DREAM SHARING AND SHARED METAPHORS

IN A SHORT TERM COMMUNITY

by

Alexander Randall V

Dissertation Committee:

Professor Margaret Mead, sponsor

Professor Paul Byers

Approved by the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Education, June 15, 1978

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education in Teachers College, Columbia University, June 15, 1978

©  Alexander Randall V, 1978 All Rights Reserved

 

CONTENTS

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Dr. Louis Forsdale, Dr. Margaret Mead, Dr. Paul Byers, Dr. Henry Reed, and Dr. Robert Van de Castle, who have guided my research and trained me in my discipline. I also wish to thank the three people who have held my per­sonal world together for the past three years: Dr. Alex and Nina Randall, and Cammie Hall. I also extend my thanks to Marjorie Hermanson who midwifed my script into type.  

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

This study dates back to 1974 when I was first introduced to communication theory by Professor Louis Forsdale. Here it was stated that all communication is subject to degeneration and decay while in transmission. Because I was interested in the transmission of new ideas for the purpose of enhancing the quality of life, the realization of this led to my investigation of how small groups of people overcome this degeneration. I wished to learn how to nurture communi­cation channels, and help create shared contexts, shared references and shared vocabularies for more efficient communi­cation.

It seemed to me that communication failure was often caused by people using the same word with different meanings. For me the problem lay in discovering how people learn enough about each other’s experience, values, and thinking to be able to share new ideas.

The journey from 1974 to 1977 has been a long one. On the way some of my idealism has been lost, and new concerns have replaced those that were foremost in the earlier years. Initially I saw the problem through a lens focused on the personality types of culture members. In particular I was concerned with discovering how novel ideal generators inter­acted with community leaders, and how those leaders react to novel ideas. I soon realized that I had truncated the prob­lem to fit the scope of the tools that were available to me at the time. I was guided into a variety of disciplines in search of meaningful tools and answers to my basic quest. I spent much of one year working on a M. Ed. in international education on the development of entrepreneurship. By exa­mining other cultures’ attitudes toward innovators I hoped to gain insights into the general nature of idea flow in a culture. For another period of time, I diligently studied General Systems Theory, Cybernetics, Information Theory, Decision Theory and the flow of information in general systems. During that time I gained an overview of the whole matter of complex systems, and an appreciation of interacting systems of which the human being and the human society are each examples. I chose to make General Systems Theory my basic discipline, for in it I recognized the elements of a shared scientific reality--a set of ideas that seemed to be basic to most disciplines.

At that time I rekindled an interest in the very pecu­liar world of the schizophrenic. In an attempt to see how novelty was judged, I looked at the ideas of the schizo­phrenic for evidence of productive ideas that were being misunderstood or misinterpreted by their social leaders. In the world of the schizophrenic I was able to witness the interface between a society and an individual. Some of the schizophrenics I met were considered insane simply because they could not turn their insights into terms their families could understand. During a separate simultaneous time period, I was taught some of the basic tools of the anthropologist. I was shown tools for systematic observation of complex phenomena, such as group behavior. I was also taught the nature of pattern recognition at both the concrete and ab­stract level. At another time I investigated group dynamics and the nature of leadership in a group. I examined many different people’s theories on group formation, roles, and group behavior. I soon came to realize that a theory is more a reflection of its author than of the phenomena it describes. For a period I interviewed ex-members of religious cults to gain an understanding of how these ideas had been introduced into our own culture. I also examined the introduction of American dialects into a British island cul­ture via Sesame Street. In another project I participated in and observed a small group of exceptional individuals as they discussed world problems in search of a synthesis.

By the time I had completed the majority of my doctoral course work and certification, I had examined my focus issue from a wide variety of points of view. I decided to select one issue for a thesis, and collect participant/observer in­formation on that phenomena and examine it for evidence of novel idea flow, or shared realities. I realized that small groups provided a microcosm for communication research. In order to keep my research within reasonable limits, I began to look for conferences that would meet in a residential setting for about a month and devote themselves to a single topic that had overtones related to the whole matter of novel ideas and cultures. I firmly felt that somewhere in a close observation of such a group a lead would emerge that would tie together my thinking. The fact is, that I had no hypothesis I was planning to test; rather I wanted to get into the field without preconvictions or propositions. My desire was to participate in a group experience and simultaneously record and document the entire group proceedings.

Providence, as it were, always seems to deal out exactly what I need when I am in greatest need. Within about a month of my formulation of my plan, I found two different month-long residential conferences; one on Schizophrenia and the Visionary Mind in California and the other on Dreams and Shamanism in Virginia. I devoted myself over the course of both months to very careful observations and notation of the process whereby total strangers met and transformed them­selves from strangers into friends. It was in the second group, and in particular in the group’s dreams that I found evidence of the effects of common references and shared con­texts on the group’s communication. I observed that the people in the Virginia group had established an unusual de­gree of rapport. Their religious recording of dreams and daily dream sharing was a common point of reference upon which they built group harmony. On the spur of the moment, on one of the closing days of our month together, I realized that my record of the month would be incomplete without a record of the group’s dreams. Since the group had come to­gether’ to share dreams, certainly the dreams themselves would be an integral part of the group dynamics. I asked the mem­bers if they would be willing to share their dreams of the month with the scribe who had so faithfully recorded their activity. Over the subsequent months I acquired a virtually complete record of the group's dreams from their dream journals of that month. As I began to get the xerox copies of the dream journals I became more and more interested in the role of the dreams in reflecting the ongoing group development. Eased on a hunch that the dreams would be a key to the whole group process, I read the literature on dreaming and in particular, on the whole subject of dream sharing in groups.

I found the material exciting and began to examine the role of interpersonal emotions, and the effects of high emo­tional experiences in the day on the dreams of that night. Since the group had experienced a 24—hour marathon encounter group and emotional housecleaning, I was determined to see what effect such emotional stress would have on the group’s natural feedback system, its dreams. I began to code the key elements in the dreams and look for patterns. I found that while the night of the high emotional encounter produced no striking patterns, the night the group did a telepathy ex­periment was quite another matter. I was immediately struck by the unusual number of dreams on that night, as well as the remarkable number of references to the group and to the group members. I decided to investigate this further and began to read the literature on telepathy. In particular I was looking for evidence of group telepathy or telepathy in non-laboratory settings. Finding little in the literature, I reasoned that I was looking at an unusual phenomenon for which I had full documentation, and more importantly, my whole study was conducted in a total blind. None of us during the month, and in particular on the night of the telep­athy test, had any idea that it would be the subject of scientific scrutiny. At the time of the telepathy experi­ment, it seemed to be just another one of the diverse things the group chose to do during the month.

I reasoned that any evidence of dream telepathy or of shared dream material would indicate the degree to which the group had shared concerns, ideas and feelings. I examined this subject in the hope that group dreaming would yield lessons about group communication in general, and that dreams might serve as a group communication indicator.

The study that follows includes an overview of the literature that underlies dream telepathy in general, and group telepathy specifically. This is followed by a de­scription of the setting of my observations, the chronology of the month, the setting of the dream telepathy test, its results, and my conclusions.

Chapter II

AN OVERVIEW OF THE DREAM TELEPATHY LITERATURE

In and of themselves dreams have great importance. They have been called the windows of the soul and the door to the unconscious. Bergson notes that people possessing the ability to interpret dreams have always been held in high esteem by their fellows. Joseph was made ruler of Egypt as a result of his adeptness with dreams (Bergson, 1958). Dreams are, further, a manifestation of the deepest levels of human thought. Frederick Greenwood points out that, long before there was any thinking about thought there was thinking about dreams (Greenwood, 1894). Dreams have held an unparalleled place in the overall flow of history. They appear in both fact and legend at the turning points of history. They guide kings, inspire artists, solve problems, and predict key events. Among its unusual attributes, dreaming is among the most personal of all human experiences. Not only is dreaming done while people are asleep and unable to use normal communication channels, but the dreams them­selves appear in visual metaphor and not language. In addi­tion to this we find the common appearance of personal sym­bolism in dreams. It is these barriers to communication that makes dream telepathy such a remarkable phenomenon.

For our purpose dream telepathy will refer to situa­tions where the content of a dream (as it is reported) gives evidence of a channel of communication between the dreamer and another person. Such situations are rare, but they do exist. While there are historic and legendary cases of dream telepathy, the documented cases are quite rare, and the literature on the subject is exceedingly small. Having read this literature extensively and examined most of the re­corded cases available in the major journals, I will briefly review the key articles and books.

Historic Cases

Myers defined telepathy in 1882 as “fellow feeling at a distance” and included not only thought transference between distant persons but also emotions and less definable impres­sions (in de Becker, 1965). The idea that telepathy was some­how discovered in the late 1800’s, however, is incorrect. The Babylonian Talmud alludes to telepathic dreams, but provides only a few examples. The most vivid involves the entire army of Assurbanipal. When confronted with the roaring torrent of the River Idida, his army was afraid to cross. To encourage his men, the goddess Ishtar appeared to each of them in a dream saying, “I will march before Assurbanipal, the king whom I have created.” (de Becker, 1965, p. 64) In this, as in most of the ancient examples, the Gods play a major role in dreams and in particular those which involve telepathic ele­ments. Even in cases where there is no direct reference to the gods, telepathic dreaming has a spiritual overtone:

The twelve dervishes forming the young Sheikh Hudaieffendi’s entourage echo a tradition that existed among the ancients and primitives. In order to share the same dream, the whole congregation slept in the same enormous bed, as if a certain physical promiscuity encouraged spiritual communion. (de Becker 1965, p. 65)

In most cases where individuals share dream content, it is assumed that there is direct divine intervention. In the Bible, for example, Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzer share dream content which Daniel attributes to his involvement with the one God. Nebuchadnezzar “had dreams and his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him.” He commanded his magi­cians, enchanters, and sorcerers to tell him his dreams’ meaning. He would slay them if they did not. These men could not do it without knowing the content of the dream. Daniel was an exception, when he spoke he said:

No wise man, enchanter, magician or astrologers can show the king the mystery which the king has asked but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzer what will be in the latter days. Your dreams and the visions over your head as you lay in bed are these: To you, oh King, as you lay on your bed came thoughts of what would be hereafter and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. But as for me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living has this mystery been revealed to me, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king and that you may know the thoughts of your mind.

(Daniel 2:27—30)

Daniel continued to report the contents of the king’s dream and the interpretation. One may wonder if Daniel, in fact, knew the content of the dream, but the king was convinced and “gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and Chief Pre­fect over all the wise men of Babylon” (Daniel 2:48). One can only conclude that Daniel was privy to some unusual dream information. Though telepathy is only one possible explana­tion, one might assume that it played a role in this timely drama.

There are other historic indications of unusual dreaming. Homer includes numerous references to dreams in the Odyssey and the Iliad. While the dreams of the Gods were considered divine, the dreams of other men were of no account unless some recognized interpreter of dreams said they were excep­tions. Thus there, was a clear demarcation between ordinary dreams and those with a supernatural quality.

Dreams are in general reflex images

of things that men in waking hours have known.

But sometimes dreams of loftier character

Rise in the tranced soul inspired by Jove

Prophetic of the future.

(Odyssey XXIV, 12)

While the ancient literature frequently uses dreams as the vehicle of such non—ordinary communication, it is difficult to draw clear distinctions between fact and fiction, real events and historic embellishments. Perhaps the only point one can safely make is that the dream state is one to which people can point as a source of unusual insight and inspira­tion as well as fear and horror. Further one can see that such unusual events; shared dream content, divine dreams or prophetic dreaming provoked sufficient interest to be carried through the annals of history.

While the Sheikh Hudaieffendi developed his giant bed approach to inducing dream telepathy, the first known sys­tematic attempt to induce telepathic dreams by experimental means had to wait until 1895. In that year Dr. G. B. Ermacora published an article called “Telepathic Dreams Experimentally Induced” in the Riusta di Studi Psichici (Ermacora, 1895). The study involved a young girl who reputedly was telepathic with her mother and maiden aunt. While Dr. Ermacora was personally involved and deeply interested in his subject and her honesty, his experimental design was open to fraud. The young girl’s family had an economic interest in her success, and all too frequently the child had access to the telepathic target before her morning debriefing. The study was open to fraud, but it broached the possibility of experimental study of telepathy.

Upon this unsettled base, science entered the twentieth century with the very idea of telepathy in deep question.

The Psychoanalyst’s Casebook

Freud dealt with some occult matters such as telepathy in Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904). He remained ambivalent to these ideas throughout most of his life because, it seems, he never had a personal base upon which to build a telepathy theory. He accepted the possibility of telepathic content in dreams and in his short paper, Dreams and Telepathy (in Devereaux, 1953), he notes:

The telepathic message is treated as a portion of the material and goes into the formation of the dream, like any other external or internal stimulus, like a disturbing noise in the street or an insistent organic sensation in the own body. It is evident how the message with the help of the repressed wish becomes remodeled into a wish fulfillment; it is unfortunately less easy to show that it blends in other material that becomes active at the same time so as to make a dream.

(Freud, in Devereaux, 1953, p. 114)

While Freud was open to the telepathic idea, he avoided any formal endorsement of telepathy, and was clear in stating that he had no evidence in her personal practice or of his own to support a telepathy hypothesis. He wrote at the end of that same paper:

Have I given you the impression that I am secretly inclined to support the reality of telepathy in the occult sense? If so I should very much regret that it is so difficult to avoid giving such an impression. In reality however, I was anxious to be strictly impartial. I have every reason to be so for I have no opinion, I know nothing about it.

(Freud, in Devereaux, 1953)

So while Freud denies that telepathy might exist in the conscious mind, he uses this same paper to state that, “sleep creates favorable conditions for telepathy.” Two elements led him to this statement. One was the anecdotal reports he encountered about dream telepathy, and the other was his reasoning about the nature of the dreaming psyche and its fitness to accept external stimuli.

This statement by Freud, coupled with an openness on the part of some psychoanalysts led to a small literature on dream telepathy between analyst and patient. Much of Devereux’s volume on Psychoanalysis and the Occult (1953) deals with the argument between analysts with telepathic case material and analysts claiming that the data is insufficient.

Fodor in his essay in Devereaux’s book, relates an extended case in which two patients and their secretary all share dream content over many months. The three individuals developed an ongoing interest and devotion to examining their dreams and the apparent shared, content. While the dream content was very unusual, there was no evidence of telepathy. The three individuals were close to one another and shared much more of their lives than the dreams alone. The point was raised by Ellis that these patients of were so close in fact that one might assume shared dream content solely on the basis of intimate living and a collective interest in telepathy. He dismisses Fodor’s account on the basis of their close association, their interest in telepathy and their knowledge of psychoanalytic symbolism (Ellis, Fodor, in Devereaux, 1963). Ellis fails to note that if close living was the necessary and sufficient condition for dream telepathy then one might expect reports from husbands and wives of their ongoing dream telepathy.

Eisenbud in his essay in Devereaux’s book, responded to Ellis by pointing out that Ellis is demanding that the telepathic phenomena behave according to his expectations rather than examining the phenomena with an open mind. Eisenbud’s own interest in telepathy yielded several cases from his own practice in which two patients shared dream content, or patients dreamed of Eisenbud’s personal life. In a series of uncontrolled studies with single individuals, Eisenbud attempted to telepathically transmit three digit numbers. While he was only moderately successful, he did conclude that such shared dream content was outside the bounds of chance (Eisenbud, in Devereaux, 1953).

Devereaux (1953) raises issues from his own observations. The most important is that the telepathic phenomena can occur in conformity with certain laws (unspecified) and under specific conditions. He concludes that the possibility of telepathy being an entirely chance phenomena is automatically eliminated. He drew the following ideas from his observations: Telepathic events between patient and therapist occur spontaneously and are hard to elicit in experimental settings. They seem to occur in real time more than with time delay. Sometimes several patients will receive the same message content from their analyst. Frequently the messages are ideas that are in the process of being repressed, and lastly, there seem to be a high proportion of libidinally cathartic content (Devereaux, 1953).

Among all the analysts there is a wide variety of examples of thought transference between therapist and patient. Looking across all the material related in book one finds that there is no simple pattern to the cases. The contexts, people, conditions and expectations of the individuals vary on virtually all spectra. The only consistent element is an interest in telepathy on the part of all correspondents. Ellis is one critic of the analyst/patient testimonials. He points out that,

. . . anybody--including any analyst--may have several emotionally charged incidents which are subsequently repressed. . . . Any analyst who believes ardently in telepathy who wants to prove that the repression of emotionally charged material will telepathically turn up in her analysand’s dreams who keep actively looking for such occurrences is bound, sooner or later, to find them.

(Ellis, in Devereaux, 1953, p. 272)

While Ellis disclaims the analyst who looks for evidence of telepathy, Eisenbud notes that searching for shared dreams has yielded specific cases of thought transmission. Eisenbud and others note that while they may be seeking telepathic examples, this does not render their findings invalid. The fact remains that analysts’ unshared ideas often of an intimately personal nature appear in analysand’s dreams, and both are often at a loss to explain these incongruous elements (Devereaux, 1953). Ullman examines this notion in his study and concludes that the therapist-client relationship often produces what the therapist seeks:

If the analyst is Freudian, the patient dreams in Freudian symbols; if the analyst is a Jungian, the patient dreams in Jungian archetypal symbols; and . . . if the analyst is interested in telepathy, the patient may comply with telepathic dreams.

(Ullman et al, 1973, p. 37)

The literature in the Eisenbud-Pederson-Krag-Fodor-Ellis controversy is not as limited as my review would suggest. The mid-40's raged with the controversy and it appears in toto in Devereaux (1953). In the matter of establishing a dream communication channel, the analyst material provides support for the theory that such a channel might exist. The literature does not establish its unquestioned existence, nor does it open the possibility of any means of control (see also Eisenbud, 1970, Fodor 1952, 1967). In a sense, the whole matter of the analyst looking for telepathy is moot. Certainly if he doesn’t look for it, it will be harder for him to perceive, and the act of culling through patients’ dreams with an eye open for telepathy is not in itself enough to produce the transmission of content. Looking for telepathic dreams may increase a client’s interest, but the test lies in the examination of the dream content.

The fact remains that the essays in the Devereaux volume present several cases of shared dream content though no known channel existed for such transmission.

Other Indications of Dream Communication

There is a small literature on an unusual phenomena called Mutual Dreaming (Donahoe, 1974), which occurs when two people experience a dream involving the other, and upon waking discover the dream correspondences. Though the phenomena seems to be very rare, it has been reported several times by one researcher. In a short paper, Donahoe reports three cases in which members of his dream study groups had mutual dreams. In each case there was no evidence of pre— sleep agreement on content, though the group members had agreed to look for mutual dreaming. Each case describes the dreams of two individuals in which they were interacting, and upon waking recorded the dream situation as it was seen from their point of view:

My dream account: I had just walked down the mountain in the dream when I met Pam outside a small house. We walked inside and sat down on the wooden floor beside some people. I knew I was tired and that I was about to wake up. I wanted to do something before being forced awake, I asked the group to observe me as I left the dream state consciously. Then I woke myself up.

Pam’s Account: My memory of my dream begins with me sitting on the floor with a group of people. One of the people began to fade out and as he did so he told us to observe him since he was tired and going to leave the dream state. His image became more and more dark. Finally there was a kind of hole where his body used to be and in its shape. I thought of the black holes in space and the theory of them being portals to another dimension. I knew he had gone thru to the waking state, then I woke up.

(Donahoe, 1974, p. 23)

While Donahoe only reports a few of these dreams, they also appear in other sources. Kipling’s Brushwood Boy and George deMaurier’s Peter Ibbetson are both based on a theme of mutual dreaming. In Brushwood Boy, for example, the young hero grows into adulthood while regularly having dreams of a mysterious rendevous with a beautiful woman on horseback on the “thirty mile run.” Later in his life, he is a military hero, and home for a visit when he meets a woman who meets the dream description.

“How could anyone conceivably know anything about the Thirty-Mile-Ride having anything to do with you unless he had been there?”

“But where? But where? Tell me!”

“There--wherever it may be. In our country. I suppose. Do you remember the first time you rode it--the Thirty-­Mile—Ride, I mean? You must.”

“It was all dreams——all dreams. . . .“

“You! . . . Then you’re the Boy--my Brushwood Boy and I’ve known you all my life” .

“Yes I remember showing you the Thirty-Mile-Ride the first time. You ride (now) just as you used to——then you are you!” .

“What does it all mean? Why should you and I or the millions of people in the world have this--this thing between us? What does it mean? I’m frightened.”

“This!’ said Georgie . . . ‘Perhaps when we die we may find out more, but it means this now.”

Similarly in Peter Ibbetson the hero has regular meetings with the Dutchess and carries on the dream activity in the conscious realm. These stories are fiction; nevertheless, they reflect, at least, the experience, or expression of the possibilities of the mind. Given Donahoe’s material and the work of Kipling and deMaurier, the possibility of dream telepathy is one anecdote stronger.

There is a very small body of literature on a phenomena called Lucid Dreaming. In this special state the individual is fully conscious of the fact that he is dreaming and is able to act on the events of the dream. While there are only a few references in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, and in Oldis (unpublished) and Fox (1976), the basics of the material can be found in a review volume by Celia Green (1968). In essence, the few recorded cases of lucid dreaming bear witness to the freedom of the individual to do virtually anything including engage in telepathy. Several cases are reported in which lucid dreamers became telepathic, including one case where three friends attempted to meet in their dreams. In the waking state all three agreed on a place to meet and a time. They went their separate ways and in the morning compared notes on their dreams. During their dreams, two of the three greeted and commented on the absence of the third. The third reported on waking that he had not dreamed at all. Had all three had dreams of meeting as a group, the whole matter could be dismissed as pre—sleep suggestion, but the fact that two should meet and note the missing dreamer is suggestive of an experience with a communication channel. The two had, in fact, shared something which was unknown to all of them prior to the dreaming (Fox, 1976).

Other lucid dreamers report that in the state of lucidity they have been able to visit with other dreamers, interact, exchange specific target words, and return to waking consciousness. In one such case a father dreamed he visited his absent son, and the dreaming boy told him a word the father had never heard before. On waking the boy asked his father about a strange word the boy had heard in his sleep; the word was that which the father had encountered in the lucid dream (Green, 1965).

Other cases of lucid dreaming involve a kind of telepathy in which the dreamer visits unknown places only to verify the appearance of the place on waking (Oldis, unpublished). While these cases, like those of mutual dreaming,

are not proof of the existence of dream telepathy, they both argue against the theory that shared dream content is the result of suggestion, expectation, or shared life content. Mutual dreamers and lucid dreamers seem to be operating with categorically different states of consciousness that “normal” dreams. Mutual and lucid dreamers seem to be consciously participating in their dreams while normal dreamers tend to receive dreams. These cases are all suggestive of a natural channel for sharing dream content.

There is another anecdotal source. Krippner and Fersh (1971) examined 22 long—term communes for evidence of paranormal events among the members. While there was much superficial interest in paranormal events, the communes had few examples of these powers. Only one of these communes used dreams extensively; and a child,

. . . is encouraged to relate his dreams to the rest of the commune. Varied interpretations are made of the dream reports, much as has been done for centuries by the Senoi tribesmen of Malaysia. One mother claims that her child has such well developed ESP ability that the mother needs only to mentally request that the girl come and the child appears within minutes.

(Krippner and Fersh, 1971, p. 8)

No such event was actually observed by the authors.

The anecdotal material, in and of itself is not enough to establish the existence of dream telepathy. It does not provide the kind of hard data derived from laboratory studies; the fact remains that these situations exist and they warrant further examination. Dr. Mead once told her class about a tool she suggested that good anthropologists should develop.

When one sees an unusual behavior one should look around to see how others of the tribe behave; if people stop and stare, you are witnessing a truly unusual behavior, but if they all continue with their business, you can rest assured that the behavior is a normal part of their culture. In the case of dream telepathy, one would assume from the amount of literature generated over one case that the phenomena is highly unusual. I feel that one statement sums up the position of the anecdotal material:

One cannot exclude the possibility of two totally unrelated events coinciding by chance. Consequently, such incidents are not in themselves sufficient proof of the existence of telepathic and clairvoyant perceptions or dreams. Accounts of such occurrences will become truly significant only when telepathic and telesthetic phenomena are confirmed by repeated experiments.

(Vastlier in Ullman, 1973, p. 42)

In another statement, the main critic of the analyst material, Ellis, stated,

. . . no scientist may legitimately accept the existence of any phenomenon until its objective existence is indubitably, unmistakably, unquestionably and repetitively established.

(Ellis in Devereaux, 1953, p. 270)

Using Ellis’ criteria, one might question the existence of many currently established scientific phenomena. In the spirit of Ellis’ challenge I will examine the major laboratory studies on dream telepathy.

The Experimental Studies

Drs. Ullman and Krippner at the Maimonides Dream Laboratory performed systematic research on the existence of dream telepathy. Dr. Ullman comments early in the volume Dream Telepathy (Ullman, Krippner and Vaughan, 1973) that he had observed telepathy in his patients, and that it seemed to operate eith sporadically, or consistently, when there was a block to communication. His intent was to establish the existence of dream telepathy on a sound statistical experimental basis.

Their studies are described in detail in Dream Telepathy (Ullman et al, 1973) and I refer the doubters to those pages. In this section I will review their research. Their work rests on a basic idea put forward by Whately Carrington in his book Telepathy:

Basically Carrington put forward the postulate that telepathic interchanges were facilitated by common association between two minds. His association theory held that if an idea or word (so—called 'K-object') were presented to a person who was in telepathic rapport with another person, then the second person would have associations with the ‘K—object.’

(Ullman et al, 1973, p. 59)

As an example, Ullman suggests if Person A is told “dog” that Person B will have associations like “bark, bite, bone.” Working with this idea, the researchers formulated a set of tests in which three people would be involved. The first is the subject, a person paid to sleep in the lab while wired to an electroencephalograph machine and awakened at the end of each dream as determined by his rapid eye movement (REM). The second is the agent, a paid individual who remains awake all night and when signaled that the subject is dreaming concentrates on a random preselected art print for the duration of the dream. The third is the experimenter whose sole duty is to monitor the EEG data, signal the agent at the onset of dreaming, and wake the dreamer at the end of each dream. At the end of each dream, the awakened dreamer reports his dream to a tape recorder, and in the morning upon final waking, he reviews his dreams and adds any remembered elements. The dream reports were transcribed and given to judges who have no previous involvement with the study. These judges were then requested to evaluate the dream reports and score hits or misses in accordance with the correspondence to the original art print. The art prints were the targets and the dreamer’s ability as a receiver was judged on his ability to hit the target with dream content. The dreamer was also asked to select among a number of art prints for the one that was the target. As a result, each dream test was scored on the basis of the dreamer’s target selection as well as on the basis of impartial blind judges. Subjects were selected on the basis of an ability to recall dreams, and for a positive attitude toward dream telepathy. Similar criteria were not stated for judges or experimenters, and the agents were members of the staff, and others who had been involved in the project.

The controls on the study were quite simple. First, the three people involved in the original studies were isolated from one another. Intercoms were used to avoid any personal contacts that might carry vital information. The art print for the night was drawn at random from a large file of unmarked envelopes. The targets were unknown to both experimenter and subject, and the agent had no knowledge of the unselected prints. Later experiments introduced variations on this basic theme, but in essence the early studies were quite conclusive. Using the art prints and dream transcripts the judges read dream transcriptions and chose which paintings seemed most related to the dream. The results support the telepathy hypothesis. In one case, for example,

The ranking of the transcripts by the three judges supported the telepathic hypothesis against odds on the order of a thousand to one that it could happen by chance.

(Ullman et al, 1973, p. 117)

Later variations on the basic studies included:

Though some of the early studies involving a complex judging system produced non—significant results, on the whole the data from the Maimonides Lab unquestionably supported the telepathy hypothesis.

The Maimonides researchers conclude their volume with a series of comments from experts in the field of ESP, dream research, and brain studies. With the exception of one critic who “wouldn’t believe it even if it were true” the comments express support for the validity of the studies and the circumstances under which they were conducted. The volume of research aptly concludes with the statement,

Our most basic finding is the scientific demonstration of Freud’s statement, “. . . sleep creates favorable conditions for telepathy.” In both the formal studies and the one night pilot studies, we have found that a person who is open to the possibility of ESP is relatively comfortable in the laboratory, and is able to remember his dreams, will more than likely dream telepathically.

Regardless of profession, walk of life, waking psychic ability or knowledge of having ever before experienced ESP, the great majority of subjects (65 out of 80) were able to report correspondences that were suggestively telepathic.

(Ullman 1973, p. 209)

These studies demonstrated four key phenomena. Using the REM awakening system described above, it is possible to:

These four elements appeared to differing degrees in each of the studies and were independent of all the variables examined.

There comes a time in any field of research when one has to accept the validity of what has gone before, and begin to strike out on new paths. Time and resources do not permit the active researcher to continue to test that which has been proven to his satisfaction. To my full satisfaction, the research at the Maimonides Dream Laboratory demonstrates the existence of telepathy between waking agents and sleeping subjects.

Since I began my research with no background in dream telepathy, I had to prove to myself that such a phenomenon could, indeed, exist. Basically, the Maimonides material speaks to interactions between single waking agents and single sleeping subjects. These conditions bear little resemblance to my dreamers. Since my material was gathered in a natural setting, among a group of 15 who were all simultaneously sleeping, none using EEG waking tools, and who had spent 20 days establishing emotional rapport, I needed more than the simple demonstration of telepathy before I would have a base upon which to build. First of all, I had to see if there was any research on group dream telepathy; and second, if there was material in the literature on emotional factors in telepathy; and last, if there was anything on sleeper to sleeper telepathy. The later Maimonides studies dealt with two of these matters, and there was an ample anecdotal literature on the last.

Group Telepathy

Is it possible for there to be telepathic contact between members of a group? The problem is very complex because all the possible permutations and combinations among group members leads to accounting problems, though there are studies of single agents sending to groups, and of large groups sending to several subjects. Briefly, there are three items in the literature of interest here. Tart and Fadiman (1974) report a case in a natural setting where a single person sent conscious material to four sleepers. The setting involved a great deal of emotional concern on the part of the sender, as well as unusual atmospheric conditions including a sudden lightening storm. The implication of the study was that a single person could transmit waking thoughts to a small group, and the transmission was enhanced where emotional contact between sender and receiver was present. It further suggests an atmospheric component in telepathy. Data from other psychophysical disciplines can be marshaled to support a hypothesis that thunderstorms and changes in ion density enhanced the telepathic phenomena (Beal, 1977).

One of the Maimonides studies dealt with group telepathy. Having shown in earlier work with Masters and Houston that sensory bombardment enhanced the ability to transmit, the Maimonides staff arranged for the audience at a New York City rock concert to be the senders to a pair of target receivers. The agents numbered about 2000 concert goers, who were in altered states of consciousness through the influence of psychedelic drugs, the music, and the group contact. The telepathy score was excellent on the Maimonides scale. Of six art prints projected to the group, four appeared in the subjects’ dreams. Another facet of this study involved the use of two subjects, one of whom was not identified to the group while the other was named, and his sleeping location given. The identified dreamer scored 4 hits in 6 attempts, while the unknown dreamer only got one hit for the same 6 tries. Though the study is limited, Ullman comments:

This experiment suggests that agent orientation toward the subject plays an important role in helping the subject telepathically beam into the target. If one further assumes that both subjects were telepathically “reaching out” then the fact that the agents are attempting rapport with one subject and not the other may indicate that it is easier for the subject to make telepathic contact if there is rapport.

(Ullman et al., 1973, p. 176)

The matter of telepathy and rapport will be discussed later. Ullman also notes another case of planned group telepathy. In a summer camp setting, one researcher organized an informal telepathic dream contest. One woman volunteered to concentrate on a picture while she was awake with her infant. In the morning the group was shown a target pool of pictures and found to their delight that the majority had hits on the target. (Ullman, 1973) All of this research is supportive of the telepathy hypothesis and it implies:

1 ) a channel can exist between a waking sender and sleeping subject;

2) the channel is open from individuals to groups or from groups to individuals;

3) atmospheric conditions may be a factor in telepathic contact;

4) rapport between sender and receiver may be a factor in telepathic contact.

The whole matter of agent/subject rapport is a difficult one. In the psychoanalytic anecdotes, critics found fault with the close rapport of agent and subject because they felt that there was too much room for common dreams based on rapport instead of on actual telepathy. To overcome this, some studies (Eisenbud, 1953; Ullman et al., 1973) used such unemotional targets as three—digit numbers, nonsense syllables and impressionistic paintings. The nonsense material was easy to spot in the dreams and eliminated the possibility that commonday residue would be mistaken for telepathy. These studies allowed a greater degree of personal rapport. The results obtained with nonsense material was sufficiently stimulating to launch Ullman and Krippner on their research path. The same material, however, raises another problem. If, in fact, the telepathic channel exists to convey important information between the minds of people in close rapport why would such trivial material as three—letter nonsense words, or Zener cards serve as suitable messages. In most of the Maimonides studies, impressionistic art prints were used; and it is not clear why such material would have sufficient importance to be transmitted. The matter of rapport and message importance is central to the whole telepathy matter. Virtually all of the spontaneous anecdotal telepathy reports involve consanguineous or affinal relatives and messages about deaths and tragic events in the family. There are numerous references throughout the history of psychical research of family members having dreams that correlated with important events in the lives of their kin. All of these accounts include a written record of the dream and a life event with which the dreamer had no previous information (Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1952, 1956, 1958).

The anecdotal material, both spontaneous and psychoanalytic, suggests that two elements facilitate telepathy; that is, personal rapport, and message importance. The main Maimonides material suggests that interest, openness, and comfort in the laboratory, etc., are necessary and sufficient conditions for telepathy and that emotional rapport will further facilitate telepathy. In one of the Maimonides studies, one of the star subjects made a special effort to establish close rapport with his agent before sleeping. By spending several hours together in close conversation, they hoped to enhance their telepathic channel. While the particular subject was already one of the top telepathic performers, this series surpassed his normally excellent scores. The possible implication of this is that a channel can be enhanced through the development of interpersonal rapport.

The third point I was examining concerned sleeper to sleeper telepathy. While the majority of the Maimonides laboratory material deals with waking agents sending to sleeping subjects, Ullman’s own early interest in telepathy comes from attempts to establish links with an interested client while both were asleep. The majority of the documented anecdotes are cases of sleeper to sleeper contact (Ullman et al., 1973, Devereaux, 1953). Beyond the cases reported by Ullman and the psychoanalysts, The Journal of Psychical Research has published numerous spontaneous anecdotal accounts of telepathy between two sleepers.

In summation, my review of the literature has established the following as tenable hypotheses:

1) dream telepathy can exist;

2) contact is possible between two sleepers;

3) emotional rapport can enhance the telepathic contact;

4) groups of dreamers, or groups of agents, can be involved in dream telepathy.

Chapter III

THE FIELD RESEARCH ON DREAM TELEPATHY

To a certain extent the research done at Maimonides was done to establish the existence of dream telepathy. Given that the anecdotal literature in itself could not substantiate the existence of the phenomenon, Ullman and his team endeavored to demonstrate that telepathy could function and would function under the conditions necessary to meet the criteria of scientific objectivity. They created a sanitary set of conditions under which the communication of information could only take place through a non—ordinary channel of communication. While this methodology does not meet the criteria of the Logical Positivists, that one must disprove hypotheses in order to actually know anything, the reader of this research invokes Occams Razor and concludes that telepathy is the simplest explanation for the unusual phenomena. To the extent that the philosophy of science will allow, the Maimonides research demonstrated that the anecdotes were all pointing to a real phenomenon. I am faced, however, with a quite different problem. In the course of collecting a natural history of 15 people who met to improve their understanding of their dreaming mind, I encountered an unusual collection of dreams on the night the group attempted to dream telepathically. In effect I have a field trial of dream telepathy as it occurred in a non—laboratory setting. In such a setting and under the conditions I found, it is possible to examine the dreams that occur when a group of people decide to dream telepathically under optimal conditions with emotional rapport, and with shared targets. What follows is a record of my observations of 15 dreamers during their attempt at telepathy.

Setting

The following dream research was conducted during a month long residential conference sponsored by Atlantic University. Atlantic University is a branch of the Association for Research and Enlightenment which is a foundation dedicated to research of the psychic readings of the late Edgar Cayce. In founding Atlantic University, Cayce described an institution in which one would experience “balanced living through the integration of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions of life in a controlled environment.” (Davidson, 1977, p. 14) The goal of Atlantic University is to create a learning experience for the whole person. Atlantic University sessions are short—term gatherings of 15 to 20 individuals who engage in a wide range of activities oriented toward the many dimensions of their whole selves. On the average, these sessions last 2—4 weeks and are held in a rural setting on a working farm in Western Virginia. While each session has a single main focus, there is an overall pattern of group activity to engage the different dimensions of the whole person.

Each day is built around three half-hour periods of prayer and meditation, and includes at least two hours of work with current dreams in small groups of four to six persons, approximately two hours in a conceptual seminar where the Cayce readings and parallel material are studied and another two hours in group process sessions. The physical dimension is incorporated via daily exercise, occasional sports, family duties in the house and garden and a special dietary regimen extracted from the readings.

(Davidson, 1977, p. 14)

Because of the spiritual nature of the Cayce material, these sessions place greater emphasis on meditation, prayer and dreams than is found in any traditional educational settings. It is the intention of Atlantic University that each individual experience the opportunity for growth found when living in a small family setting and working together to create a community.

While specific Atlantic University sessions have taken place in other settings, the farm in western Virginia is the main campus. The setting is a single farmhouse of Civil War vintage placed in the middle of several small dairy farms. It is situated midway between a valley stream and the peak of a foothill. It overlooks acres of cow pasture and woods with no visible signs of either roads or towns. In the nighttime Skyline there are no lights or city glow and the prevailing sound is that of crickets and cows. There is local access to a small town, a few fast food restaurants, parks, swimming holes, and seemingly endless tracts of woods and hills. There are few disturbances and only a few adjacent neighbors who leave Atlantic University participants to themselves.

The farm is also proximal to the Association for Re. search and Enlightenment summer camp, and its facilities and staff. While the building is more than 100 years old, it stands in excellent repair due to the efforts of many Atlantic University participants working on its entire structure. It is a farmhouse built on the familiar pattern of that era. There is a very substantial kitchen and dining room and a smaller entry room and living room. The farmhouse also has ample porch spaces and approximately eight bedrooms and three bathrooms. The dining room has one large square table with room for the whole group of participants at one sitting. The kitchen is large with sufficient room for small gatherings and discussions while meals were being prepared. The parlor/entry has several chairs, a piano, and a closet full of art supplies. The traditional living room has no chairs, but a soft rug and a large number of cushions, pillows, and similar items for sitting. The room is the setting for virtually all of the didactic and conceptual discussions and group activities. Its limited furnishings permit an endless set of variations of sitting, lying, and lounging through these sessions. This room is also the setting for the three daily meditation sessions. The living room also has a collection of books from the Association for Research and Enlightenment and private libraries, and a small stereo system for cassettes and records. The bedrooms are quite large and each is sufficient for use by two or three occupants. Each room contains a bed, bureau, and closet space for each occupant. There is a wide porch around two sides of the house with a sofa and two arm chairs as well as two hammocks and the celebrated front stoop. An average day at an Atlantic University session involved:

           7:30           a.m. — Yoga exercise

           8:30           a.m. - Meditation under daily rotating leadership

           9:30           a.m. - Breakfast

           10—noon         — Dream work groups with four members/group

           noon             — Lunch

           1 p.m.            — Yard work and free time

           2—3           p.m.            — Afternoon session

           5:30           p.m. - Meditation

           6:00           p.m. - Dinner

           8:00           p.m. — Evening sessions

           10:00 p.m.  - Evening meditation

The three daily meditations, the two education/discussion sessions, and the daily dream work form the core of the Atlantic University education. All members are expected to involve themselves in these activities every day. The free time/work time vary with the day and the individual. People who are on scholarship have particular chores to do, while the staff use this time to plan the ongoing events. Others use this time for trips into town, art work, long walks, reading or simple relaxation. The core of the Atlantic University program depends on the focus of the particular session. Each session is built around a central theme and this pervades the didactics as well as the meditations and other aspects of the program. The subjects are drawn from the Edgar Cayce material and provide a cogent focus for the short term community.

While dream work is a part of every session, it was part of the central theme of the session I attended and studied.

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