anonymous asked: is shared dreaming the same as astral projection? i'm confused about the difference

great question! there's overlap but they're not the same:

astral projection

• typically done while awake or in hypnagogic state
• emphasis on "leaving the body"
• often focuses on visiting the physical world from outside your body
• has a long occult/spiritual tradition

shared dreaming

• done during actual REM sleep
• emphasis on "meeting in a shared space"
• focuses on persistent realms that aren't the physical world
• developed more recently as online communities formed

some people do both and consider them related practices (different ways of accessing the same "spaces"). others see them as completely separate.

personally i think they're probably accessing similar phenomena through different techniques, but i don't want to speak for the AP community since i'm not deep in it.