DREAMING FOR MARYHenry ReedThe following account is an abridged version of the original report. For a
more thorough discussion of this case and the implications for research in
parapsychological dreaming, see "Sundance: Inspirational dreaming in
community," in J. Long (ed.), Extrasensory ecology: Parapsychology and
anthropology, Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1977. Used by permission and
with gratitude to Robert Franklin.
The sharing of dreams has always been an important part of the family experience at the residential sessions of Atlantic University. We commonly observe, as a result of the frequent telling of dreams, that one person's dream contains something that proves helpful to another person. Generally, this kind of thing seems reflective of the cooperative atmosphere in the residential session itself. Often, when one person is away from the session on a private healing quest in the dream tent, for example, other members of the group have dreams that night pertaining to that person's healing. These dreams seem to reflect the dreamer's intuitive identification with that person's problems. Some of the dreams also provide explicit details about the purpose or nature of that other person's healing experience. This kind of dream phenomenon, whether coincidental, intuitive or psychic, often has a strong impact upon the person dreamed about and contributes in unexpected ways to the total healing experience. Such "cooperative" dreaming is a welcome event and increases the sense of group unity. Yet, for the purposes of research, it is difficult to pin down for close study. People's interest is naturally directed more to exploring the personal significance of the dream events than to documenting the facts for science. For the past two summers, therefore, Robert Van de Castle and I have been developing a naturalistic method for studying this type of dream phenomenon. We wondered if it would be possible to intentionally create such ESP-like dreaming in the context of 106
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