Entering Someone Else’s Dream: The Science

Jayne Gackenbach, with input from David Kahn,
Stanley Krippner, Anthony Zadra, Tracey Kahan, and Curtis Hoffman

IASD Researchers

Because of the attention brought to dreams through the release of the film “Inception”, IASD has posted a page talking about dream “sharing”. While some of our colleagues in IASD believe that one can to some extent enter the dream of someone else, or “share” a dream, as dream researchers we take a more conservative perspective. We thought that it would be useful for this discussion to share our view.

While it is true that there is considerable anecdotal  evidence for phenomena that may be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure (psi) associated with dreams, there is in fact only minimal solid research on the topic. The general area of psi research is covered in a marvellous talk by prominent psi researcher Dean Radin to Google a couple of years ago ("Science and the Taboo of Psi"). In terms of dreams, Stanley Krippner and Montegue Ullman (see Cardeña, Lynn & Krippner’s book Varieties of anomalous experience: examining the scientific evidence for a summary) conducted a series of studies on dream telepathy confirming that it is possible to influence the content of someone else’s dream. But that does not mean it is possible to influence someone else’s dream to the degree that is proposed in the film or that one can “share” a dream.  

One IASD researcher who has been studying psi dreams for decades, Stanley Krippner, gives the following reaction to the film in the context of his research into dream telepathy.  He writes (personal communication, July 17, 2010):

For ten years, I was part of a research team that investigated anomalous effects in dreams. Neither our work or that of subsequent researchers produced laboratory data that supported the remarkable effects portrayed in "Inception." Our research found statistically significant support for the proposition that dreamers in a laboratory could report dreams that resembled pictorial material being focused on at a distance; but the dreamer was aware of the effort and the "transmitter" did not show up in the dream as an active agent, much less one who could "steal" a dream or "plant" an idea without the dreamer's awareness.  I think that "Inception" can be appreciated for its production values and originality, but not as a representation of the "state of the art" in dream research.

 

Dream sharing certainly happens in the sense that people who know each other well and share life experiences may then both dream about said experiences. That does not mean that they are, in point of fact, “together” in dream space. They may well be, but we really do not know at this point. The advantage of anecdotal experiences is that they serve as a potential source of hypothesis generation. But the disadvantage of the same anecdotal cases is that they give the impression of proof, when in fact they are open to various self report bias’s that psychologists have studied. Radin points to selective memory, wishful thinking, coincidence, misperception, embellishment, and mental illness to name a few.   

To quote one other IASD researcher, Anthony Zadra (personal communication, July 17, 2010), “it is imperative that we separate what is known on an empirical basis, what may be possible (or impossible) on established or well-formulated theoretical grounds, and what represents unverified anecdotal accounts, individual experiences, and mere speculative opinions.”

 

Cognitive psychologist, Tracey Kahan, wrote (personal communication, July 17, 2010):

 

I agree with Jayne's concerns, especially with respect to how IASD balances the presentation of the empirical / non-empirical approaches to dreaming. I am very concerned that the impression given by the website is that IASD is a forum for sharing opinions and personal dreamwork approaches -- rather than (our intended) forum for a PROFESSIONAL foundation that includes a scientific perspective. With this movie business moving dreaming into the public awareness, dream science, especially, has a unique opportunity to contribute to an informed conversation about what can / cannot be said about dream generation, process, function, even meaning. If empirical approaches are not distinguished from personal opinion, we've only regressed [pun intended] in our efforts to understanding the dreaming process.

 

Another dream researcher who is an archaeologist, Curtis Hoffman, reflected on this issue (personal communication, July 18, 2010):

 

In addition to all of the points made here, with which I agree, there are a number of glaring misrepresentations of dreaming made in the film which even the most enthusiastic of mutual dreamers would most likely point out.  Most notably, the issue of logarithmically expanding subjective time dilation in multi-nested dreams, and the canard that if you die in a dream you instantly awaken into the next level.  (I suppose it's better than the superstition that if you die in your dream you actually do die - a point suggested by the film itself in the case of Sato).  I agree with Stan that the film can be enjoyed for its originality and SFX, and I did like the way the Ariadne character used active imagination to explore Cobb's complexes.  But as an accurate representation of what can happen in shared dreaming - not so much!

 

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