There’s a great, worldwide, multicultural tradition that our
thoughts – prayers – meditations – focused intentions have
actual power and influence. Another vast school of thought
says we’re all interconnected in subtle and profound ways;
our true self is the entire web. Then there are those of us
who most readily access that web in our dreams, transcending
distance and boundaries to share experiences while we sleep.
Where these
ideas meet, we find the
World
Dreams
Peace
Bridge – a group brought together by the notion that we can bring
our focused intentions into our dreams, dream together, and
magnify our will to promote peace so that it radiates throughout
the web. At least that’s the way I see it. Our founder Jean
Campbell, author of
Group Dreaming: Dreams To the Tenth Power,
explains the title as reflecting the idea that if “people could
dream together, we would be suggesting that dreams can be
augmented in an exponential manner.” It’s a leap of faith to think
we can thereby change the world. But – dream with intention, dream
as a group, share information, influence one another on the
profound levels on which dreams operate? We do that all the time!
A remarkable
group dream took place a few weeks ago, disguised as the
Psiberdream Telepathy Contest. The contest is part of the
International Association for the Study of Dreams’ annual online
conference. Several participants were Peace Bridge members – or
joined soon after.
The rules:
An unnamed person selects four dissimilar pictures and seals them
into opaque envelopes. A set is provided to a person acting as
“sender” who secretly selects one, leaving the others sealed, then
spends the night attempting “to establish mind-to-mind,
awake-to-sleeping connections with the dreamers participating all
over the world…. Dreamers are encouraged to incubate the intention
of seeing or connecting with the sender and the picture, writing
down all dreams they have.” The next day, all four pictures are
posted online, and contestants post their dreams and choose which
picture they seem to match. Judges award prizes for the dreams
best matching the target picture.
The contest night was a Thursday. The sender was the
renowned and talented Beverly D’Urso. I wrote down a plethora of
dreams. In one I realized I was dreaming, gleefully called out “Beverly,
show me the picture!” and took off flying. Below me was a snowy
landscape. A bare patch of earth opened in the center. Suddenly “a
very large dog” leaped into the scene, followed by another; later
I dreamed yet another dog.
Once I saw the potential targets, I zeroed in on Picture
#1, a snowy scene with a bare patch of earth at the center, in
which two elf-like characters – one tall and young in a pale,
belted outfit, one short and old and bearded in a red-orange
Santa-like hat – gaze up into an evergreen tree. Bits and pieces
of my other dreams fell into place: Two figures, one tall, one
short. A figure in a pale belted outfit. An evergreen tree. Boys
or young men looking up at what I’d described as “something like a
pickle?!” which in fact resembled one of the branches.
Asymmetrical apples and carrots, the color and shape of the
red-orange hat. My white cat leaping toward a little animal, which
I related to a white snow-shape curving toward a small oval hollow
that could be an animal’s burrow.
One convincing bit for me was that I twice dreamed a
stair-step line from lower right to upper left, which corresponded
to the “implied line” created by the elves’ heights and direction
of their gaze – something only an old art sudent might care about!
But there were no dogs in the picture. And I didn’t dream
of an elf or gnome – the main subject, really.
But Dolores did! She dreamed of “two dwarfs in tall red
caps, sitting on a shelf with downcast eyes, hands on their knees
and their white beards flowing over their knees between their
hands. They looked like the red-capped fellow in picture #1.”
Sonia D. matched the taller, younger elf when she dreamed
“My [teenaged] son is wearing a drab gray one piece-suit
and looks something like a jester.” Beverly A. reinforced the
little old dwarf and his cap, dreaming of a “boy” who was orange
and very wrinkled, and “a red triangular shape that doesn't seem
related to anything. It's just there.” Ilkin’s brief dream notes
concisely interpreted the expressions on their faces:
"Grumbling/curious. Waiting/looking the way for something. Afraid
from precognition. Snow."
Patricia wrote her dream in haiku form:
tiny elves shelter
in the hollowed out birch tree
massive storm
----
the dog alerts them
one by one scruffy elves leave
the hollow log
Maia contributed, “First, a dream of placing a child into a
small oval hollow in the earth…. Second, images of caribou and
snow, ice, a few patches of bare earth.” Mary Pat, like me lucid
and actively seeking the target, dreamed of woods, cold, and “a
landscape full of snow and ice” – plus red-harnessed reindeer hung
with bells.
And a Husky dog.
Two non-competing contest facilitators couldn’t resist
reporting. Bob Van De Castle wrote, “The most compelling aspect of
my dreams last night was that there was a scene where I had my
hands in snow, which is something I can't previously recall ever
experiencing!” Rita Dwyer dreamed of snow and evergreens and
“Christmas in the air.”
Suzanne “dreamed about seeing Beverly eating an ice cream.”
Curt dreamed “a black sphere on the upper left of my visual field
– I look up to see it…. What I notice about Picture 1 is that
there is a black patch in the upper left of the picture about the
same size as the sphere in my dream, and the two figures seem to
be looking up at it.”
We excitedly compared notes online. As a group, we’d
dreamed up every bit of Picture #1. But we were also impressed by
the group hits on the other three pictures, especially #3 and #4.
Picture #2 showed a family of apes in loving interaction.
Bob V. thought two of his dreams related: “In the first I was on a
bed with a dog's head on my lap and I was petting him. In the
second, a different dog was on the bedroom floor on its back and
sort of rolling around.” More dogs!
Picture #3 showed a dark-haired, bare-footed, bare-breasted
dancer in a yellow skirt, dancing for an audience in a darkened
room. Liz described her perfectly, aside from hair and costume
colors: “…dancing with her arms in the air. She has light hair
with streaks and a bare top. She is moving her hips back and forth
and she has a thin figure. From about the middle of her back down
she is wearing a see through white garment. She has a smile on her
face and appears to be enjoying herself. She is acting as though
she is dancing for an audience.” Peggy dreamed of happily going
topless, plus bits that filled in what Liz missed: a pretty woman
with dark hair; the color yellow; a bare foot. Val, who loves
jewelry, keyed into the dancer’s earrings and bangles. David L. K.
modestly converted the audience passively watching the central
dancer into several turned-off televisions in a darkened room
surrounding one that was on – which he blocked from the view of
his young daughter, as he assured us he would have done if Picture
#3 were being broadcast!
Liz later in the night seemed to dream the Amish
barn-raising in #4:
“Themes: Busy working, building. Emotions:
frustrated, trying to work Major
structural elements: wood, very large arch shape. I am standing on
a high ladder with many people below me….” Ed described the same
scene in table-top miniature, adding the colors: “Themes:
Construction, putting pieces together. Emotions: Mental focus,
annoyance at having someone telling me what to do. Major
structural elements: Edges, lines, geometrical shapes.
Manipulating pieces, building. Blue, white and beige…. Geometrical
puzzle… lots of wooden pencils.” Dale dreamed of an
assembly/disassembly project, a crowd of people and “something
that resembles a barn or a shed.” Janet saw a tall, empty house
made of unfinished light brown wood; Bob K., a house with no
walls, roof or furniture. Gosh dreamed of wooden frame structures
three nights in a row. Terri dreamed she tried to climb up a tall
stage at an outdoor concert. Mary Pat dreamed of a large building
in a scene that looked very much like the picture, especially the
bright green sloping lawn. Sonia D. dreamed, “I receive a
‘gift’…. a child's playhouse. I open the door to the house to
discover that it is not fully assembled.”
But although four of us dreamed seven dogs total, there
weren’t any dogs in any of the pictures. Where’d they come from?
On Saturday Beverly revealed the target: Picture #1. The
thoughts she’d generated in sending it included Santa and reindeer
along with elements of the picture itself. Next she posted
descriptions of her dreams on contest night. “Ordering ice cream,
but not eating it.” “Open-walled houses” – was she dreaming of #4,
still in its sealed envelope? Or dreaming of the dreams of the
contestants who dreamed of #4? She also dreamed of visiting
Ashland, Oregon – where she’d recently travelled with Ed – in an
old car that turned out to be a near-exact match with an old car
Ed dreamed, completely unrelated to any of the pictures.
And – what’s this? She dreamed an “extremely large dog”
tried to get into bed with her!
At this point Suzanne confessed, “Gosh! I'm so confused!
You see, Robert Waggoner and I are doing some dream games too. The
last time it was his turn to do the sending, and I was a bit
disappointed to find out that this dream telepathy contest had the
same target night. Since I wanted to participate in both, I didn't
know what to do…. Maybe it’s interesting to share what he was
sending…?”
Turns out it was a photo of sled dogs on an icy river!
The judges labored for an extra day, reporting, “Choosing
winners is very difficult. Extra awards may be added to cover the
strange and wonderful things that happened during this PDT contest
of 2006.” While we waited
we talked about how we’d contributed elements adding up to the
whole, each according to our own way of seeing. I wrote that it
was “difficult to evaluate my own dreams’ relation to the target
without looking at everyone else’s. Think how fun and rewarding it
would be if that were the object of the game… treat it as a group
dream and say, for instance, ‘Wow, there's a lot of snow in here!
A lot of dancers too, but even more snow. And look at all the
elves….”
Finally the judges stated that collectively the 2006
contest had “the best results ever,” and named ties for first,
second and third place plus several honorable mentions for
matches with non-target pictures and Beverly’s dreams. Clearly
they weren’t entirely comfortable with reducing this intricate
network to a linear hierarchy. And neither was I. The initial
ego-thrill of being named a winner was quickly replaced by a
feeling something like loneliness. The experience of meshing minds
in the night with people all over the world was far, far more
rewarding.
Joy
(P.S. Jean has reminded me that she wrote last month of my
Albuquerque mystery and suggested I might tell how it turned out.
Bear with me: it’s still unfolding, with the help of my dreaming
friends on the Bridge. More soon! – JF)
