuming (and of course personally hoping, on my part!) that your lucid dreaming and amazing dream recall talents have allowed you access to a quietly powerful piece of currently mystical awareness we all could share, I was wondering if you're applying your skills as a scientist to your experience.

Have you established an empirical method of recording your dreams, and then correlating them with waking events that later seem to have something to do with them? I hope so! It would be a real boon for all of us if your dreaming has given you a foundation for provable precognitive experiences.

If you publish, don't forget to keep an eye out for black helicopters! ;)

Peter

I write down my dreams, and in the margins I write down the later events. From a scientific perspective it's all anecdotal. So long as I'm both the sole experimental subject and the sole observer, there's no "proof," except sometimes for other people involved - as when my friend described the concert to me, and I described the pianist to her.

I was thinking today, what if I meet that nice man from this morning's dream who had a plaster cast on his right forearm? Should I say, "Hey, I met you in a dream!" and expect him to believe me? Invite him home with me to see that I'd already written it down? Failing that, there would be no proof except for myself and I would be totally delighted and all the more open to the next experience.

I might participate in some well-designed experiment like Stephen's remote viewing work when the opportunity arises. In any case I'm happy if I inspire others to pay attention to their own dreams and subsequent events, be open to the possibility of psi experiences, and be just tickled when it happens. Do it, Peter!

Joy, Joy

P.S. The Essential Kabbalah by Daniel C. Matt, recommended to me by a dream guide as I described a few weeks ago, includes a personal account of a surprising mystical experience by an anonymous neophyte student of Abraham Abulafia in the thirteenth century. He concludes by writing, "Those who know a little about this - and especially those to whom something has been revealed experientially - will rejoice in what I have written and find it fitting.... As for me, God knows and is my witness! My intention is for the sake of heaven. I wish that every person in our holy nation excelled me in this.... Then, perhaps, things unknown to me could be revealed.... I cannot bear not to lavish upon another what God has lavished upon me. That is why I had to tell the story of my experience, because the only proof of this wisdom is experience itself."

Joy:

Point taken.

Studying this empirically would be problematic, and your P.S. clarifies beautifully that the telling alone should be enough for those who already believe. I must admit you're preaching to the choir (aside from a handful of annoying questions, what of substance have I offered to this conversation?). But, wouldn't it be awesome if you could prove something like this, if people didn't have to believe it, because they know it? Imagine how many people innately qualified to spiritually navigate space & time but currently barred by fleshy ignorance might step into the ring of dreamers and perceivers if they had perfect confidence that their efforts were guaranteed results! Plus, those results might just give humanity a much-needed developmental nudge. It's not that unusual: when science took over medicine, healing moved from a mystical art to a mundane expectation in a matter of generations; once it was accepted as real, mechanical flight went from impossible to a world-shrinking fact of life in less than a century ' and nobody was surprised!

Of course, your reticence may be well founded. Maybe this stuff, per Mr. Matt, isn't something that should be clearly defined and simply packaged for public consumption. Imagine, for instance, if someone were to prove without question that an afterlife exists, and it is way better than this one regardless of how we behaved while breathing. The plague of suicides alone might decimate the human race even before the anarchy kicks in.

I'm rambling, sorry. It's just not often (like, never) that I encounter an accomplished dreamer who is also a scientist who also has vision who also can communicate and who also respects the horizons she is crossing. So, I had to ask.

Never mind. I'll go back to doing it, now. ;)

Peter

Wow, Peter, I'm going to bask in the warm glow of that description for at least a week!

I share your hope that science will continue to get a handle on these things (though I wouldn't include the complete divorce of medicine from mysticism as a shining example of what could result!).

I'm such a beginner; like the 13th century dude I quoted above, I'm continually dazzled to find that practice brings such surprising results. My impression is that any of the world's ten thousand types of meditation, including our oneironautical "dream yoga,' can have the effect of loosening our habitual patterns of thought and letting other types of mental experience come through.

Besides lucid dreaming, my current steady practice comes straight from Western science: Dr. Valerie Hunt, research physiologist at UCLA, electronically detected and recorded the subtle human electromagnetic energy field and correlated the read-outs with the observations of "aura readers" and the action of the energy centers that Eastern traditions describe as chakras. Based on her findings she developed the technique described in Mind Mastery Meditations to activate the chakras and encourage their energy flow. My long lucid dream from a couple days ago seems to affirm its value! Here's a slightly edited account:

I was visiting my sisters and thought, "I should go visit Dad ' he lives near here ' I wonder why we don't go see him more often? Why has it been so long? Oh, yeah ' darn ' he's dead!' I was really disappointed. I thought, "Why did I forget that he was dead? Oh, I must have been dreaming!' Now I was disappointed that I'd missed a cue. But with a little more thought I figured out that I was still dreaming!

I decided to tell CJ that I was dreaming, and see how she responded. She and the kids were running off somewhere; I ran after them, into a crowded, noisy party scene in something like a big coffee house with loud music" [omitting parts including the guy I mentioned, with the broken arm]'.

I dashed downstairs and found myself chasing exuberantly after the kids, playing run-and-hide. I ran past N who was sitting up high ' like on top of a filing cabinet ' with a Tibetan lama. This is not odd: N does have Tibetan lama friends in waking life, and he introduced me to this one, who smiled and said, "I see you're practicing Biya Yoga: the yoga of excitement!'

I smiled and charged off after my nieces and nephew. They dashed into a little side room, where another lama was among the party-goers. By then I had thought to ask a lama's recommendation: what should I be doing in a dream? This lama looked less approachable. I ran back to the first. I stood on tiptoes to see him ' N had left and now there was just the lama's disembodied head sitting there up high.

Somewhat disconcerted I said, "Um ' sir'' What's the correct respectful form of address? I thought hard and tried, "Rinpoche" could you recommend to me what I should be doing in a dream?' He seemed to be dematerializing from bottom to top; by now only the top half of his head was left, and he gave me a sad look, rolling his eyes as if I ought to know better. Meanwhile I was thinking, "Probably I ought to do some kind of meditation practice,' but as I began my familiar method of drawing energy through various chakras beginning with my feet, I felt myself waking as I focused inward and the energy moved upward. I focused outward again as I thought, "Most likely anything is dream yoga if I do it knowingly within a dream!'

The scene had vanished but I moved about within it as I had been before, willing it to return, and it did. I danced and played and almost literally bounced off the walls. Seeing N again, I asked him, "What kind of yoga did the lama say?' and he said, "Biya yoga. Ask me about it if you remember when you wake up, and I'll tell you what I know.' I found pen and paper on a table and wrote "baya yoga,' and thought, "There ' now I've "really" written it down ' ha!' ' smiling with the knowledge that it wouldn't exist on paper when I woke. I wondered if I should wake right away to be sure to remember, but stayed with the dream a bit longer and went back to dancing and charging around'.

Unfortunately N didn't know anything about it, but a web search turned up a description in Spanish of various aspects of yoga including meditation on "BIYA MANTRA (la raíz energética activadora de la fuerza que reposa en cada chakra)' which translates something like "BIYA MANTRA (the energy root activator of the force that rests in each chakra).' This sounds like the kind of meditation I do ' via Dr. Hunt's Western science. Cool!

Anyone know more about the term "biya'?

And what do you call this kind of experience? Neither telepathic nor precognitive....

Hi there Joy, what a coincidence that you should bring this up. The other day I was searching all over the Internet to find some proof of the luminous cocoon, or aura around the body. I believed that I had read a book that stated that this field has been measured and verified by scientific instrumentation. I think it was mentioned in "The Holographic Universe'. The web sites I found that had anything to do with human electromagnetic energy fields seemed to be based in a wide range of belief systems. But I wasn't sure if the phenomenon was true. I was unable to find proof that there is indeed such a field and that it can even be measured. Has Dr. Valerie Hunt proven this? If so this is a major sock in the jaw to people who don't believe there is an aura of energy surrounding all things. Though they would probably shrug it off as heat emissions or something.

If we can make instruments that perceives this energy, then surely it is within the parameters of our perceptions. I'd be very interested to know what that energy field is doing when one is having an out of body experience or lucid dream. If those energy centers are highly active during dreaming aware it would seem to prove that this was an energetic process occurring outside the body, but projected from within. The energy is picked up as emitting from the body, correct? The energy centers would then, once activated, emit larger, more readable quantities by said instrumentation?

Very interesting, If so, that book is a must read.

Dream well.

Hi, Ryan! I share your interest in what the energy field is doing during dreams, and how it may differ for different kinds of dream experience.

Mind Mastery Meditations is Dr. Hunt's practical companion book to Infinite Mind. The latter reports her work and findings in enough detail to be absolutely fascinating and leave you wanting more! Unfortunately there's no mention of dreams - nor have I found any yet in the work of people who observe auras directly, e.g. Barbara Brennan.

Dr. Hunt's instruments (which used NASA technology developed for telemetry monitoring of astronauts' physiological processes) would be placed on the surface of the subject's body but the aura was not assumed to emit from the body. In fact, larger, more readable quantities of energy were consistently detected by the instruments (and by the human aura readers) before there was any perceptual or physiological response in the subject. Dr. Hunt takes this as affirming that the body's processes are a product of the mind, not vice versa. To her, the mind is the energy field (one aspect of which is detectable by her instrumentation) and is in contact with (and observably reacts to) the energy field of everything and everyone else - hence "infinite mind."

It's a little frustrating but also interesting that the first few chapers of her book are devoted to her scientific work and the rest is devoted to metaphysical conjecture. In the course of her research, she expanded her own abilities to detect and work with the energy field directly and she retired early from UCLA to devote herself to that.

Science will never be able to keep up with personal experience... but for the reasons Peter gives, ought to keep trying!

Do a search on "Valerie Hunt" and you'll get her website, where you can order her books (Amazon has them too) and send questions to her. She wrote back right away with one question I asked her (how her visualization techniques might be adapted for blind people), and hasn't responded yet to another (about energy surges felt during meditation). My next question would be yours, Ryan! Give it a try and if she replies, will you forward it to me and post it here?

Joy

I checked out the web site and sent her an email, no response as of yet. I will let you know if she responds.

I read Barbara Brennan's book "Hands of Light" and found it quite fascinating. It pissed me off at the end though; she had no real methods for effecting the energy, unless you paid a substantial sum of 5,000 dollars to attend one of her seminars. Ouch! That didn't take away from the book though, which I found pretty amazing.

Dream well.

I had a different response to "Hands of Light." I found it to be full of how-to instructions, but my impression was that one has to start at the beginning and practice, practice, practice - do all 37 exercises listed on page xiii - for the spiritual healing techniques in the later chapters to become accessible.

I just read it this summer. On 13 June I began reading Chapter 7: "The easiest way to start to sense the HEF [Human Energy Field] is through the following exercises. If you are in a group of people, make a circle and hold hands. Allow the energy of your auric field to flow around the circle. Sense this pulsating flow for a while. Which way is it going? See which way your neighbor feels it going. Do they correlate? ... Now do the same with a partner. Sit opposite each other touching palms together. Let the energy flow naturally. Which way does it go?" It goes on with several solo exercises and adds, "For the answers to the above questions, refer to the end of the chapter."

This was one of the rare occasions when I regretted living way out in the desert. Where was I going to find a partner for these exercises, let alone a whole circle of people? Then I ran to my dream notebook and re-read that morning's lucid dream! I'll quote it to you, starting with what I wrote at the top of the page before going to sleep:

12/13 June. Last page! Guidance; lucidity!

I'd been dreaming about sitting in a circle of chairs in the foyer of a public building with others, waiting our turn for something; removing empty chairs and closing the circle, we joined in trying to remember childhood circle-games... Aware that it was a dream and keeping in mind to write it down, I went on to another scene.... I thought, need to remember this one too before I go on to another scene. It was twilight and I thought soon it would be dark and then I'd be really dreaming. Then I remembered, hey, I'm dreaming now! What fun! I admired how vivid and clear everything was, and how people were seemingly acting of their own accord. I got out this notebook with intent to write it all down and then thought, nah, remember it; I should be flying or something!

I took off..., flew up a bit with swimming strokes, immediately thought after two strokes that I could be jetting at will - "anything I want" - and jetted briefly before realizing I really wanted to interact with people, and came down, joining [both] hands with one after another, happy strangers who shared my joy at being lucid. I joined into a standing circle of people just as all were joining hands - some with hands crossed over - and a blond woman said to a child in a reminding tone, "Spiritual?" and the child remembered to cross hands too, and all began to sing a happy religious song - but I added the element of dancing the circle around as we sang! I took for granted that we'd be dancing around and saw the others were surprised but pleased, joining in. Soon everything began to sort of break apart into visible particles, the scene dissolving, and I let it and woke to write!

That's all straight from my notebook, including the smiley-face. After writing that I'd thought, the direction we danced around seemed important; so I went back and wrote it in, squeezing it between lines.

With high excitement I flipped to the end of the chapter and yes, the "answer" - the way the energy "almost always moves" - is the direction in which my dream circle danced. I won't tell you which way in case you get to try it - and if you do, will you try it with crossed and uncrossed hands and tell me if that changes anything? Barbara Brennan didn't write about that. And by the way, the blond woman looked like her.

The "guidance" I took from this was affirmation of the value of this book. An odd review: My dreams recommend it. Good dreams to you!

Joy

To be honest I can't remember the details of the book, just the cost of her seminars. I must have been angered by the cost, and disregarded the book. At the time I really wanted to meet someone and attend such a seminar. Perhaps I should re-think that and give it another read.

Hi, psiberdreamers!

Joy, thank you for sharing that extraordinary example of lucid psi.

Although its late, I have to share this experience, a rather ordinary case of non lucid psi:

A dream I did write down this morning:

I am to donate my brother Nils something, I don't know what for. Maybe his birthday? I decide to take away all the great things and now only a shampoo is left. I feel that embarrassing and talk about it with Astrid. Then I pass it to him and he takes it without a word, as if it is the most common thing.

What happened in waking physical life:

I talked about that dream with Astrid in the morning. She recommended to take an additional bottle of shampoo with me. I have my first table tennis match today in the evening, after a pause since end of August due to my fractures. In a team with my brother Nils. First thing I ask him, before the match: Do you have your shampoo with you? He says: Maybe not. I reply: But I've got an extra bottle for you. After the match I ask him one more time. He looks and says: I've got no shampoo. I give him the bottle and he takes it without saying a word, as if it is the most common thing.

Comment: OK, I knew, that we were going to meet and have a shower after the match. And my brother, like everybody, maybe once in a year forgets his shampoo. I can't remember, that I ever dreamt of giving him shampoo. I can't remember dreaming of giving him anything at all. If I ( resp. Astrid) hadn't expected possible psi part of that dream, I wouldn't have been active. Wouldn't have asked, maybe wouldn't even have noticed the synchronicity of events. But what about my brother? I didn't go deeper into that with him. He seemingly didn't notice anything strange. How many times then did I miss the cues for strange things, for psi? How deeply goes the role expectation plays for perception? I think we are blind sleepers, most of the time.

Sleepy now (and then)

Yours Ralf

P.S.

Of course it feels fine to intermesh dream and day in this way, was worth not only one RC. It's a kind of magic...

P.P.S.

odd rewiew: My Astrid was "recommended" to me by a dream charater, some time before I thought of being with her. In fact I was in love with another woman at that time.

So dreams played a role in our love from the beginning.

Es liegt auf der Hand, a more agreeable slippery substance than the one I had passed hand to hand. Beautiful, Ralf! I applaud you and Astrid, both hands clapping.

Ryan.... why must they all be so high-priced? As much as I respect Valerie Hunt, she pissed me off by writing that a person must attain a considerable degree of material success before being spiritually ready to benefit from her services. Another round of applause for those of us bold and persistent enough to explore on our own. You, Ryan, are as talented as Barbara Brennan was at the start of her explorations. I'll be interested to know if her book serves you well.

Joy

I don't know why I was thinking about the following, but I was, so I thought I'd share (maybe it has come up on this thread before?):

So let's say it's all true, and we can lucidly flit from soul to soul while in dreams, visiting whoever we'd like, and experiencing a higher level of human communion than is consciously believed possible. That given, how do we know with whom we're communing?

Since perception in dreams is by definition done without physical sight, then what we "see" is basically what we expect to see. And, by extension, the way we see ourselves may have more to do with our particular self-images than with reality.

In other words, in dreams we may look very different than we do in reality (I'm guessing there are a lot of 20-year-old dream avatars with full heads of hair and fit bodies, along with an equal number of aged homely representations, reflecting the negative extremes of self-image. Plus, how many of us, especially men, cling to assumptions about their appearance based on their prime years?). And, since whatever we are believing is what we're projecting, others are going to see what we expect them to see.

So, while wandering the ethereal byways we might just stroll by friends and family without ever noticing them because we are all projecting images of ourselves that might not have anything to do with how we really look.

Perhaps we should all include name tags when exploring'

Peter

As so often I agree in your line of thoughts ( especially for the name tag ;) ). We had that subject of how to identify persons in (lucid) dreams in ASD conference, but I won't discuss it here, unless Keelin or Stephen would recommend doing so.

What interests me is what happened during November DreamCamp in regard to Psi dreaming?

Ralf

Ralf:

Of course, if we were already on top of our LD'ing skills we would already know ;). I Guess we'll have to wait for more mundane reports from the folks that attended.

Ralf, that was a good "hit" when you took 3rd in the precognitive dreaming contest (posted elsewhere). I applaud you! Will you post your dream and the link to the target picture again here?

Joy

Joy, thanks for enforcing applause!

And here is the double - post:

In September / October I took part in the online "PsiberDreaming" conference of the Association for the Study of Dreams (ASD)

http://www.asdreams.org/psi2002/index.htm

Part of this conference was a contest in precognitive dreaming. We were to dream a target picture, which was to be chosen in the future. One of my six (non lucid) dreams I posted to the jury before the target picture was being selected:

It is like an advertisement on TV. A young man (looks cartoon like, hideous) with a very broad grin has moved to San Francisco. There is a young woman (same style), she has a piece of lump sugar between her front teeth. She phones him. He speaks without opening his moth, but I can see the line of his teeth. Seems he wants to escape her by moving, but she follows him using her nose. There are some plugs in her nostrils, seemingly meant to amplify here sense of smelling. Looks even more hideous. I see her walking with her head bent back, snuffling the way to him.

And this is a link to the target picture: http://www.cartoonbank.com/cover_closeup.asp?pf_id=48114&dept_id=1002&mscssid=H5FAJ2KRVMJS8NPS12V9C64FKLFQ3QM2&cartoon=2142&s_keywords=&findby=popular&s_artist=&s_id=&s_imageType=&color=&s_fromdate=&s_todate=&NewYorkerOnly=&s_topic=

The consonances of my dream with the target picture were assessed place 3 of I guess (don't know) more than 50 participants.

Peter

Perhaps we should post an "invitation" to the Kalani Nov 02 thread?

Dear Ralf, Peter, and Joy,

As it turns out, no interest was expressed by our November retreat participants to do any Psi dreaming experiments, so we didn't set one up this time. Next time? ;)