Monday, June 17, 2013
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Living Beyond the Five Senses
The Giant Compass: Dream Book
About Me
- Teresa L. DeCicco
- I am a professor, author, researcher and applied clinician in Psychology. I became interested in the science of consciousness and dreaming while working with cancer patients, years ago. I noticed that the cancer patients I worked with wanted to talk about their dreams. Though I was not particularly interested in dreams at the time, patients continued to bring them up; session after session. I finally decided to explore the science of dreaming and found a whole world of knowledge. The science of dreaming was being studied all over the world by a vast array of scientist! This is when my own scientific explorations began. I studied dreams and then designed techniques for linking them to waking day life in meaningful ways. My work became focused on helping people with self-discovery and self-change. Dreams can help with health issues, relationships, work-related issues, and bring life-changing information into the conscious mind. Dreams are a problem-solving mechanism that will bring forth novel solutions. My work is my way of sharing what I have learned from research and practice, with the world.
Living Beyond the Five Senses
Publisher: Divine Arts
It was explained in lecture that this phenomena was ignored and pushed aside because researchers knew little about the topic. Since results have shown that people can accurately dream about events or other people, or, that people can dream about a future event, research should start publicizing this in many different literatures. This would show to the public that paranormal dreams are in fact true and would become an acceptable and known phenomenon. Personality, I was unaware that paranormal dreams can occur, before reviewing the lecture. Perhaps, much of the population is in the same situation since it is not talked about often.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, experiments should continue to further prove the results. As the number of experiments increase, the validity increases, as well. This would show that these phenomena’s are stable if the results are similarly each time. In order to show that these results are global, researchers could do the same experiments across different cultures and ethnicities. Moreover, it would be interesting to see if children can accurately dream about events and people just as adults do.
I agree with Samantha Baynton about further research on these phenomena. As Samantha stated about the lecture content of how these phenomena used to be ignored, I can imagine how it would be difficult to be proven scientifically in the past; the multidimension of past, present, and the future. Therefore, as Professor DeCicco mentioned in the lecture that these phenomena have been studied in both psychology and physics collaboratively recently.
DeleteIn terms of the next step of these phenomena, like what Samantha stated I also mentioned in my comment that if the same experiments can be done across different cultures and different ethnic groups we might be able to show the strong relationship of dreams and future events to people in the world.
Before this course, I was quite aware that paranormal dreaming occurs in everyone, but it is up to the dreamer to interpret it as that and relate it to any events that may occur after the dream. The next step into making this phenomena global and stable is to educate others more on it. The research should be publicized and accessible to the general public.
DeleteI agree, I find it very interesting that this phenomenon indeed does exist. I think that the next step in research would be to conduct a study to see if there is similar imagery among the dreams. Researchers could see the background of those in the study and see if their upbringing or daily lives are similar in some ways which could lead to similar imagery among the study group. Researchers should continue to increase the number of study participants to show the validity of the phenomenon.
DeleteI would have to agree with Samantha that one of the best next steps would be promotion. Until taking this dreams course I was unaware about a lot of things associated with dreams, perhaps like Samantha mentioned the rest of the world is in a similar position. Through promoting and reassurance that these discoveries are real and valid other individuals who were unaware of their dream content will come forward and researchers will be able to conduct more in depth studies surrounding this phenomena. Researches may also want publish this finding in various other fields so they can use these discoveries to their benefit or offer further hypotheses to continue to develop research. By validating its reliability through other fields you are accomplishing two things: validating the findings, and widening the parameters of the research. As different fields use this discovery it will become more globally known. Further experiments should be conducted to offer specific findings involving age range, sex, culture and emotional state among other things.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to what Breanne McErlean’s stated on the further experiments, I wonder if meditation helps to occur these phenomena to more population. In my personal experience of meditation, I feel my brain is much clear so I can feel and hear more from the body while I am meditating. By doing this I wonder it triggers the mind to more aware of what is going on the space and time around you. If you think about the past, present, and the future about yourself now, there are no distinct lines among them. As I write this, my present becomes my past and my future becomes my present. In the lecture, we learned that we could experience multidimension of times and spaces in our dreams. Since meditate state is very similar to dreaming state, I am curious to know how meditation can help people to see their future in their dreams more accurately.
DeleteEven though I do not have any supernatural abilities, I have had a number of events that I have seen in my dreams turned into real in the following day of my waking life. Recently, my boyfriend told me that he has a surprise for me in my dream. In the following day, I received a text massage from my boyfriend, “I have a surprise for you tonight”. I felt it is a bit weird though I was aware that some dreams turn into REAL in waking life.
ReplyDeleteThe next step for the phenomena of paranormal, telepathic, and clairvoyant dreams to global and stable would be a study of dreamers who dream about future accurately. For example, collect dreamers who can see future event in their dreams (paranormal dream) and ask them to report their dreams first thing in the morning and then follow their waking day life to see whether their dreams are accurate or not. If we can have this study done in different ethnic groups of different age groups, I think there is a good possibility that we can show these phenomena both global and stable.
As Samantha and Breanne have said, promotion for both education and awareness as well as to change society's perspective on paranormal dreaming would be key in advancing the research. Changing society's attitude on this sort of dreaming in particular is essential because whether or not it is deemed acceptable will influence how dreamers dream and whether or not they are willing to share their experiences. Those able to experience paranormal dreaming might suppress it in a society which sees this sort of dreaming as unacceptable. This is reflected in the changing attitudes throughout history such as before the Dark Ages when dreams were desired and considered important to after when they were considered as negative and demonic. If society has a healthy view of paranormal dreaming, then individuals will feel more comfortable sharing their experiences and volunteering for research studies, which will supplement current research. In future studies, researchers will need to very carefully design and control their methods in order to avoid possible confounding variables, biases, etc that would skew the results and make them less reliable.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading the Van de Castle chapter about paranormal dreams, I was a little put off by the approach to the experimental procedures/outcomes re: paranormal dreams. I found that the evidence tended to be based on experiments with very small samples and felt as though the evidence was more anecdotal. It's very difficult for people to support a theory when you only use a small sample size.
ReplyDeleteI think the above stated comments are all very important (i.e. support of journals & having studies published, studying paranormal dreams across different cultures, etc.). I think that in order to get real support for the existence of paranormal dreams, research should be funded by an unbiased body, the experiments should be performed on a large sample, and results should be able to be replicated. I would love to see evidence to support paranormal dreams, but so far haven't been impressed with the research I have read, so I am not surprised at the lack of support in the scientific community regarding this phenomenon.
I do not think that the sample size is such an issue when regarding the scientific validity of the previous research on paranormal dreams. The larger issue is to establish a model to test theories purposeful and scientifically dissect the components of paranormal dreaming. The model must be able to compare those that are effective at paranormal dreaming (working with police, FBI, CIA etc.) The collaboration of physicists and clinical psychologist is of utmost importance to the field of parapsychology. For one to have a significant publication in a journal they must present research that is novel and that scientifically refutes the theory or fails to refute the theory.
DeleteParanormal dreams has become a novel topic because of the scientific community's rejection due to it's mysterious nature. If there is clinical or psychological applicability to the research then paranormal research will be heavily researched. Otherwise many researchers are focused on other topics where they evidence has been somewhat established and models have been developed. This is simply because funding agencies like CIHR, NIH, NSERC etc. will fund research studies that are novel about important factors for disease an illness with evidence that it is worth spending time to understand the aetiology. Since there is no model for paranormal dreaming, funding is probably very limited as there is no concrete evidence supporting the applicability of the research.
Paranormal dreams are very real, but highly subjective to personal experience. Incorrect reasoning has also been related to paranormal dreams and beliefs in paranormal experiences. The next step for research in the paranormal topic of dreaming is to focus on building a comprehensive model that explains the individual types of paranormal dreaming: precognitive, telepathic, and clairvoyant. The incorporation of psychology and physics seems like an important aspect of deriving an appropriate model to explain paranormal dreams.
ReplyDeleteI believe the parapsychology and paranormal dreams are in fact essential real, but not in the tangible sense. Once the field of parapsychology is able to develop a concrete model of paranormal dreams and able to apply it to generalized dreaming then research can become stable. Most scientific researchers have not been able to establish an appropriate attribution to discuss the root of their findings. They can make inferences on what they know, but if they are not aware of things outside of psychology (it is quite difficult to come up with a scientific explanation for paranormal dreams).
The main objective for parapsychology is to build a testable/measurable model incorporating physics and psychology to establish an understanding that looks at neural chemistry and physiological substrates.
This is a finding that could potentially be very rewarding to society, as long as it truly does work and is consistent. In order to show that this phenomena is global, research will need to be done to include all demographics and cultures. Research needs to be done in different demographics and cultures to prove it indeed is stable throughout the globe and throughout the different populations. Also, research should be done on males and females of different ages to ensure it is stable in all ages, genders and cultures. To ensure it is stable, scientific studies need to be done to prove that. As of right now this concept of dreaming about a future event is not a foreign concept. The media has provided films like the minority report that shows this phenomena in motion. The problem is that it is displayed as something that is imaginary, that it is not something that really happens. Therefore, scientific data needs to show that it is indeed stable and global. With this information, it is not easy to implement these findings. For example: if the police department has an individual that predicts a murder through their dreaming mind, the law does not allow for the police to arrest that individual, or charge that individual or murder as the act was not completed. Therefore, many steps will need to be taken to implement these findings to such an extent.
DeleteThe next step to showing that paranormal dreams are global and stable, as mentioned, is to have studies which are done on a global scale.
DeleteLike mentioned above, dreaming of the future isn't unknown in society. However, the associations made by society of this concept is not of science. Thus, a major step would be validating with strong evidence which support this concept. Gather more scientific evidence which proves the vitality of paranormal dreams. One major body of research should be directly focused on controlling for factors which might give other explanation for the paranormal dreams. Moreover, concepts are made stronger when they cannot be disproven, thus research which aims at disproving would be also significant. From this, as mentioned, research can be stable, and a model can be built for paranormal dreams.
I feel that in our society we see or think of paranormal activities to be abnormal and scary. Maybe this stigma is partially the reason why that not much research or normal everyday people talk about paranormal dreams.
DeleteSeeing if there is an actual link between paranormal or future telling dream would be a great asset I believe because you would be able to know what is going to happen and if you don't like the dream imagery than possibly change things in your waking life accordingly.
When Mijung Park was describing the dream I have defiantly have had the same experience.
My boyfriend and I share our dream to each other and it occured to us recently that we dreamed the same dream. I don't know if there is some sort of personal connection between people that would result in dreaming the same dream or if it just so happened that our waking life events led to these dreams.
It would be interesting to know if people can continuously have dreams that let them have insight into their waking day events, or if it is only a uncommon occurrence.
I have many times in my waking life that I have flashbacks/ day dreams or deja vu. I wonder if this is connected to dreams that I have about the future and am unaware until the waking day event occurs. It surprises me when this deja vu happens but I like it, it makes me feel like I have some sort of magical power or something, haha.
Globally, as all of my classmates have mentioned, researchers should be gathering as many experiments and participants to prove or to validate that this type of paranormal dreaming can occur. The research should also be conducted cross culturally to gain different ethnicity's and culture's dreams like this.
After the research is conducted, educating the public about paranormal/future telling dreams is important so that it is not thought of as a joke. This will make the dream research a more wide topic as well.
I think that the next step in this research is to create awareness that dreams can accurately predict the future. All cultures and societies should be aware of these phenomena in order to further validate this research. Furthermore, publishing a paper displaying the results of past research will also help these phenomena be recognized as global and stable. Because paranormal activities are viewed as negative occurrences among many cultures, this research may aid in eliminating that viewpoint and allowing people to recognize that these paranormal dreams can be of a benefit in waking life.
DeletePrabhjot Dhaliwal
As Nicole Drumm and others have mentioned, the logical next step to this research would be to conduct studies about paranormal dreams on a global scale. This could mean having a sample consisting of many different cultures, or doing multiple studies with each sample consisting of a single culture. These studies would show that paranormal dreams are experienced globally across all cultures and are not unique to one area. Kathleen Haime also mentions conducting research on both males and females of all age groups, and I agree with this necessity completely in order to show that paranormal dreaming is stable and universal. Aaron Howe mentioned the need for a “testable/measurable model incorporating physics and psychology to establish an understanding that looks at neural chemistry and physiological substrates”. I agree with his opinion and believe that the development of a test which can show the occurrence of a paranormal dream on a chemical level would be extremely beneficial in terms of promoting the stability and occurrence of paranormal dreams.
DeletePersonally, I have experienced a paranormal dream in the form of a precognitive dream. Thus, I am a firm believer in paranormal dreams and am glad they are gradually becoming more and more accepted as normal in today’s society.
In order to establish global acceptance to paranormal activity the research that has already been conducted needs to be replicated multiple times to establish reliability and validity and rule out any biases. These replications will also further the publicity of this research to spread the knowledge to general public. Further research should then target boundaries and limits of paranormal activity. For example, what triggers these special dreams and who is capable of paranormal activity. Essentially factors that help to control and predict when and how these dreams will be presented should be researched.
DeleteLike many other people have been suggesting, research should collaborate with other cultures and countries. This collaboration will help develop the perimeters of these phenomena and will establish the stable and global aspects of it.
Performing a test-retest for reliability is the next step in this research to show that these phenomena are global and stable. Testing for reliability and validity would support the idea that this phenomena is in fact occurring with people all over the world. Similar to Jessica Sy, I would suggest that further research would explore the triggers, or waking day events in people’s lives that are creating these future predicting dreams. For example, could it be that these dreams occur after watching the news before bed on the television? If this is the case, maybe it is events occurring in the news that makes people more aware of current issues which in turn creates dream imagery that actually predicts a future event. For example, around the time of hurricane Katrina, if a person was watching the news before bed and sees that New Orleans is getting an abnormal amount of rain for the time of year then fell asleep and dreamt a hurricane occurred (Katrina), wakes and within a few days, the massive hurricane hits New Orleans, this could be a result of what the person saw in the news. Waking day events and the things we see and experience throughout the day can have a large impact on dream imagery.
DeleteI believe that a few things need to occur in order to ensure that the phenomena of being able to accruatly dream about events/people or future events is seen as reliable and stable research. First, researchers need to conduct a large amount of clinical trails among different ages and cultures. This way, researchers will have a larger group of participants and the sample size will increase in validity.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I agree with the comments above that state that researchers need to conduct the testing multiple times. Since there is such a bias presented with this topic among some individuals, I think its important that researchers have a strong background of support. This not only includes multiple testing methods and larger sample sizes, but also decreasing the amount of external variables.
I'm not sure how to show dream phenomena as something that is global and stable. Perhaps global, if a number of studies were conducted on varying age groups,cultures, genders etc. The appearance of dream phenomena within all these different groups would provide further validity to the fact that it's a global experience. As for something that is stable, I think that the variability in individual experience of dream phenomena would make it difficult to determine. I agree with the previous poster that the bias against this type of phenomena the researchers would have to have multiple testing methods to decrease the variables.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above comments. In other for researchers to prove that these phenomena is global and stable, they need to conduct studies that consist of every culture, ethnicity, gender, different age group, people with mental health problems and healthy individuals. As well, spiritual groups such as American Indians or other religious groups.
ReplyDeleteWithout including all these categories in their studies, generalizing their finding would be bias. Although, the results shows that people can accurately dream about certain things or other people, however, the interpretation may differ.
I think the researchers need large sample size or population which will cost a lot...
The next step would be to objectively measure the ability of people to accurately dream about others and realistic and future events. Understanding who can do it and how they do it would be of interest for everyone in the scientific community and the general public. It would be necessary to how outside factors influence these dreams from occurring, such as health and lifestyle influences like diet and meditation, sleep environment, daily interaction with other people, and personality, which I believe would all play a role in people with realistic dreams. I believe caution should be in place for the credibility and accuracy of these dreams. If someone vividly dreams of something terrible happening, like a war or natural disaster, it could cause panic and terror if people just freely and globally broadcast these dreams. We need to devise an appropriate way to monitor these dreams for accuracy and truth if they do seem likely. There will most likely be issues with ethics, from dream content to the safety of the dreamer themselves in addition to pursue further research. I believe there is a lot of work to be done before this can be turned into a useable form of predicting events and dreaming about other people in a global and applicable form of dream work.
ReplyDeleteI think the next step in assuring that these dreams are global and stable would be to ensure that globally, people know how to interpret their dreams (like we have learned in this course). To elaborate, I think several people take their dreams very literally- they do not really understand that the majority of the time our dreams are a large metaphor for a subconscious meaning/message. Therefore, I think somehow making dream interpretation methods more accessible to the greater public would be beneficial so these individuals can better understand their paranormal dreams. This would be beneficial and help the research in this area because; a) dream interpretations are more accurate when the dreamer conducts them for themselves anyways, and b) doing so would be more convenient economically for the researchers.
ReplyDeleteParanormal dreaming is highly subjective, as only the dreamer can attest to having had such a dream. This poses a challenge to researchers because the subjectivity of paranormal dreaming makes it difficult to quantify and provide evidence for such dreams. Resultantly, paranormal dreaming may not be widely accepted. Therefore, researchers need to find some way to quantify and objectify paranormal dreaming, so that it can be measured and studied. Researchers may need to use scales etc, to try to harness quantitative evidence to support this phenomenon. More and large studies should also be undertaken to provide a greater number of findings supporting this phenomenon as well.
ReplyDeleteRebecca, I think your comment about the subjectivity of paranormal dreaming is part of the attitude that has contributed to neglect of research in this area of dreaming in the past. Other than what can be measured with EEG/EOG/EMG, all dreaming is subjectively reported by the dreamer. I don't know the details of the research conducted, but it still proves that under the experimental standards of the research conducted, we have quantitative data in support of paranormal dreams. I agree that more study is needed to solidify the findings into fact.
DeleteI think the next step in research would be identify what, if any, similarities/differences exist in the individuals who are able to consistently report accurate paranormal dreams. We know that some people are able to do this, but is it that everyone has this ability but it comes easier to some, or only certain people have the ability? If so, what are the characteristics that enable paranormal dreaming? If this ability is in fact explained by physics as our lecture mentions, then can we further explore Dunne's theories to better understand the paranormal dream?
I think the next step for this phenomenon would be to find a suitable population to perform further research on. The researchers are looking to generalize their findings, and by finding a large population that will relate to the general public would be ideal. They should perform studies using a psychology course's students as participants. Psychology students are not biased towards believing in paranormal things and, like other students, can vary largely demographically. Unbiased participation and diverse demographics would allow for a good test population. The researchers could make the study longitudinal by using the students as participants during their entry year (for credit) and then perform follow up analyses during later years of study (say in third or fourth year, not for credit but give a little reward).
ReplyDeleteI agree that one of the next steps should be gathering a larger population to perform a study on to determine how individuals feel about these types of dreams as well as what they are dreaming about. I also believe that it is important to understand how the individuals having the dream view these types of dreams and if they believe they are valuable in waking life situations. For example if this individual is dreaming about a future event, what does this mean to them in their waking life and how do they let it affect them?
DeleteNow that this kind of dreaming is recognized as a legitimate type of dreaming and is being studied and researched more in depth, it needs to be researched around the world. To make the claim that this phenomena is global and stable, research must be conducted around the world with various ethnicities and cultures and also from people from different socio-economic status from various countries. To ensure that this kind of dreaming is stable, research could continue to examine individuals who have been known and recognized as having these dreams. Researchers should continue to examine, document and follow the dreams of these individuals and report on how accurate these dreams are in relation to events in their lives and relatively how often these dreams occur.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think it would be interesting to examine the relationship between this type of dreaming and experiencing deja vu. It would be interesting to examine the relationship betwen the two phenomena to determine if there is any relationship between brain imaging, memory experience, accuracy and rate of occurance.
The fact that research is showing that people can dream about a future event or they can dream about other people is incredible. This research can really go far if all of this evidence is solid. I think that this research is of the less known and popular information. One big step to show that this research is global and stable is to raise awareness. Notify everybody that some dreams can be reflections of future events. Culturally, this needs to be diversified and brought to awareness. I feel like the ignorance some people have about this topic, like mentioned in lecture, is because people simply do not understand so they pushed it aside. Researchers should continue to test this topic and come up with consistent results to verify their statement in order to bring more awareness globally. Examining different age groups, cultural groups, cognitive groups, and so on would be extremely useful.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Emily that ignorance is a large factor when it comes to anything paranormal. People generally say they don't believe in it or just dont care, but I believe this is because they don't understand. If these people understood what this means, and were shown the solid research behind it, it could drastically changes ones perception of the whole paranormal dreaming ideal. In order to get this global and stable, I think much more solid research must be done. If the research becomes more prevalent, and perhaps in the news people may become more apt to believe it.
DeleteThis is a very interesting topic. I never knew that paranormal dreams ever happened. I think this is part of the problem in terms of it not being expected that well by scientists and the public. I think that these paranormal dream studies should continue to be done to get more and more knowledge about them and to show the world that this is a very reliable method of researching paranormal dreams. In terms of future research, I think that the paranormal dream content should be analyzed more to determine if there is certain content that is more easily transmitted during REM sleep.
DeleteI agree that this topic is very intriguing! I think there needs to be a lot more studies done in order to prove the validity of paranormal dreams. A variety of people need to complete these studies, including those of many different cultures, age groups, and genders. If a large amount of data can be found proving the validity of paranormal dreams, then this research can be respected and actually very helpful.
DeleteI agree that this movement needs to be diversified. It should be distributed globally, and in order for that to happen the first step is to translate and present it in a way that is relevant to each culture on a case-to-case basis.
DeleteFurthermore, I found your suggestion to compare different cognitive groups very interesting. Assessing the differences between group results could prove beneficial.
I think that this interesting finding can be shown as a global and stable phenomenon by finding a use for it in clinical psychology. While this is definitely a fascinating discovery, I believe it must have a clinical or therapeutic purpose to gain global recognition. For example, paranormal dreams of those suffering from physical or mental illness could differ significantly from healthy individuals. From here, researchers around the world can then begin to test this theory in different cultures for cross-cultural reliability. Additionally, I believe that paranormal dreams should then be longitudinally tested to gain even more reliability and validity. Changes in paranormal dreams would then be able to be studied across the lifespan. For example, how to the paranormal dreams of young adults differ from dreams of the dying.
ReplyDeleteAs most people mentioned I also believe that creating awareness is a very large step in the right direction. When people are able to acknowledge that their dreams may actually be a projection of the future it may bring many discussions and new research as to how this phenomenon has come about. Personally, I have always felt that i was able to project the future through my dreams. There are many instances that I dream something that I find actually occurs soon after. And also that I dream of times of pain or suffering of family members to wake up to a phone call saying they are in the hospital. I believe if more people were aware that it is possible to have these sorts of dreams that there would be more desire to project and analyze dreams on an individual level.
DeleteI think that there should be longitudinal studies done that show the dream as well as the outcome but these studies should focus on expanding and focusing on the uniformity between cultures. It is very important to see if this phenomenon is more common in one or more cultures or if it universal. I also believe that as it is fairly recent and was previously rejected as the lecture stated then it is needed more to project the visions to prove that paranormal dreaming and projections can happen and do within our own culture and on a more frequent level than we imagine.
The next step in this research to show that these phenomena are global and stable is to conduct many more studies comprising members of varying cultural backgrounds in different locations all over the world. Others have brought up the subjective nature of dreams, which I also feel is crucial to take into consideration when evaluating the current research on the topic of paranormal dreaming. In my opinion, it is vitally important to implement a rigorous, objective measure that may explain why certain individuals are able to experience paranormal dreams, because without it, dreams are subjective and all we have to go on is the dreamer's own assertion that the dream was in fact paranormal in nature. Not only will a more objective measure add to the validity and reliability of such studies, but it will also be incredibly useful in terms of convincing more skeptical individuals that such paranormal dreaming is in fact possible.
ReplyDelete~ Ellen Coombs
I think the next step in this research would be to conduct more blind studies indicating that people can accurately dream about events or people, or, that people can dream about a future event. Research needs to me replicated multiple times in order to establish reliability and validity, as mentioned by other students. Furthermore, in order to know if these results can be generalizable, we would need replication of these studies as well. In addition in order to show that these phenomenons are global and stable, individuals all around the world should be aware of these phenomena in order to establish validity and reliability as well. Providing means of this information becoming accessible to the greater population will help in spreading the knowledge. Research should be able to collaborate with other cultures and countries as mentioned by others. Moreover, having large sample sizes with individuals of different ages and cultures will increase the validity of the research, as well as controlling for any external variables. Lastly, I agree with Ellen Coombs when she mentions the importance to implement a rigorous and objective measure that is able to explain why some individuals are able to experience paranormal dreams as anyone is able to say that their dream in fact is paranormal in nature, and I agree that this will help convince those skeptical of paranormal dreaming in general.
ReplyDeleteAs with most of the other comments, I thinking proving these results are global and stable would have to include a wider subject base encompassing a wide range of participants with varying religious and cultural beliefs, varying ages, occupations, both genders, etc. I also think it's important to have a fluid method that is repeated over time. E.g.using the exact same waking style each time, the same number of people used in each model (Van de Castle wrote of an "agent" "monitor" and a dreamer). Possibly linking the study within the paradigms of physics may also lend some credibility to the study for those who are skeptical. As we have just learned in lecture, these areas of science have begun to work together in this aspect of dreaming.
ReplyDeleteI am in agreement with many of my peers statements in that in order to prove these results are global and stable, clinical research needs to be conducted in all parts of the world. This will show and compare results from subjects of varying cultural and religious beliefs and include both genders and from all ages as well as varying responsibilities such as jobs and family. I agree with Maureen above that using one method, such as the method discussed in lecture of having an "agent", a "monitor" and a "dreamer" in separate rooms would be more effective in showing comparisons and whether there is proof in paranormal dreaming. Spacetime is a very complicated and intricate subject to research and connect that with an equally complex system as the brain and I imagine it would take very rigorous research with an immense amount of data in order to gain global and stable results.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though people can dream accurately in regards to the future and about certain events. I feel that those in tune with their surroundings and those that rely on their intuition have the ability to dream about the future. Everyone is constantly thinking about the future so it goes to reason that our thoughts would carry over into our dreams, hence the continuity affect. I feel that at this time a lot more research and insight must be shed in order to give us a clear answer on the topic. I agree with those that have commented above me. In the future I feel that using people with different cultures and religions or even age groups could shed light on the topic. By exploring these areas we are able to get the clearest distinction and indication of peoples ability to for sea the future.
ReplyDeleteAs Joshua mentioned, the next step in this research is to continue studying dreams of individuals in different contexts. This would include comparing individuals in areas such as religion, culture, role and gender.
ReplyDeleteThe study of dreams is still very much in the midst of gaining acceptance and popularity both within the field of psychology and the general public. With greater and acceptance and curiosity about this topic, there is a higher chance for reports of this type of dream activity. In order to find individuals with this skill, we first have to create an accepting and scientific based community that will foster and support paranormal dreams. Ideally, clinical studies that include a large number of dreams would provide the most reliable research. To get studies with high participation, individuals that have paranormal dreams need to be acknowledged and recruited. To gain more worldwide approval and support, the first step is promoting the scientific foundations of dream interpretation.
I also agree that the next step in this research, to prove that these phenomena are global and stable, is to conduct more studies in various populations. As others have mentioned, an objective measure would need to be implemented to establish the accuracy between the paranormal dreams and the people or future events that are being referred to in the dreams. In order to properly prove this correlation, longitudinal studies would need to be performed. It would also be important to note the differences (physical, mental, personality, lifestyle, level of education, etc.,) between those who are able to have paranormal dreams and those who aren't.
ReplyDeleteThe next step to providing a stable and global finding is through education. Before this class I did not know that dreams had such a vast impact on our lives, I thought dreams were simply part of life and sometimes they have meaning, but nothing truly significant. I think that there would be a lot of skeptics that would refuse to believe in concepts like paranormal dreaming because it is out of the box thinking and not everyone will embrace it. However, by putting the information out there an individual can decide if they believe or not.
ReplyDeleteDreaming about future events is a strong advantage. If an individual can experience something before they have to with lasting consequences then they could potentially learn before they have to risk an aspect of them self. for example if someone will have a job interview the next day and they dream of saying the wrong thing and imagine the consequences then chances are they wont say that thing if those consequences are negative.
ReplyDeleteEvidence of the paranormal is highly debated. To scientifically prove that humans can predict events that will happen in the future through their dreams would be a significant discovery. That being said, there is a difference between scientific prediction, normative eventuality, and fluke. The first step researchers should take is to accumulate numbers. The larger the number of associations the more plausible paranormal dreaming will seem. No matter how convincing a prediction is, if it only occurs 1/1,000,000 times it will still be considered a chance occurrence or fluke. Furthermore, in order to establish that these phenomena are global and not socially constructed case studies will have to be collected from around the world.
ReplyDeleteAlongside quantity, the quality of these predictions will also be paramount in scientifically validating this theory; for example, dreaming that your sibling will come walking through the bedroom door of your shared home does not qualify as paranormal dreaming. The likelihood of such an occurrence happening is too high. However, if a child in Africa has a dream detailing a terrorist attack in Canada and that same terrorist attack occurs in Canada within the week, an inherent element of truth can be attributed to the paranormal significance of their dream.
A scientific method of testing the validity of paranormal dreams will have to be developed to prove the stability of this field of study. In order to develop this method, researchers must collect a vast quantity of high quality case studies.
I should add that in order to collect a large quantity of high quality cases studies this movement will need to be broadcast on a wide scale so that people who have experienced paranormal dreams have the opportunity to come forward.
ReplyDeleteI agree, that dreaming about future events can be beneficial to an individual. Yes to further our understand of this phenomena we have to look into more studies of these paranormal dreams and look at different counties as well. If this is happening every where it will give researchers a larger sample size with in turn will make their jobs much easier in finding out if this does happen to individuals around the world and what we can do for these people that have experienced this sort of dream. I also agree with Joshua that since we are always thinking about our future, it only makes sense that perhaps sometimes one individual has these images play into their dreams, and then in waking life, this event occurs. It is very interesting to me that this happens, I am still on the fence about it, but with more individuals coming forward with their dreams and future research to come, this may be something that will benefit us all in the future.
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