Synchronized Fluctuations of the Dreamtime World, Part 2
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on dreams! They were interesting, and not at all surprising. Birds of a feather and all that. I have, on several occasions, had the same dream--or remarkably similar--as someone else. It almost always happens on the same night. I only know this, because I'm one of those annoying people who is all the time telling others about dreams.
One at least two occasions, the events in synchronized dreams did take place later on. I don't generally buy into the idea of premonition dreams, but I do like the idea theantichrist suggested, about doing practice runs of stuff that could potentially happen. However, even the most generous concept of commonality of experience doesn't really explain why two (or more) people should have the same thought-experiment in the same night.
My best example of this relates to when I was in high school, and my brother was doing an exchange year in Finland. We had the same dream, on the same night, which related to him coming back to the US early and having to finish out the school year there instead of in Finland. At the time, neither of us had any reason to think he'd come back early (which he did), and we didn't know we'd both had the same dream until almost a week later (when we talked).
I can readily acknowledge that he and I both were able to work out a plausible vector of his stay in Finland that would end that way, and our subconscious minds both reached the same conclusion at the same time. Although, given the distance and how rarely we talked, it seems like we'd have had different information to work with. It also seems a little too easy that we'd both get there at the same time.
I cannot readily acknowledge this as some kind of psychic link, or spiritual event. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that spirituality is one of my least-active personality regions.)
It also seems totally plausible that (as smjayman said) there are a lot of things about how our minds work that we don't currently and might never know. It seems pretty clear that if you believe the model of mind that claims a subconscious mind, then dreams must be one expression of what the subconscious is/is for.
I do wonder if a person's attitude toward dreams is a direct metric of their attitude toward their own subconscious mind? If you think it's an analytical/assimilation processor, is that what you think your subconscious is for? If you think dreams are spiritual signifiers, are you giving your sub-conscious a lot more credit than the folks who are on the analytical side of the fence? Do people who reject dreams outright--refuse to remember, think about, listen to, admit to--distrustful of the subconscious mind, or simply unable to integrate it with the waking mind at all? If I were that way, I'd never get anything done. My subconscious does a HUGE amount of my thinking. My waking mind is something of a slacker in that regard.
One at least two occasions, the events in synchronized dreams did take place later on. I don't generally buy into the idea of premonition dreams, but I do like the idea theantichrist suggested, about doing practice runs of stuff that could potentially happen. However, even the most generous concept of commonality of experience doesn't really explain why two (or more) people should have the same thought-experiment in the same night.
My best example of this relates to when I was in high school, and my brother was doing an exchange year in Finland. We had the same dream, on the same night, which related to him coming back to the US early and having to finish out the school year there instead of in Finland. At the time, neither of us had any reason to think he'd come back early (which he did), and we didn't know we'd both had the same dream until almost a week later (when we talked).
I can readily acknowledge that he and I both were able to work out a plausible vector of his stay in Finland that would end that way, and our subconscious minds both reached the same conclusion at the same time. Although, given the distance and how rarely we talked, it seems like we'd have had different information to work with. It also seems a little too easy that we'd both get there at the same time.
I cannot readily acknowledge this as some kind of psychic link, or spiritual event. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that spirituality is one of my least-active personality regions.)
It also seems totally plausible that (as smjayman said) there are a lot of things about how our minds work that we don't currently and might never know. It seems pretty clear that if you believe the model of mind that claims a subconscious mind, then dreams must be one expression of what the subconscious is/is for.
I do wonder if a person's attitude toward dreams is a direct metric of their attitude toward their own subconscious mind? If you think it's an analytical/assimilation processor, is that what you think your subconscious is for? If you think dreams are spiritual signifiers, are you giving your sub-conscious a lot more credit than the folks who are on the analytical side of the fence? Do people who reject dreams outright--refuse to remember, think about, listen to, admit to--distrustful of the subconscious mind, or simply unable to integrate it with the waking mind at all? If I were that way, I'd never get anything done. My subconscious does a HUGE amount of my thinking. My waking mind is something of a slacker in that regard.