Have you ever had the experience of having nearly the same dream as someone you know, on the same night? I thought this was an unusual experience, but a few minutes of research while writing this post revealed that the experience of shared dreams is far from unusual. Not surprisingly, there is not much knowledge on why and how this happens.
I’ve been lucky to have had this experience several times. My first experience took place when I was in early grade school. My sister and I had the same scary dream about a movie theater. You’d walk into the theater alone, in the dark, and the movie on the screen was an ocean with whales in it. As you walked, you were drawn by some force down the aisle, a force against your will. It drew you up to the screen, and you knew that if you didn’t wake up you would end up in the ocean with the whales. So, I woke up.
I didn’t learn for awhile that she and I had both had this dream, though not every detail matched up. I think it’s an odd dream, and odder that we both had it! Also interesting is that this was a dream each of us had repeatedly as kids. I don’t know what triggered it. I actually really like both movies and whales, and did as a kid, too. I know that water tends to symbolize emotions or the unconscious, and whales can symbolize spirituality. I actually had an updated version of this dream last year, but the timing of it made sense, as I had recently watched one of the Jurassic Park movies where there is a large toothed whale-like creature that leaps out of the water. As an adult, I still found it creepy to be drawn down the theater aisle against my will.
Another shared dream took place when I was in high school. My sister had a friend spend the night; we were all leaving on a family summer road trip to Disneyland the next day. While we were getting ready in the bathroom in the morning, I shared a dream that I had. I don’t recall details now, except that it involved some people from school who I didn’t know well. My sister’s friend looked at me and exclaimed, “That’s crazy! My dream was almost the same, with the same people in it!” We had not been discussing these people before bed. We thought it was a crazy thing to have happened.
The best, and final one at this point in time, happened while I was in college. I had been having some unmemorable dream when suddenly an angelic woman appeared. As she entered the dream, the rest of the dream faded away until there was nothing but this beautiful woman with long dark hair and blue eyes. She radiated love and peace, and told me her name was Susan, and that she would be watching over me, or words to that effect. I didn’t want the moment to end, but she faded away and I woke up. I wanted to see her again desperately and I was in tears, weeping due to feeling intense peace and love. It was an amazing spiritual experience, and I think I met a guardian angel or spirit guide.
The very next thing I did was call my mom. I went to college in Tucson, Arizona, and in the 1980s, it was not cheap to make long distance calls. But I was so overcome by my experience that I had to tell someone. To my surprise, my mom started choking up and said that she had had the same experience that night, also meeting this angel-like woman named Susan! I find that incredible to this day. Why would we both have this experience on the same night, with the same angelic being? It’s not like my mom and I had talked the night before about guardian angels or anything. I’ve not had a dream like it since, though I would love to!
It turns out other people in my family have also experienced shared dreams. I was recently emailing with someone in my family about this phenomenon, and they mentioned that they had a shared dream about sabre tooth cats with one of their children. I thought that was pretty cool!
Sweet dreams!