A Mutual Lucid Dream Event, © 1997 E. W. Kellogg III, Ph.D. 1 A Mutual Lucid Dream Event © 1997 E. W. Kellogg III, Ph.D. (Published in Dream Time, 14(2), 32-34, (1997) "If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke - Ay! - and what then?" Samuel Taylor Coleridge In our culture, most people see dreams as just a subjective fantasy, a personal experience that has no relation to "objective reality". Hence the phrase "just a dream", meaning an experience that has little or no importance in the "real" world. Some western researchers act as if current neurophysiological theory, which posits that dreams consist of purely subjective productions of the sleeping brain, constitutes a fact, rather than a theory. To many experienced dreamers, such an attitude seems both limiting and naive. Many other cultures consider dreams to take place in a spiritual realm, just as "real" as the physical world. Rather than confusing theories with facts, it makes sense to adopt a phenomenological viewpoint, which gives priority to the territory of experience. This means that we revise our maps to fit our territories, instead of distorting our perceptions to fit our preconceptions. What if the dream world did not seem quite so subjective and solipsistic as that presupposed by current neurophysiological theory? What if we do somehow connect in some way with friends and strangers while our physical bodies sleep? What if after waking up tomorrow, you compared dreams with a friend you had not seen in two years and found that you had both dreamed of the other, in a way that simple coincidence could not adequately explain? What then? Perhaps you might begin to question whether a dream really does seem such a "fine and private place" after all. On December 20, 1994, Harvey Grady and myself experienced such an event, in a mutual lucid dream. The Dreams Ed Kellogg's Lucid Dream: "In a sort of archeological dig - in Mexico - I see people digging for gold, peasants, in a sandy Sonoran type desert. We find huge old wagons on the side of the road, from a circus or some- thing, which had bones of elephants and/or lions, etc. I go with the group - realize that I dream, but don't know if they realize it - a sort of virtual reality field trip. I talk with the leaders and they respond. I see [Harvey Grady], and tell him to give me a collect call on waking up to WPR (waking physical reality), if he recalls this dream, and to let me know if he really does partici- pate in a WPR tour at this time. [Harvey] looks like he just shaved off his beard. He shows me some old airplanes in a museum, and I look forward to virtually flying them, although I wonder what would happen to my physical body if I crash. ...(my lucid dream continues, but I leave [Harvey] behind)."