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.