International Association for the Study of Dreams

[Mary Whitefeather Joyce]

Val, LeeB, anyone?

did I miss the post? was there ever a winner or winners announced?
_________________
Mary Whitefeather Joyce

[timeisnotlinear]

Hmmm, let me check on that.

[timeisnotlinear]

Mary,

Rita is currently putting together an article for DreamTime with a full report on the contest regarding both online and onsite entries.

[Mary Whitefeather Joyce]

oh ok great!

Thanks for your reply!
_________________
Mary Whitefeather Joyce

[timeisnotlinear]

[Bobbie Ann]

Bob and Rita asked that I post this -- as printed in DreamTime

DREAM TELEPATHY CONTEST SENDS US INTO OUTER SPACE

By Rita Dwyer and Bob Van de Castle

Our annual contest, initiated in 1985 by Bob Van de Castle, was held at our IASD conference in Chicago with surprising twists and turns that excited and united contestants from around the world. Forty-two submissions were received onsite and 11 on line. There were some very impressive hits on the target picture, focused upon by our designated sender, Angel Morgan. She randomly selected one sealed envelope from a pool of four envelopes, each of which contained a photo seen by no one but the provider.

The target picture was #4.


It shows a space shuttle blasting off from its launch pad with flames and several clouds of smoke seen in contrast to the dark night time sky. Several steel structures with cross-beams support the launch pad in the center and a separate white tower is visible next to it with other equipment necessary for the launch in the foreground.

First place winner Laura Lefelar-Burch’s dream and her accompanying drawing were clear hits:

Laura’s title was: Reaching for New Galaxies. On the right hand side of her entry, she wrote: ”I dreamt this image, then fell back to sleep. Later on I dreamt that I was explaining to a man a dream I had where I was pulled up into outer space, into the blackness. Someone else had this dream experience too: a male. I wasn’t afraid, it was a bit like flying even though I felt pulled.” Off to the left side of her account was a drawing of a structure with a cross beam which she described as follows: “This was a silver structure of some sort, several stories high, welded together like steel beams.” In the center of her drawing above the silver structure is a round object (moon, sun?) with nine (stars?)

But there was also another surprising entry - that of Marie H. Maltais. She entitled her dream: The Rocket Explosion. This is how she described her dream: “I find myself with a group of people I don’t know in a grass field in the middle of nowhere. We are there to see the launch of a space shuttle at night. I get a sense that it is not the type of shuttle that will go all the way through the space but ‘the other one.’ We witness the lifting off. It is very impressive. I see the shuttle in the space, the fire, very clearly. Then I intuitively know that the shuttle is going to explode. We have to run away from it to save our lives because the pieces are going to fall down and the fire will burn us. My life is threatened and I am afraid…Marie then describes a scene where she is running away with two men and eventually winds up in a village walking in the streets like tourists.”

Although this dream also clearly described the target, the amazing fact was that it occurred the night of June 24-25 in Quebec City, NOT on the night of the “telepathy“ contest in Chicago (June 28-29), when Angel Morgan had focused upon the photo of the space launch throughout that night. Thus Marie’s experience was definitely a type of psychic event, but in this case, her dream technically would be considered as a “precognitive” one. An attempt to further clarify the distinctions between the various forms of ESP or “psi“ experiences will be presented after the examples of the dream connections with picture# 4.

A few other contestants touched on aspects of the target. Burning buildings were featured in Daniel Condron’s entry: “Dreamt of the twin towers of New York City right before being hit and then being hit and bursting in to flames.” Aerial flight was a theme in Stanley Krippner’s dream: I was waiting for a shuttle bus for a United flight at the airport. Structures that perform solar operations are described by another dreamer: a geometric structure that can (and does) fold and unfold. It starts in a ( roughly )ball like shape, shifts around. I imagine it can unfold into a solar collector. Bonnie Mitsch dreamed about fog slowly encompassing Chicago. A vehicle or cylinder to contain space for a few passengers is noted by Sandy Ginsberg: A golden circle that contains someone, like a cylinder to sit within, with one-or-perhaps two people. This may be like a magical vehicle-Carnival atmosphere and seen from below -but no, now seen from above just a bit…scary but exhilarating. Carnival or Canaveral, our sender certainly launched some good energy!
No online contestant selected target picture #4. Caroldedreamer mentioned: “the door opening looking like the door of a space ship and I referenced a UFO in my notes”, but she didn’t choose # 4.

As has happened repeatedly in previous contests, some dreamers seem to tune into the alternate pictures that the sender had not concentrated upon. Perhaps it might help to briefly review some findings from the history of parapsychology that are relevant to this phenomena. When J.B.Rhine began his research at the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory in the late 30’s, he utilized Zener cards containing 5 different geometrical shapes (star, circle, square etc.) An “agent” would visually concentrate on a randomly selected card and try to “send” the image to a “receiver.” If a correspondence was found between the two images, it was considered to be a demonstration of “Telepathy” [mind to mind interaction]. Later testing procedures took a different direction. Cards were removed from a freshly shuffled deck and placed face down on a table while subjects would attempt to perceive their identity. Subjects were able to identify these “non- visualized” targets at a level that was statistically significant, and these successful results were considered to present evidence for “Clairvoyance” [mind to object interaction, since there was no sender involved.]. In still later experiments, subjects would write down their guesses as to what the order of a deck of Zener cards would be when they were shuffled at a specified future date and turned over to be tabulated. Again, statistically significant results were obtained and successful results were considered as evidence for “Precognition”.

Another term frequently used in parapsychology is “displacement”. In a chapter entitled “Intrasubject and Subject-Agent Effects in ESP Experiments “ in the 1977 Handbook of Parapsychology, J Carpenter notes: “The term displacement refers to hitting or missing contingencies between a response and certain targets other than the one for which it was intended“ ( p.217). Many examples of displacement were apparent during this contest.

Picture #2, shows a military funeral with a flag draped coffin carried by 6 uniformed soldiers honoring a fallen comrade. There is a line of many raised flags held by soldiers along the crowded route and one saluting soldier in the forefront is overlooking the whole area.


Lesley Zaret’ provided a drawing of 13 flags hanging down in rows to illustrate her dream: “An outdoor market with flags-rows and rows of colored flags hanging over the market. The flags are rectangular…hanging from ropes in parallel rows. The market area beneath (the) flags is crowded with ... people.”



Jane Beaumont Snyder dreamt, “It is a sunny day. I am in the midst of an official ceremony. These men who are security guards or soldiers stand in a circle around me. I am in the center and I wonder what they are doing. They are marching and have emotionless faces, but I have the sense that something big is going on. Eventually they all file out from the circle and I feel release.”

Devon Van Zyl connected with the military aspect with “Two factions of men are fighting a war for control of a large castle-type building. However, they don’t have guns or weapons. They come to some agreement or peace pact, with one man still being the ruler. He is positioned on an open little platform space overlooking the whole area. Weapons were an element in Kira Sass’s dream. She pictured Angel’s face, but then had “a visual of her fighting and lunging. She seemed to display some kind of swordplay like a Samurai. I tried to see color and had visions of red, black, and white... I was surprised by these emotions because they didn’t match with the emotions I associated with her, but these feelings were strong.“ The colors in Kira’s dream don’t quite fit with the American flag because of the lack of blue, but Gunnar Sundstrom came to the rescue with his brief dream: Some one, a woman? is holding, unfolding a big, bright blue cloth, a silk shawl maybe.“
Strong feelings of apprehension were described in George Leute’s dream where he is walking with a young girl in a factory or warehouse, when “I hear a sound like a ‘splat’ or the sound of a body hitting the floor. I turn around and see that the young child has fallen face first onto the floor... I am concerned that she may have hurt herself and I help her up.” A disturbing sound was also reported by Jody Grundy: “Honk! I hear a loud startling honk of a car horn as I’m driving. I swerve to avoid the car coming toward me and a potential collision.“ A car is also featured in Robert Gongloff’s dream: “I am on a street . A man is modifying our car. ... He thinks we are hunters and wants to modify the car for hunting. But we tell him we are not hunters.”

The most popular non-focused upon photo, selected by one-third of all the onsite contestants, was Picture #1, of the Lotus Temple in Yogaville, VA.

It shows a long, reflecting pool of blue water leading to the temple, which has tall pink lotus leaves covering its base, a small metallic dome at the top, and a wide expanse of cloudless blue sky overhead.

Cynthia Bergstrom had a lovely colored sketch which she titled “Pink Flower”, which closely resembled the shape and color of the Lotus Temple.

Underneath her drawing, she wrote: “I’m teaching yoga to another woman.“ (Note: Cynthia is from VA and may have visited Yogaville. I mention this because Dale Graff gave a presentation in Chicago and made the point that it seemed easier for him to get a good hit on a target if he was already familiar with it or the surroundings.) Perhaps a stored memory linkage makes it easier to identify a certain topic.

Others opine that we may be attracted to a non-target picture because our personal connections offer a more pleasing subject matter than the randomly selected target. Goshengolly titled her dream “Dock of the Bay” and mentioned, “a street filled with boatyards.” She indicated she, “wanted to buy a house with some friends so we could live by the water and have a boat dock.” Michael Schredl was “walking to a big river ... where the water level increased because of the rain ... Concrete steps lead to this place then back to a huge bridge ... Somewhere up the river there is a boat race.” Several dreams featured a house [temple] theme. The water level was not adequate with “a double flush system “toilet in a house Brian Kraichely was visiting in his dream. Chris Olsen was “facilitating a group in a large old house” in his dream when “a man sprays a woman in a dress on the other side of a porch with a water gun.” Another recurrent feature was mention of the color blue—royal blue, light blue to ocean blue, bright blue, sky blue, and stunning sky blue. The sky and the water in Picture #1 contain lovely shades of blue and lots of water!

Picture #3 showed a pack of wild horses running in the snow.

There were no on site references to horses, but other animals were mentioned. Beverly D’Urso wrote: “We watch this screen where these ‘Natives’ are dancing (circular spinning). I see white deer?skin (and rocks).... The chief comes out like an animal—I think it’s a bull.” Susan Hausman Stember titled her dream ”Leopard Spotted“ and noted that it had the looks of the skin/fur of a leopard but, “It is more pulsating and the colors more muted than leopard fur.” Tzivia Gover mentioned; “ Angel Morgan holds a painting of white doves.” Vigorous leg motions were emphasized by some dreamers. Margaret McGill was “dancing in a full length light colored embellished skirt.” Leg motion was featured in David Kahn’s dream where he was outside watching while several companions rob a bank. When they come out, “8 of us ride away on bicycles. On the way out of the area there is a man in the park who throws a rock at me.”
Online entries had a higher than expected number of horse related dreams - 4 out of the 11 entries. Rick M ‘s dream in part: “I turned to see my nephew ride up on a black horse... He rode off on the horse looking very clumsy and unaccustomed to riding... He almost fell off of the horse.” Val B had a dream snippet where she saw a horse racing or running and remarked that her psiber conference logo is a running horse. Caroldedreamer dreamt of sounds of horses’ hoofs and waveluv dreamt of donkeys. Mary Whitefeather Joyce posted her snippets as “Horses, unicorns, Pegasus, planets, stars, the galaxy and even butterflies.” She may have telepathically tuned into the target picture of the rocket ship blasting off and clairvoyantly to the horse picture.

Bob VdC selected Angel to be the agent because he sensed a special energetic connection that she emitted. She first began her interest in dreams at age 4. Her father had been a dream researcher and his enthusiasm for the subject apparently had a strong influence upon Angel, since she is now a skilled lucid dreamer. She is currently a dream group facilitator, movie maker, artist, and is working on her PhD at Saybrook. She spent her time as agent by alternately sending images of the target picture and then engaging in a series of lucid dreams. She posted those dreams on the IASD DT Contest site for sendees to review: http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/bb2005/viewtopic.php?t=3254&highlight=.

Here are some excerpts from her dreams: “I climb in the rocket and blast into space. After shooting into the sky, I swirl around with all the DT contest sendees. They are full of love - we sing of the Dream Movement and how it is literally going to save the world. We have a big party in space. From where we are in space, we see that people from various locations from all over show up like red lights on the earth-- one by one they shoot up in their own rockets to join us for the party. They are curious and want to be with us. (An) IASD member and I dance and improvise martial arts moves. It’s fun!” Dale Graff described a board game where buttons were pressed that left a red dot or red circle on the button. His drawing displays some buttons with red lights which might be considered as similar to the red lights that Angel referred to.
In another dream, Angel mentioned that “people are completely wild, naked, and uninhibited -then peaceful and cozy, - we all curl up in bunches to watch dream themed movies.. in space.” This was apparently when Bob VdC joined in this activity. He reported this dream: “I had the sensation I was with Angel and she had a nightgown on. I could vaguely see through it and rolled over once on the bed without making any movements to be directly sexual. We seemed to respect each other’s boundaries and acknowledged that limits existed as to the degree of closeness we could experience and still feel comfortable about the situation.”

In a later dream, Angel mentions: “We’re all hanging out now at a 1950’s style space diner. Still floating in the same place…Later as a good hostess, Angel requests: “I ask everyone to drive their rockets back to earth -- it’s morning now, and I check in to be sure we are okay to drive... Everyone rides back to earth where it is daytime and [IASD member] is leading a gardening project on an IASD plot of land.“ Gina Sestak titled her dream “Broadcast Planting” and wrote “Angel is throwing or strewing something- seeds or stars from her right hand.”

There were a total of 4 on-line and 3 on-site individuals who described some type of dreaming interaction with Angel. After the contest instructions had been given, Angel agreed to spend a few minutes with any contestant who wished to “connect “ with her by looking into her face, shaking hands, or exchanging a brief hug. Contestants frequently reported dreams that reflected some type of enjoyable social activity such as in Ian’s dream, in part: “In my dream, I am at the hotel with a woman who looks a lot like Angel. We are talking about something silly and drinking wine in a bar/restaurant type atmosphere. There is another friend of mine there who is drinking with us…”

Besides the obvious correspondences between contestants’ dreams and various elements in the collection of available photos, there were also some striking correspondences between accounts of the contestants’ dreams where they reported observing Angel engaged in activities that Angel reported she had experienced in her lucid dreams .
If we return to our foray into the history of parapsychology, we can find impressive data to support the claim that close connections in imagery can be found in situations where both individuals in a telepathic dyad are in altered states of consciousness at approximately the same time.

Rechtschaffen (1970) noticed that there was often an impressive degree of correspondence between dreams occurring at about the same time of night when two subjects were sleeping in his laboratory at the University of Chicago. Here’s one example he provided of this shared imagery: "In the first dream, one subject dreamt about students singing in Russia, and the other subject dreamed about students doing some kind of interpretive singing. In the second dream, the first subject was taking a violin lesson and the other subject was learning a guitar melody. In the third dream, the first subject was watching a James Cagney gangster movie, and the other subject reported a dream about a recent gangster movie, "Bonnie and Clyde." (p.89) After observing a few other examples of simultaneous dreams, Rechtschaffen remarked, "We became very excited. We thought that maybe the question is not so much what do dreams mean, but whose dream are you having?" (p.89)

Rechtschaffen decided to use hypnosis to investigate the possibility of inducing simultaneous dreaming in an altered state of consciousness more carefully. Before the subject went to sleep for the night, he was hypnotized, and while he was in a trance, told that during the night he would have a certain dream…

“The very first night we tried it, we told the subject that he would dream of the death of Martin Luther King and of a fear of riots, and he dreamt that Martin Luther King had been shot, that somebody threw a rock and they were afraid a riot would start. The other subject, who had not received any suggestion, dreamt of a Negro policeman who was beating another man, and he was afraid that somebody would throw a brick and start a riot.

“On another night, we told the subject to dream that he was in an amusement park, having a very good time. He dreamt that, and specifically he dreamt about riding on a merry-go-round. The other subject had a dream of people laughing and running in circles and there were ‘grinning, funny looking horses’ in his dream.” (p.89.)
In the next stage of research, Rechtschaffen explored simultaneous waking hypnotic dreams. His procedure was to hypnotize two subjects and tell each one, "When I give you this signal you will have a dream of 10 minutes duration. You will wake up after 10 minutes and tell us that dream." (p.91.) The subject who served as agent was given a specific suggestion as to what he should dream; the other subject, the percipient, who is at the opposite side of the building on a different floor, did not receive any suggestion. On one night the topic suggested to the agent was: "You fall in love with a beautiful girl in the spring... you walk in the wind and sun and are filled with bliss." (p.92.) The agent dreamed, “I was with a beautiful girl. It was a beautiful day…the sun was out; it was just the right temperature." The percipient dreamed: "I was in this swan-like boat in a lake, and I saw a really beautiful girl. The boat went over to where she was... there were angels singing... the girl was very beautiful. She had long blonde hair and it was very sunny and nice out." (p.92.)
Rechtschaffen was very impressed with these striking correspondences and observed that "hits" when they occurred were quite impressive and quite easy to detect. He indicated, "…when you simply have judges matching the dream against a suggested topic, a hit does not reveal the degree of the hit. A simple matching procedure does not take into account the very unlikely probability of such a specific correspondence." (p.92.)

Several other impressive examples of matching imagery are included in his paper, Sleep and Dream States, which he presented at the Parapsychology Foundation conference held in Nice in 1968 and published in the Proceedings in 1970.

It’s quite amazing to see how easily psi dreams occur when our focus is fixed, and we take the time to write out our dreams and compare them with others. This year’s contest points out ever stronger that our dreaming minds can connect us to someone telepathically, precognitively, and clairvoyantly, through shared and mutual dreaming, and our own zest for adventure and exploration of unknown territories. The concept of entangled minds seems a relevant metaphor for how we can interact with each other at multiple levels of dreaming experience.
Congratulations to our winners and thanks to all who played (and partied) along, joining Angel in her psychic sendings and lucid dreaming. She has said she would be willing to act as our sender for next year’s conference in NC. Thanks to her, Richard Wilkerson, for his onsite and online assistance, and Bob Van de Castle and his partner Bobbie Ann Pimm for their skillful facilitation of this year’s ever popular event, moving us ever onward and upward in our explorations.

Look out NASA—here comes DASA, Dream Aeronautics and Space Association!

Carpenter,J, Intrasubject and Subject- Agent Effects in ESP Experiments. In B. Wolman (Ed.). 1977. Handbook of Parapsychology. Van Nostrand. Reinhold , NY.
Rechtschaffen, A. Sleep and dream states: An experimental design. In Proceedings of an International Conference on Methodology in Psi Research (1968). (R. Cavanna, Ed.) 1970. 87-120. New York: Parapsychology Foundation.

[Ultravioletfrog]

I recieved the latest Dream time a couple of days ago.

I skim the articles looking for the names of people I feel I know from posts I have read on the yahoogroups iasd Psidream site. When I see articles by folks like Jeniffer Dumpert or Dream Rita or Jean or Van de Castle etc I get excited. I try to read other articles, but usually don't.

I enjoyed the artical that you posted twice already from the mag.

I also loved most of the stuff in the 25 year anniversary edition of Dream time. It had a big artical by Jeniffer Dumpert and another by Van der Castle. I would like more by Him (ha, ha, ha).

Thank you again Bobbie for putting it up.

[timeisnotlinear]

Thank you for posting that Bobbie Ann.