10 ways to improve your dream recall

1. Take some vitamin C , magnesium and B before sleeping.
This helps your body to build tryptophan, an essential amino acid. It has to be part of our diet. It helps your body to make serotonin, that not only reduces aggression but can be transformed into melatonin. In this process of making tryptophan magnesium and vitamin B and C are needed. Please do not only take vitamin B6, as is often recommended because the B vitamins really need each other.

2. During the day, several times make a resolution that you are going to remember your dreams. “Tonight I will remember my dreams and I will know what they mean”. For me this little trick has proven to be a success many times.

3. Set your alarm clock 5 minutes early. You can now take the time to lay in bed and ask: “What was I doing” and try to walk your way back into your dreams. This happens to me nearly every morning, for me it is a very successful way.

4. Lie in bed in the same position as you awoke and make an effort to remember your dream. If there is no memory, ask yourself how you feel. Dreams are about emotions, and your emotions can lead you back into your dream.

5. If there is no memory you might want to take another position in your bed and see if this brings bak a memory.

6. Take a shower in the morning and make your mind as blank as possible. While relaxing, often ideas and dream memories surface.

7. Write up a story as if it where a dream. Write a story in the morning (or use an app as Dragon: it writes down what you speak) and treat it as if it was a dream you had that night. This way you are creating a habit that will probably increase your dream memories. We are creatures of habit.

8. Join a group of dreamers, online or offline. The IASD is a very good organization where you can find a lot of dreamers, (some professional) and join a real life group or an internet group. Dreaming together will increase your dream recall.

9. Read a lot of dream books. What you are doing all day will linger in your mind at night. I have written two nice books about dream as well. One about dreaming and health.
This book tells about a thirty year study of a Russian psychiatrist Vasily Kasatkin about the relation between health and dreams.

I also wrote a book about dreaming about our deceased. In this book I look at our dream stories using them as a guide map to uncover the “journey” our deceased make after their death, according to our dreams.

10. Make a dream journal. You can by a nice book to write in, or download an app like Evernote that enables you to add photo’s and drawings when you are using an Android phone or tabloid. I usually write text on the right side of the book, and use the left side to make notes and to write what I did the evening before I had the dream.

War horse: the balancing of energies

!! SPOILER ALERT: in this article the plot of War Horse is revealed !!

I recently visited the musical War Horse. It is a puppeteer show featuring a horse Joey and Albert, a young boy who takes care of him. If you look at the story from a mythological perspective you can easily see that it is a story about growing up. A story about balancing your energies: the wild ones: sex, passion and learning to ride the wave of emotions.

In the first part of the story there is the archetypical theme of the hostile brothers: the ego and the self. Two brothers who do not like each other are betting against each other at an action for a horse. A beautiful horse but not fit for the farm the winning brother lives and works in. He pays more then he can afford.

Sometimes your wild about something or someone, but looking back you can honestly say it has cost you more then you where able to pay up. Using money, effort or energy. So you have to call out for help from your anima, your inner female and your inner child. The wife goes to lend some money and the child, Albert, offers his affection and learns to control his energies by making the horse listen to a certain kind of whistle. So this seems to display as a modern Grail search: Arthur looking for the Grail, that in this story has taken the form of a magnificent horse that has the ability to enchant everyone.

The stage has set for the story to unfold. A story about growing up and letting go, about finding out how much you got once you loose it. The father (the ego) sells the horse to the officer who takes it to war.
War seems to be innate in human nature, the collective shadow we all must recognize. Albert enlists and is displayed as the fool: when he reveals he is looking for his horse he becomes the joke of the regiment. But the foolish trust, the childlike attitude of Albert tends him in his search. At the end of the war Joey is in German hands. Joey is taken care of by Emily, but she does not have enough backbone to be able to ride the horse: when she tries the horse is captured by the Germans: the shadow side.

In every life when coming to grip with sexual energies you need to be able to ride and have the backbone to do it. To have the guts to fall in love, the guts to say no when you are not in love. All this is accurately symbolized. The boy needs to awaken his inner female side before he is ready to incorporate the animal energies that are symbolized by the horse.

But that is not enough, another lesson awaits…

In a gas attack Albert has been blinded. It is important to learn not to simply choose a partner for the way he/she looks. Loosing your vision means you have to relay on “your inner eyes”. your third eye, your intuition. The goose flesh you get when you recognize the person that triggers you so much that you seem to have the ability to read his/her mind without words. The beauty you see, with our realizing that it is in the eye of the beholder.

At last Albert is able to come home with his horse and shake hands with his father, now that he is grown up

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The Matrix and the Goddess

Oracle: “Do you know what that means?” (points at banner with Temet Nosce on it). It means know thyself. I want to tell you a little secret, being the one is just like being in love…”

In 1999 the Wachowskis, two siblings, directed The Matrix. It is a story about a Hacker named Thomas Anderson. Thomas is the name of the disciple that did not believe Christ was resurrected. Doubting Thomas is an expression that is still being used when someone refuses to believes the miracle that happens. In the Gnostic Gospels Thomas knows Jesus and says he will believe it when he sees it. And it hits the most important nerve in the spine of the story: it explores the tension between ratio and magic. The Goddess holds the key to the solution. Thomas has a second identity: Neo (new, a computer hacker). Neo is an anagram for the one, the person we become when we have accepted our shadow.

The Goddess in the trilogy that consist out of The Matrix (1999), Matrix reloaded (2003) and Matrix Revolutions (2003), has three faces. The fertile young sexy feisty Trinity, the black Penelope queen of the underworld and the all knowing Oracle.

The first scene of the film opens with the Goddess. Trinity’s voice talking to Cypher. Numbers run across the screen so we, the viewers are in on the secret: we live in a computer simulated reality.

Trinity is facing the wall, behind her laptop. A very accurate description of the society we live in. Computers being machines based to calculate, the Goddess can operate them but she is at the same time inviting Neo “To follow the white rabbit”. The rabbit, in many cultures is associated with the moon. The pours the elixir of life for Chang’e the Chinese moon Goddess. In the poetry of Chu Chi, the rabbit on the moon pounds herbs for the immortals. And the legend was told in a conversation between Houston and Apollo 11 before the first moon landing. Houston said: “Among the headlines concerning Apollo this morning is one asking you to watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful girl called Chang-O was banished to the moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree”. (source Wikipedia). And indeed Trinity invites Neo to look at the moon: they fall madly in love. When Neo and Trinity first meet she nails down that uneasy feeling we all recognize: what is reality?

The name Trinity refers to the triple Goddess: the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. We see Trinity as first lady in the film, and she plays the part of the Maiden. Persephone in the film, who is jealous of the love between Trinity and Neo, demands a kiss from Neo to help him free the key maker. The key maker in the movie can open doors to new computer realities.

So the mother – daughter roles are reversed. In Greek mythology Persephone always was the daughter, now she acts like the Mother Goddess, demanding love as the way out of a reality that is not fulfilling your needs.

The Crone in the movie is the Oracle: the old housewife, making cookies with a clairvoyant ability: “do not worry about the vase” she tells Neo before he accidentally throws down a vase that breaks. The vase holds water: a symbol for spirituality. The fact that it breaks is a referral to the death of Trinity in the third part of the trilogy. Once Trinity is dead it starts to rain. The water, the rain

As the dark twin brother of Neo, agent Smith says: “Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure”. Now that is a very eloquent description on the shadow we human beings bare today. Every human being that is aware of its environment knows that we created our own paradise, but in ways that undermine our earth, our health and our mental well being. There is one thing that speaks for us as a species: our ability to dream.

What is the difference between a nightmare and a dream that is related to illness?

In 1967, after Vasily Kasatkin finished his ambitious project to write “A theory about dreams” he was able to make some valid scientific conclusions that noth have been challenged yet, almost 50 years later. One of the most intruiging things Vasily talks about in this fascinating book is how to tell the difference between a nightmare and a dream that is about an illness going on in the body.

First of all, Kasatkin wants us to know that a dream is the way for the unconsciousness to tell the conscious mind about latent energy shifts. So dreams are the easiest way to scan the general health satus of the body. When disease occurs, sleep tends to get disrupted. People wake up more and are more likely to remember dreams (that is a very strong evolutionary guiding point towards the valude of dreaming). Dreams that have to do with health tend to be bad in character/content.  They repeat themselves, whereas a bad dream or a nightmare does not. dreams about health have another tendency. They are not symbolic.
Of course there are symbols in dreams about health, but the place/organ that is attacked because of the disease is clearly identified.

Prodromal dreams, dreams that predict futur events about the physical well being of a person are quite common. Most of the prodromal dreams, about fourty percent of the sample, were one or two nights before the disease actually manifested itself in the body. But… Kasatkin does have a lot more to say about the ability dreaming has to predict future treats of the body. You can order this book in the link given below: http://www.lulu.com/shop/v-kasatkin/a-theory-of-dreams/hardcover/product-21646976.html

Vasily Kasatkin, a Theory of Dreams

 

In 1967 a book was published in Russia with the ambitious title “A Theory of Dreams”. Vasily Kasatkin, psychiatrist in several hospitas and MD of a multitude of patients: from patients with brain tumors to patients with a broken leg, Kasatkin asked them to record their dreams. This way he was able to establish a database containing over 10.000 dreams.
In his book he analysis those dreams trying to establish patterns between dream-scenes and illnesses:

” ..a young man was in someone else’s apartment and suddenly heard someone knocking at the door, The man got scared. He went to open the door, the dreaded man entered and hit the dreamer on the head with an axe. The axe broke… The dreamer ran after the man, supporting his head with his bleeding hands ».

In fear the dreamer woke up — with a very bad headache in the place in which he was shot and a nagging feeling in the feet and hands.
This book has many examples like this. Each time we are struck with how accurate dreams can indicate our physical health and the organ in need of healing. 
Kasatkin has, in this classic, been able to draw conclusions relevant for all of us who want to deepen our understanding of the relationship between physical health and dreaming. In his discussion of prodromal dreams Kasatkin states that because the line between consciousness and unconsciousness is easy to trespass in dreams, latent diseases usually manifest first in dreams.

We all have experienced prodromal dreams about diseases we would have -or our children. In a research of my own I found that a lot of parents can accurately “foresee” illnesses and accidents that will happen to their children sometimes years before they manifest in this waking reality. 

I have been translating Kasatkin’s classic from Russian to English with help of friends, my medical knowledge and a lot of lot and synchronicities. I had to make a desision due to time and money constraints to translate just a part of it but the most vital part. The sample, the method and the way dreams seem to change during the course of a disease. If you would like to read/purchase this classic book you can do so here. 

On Saterday June 6th I will discuss this book in a panel of experts, including Patricia Garfield, author of Creative Dreaming, at Golden Gateway to dreams, of the International Association of the Study of Dreams in Berkeley. Feel free to drop by and visit. For more information you can click here.

 

 

 

Alchemy: the spiritual marriage

Sacred marriage

I am guarding a couple that wants to be married. We are on the road, on our bikes, me and some friends. I know L. from highschool, he is my male-companion in making sure the couple can get to their ceremony on time. L. was a man when the rest in high school were boys. I know with him as a guardian-companion we can make this work, we will get the couple to the altar on time. We stop at a crossing and hold up our hands to stop the other traffic to have a save passage.

I am looking at the carriage were the couple is in and the bride, a girl with brown churlish hair is preparing her wedding bouquet. She arranges black and red tulips and is lacing a red band onto the bouquet, carefully lacing it.

I look at her with a feeling of love and guidance in my heart and I wake up knowing we are going to make it happen.

Sacred marriage dreams:

Have been in my dreaming mind for about 2 years, ever since I turned into my midlife (first one at about 45).

In the first one I was the bride myself and I was waiting for my mother to come out of her house. She was not, she was in the car with my husband, driving backwards

towards the street, out from the car port. I felt this dream was precognitive for the death of my mother, 2 years later. Now I see how this dream was an indication to

release the female pattern, the female energy of my mother: being very introvert and insecure; a form of energy

I embraced during many years. Her death was tragic but also a release towards growing more into my original self.

The black tulip is the present I gave Robert Moss when I was organizing a dream workshop for him. I saw these black tulips, very Dutch, and they were called „Queen of the night” I knew this was the perfect gift for him. The combination of black and red is a favorite one of mine. I like to dress in black and red. they are strong colors (though black is not really a color but a combination), Red is passion, spirit, blood, life. One layer of the dream could involve a health issue. Like Jeremy Taylor says: every dream is about health. The red ribbon the bride is handling could resemble the blood vessels. Being a Type 1 diabetic since age 11 I am aware of the vulnerability this disease

causes to my veins. Lucky I do not have severe complications yet. You can find a link here to an interview with Anne Baring, writer of Dream of the Cosmos on the sacred marriage.
My dream is also posted on the Daily dreamer from Carla Young. In this inspiring blog she looks at a dream using a Jungian perspective.

Dream helper ceremony, a practical form of mutual dreaming

Bob van de Castle, author of “Our Dreaming Mind” and Henry Reed designed something they called “The dream helper ceremony“. It is a form of mutual dreaming, specified to resolve an issue by one of the dreamers. The dreamers all come together and meet each other. Each dreamer puts a question in a big hat. The person “leading” the ceremony picks one of the questions at random, a problem of person X participating in the ceremony. The question is not disclosed…
That night each dreamer goes home and tells himself: this night i am not going to dream dreams about me. This night I will dream about the problem of X.
The next morning all the dreamers tell their dreams and person X evaluates the usability of the dreams to decide upon a possible answer to the question.

Several weeks after Bob died on January 29 2014, we decided to do a dream helper ceremony in his honor. I am part of a group of dreamers that, on an online basis develpos their “psi” abilities in dreaming. We try to “see” a target in our dreams, to “guess’ a place based on coordinates, every month we have one or two challenges. There was a group of about seven dreamers, incuding Bob’s wife that participated.  Our question was: “How can I connect with you in a way that serves both of our souls”. Beacuse we could not meet in person we had two google hangout events to talk and ask questions, about Bob and about the ceremony. These were led by Bobbie Ann Pimm, his wife.

That night I dreamed: 

“Easter Ceremony

I am helping out, like a servant, with the dining party of a couple of men. Important men. I am in the kitchen, working and I walk over to bring the men something soft, like cotton tips, so nothing will break. I walk out again because I do not want to disturb. (This part brining in something white and soft gives me the associatiion of an eastern breakfast, a celebration of eternal life).
An old man comes walking in the kitchen and informs me the guests will go out in the town, but will be back later. So I take the white plates (they look like my own breakfast plates) and start to wash them up so they are ready to be used again. EOD.

I did not read about the suggestion of a second night until this morning, I have the feeling my dream reflects that. Eastern is the ancient celebration of the return of life so I think it a beautiful dream, I hope it will be a helpfull one, when we look at all the dreams gathered later on”.

The next day I found out that Bobbie had asked us to dream two nights instead of one, the dreamers had left and got into town like in my dream but were comming back again. After telling my dream to one of Bob’s sons he told me that Easter had been a very difficult time for his father because one of his brothers died during Easter time and had been burried on Easter Sunday.
So how did it help me to connect with Bob his soul? How did the beautiful dreams from others help us answer this question?

Grosso modo the dreams displayed softness, acceptance and cleaning. On the leg of one dreamer crawled a spider during her dream, weaving the web of dreams and down by her leg was a little kitten. A cat being the symbol of Diana, Goddess of the Crescent Moon, the Moon of new beginnings….

Something about the “nun stance” – a method of prayers done by a group of nuns where they lock arms in a specific / unusual way to create an interlocking pattern – seemed like 2 circle formations, 2 nuns facing each other / locking arms and then each of them with a nun at their sides interlocking arms with them, and so on around the circle as they prayed.
This appears to be about connecting in mutual dreams or dream circles. About people needing each other as parts of one whole….

Another important thing to note was that I dreamed about Bob holding a river in his hands. In my mutual dreaming experiment Bob dreamed about crossing the river Sphinx (three months before his death). It felt like a dream-message at the time. Water, the ultimate symbol of life….

So, connecting with Bob’s soul or the soul of anyone who is decaesed most be done in a relaxed quite way with a complete respect for the guidance of dreams. Thank you Maria Cernuto for this opportunity and thank you dreamers for sharing this experience with me

Precognitive dreams and health

 

Asklepios and Galen, two ancient docters were used to ask about dreams there patiens had and sometimes ask for (incubate) dreams themselves to help patients the bets they could. Thta habit is gone now. If you enter a docters’ office telling him yu have had a dream and you think it is about your physical health you will probably get a reluctant smile and will be out of his office in a couple of minutes.

In the ’60s Kasatkin, a Russian psychiatrist working in several neurological clinics in Russia published a book on dreams and health: A theory about dreams. Last couple of months I have invested in translating it. Today i want to share the part of it I think is the most important. Precognitive dreams and health. In a course of 20 year Kasatkin collected over 10 thousend dreams from patients with diverse illnesses, ranging from the ful to brain tumors in diverse regions of the brain. The dreams were self-monitored by the patients or collected by the doctors. For 130 dreams he collected the period it took for the disease to manifest:

You can clearly see, even though the number of patients that the dreams were gathereed from was small, there is a clear tendency: more “complicated” diseases like a brain tumor are detected in dreams a longer time before they are diagnosed then “simple” diseases like the flu. Could it be possible by careful investigation to accurately judge the onset of the disease using dreams?

I know about a lot of impresive stories on how dreams have saved lives by alerting people suffering from cancer. Wanda Burch, writer of “She who dreams” had a number of scary dreams about spiders that alerted her in hindsight of cancer. But it was a voice in a dream, the voice of her father explicitly telling her to go out and find a doctor that got her to the hospital, were she indeed was diagnosed.

So how can we, you and me, use our dreams as a precognitive warning sign? Feelings are an important clue. Fear, anxiety, recurrent nightmares, dreams were your own body is hurt all those signs should act as a warning sign. Not every bad dream is an indication of a health problem. But recurrent bad dreams should be a warning sign for everybody interested in dreams. Educate yourself when you get those dreams. There is so much good medical information online.

This summer I will be hosting a panel on the annual IASD (International Association of the Study of Dreams) Conference about dreams, together with Patricia Garfield, author of Creative Dreaming, Paul Overman will share about dreaming an health the shaman way and Sandy Ginsberg will talk about how using creativity is an ultimate healing act when facing a disease. The Conference will be in Berkeley in June, I hope to see you there to discuss this fascinating and interesting subject.

Mutual Dreaming and the Cosmic Connection Based on data gathered from Susanne van Doorn’s Psiber Dreaming Conference workshop

By  Maria Carla Cernuto Email: wickeddreamer@bellsouth.net

“We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more.”  Carl Jung

Susanne van Doorn contacted me to see if I wished to review astrology charts collected during her Mutual Dreaming experiment, and of course, I was interested. Some of the dreamers requested their names be changed to protect their identity; consequently, we thought it best to change all the participants’ names to pseudonyms. This would be the second time I have looked for psi connections between dreamers through synastry, an astrological technique of comparing 2 or more charts, and I have found similar aspects showing up between senders and receivers. The first time I looked at synastry in this way, a colleague and I, examined charts obtained from the Telepathy Dreaming experiment held during The International Association for the Study of Dreams’ (IASD) 2012 conference held in Berkeley; we looked for mutual dreaming with the telepathic sender, and those dreamers who hit the target image being transmitted by the telepath.

Astrology Basics

For those unfamiliar with astrology a natal chart is calculated using the following data obtained from one’s birth certificate: date, exact time, and location of nativity. If the time of birth is off by four minutes or the location is wrong the chart will be inaccurate and progressions concerning future events will be incorrect. For example, if a chart is erected with inaccurate birth time and the Ascendant (also called rising sign) was 29 degrees Leo 57 minutes, and later we found the birth time was by off 4 minutes; and we erect it with the corrected time and find the Ascendant has changed to 00 degrees Virgo 01 minute. Now the whole wheel has changed. All 12 house cusps have changed zodiacal signs, degrees and minutes; and many of the planetary aspects may have changed – as well as planets changing domiciles, and certainly any planetary aspects involving the Ascendant, Midheaven, or other cardinal points will have been altered.

Aspect is a word used to describe the distance between planets. The angle they form is the aspect. You could see it as the dynamic between two planets in a chart. Aspects between planets create either ease, and are considered gifts, or friction, which are built-in challenges to overcome. When looking for synastry aspects between 2 charts a planetary aspect (combination) may show up twice and at different angles. For example chart A has Moon trine chart B’s Neptune, and chart B has their Moon in square to chart A’s Neptune; thus they would have 2 Moon/Neptune synastry aspects between them (they could also have these planets forming an aspect within their own individual natal charts as well).

Moon-Venus – Feelings-Social Urges

With the Berkeley charts, we looked for Moon/Venus contact (aspects) thinking we would see this cosmic combination showing up frequently, as these planets show emotional and social affinity or lack thereof. When aspected positively (harmoniously) it shows up as a natural fondness between individuals; when aspected negatively (inharmoniously) it may express lack of affection between the people involved. We were surprised this planetary combination was not prominent whatsoever, however often these experiments are between strangers; consequently, personal affection would not necessarily be at the core as when performing synastry on lovers, family members, etc. I checked to see if this combination would show up in this experiment, and it only showed up one time in a positive aspect – a trine between Sophie’s Moon and Nicholas’ Venus; the rest either had no aspect (mostly) or hard / challenging aspects (4 times). This validates both Robert Waggoner and Ed Kellogg’s assertion that a rapport of love is unnecessary for psi connections; I had always assumed the same viewpoint, but astrology confirmed this theory. Love makes for a wonderful addition to any endeavor, but is not a requirement for successful psi communion as many of the Psiber Dreaming Conferences (PDC) have demonstrated as strangers come together and are able to dream together.

I thought this was significant in light of Deirdre’s dream report of Nicholas “wanted, dead or alive.” Deirdre’s Aries Moon (Aries is a warrior god, self-assertive, etc.; and the Moon is our emotional reactions, domestic urges, subconscious, receptivity, etc.) and Nicholas’ Venus in Libra (Venus is our social urges and our capacity for love; Libra rules justice, the arts and partnership) form an opposition; oppositions create conflict between the heavenly bodies involved (they also allow us to put ourselves in another’s shoes). Looking at Sophie’s dream report, in light of she and Nicholas’s harmonious Moon/Venus, seems indicative of this positive aspect as she wrote she felt she was being too aggressive while sending her dream-gift to Nicholas. “I hear a command from me to myself: Be gentle! I am also thinking in the dream that this is related to the feeling of love and thought I projected onto Nicholas, ‘I want to do you all the good I possibly can’.”

Moon-Pluto – Feelings-Regeneration

I found 9 aspects between the Moon and Pluto (these aspects showed up to a lesser degree in the Berkeley Telepathy Dreaming experiment), with only 2 being conjunctions, which are considered neutral aspects (they depend on the planetary combination, zodiacal signs, and house placements involved). I am pointing them out because the 2 Moon / Pluto conjunction aspects involved 2 people that had aggressive type dreams and both mention Nicholas; Deirdre and Sophie have Pluto in Leo conjunct Nicholas’ Moon in Leo (The Lion is known for his/her courageous and ardent nature, and also for being the sign of dictators, directors and actors).  Though Sophie showed a sense of affection for Nicholas with regard to the aggression as indicative of the harmonious Moon/Venus they share. Again the Moon is our emotional reactions, domestic urges, subconscious, soul, etc; and Pluto represents power, transformation, death, hidden things, the unconscious, etc. These two heavenly bodies coming together allow one to plumb the depths of the psyche and unseen realms.

I already quoted Sophie’s dreams in the last paragraph; Deirdre writes: “I find a wanted poster for Nicholas, in black and white. I paint the outlines of a crude jester’s cap on him, and then paint Maori patterns on his face, in thick daubs of fluorescent poster paint. He looks really angry. I wonder if I’ve gone a bit too far.” Incidentally, Maori face painting as depicted in the film Once They Were Warriors, often accompanied a dance with tongues protruding as an act of intimidation and aggression. This further seemed a representation of an Aries Moon individual plus the 2 intense aspects Deirdre and Nicholas share.

Nicholas, being the Moon (receptive) individual, dreamed of having a dispute with a former classmate over a female they both liked and decided to settle the dispute with a fight. He wrote, “no official winner was declared, but clearly I took a real beating and he was pretty much unscathed.” He was clearly in lunar receptive mode to the energies of the other dreamers with whom he shares a cosmic interplay.

Isabella took her broken pig nose dream to represent Nicholas’ surgical procedure when he had cancer, and she too, shares a Moon / Pluto connection with him. They share a sextile from her Moon to his Pluto, a much softer, harmonious aspect involving the elements of Earth and Water (an exalted Taurus Moon and Pluto in, ironically, Cancer) in contrast to those fiery Leo conjunctions. Isabella wrote: “I’m drawn to a cute stuffed pig. As I retrieve it, it morphs into a mobile, one that usually hangs over a baby’s crib. I see a place over the armoire, in front of a window. It will be beautiful in the light here. I hang it here and admire its beauty. The nose has been broken off. I had not even noticed. There is a separate smiley-face button that I attach. It is placed perfectly and looks cute. I’m smiling.” Cancer is the mother, which is reflected in the baby’s mobile and her mothering attitude in the dream.

Mercury-Neptune – Rational Mind-Dreaming Mind

During the Berkeley review of charts between sender and receiver Mercury/Neptune aspects showed up the most and this aspect showed up several times with the Mutual Dreaming charts as well, 13 times among the 15 pairs of charts I delineated. Mercury rules communication, both spoken and written, but Mercury as a deity was known for being the only god that could travel between the realms of the living and the dead (i.e. between the worlds); furthermore Mercury rules all forms of travel, including astral travel, which many skilled dreamers consciously do by projecting their dream bodies from their physical bodies. Neptune is the planet associated with dreams / dreamers, psychic abilities, trance, mysticism, impressionability, etc.  Mercury/Neptune aspects indicate a natural psychic ability in an individual’s natal chart; when they appear between 2 charts, i.e. synastry, this planetary exchange creates a flow of psychic rapport between the 2 individuals.

Although this was a mutual dreaming experiment, there was both a sender and receiver involved as with Telepathy Dreaming experiment; consequently, I am not surprised that Mercury/Neptune showed up as a dominant aspect again, particularly because I wondered if the transmission of dream-gifts between dream-couples was more telepathic than mutual dreaming. Perhaps I am simply being pedantic in regard to labeling psi, but I am a Virgo and this is one of The Virgin’s negative traits; I realize there is ongoing debate around psi labeling among the dream community, though I could not help wondering.

Jupiter-Uranus – Expansion-Intuition

Susanne noted that “Nicholas is a skilled sender” (with great success in receiving in other experiments as well) thus reaching many dreamers in this Mutual Dreaming Experiment, which I believe Jupiter/Uranus in a powerful conjunction in his natal chart is responsible for, this aspect happens for about a year, every 14 years (though involves different zodiacal signs), and is said to make for a natural telepath. Bella has this placement too, although with different zodiacal signs (Nicholas’s are in Pisces and Bella’s are in Libra), which could be why Bella spontaneously picked up on the infinity that Chloe was sending to Emily – plus as stated before Chloe and Bella share many psi connections.

Hans also has this aspect, but it is considered “out of sign” (1 planet in the latter degrees of 1 sign and another planet in the early degrees of the following sign that are within orb), which weakens some of its power. Conjunctions bring two planets together in the same signs (except when “out of sign”) in a powerful way. Given the nature of the planets involved, Jupiter and Uranus, and their mythologies, these guys are no softies – Jupiter rules the house of higher mind, long distance travel and brings expansion to electrical, intuitive, magical, telepathic Uranus. Nicholas, Bella and Hans are natural telepaths, in both sending and receiving, most likely due to this particular aspect.

Successful Dream-Couples

Of the successful senders and receivers, all of the senders made it to the beach, but did not actually give the gift while dreaming; it was during twilight or wakeful meditative states in which the telepathic transmission took place. Dexter, Vanessa, and Bella (dreamed someone else’s gift though she was a sender for Vanessa) dreamed the gift (a symbol Susanne assigned each sender), but Estrella wrote she saw the gift in a twilight state. These twilight states are usually considered hypnogogic or hypnopompic states and are thought of as transitional stages to sleeping or waking, but not actually dreaming. I found that Estrella, Dexter, Vanessa and Bella all have strong psi aspects (showing psychic ability) in their own individual natal charts, as did the senders, Chloe and Sea (others have this as well).

Sea and Dexter shared 8 psi aspects, 5 of them involving their Moons, and all mostly harmonious with only a few minor challenging aspects – not enough negative aspects to disrupt the wonderful exchange between them. Sea’s natal chart shows 7 psi aspects 4 harmonious (2 major and 2 minor) and 3 hard major aspects; and Sea has Saturn in the 12^th house of dreams, which made me wonder if she experiences blocks to remembering dreams for large periods of time, especially given the hard aspects to Saturn in her natal chart that create blind spots (2 squares). Dexter has 4 major aspects for psi in his natal chart, all challenging, but as one can see this does not prevent psi from occurring.

Reese (who was coupled with Estrella) has mostly hard natal aspects with psi, this shocked me given that I have seen her talent with psi over the years during the PDC psi dreaming contests – though this affirms that hard aspects do not deny success, but rather require more practice in discerning the information they are receiving, or the individual may pick up a lot of negative psi, meaning emergency type situations or national disasters and the like. I asked Reese how she felt about this interpretation and she stated:

 “It is very interesting to me that you mention I might be particularly susceptible to negative psi, as that’s exactly so! I frequently tune in to disasters, dream of deaths in advance, often with great accuracy, and have a category of dreams that is quite challenging for me that I think of as ‘true crime’ dreams. These abilities were very strong when I was young and moved me to shut down my psychic abilities for a while. I’ve learned to shield myself and call in protection but, as a recent example, I had a series of extremely accurate pre-cognitive dreams of the Boston bombing – a bit eerily as the child who died in those bombing had the same name as my son, which is possibly why that tragedy came through so strongly.”

Could having no psi aspects in one’s individual natal chart pose more of a stumbling block to psi than challenging aspects, as the planets form no relationship or doorway? I was musing on harmonious, challenging or no psi aspects, which brought to mind a discussion from one of the PDC presentations, Lenses of Perception: Symbol and Reality, given by presenter, Dale Graff, that seems relevant to my recent reflection:

Dale wrote, “I do not consider psi, or any version of such intuition, remote viewing, precognition, telepathy… as a special gift. I believe that this potential is available to everyone, regardless of experience. However, some individuals find it practical to develop or focus on one aspect of psi.”

To which PDC participant, T.A., replied: “Almost everybody can learn maths but not everybody will become Einstein. Perhaps in similar fashion psi potential differs between individuals?”

Unsuccessful Dream-Couples and Psi Aspects

For the Berkeley Telepathy experiment we had looked at a few charts that made no hit to the sender’s dreams or target image to see if those aspects appeared despite not having connected to the target or having mutually dreamed; I decided to do the same with a few dream-couples in the Mutual Dreaming experiment who did not connect and had their birth data. Jessica has 4 psi aspects in her natal chart: 3 major/harmonious and 1 minor/harmonious. Lily has 6 psi aspects: 4 hard (3 minor and 1 major) and 2 harmonious (1 major and 1 minor). Jessica and Lily only share 3 aspects – 2 of the 9 combinations I was looking at – 2 were hard aspects involving telepathic rapport, there were no Moon aspects of any kind, which provides a connection on an subconscious, emotional and / or soul level (the Moon person is receptive, or not, depending upon the aspect and planet involved). This is where I thought Reese and Estrella drew their emotional and telepathic rapport. Estrella’s Moon both conjuncts and parallels Reese’s Uranus (the planet ruling higher mind and telepathic communication) – a major and a minor aspect combined giving this planetary connection extra oomph.

Dream-couple Chloe and Emily were unsuccessful in this experiment; they have 5 psi aspects (3 major and 2 minor): 3 are hard and 2 harmonious aspects. Chloe on her own has 1 strong harmonious psi aspect and the rest challenging aspects (5 – 4 major and 1 minor)…her chart is one of a few that has all psi aspects, but mostly challenging aspects; but as I discovered mostly hard psi aspects with Reese’s and given her explanation, it is not surprising that Chloe is another intense psi dreamer despite the challenging aspects. Conversely, Emily’s natal chart has 3 harmonious aspects (2 minor and 1 major) to aid in developing intuitive thoughts and feelings; she has 0 hard aspects with psi. It would be noteworthy to follow groups of individuals based on positive, negative or no psi aspects at all for a complete picture.

Chloe, was not paired with Bella, but Bella received the infinity symbol Chloe was to send her partner, Emily; in one of Bella’s dream reports titled Infinity or Storm, she wrote, “I see a blue watery background with 2 swirling circles making a sort of infinity shape …” Chloe and Bella share several psi synastry aspects, many of them involving their Moons. They share 10 psi aspects, 8 involve either Chloe’s Moon or Bella’s Moon with other planets, and 1 Moon to Moon aspect – only 3 are inharmonious aspects, but they are considered minor aspects, so all the major harmonious aspects outweigh the fewer, more challenging minor aspects.

Zoe and Jacqueline, unsuccessful in carrying out the task, shared 6 aspects: 2 harmonious major aspects and the rest hard minor aspects. Jacqueline, with some effort, could really develop telepathic ability; she has some challenging psi placements, a harmonious minor aspect along with Pluto in the 12^th house of dreams; Zoe’s chart has a combination of challenging aspects for psi, with 1harmonious aspect for the flow of intuitive feelings. I would love to experiment with dream-couples who have these patterns (harder synastry psi aspects, yet each individual having some harmonious natal psi aspects), and mutual dreaming with the element of “dream-gift” giving and receiving – switching roles after a period of time to see how psi unfolds.

Dream-couple, Virgil and Hans, did not transmit the dream-gift either; they share 6 aspects: 5 hard aspects (3 major, 2 minor) and 1 major harmonious aspect. Virgil has 1 major positive aspect for psi in his natal chart, particularly with dreaming; and his 12^th house has 3 planets situated therein making his dream world very active. Han’s natal chart has 2 minor challenging aspects to psi through the feeling function; and 1 specifically for telepathy along with Mercury in his 12^th house, which helps this telepathic aspect even more (Mercury situated in Neptune’s natural domicile). I suspect given some practice the dream-couples that share hard aspects would connect, but it might take some time and practice to achieve the desired result.

The only other 2 charts that did not share Moon aspects that I examined was Isabella and Grace. Grace is Rod’s daughter, Rod was part of the only trio in the experiment – Rod, Isabella and Deirdre – unfortunately, he did not have his time of birth so I was unable to erect his chart. Isabella and Grace really did not connect, nor should Isabella have expected to since Grace was technically not a participant; however Grace connected with Deirdre for sure, and out the 8 shared aspects they had 3 involving the Moon (including a minor aspect between both their Moons). These lunar aspects indicate a nice flow of feelings between them, and show that their subconscious minds flow easily together. Grace wrote, “she had long black hair, light brown skin and a red dress. Deidre then spoke to us and said ‘pleased to meet you’ with great excitement, like taking a step off a cliff (feeling) we gave her the card. She then thanked us, said goodbye and we found ourselves back at the tree”. Grace’s description of Deirdre was on point, though they never have met.

Other Chart Patterns

Another pattern that struck me with regard to Reese and Estrella is how both of them have a concentration of planets in one or two houses of their individual natal charts. When synastry is applied all 4 of Reese’s Scorpio planets fall into Estrella’s 9^th house (higher mind / exploration), which could explain her psi talent having a preponderance of placements in Scorpio plus her psi aspects, as Scorpio is considered psychic and has a knack for uncovering hidden things. Six of Estrella’s planets falls into 2 of Reese’s houses:  3 in the 7^th house of others and partnership, and 3 in her 3^rd house of communication and lower mind. The domiciles of the 3^rd and 9^th form a polarity, an exchange of 2 types of communication, the lower or mundane plane and the higher or subtle plane; Reese 3^rd and Estrella’s 9^th houses form an axis, an exchange of energy. (Lower and higher do not indicate better or worse, they refer to frequencies – the same applies to the planets – when astrologers refer to Uranus being the higher octave of Mercury, or Neptune being the higher octave of Venus, they are referring to their frequencies.)

Bella’s dream-partner, Vanessa, received the dream-gift of the magic mirror; they share 6 psi aspects (4 involving the Moon) with only one minor hard aspect, again this does not outweigh the positive aspects. Additionally, Bella’s Sun (consciousness, spirit, & will) falls into Vanessa’s 12^th house, which is consider the domicile of dreams among other associations, but suffice it to say it is the dream house given our subject is Mutual Dreaming. They share some similar placements in their natal charts too; they both have Moon in Capricorn, which makes for an emotional affinity and 8^th house Suns (domicile of occult and mystical experience; affairs of the dead – ruled by Scorpio).

Future Experiments

I am looking forward to refining this process. My idea is to erect several natal charts, and then couple them in 3 categories without the dreamers’ knowledge of which category they are in: mostly shared positive psi aspects, mostly shared challenging psi aspects, or little to no psi aspects shared at all. The idea is to mix and match dream-couples so each category is experienced, and in this way discover how the cosmos influences psi individually and when combined between couples; although I will enlist the aid of other astrologers for a task of that magnitude.

Conclusion

It seems certain shared planetary combinations create an ease in psi communion between dreamers; and even the harder psi aspects create a connection, though require more effort or discerning of psi information being transmitted / received. More often, it seems, having no psi aspects between 2 individuals seems to hinder psi connection. I want to thank Susanne van Doorn and all of the wonderful dreamers who entrusted me with their natal charts. It was an amazing journey through the cosmos and mutual dreaming; you are all beautiful souls.

Mutual dreaming, an experiment during the IASD’s annual psiberconference

This paper reviews the findings of the experiment in mutual dreaming performed by participants of the IASD’s annual Psiber Dreaming Conference.
The challenge for the dreamers was to meet each other in dreams. They were given a designated place to meet in their dreams by using a photo of two chairs on a beach. Participants were paired up in couples and dived into a sender and a receiver. The sender received through email the gift that should be given. The sender and receiver then reported their dream to the experimenter so no interaction was possible between sender and receiver. In three pairs of dream couples the dream report of the sender actually named the present. There were two dream couples where only the sender remembered the actual gift. Eleven dreamers connected with other dreamers they had not been paired up with. Five couples picked up on each others’ presence in a symbolic way.

„Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.” Lao Tzu

* For reasons of privacy names of all participants have been changed

After a childhood of sharing dreams with my father and being inspired by Patricia Grafields’ Creative Dreaming as a teenager I forgot about dreaming in my twenties. In my late thirties I had the chance to be at an IASD Conference and my dreams started to flourish again. After the closing ceremony I have had nightly encounters with people I knew or would meet later on.

My dreams started to become richer more interesting. I was fascinated by dream-meetings where I would sit and talk with people I knew in waking life. But none of those people ever remembered meeting me in their dreams too. I know that when I become lucid in my dream I can easily “go” to people. So if two lucid dreamers would meet in a designated place, one sender, one receiver you could determine a success if the receiver reports the gift in his dream report. I proposed such a thing to the visitors of the Psiber Conference, the annual internet conference organized by the IASD.

Mutual dreaming is the event where two people meet in a dream and each has experienced this, remembered this and shared it in the dream report. Dream meshing, a form of mutual dreaming is where two dreamers share dreams emotions or symbols.

After the presentation went online there was a good discussion between participants and we distinguished three variables of interest in mutual dreaming:

Experience of the dreamer. I suspected that mutual dreaming can be learned. I divided participants into so called experienced dreamers and less experienced dreamers. This was a non scientific intuitive division.

Time zone. My experience with mutual dreaming was that meetings with others could happen outside the sleeping time of the other dreamer. Consciousness seems to be more of a continuum that varies then of a time zone constricted phenomenon. Dream couples where divided according to time zones, except for one couple (see table 1).

Emotional affection. I suspected that a strong (positive or negative) attraction would facilitate mutual dreaming. So I divided dreamers into groups that had met each other in the waking world, whether online, in real life or not and people that did not have an emotional connection.

Senders got a picture of the gift to help them concentrate while falling asleep. Two people used a photograph of their dream companion. The dream experiment was going to take place in the weekend night of September 28th 4 pm (16.00 EDT) through Sunday September 29th 4 pm (16.00 EDT). People would report back to the email address supplied so no receiver could change his report after reading the report of a sender.

There where 30 people, 15 couples that joined this experiment. I have divided them into three groups. Table 1 shows the people who are right on target, table 2 shows the people who picked up on something from the sender or the receiver or picked up something accurate of other dreamers in the experiment and table 3 shows the dreamers who seemed to have made no connection on this particular night.

Only 6 people out of 30 participants mention being on the beach in their dream reports.
Remarkable was that dreaming was a group experience for two participants. These men are supported by their daughters who dreamed with or for their father.

This report discusses four types of interconnections found in this experiment:
Couples that picked up on the gift (Table1):

Couples where the sender picked up on the gift or its symbolic value (Table 2):

The interconnections between the participants of the experiment (Table 3):

And finally Table 4 shows the couples that did not perceive a right gift or met the other dreamer, but did show a symbolic connection in their dream reports.

Table 1: Dreamers that picked up on the right present:

table 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deidre K, an experienced dreamer, was given the task of being sender and receiver. She had to receive the fool out of the tarot from Rod. Rod is in a different time zone so if they succeed (they are both very skilled dreamers we would have an indication that mutual dreaming is not restricted to sharing the same time zone.

Rod only remembered two flashes of dreams, but his daughter Grace did. She met Deidre K in her dream and reports: “she had long black hair, light brown skin and a red dress. Deidre K then spoke to us and said ‘pleased to meet you’ with great excitement, like taking a step off a cliff (feeling) we gave her the card. She then thanked us, said goodbye and we found ourselves back at the tree”. 

Deidre K was also a sender: she had to give the tarot card to Isabella. The idea behind this threesome was that Deidre K was handed the fool from Grace and then hand it over to Isabella. Deidre writes in her report: “I abandon my original plan on how to get to the beach. Instead I decide that Isabella would more likely remember the Fool tarot card if I dress like the fool and reach the beach by stepping off the sea-cliff behind it. I tumble theatrically, then spring to my feet unharmed. That should make an impression!”

Here you see how the idea of jumping off the cliff was picked up by Grace, she talks about: “like taking a step off a cliff” when she hands over the card.

Isabella, the receiver, is an experienced tarotist. She designed her own deck together with an artist. In this deck the card of the fool is a young girl dressed in a pink dress. Isabella reports: “I’m feeling very responsible and feeling I didn’t come prepared. Didn’t realize what was required. I had selected a lovely light shade of pink fingernail polish for the pretty African American woman. I had thought it might go nicely with one of her 2 pink gowns, especially the one with the rosebud motif. 

I hadn’t realized I had been supposed to design and create a new dress for her. Could I just cut one of the gowns down and shorten the length? No, I missed the point”. 

The point missed by Isabella was the fact that the present was right in front of her eyes: the fool who she had “redressed” in her new tarot card deck: Deidre came dressed as Raider Waite’s fool but in her own deck of cards the fool is a young girl in a pink dress.

Rod and Deidre K did not know each other apart from the meeting on the PSD, Grace and Deidre never met. Isabella and Deidre K know each other online. So you might conclude from their success that experience can be a dominant factor in facilitating success in challenges like this one. When the emotional attachment is neutral/positive and the time zone is not equal then being an experienced dreamer can create very good mutual dreaming success.

When we discuss the Table 2 about the dreamers that connected with each other we will elaborate on the reports of Isabelle and Deidre K because those dreamers picked up on other dreamers as well. These remarkable dream reports are the only three in the sample where the gift is given and received, although Isabelle “translated” the Rider Waite tarot card of the fool into her own tarot card of a female in a pink dress.

Dream couple Reese and Estrella. They are in the same time zone, they know each other online and they are both experienced dreamers.

Reese the sender reports: I wake here, feeling wide awake. I’m disappointed I don’t recall actually meeting Estrella, though I feel I did. It’s very early – not quite 5:00 am., to I decide to meditate again, and listen to more ocean sounds and try again. I do this and as I’m drifting off to sleep I have a vivid encounter: 

Title: Meeting Estrella 

I’m meditating, listening to the ocean, visualizing myself flying to the beach. I see Estrella sitting on the sand with her knees up, arms wrapped around her knees, and I float down and kiss her on the forehead. I open my hands to give her my gift and my hands fill with light. She opens her hands to receive the light. I whisper, “Mariposa. Butterfly. Beautiful Soul,” and the light transforms into a butterfly. I lean my head against Estrella’s where a butterfly is in my hair, and it alights on her hair. I say, “Soul to Soul.” I turn into light and zoom back up to leave, then turn back one last time and extend my hands, as regular hands but luminous. I cross them over each other and wave like a butterfly and I leave. 

I’ve fallen back asleep so can’t separate which part of the above was mediation and which part became dream. It simply flowed from one to the other. I drift in and out of sleep and have one last dream. 

Although it is not clear if this is a meditation or a dream there is an connection because this is the report of Estrella:

During a twilight state, I remember I should go to the beach, and visualize it, with the water to my left. It’s a bit like Malibu beach, but without the stairs – there is nothing man-made in sight. I see a woman dressed in white in front of me, like Reese’s avatar. She puts something into my hands, and to my surprise, it flies away! I am not completely sure if it was butterflies or a bird (it looked like the former, but the word bird came to mind), but I’m pretty sure it was blue. 

Table 2: mutual dreaming where the only the sender picked up the right gift:

table 2

Dream couple Sea and Dexter. Sea is the sender. They are in the same time zone, they are not emotionally attached and they are both experienced dreamers. Sea did not remember a dream. She was the sender and should have given the sunflower to Dexter.

Dexter does not receive a sunflower but flowers:

“I steer a ladder-car off course, inadvertently pick up flowers. “Herbs — you childish imp,” I say. “These are flowers.” They are onion-like bulbs with lacy celeriac-fine leaves on long stalks. I am driving/directing a ladder-car through town. It is a long wooden utility ladder; each section is a seat/compartment; each seat is occupied.  We are going up a hill in downtown when I listen in on the comments of a certain woman passenger to others. “We are in the middle lane. It’s a passing lane, I daresay. And as little traffic as there is it makes perfect sense.” 

Dexter does mention a woman passenger in his report. The onion like bulbs could be Jerusalem artichoke, family of the sunflower.

In a dream later on he sits on his own grave in a cemetery. A sunflower  is connected to the water nymph Clytie who turns into a sunflower after grieving over the loss of her love Apollo. Dexter mentions a grave yard in his report: “My own grave is fresh dug, freshly filled back in. I sit atop it, very much alive. To my immediate left a thin 20-something man in a medium-brown suit sits on the grassy grave of a friend of his; to his left a dark-haired, handsome, twenty-something man with classic square jaw, strong face, sits atop the grassy grave of a friend of his. It is sunny out, bright.” 

Dream-couple Bella and Vanessa are both in the same time zone and experienced dreamers. They never met in real life. There are several things “Sender” Bella picked up. One of them was the gift sent out by another sender in the experiment. The symbol is infinity and it was sent by Chloe, who reports having no dean recall about this.
Maria Cernuto will shed some light in her article on the sender and receiver qualities of people in an astrological sense. This experiment seems to indicate that people can be more “equipped” to function as senders in a mutual dreaming setting while others seem to be more equipped as receivers. In the third section I will discuss the findings of receiver Nicolas who was designated to be a receiver but seemed to be sending out images being picked up by three of the thirty dreamers.

Vanessa reports very clearly about the magic mirror:

“In through my bedroom door walk two nurses, dressed in traditional white, crisp uniformed with caps. The shorter one starts to talk. I ask her what she is doing there, then I become lucid, and excitedly ask if she has something to give me. She looks a bit confused and says she already gave me something but does not tell me what. I tell her we have to go to the beach through a mirror [as per my intent] and lead her out of the bedroom. I am now in a different home and look for a mirror, but my vision starts to go. I say, “clear vision!”, and it gets clearer. 

I see a few mirrors in a hallway that looks similar to my natal house, but think it would be easier to find a full length mirror. I don’t see one, so decide to go through a round one similar to the one in my avatar. 

I am holding the nurse’s hand and we go through the mirror. Again my vision is gone, then I wake. 6:00. 

It is not clear if this is a day-residue, because on the PSD there was a presentation about using mirrors as gate once one became lucid.

Bella reports five dreams one of which has a clear connection to dreamer Chloe (Table 3)

Table 3: cross connections between dreamers in PSD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The connection between Sophie and Nicolas was a symbolic one. Both are skilled dreamers in the same time zone. But as Table 3 shows, Nicolas is an experienced sender and five dreamers picked up on dream, thoughts and fragments he dreamed that night. To test if people are “senders” or “receivers” Nicolas is put in the position of receiver. He was matched with a very skilled dreamer living in the same time zone. As you can see in Table 3, Nicolas connected with multiple dreamers in this experiment.

His “dream-mate” Sophie seems to have picked up on the “aggressive” part of the dream report of Nicolas. So did Isabella and Deidre K. Here is the part of his dream-report:

3:45 AM this was not experienced as an actual dream, but it just seems like some rather intense associations started to go through my mind. Back when I was a high school student, another guy L , pronounced N, and I had become involved in a dispute about a female student that we both liked, but neither of us had ever actually dated her. We agreed to have a fight to settle our dispute. We agreed to meet at the intersection of GOODMAN and CLINTON Avenues. (Nice associational possibilities there.) The time scheduled was a weekend afternoon and a very large crowd of people had assembled to watch the event. I had said that I would wrestle him,and it is my understanding that he agreed to that condition. As soon as the fight began ,I started to rush toward him and he gave me a strong punch in the nose. I protested that he wasn’t honoring the agreement and started to rush at him again and received another strong punch in the face. My nose was now starting to get bloody and I was beginning to get a real puffed up lip. However, I continued with my style of how I thought the fight had been agreed to , and occasionally was able to wrestle him toward the ground, but he continued to hit me in the face. No official winner was declared but I clearly took a real beating and he was pretty much unscathed . It took a couple weeks for the swollen nose and puffed lips to get anywhere near back their usual appearance. This became an obvious lesson to learn in life – that sometimes you have to shift your plans when the conditions change – but I was determined to do it my way ,and wound up with a painful and embarrassing situation that was viewed by a large number of people. 

It has been said that when someone develops cancer, the organ of choice for the disease to manifest – breast, ovaries, throat etc. dynamically reflects some conflict related to an imbalanced psychological situation. 10 years ago at age 75, I developed angiosarcoma (which is cancer of the blood cells and connective tissue) i in my nose. I had to have a rhinectomy (complete removal of my entire nose,) and was told that my median life expectancy was 15 months. Since I had a big open hole in my face, the new nose was constructed from cartilage from my ears ,with a big flap of forehead skin that had an attached artery and vein, over that structure.— So during that time last morning when I was reflecting on listening to my own internal conversations, I was wondering if I had NOW finally learned my lesson and that my current vision was now improved. Perhaps also adding to the rich metaphorical possibilities about a different vision now, was that I had recently undergone cataract surgery on both of my eyes during the past year. 

In Sophie’s dream report:
B.K. (a male who is about 40-ish, very lean, aggressive, an active type-A kind of person), possibly M. (another male who is heavy, talks a lot and is a kind of computer geek, very brainy), and R. (another male, also around 40, bald, nice and helpful but sometimes kind of slow to act) are together. BK says about R, “That’s what’s wrong with him.” (it was in response to something that came before this that R. said or did, but I couldn’t remember it when I awakened.) 

Reflecting on the dream later Sophie noted that she was brought up in Clinton street.

Deidre K picked up on the “aggressive part” of Nicolas. The dreamer reflects on his young and foolish act and regrets it, having learned his lesson. Deidre K seems to have picked up on this. In her dream she reports:

I find a wanted poster for Nicolas, in black and white. I paint the outlines of a crude jester’s cap on him, and then paint Maori tattoo patterns on his face, in thick daubs of fluorescent poster-paint. He looks really angry. I wonder if I’ve gone a bit too far. I wake up.

Dreamer Isabella also picks up in the first part of this dream. In her report she mentions:

“I see a pile of stuffed animals. I’m drawn to a cute stuffed pig. As I retrieve it, it morphs into a mobile, one that usually hangs over a baby’s crib. I see a place over the armoire, in front of a window. It will be beautiful in the light here. I hang it here and admire its beauty. The nose has been broken off. I had not even noticed. There is a separate smiley-face button that I attach. It is placed perfectly and looks cute. I’m smiling”.

Here the “nose part” of the dream is referred to. The dreamer replaces the broken nose with a smiley.

In another dream Nicolas tells:

Later I was back inside the very crowded living room and folks were standing around eating and talking loudly. I had asked for some particular food which didn’t seem to be available, and I said that was okay and forgot about it, because it wasn’t important, but a few minutes later I was going through some half eaten cookies or something up on a shelf , and picked out small pieces with my fingers and then ate them.

This seems to be connected with the dream of Reese:

A work crew – all men, who seem to be doing a job in my neighborhood – knock on my door. They’ve come for lunch, under the impression that I’m providing lunch for them today. They’re a nice group, boisterous, friendly and very hungry. I’m completely baffled why they think I’m supposed to be feeding them, but I scramble around, looking for something I can throw together. I think I pull some sandwiches together. I’m really short on food at the moment, wishing I had more to offer them as they probably eat sandwiches most days and would have preferred something else. We talk as I fly around the kitchen whipping things up and gradually I figure out that my neighbor Valinda made up a schedule for the neighbors to take turns making meals for this work crew but she didn’t tell me today was my day! The guys make the best of it, just eating what I have, being really good sports, and it turns out okay.

And finally both Nicolas and Bella mention a towel in their dream. Nicolas:

I think that is what Sophies’s gift was – one of acceptance and forgiveness, and she has a wet towel or some container of wet tissues that you use for car trips .and gave me those. 

Bella: I was bringing Anubis and Pisgah inside (2 of the 4 dogs I had back then WPR). I am drying them off with a towel and doing cutesy dog talk and kissing their snouts – they were looking at me with adorable expressions.

Chloe; a dreamer with a lot of experience is teamed up with Emily. But she is a dreamer with a high need of an emotional attachment. Chloe asked a picture to concentrate on the receiver. Her dream report mentions a door that is locked, probably because she was not able to get connected with the right dreamer in a conscious way

Dreamer Zoe seemed to have connected with another dreamer. This dreamer should give a kitten to her dream partner Jade, but this present was picked up by Estrella who lives in a different time zone. Sender Zoe is a very skilled dreamer. So again this seems to suggest that experience in dreaming transcends time zones.

Dreamer Lucy had sent a dragonfly to receiver Estrella. Lucy is an experienced dreamer that connected with Estrella meditating about the gift.

The last part I want to dedicate to dreamers who seemed to have connected with each other in a symbolic way. This is considered Dream Meshing, a form of mutual dreaming when people pick up on each’ others’ presence in a symbolic form. Table 4 gives an overview of all the dreamers that seem to have made such a connection:

Table 4: symbolic connection

Dreamer Virgil had an emotional attachment with receiver Hans, shared the same time zone and is an experienced dreamer. They connected in a symbolic way. Hans’s daughter saw a map of the beach, once more making clear that dreaming is a social activity. Where Virgil had to send a shell on the beach, Hans picked up a bookshelf in his dream.

Furthermore there seemed to be a connection between receiver Hans and receiver Ewan. Hans picked up on a bookshelf: Something catches my attention: a shelf constructed of books that support other books. This construction is very artistic but it seems a little chaotic. The woman tells me that is difficult for my friends to make a living in that situation.

In Ewan’s report he mentions: Help the J. Book title. Everything seems to be about book title or something of that sort. 

Finley’s connection with Ewan was also very symbolic. Ewan, the receiver, mentioned losing his companion early in his dream report. But he picked up on a theme of his sender. His Sender is very interested in the philosophical aspects of dreaming: when you dream who is the I that dreams:

At first I thought i was alone in all these dreams with no sense of meeting someone, then I realize all the ‘I’s in the dream are being watched by me as they do things, so there are two ‘I’s in the dreams. How characteristic this might be of all my dreams I cannot say. 

The dream couple Paige and Marty seemed to have reversed roles. Marty acts in this experiment more like a sender, he reports a pregnant woman, while his dean partner Paige mentions a baby (like a bun in the oven, burning like the candle the sender was focusing on.

Nathalie and Wendell also had a symbolic transmission. Wendell mentions an apple in his dream report (the gift was a yellow rose) but apples are a fruit from the rose family.

Zoe was assigned to give receiver Jacqueline a red rose. Zoe used a photograph of the receiver placed next to her own portrait.

Two dreamers did not seem to connect: the last couple Jessica and Lilly. They have never met and did not share the same time zone. Jessica reports meeting Lilly sitting in a chair on the beach receiving the rose and telling the sender „my arms feel like yellow”.
Receiver Lilly reports three dreams and one is about fish, this could be a symbolic reference to meeting on the beach.

Conclusion

A mutual dream is a dream where sender and receiver share a dream experience with multiple similarities. in this experiment Dreamers that varied in experience and time zone had to meet at a beach (a photo of the place was distributed) and report back to a neutral source. These reports where scanned for similarities and put on the PSD forum for further discussion.

Experience seems to be a very important ingredient in experiencing mutual dreaming. Emotional attachment either positive or negative seemed less important in this sample. The most successful mutual dreamers did not seem to have a deep positive or negative emotional attachment other then the determination to meet the other. Time zone does not seem to be relevant in this experiment.