Is there a name for this?

Not sure if this is the right forum because these aren't my experiences. But I don't know where else to put this because I don't know what the topic here even is.

A long time ago I read two comments online that have stayed with me. I wish I'd saved them. The comments weren't connected, weren't even posted on the same site. They both were anomalous dream experiences that could suggest that some people don't have one self. They have completely different selves simultaneously living in different worlds/universes/realities. But for some reason these different selves can share consciousness. I think this is different from the quantum physics inspired idea that there's an infinity of slight variations of each person in infinite other worlds.

The first comment went like this: The poster was someone who'd had a very tough life. Little pleasure or fulfillment, perpetually single, very unhappy. He reported that he had an intensely vivid dream in which he somehow lived a completely different life that felt entirely real. He was someone else. I can't remember this part for sure but I think he might have said it was as if he experienced several years of this life in this dream. If I'm recalling that right I don't know if by that he meant he experienced those years in real time or in some condensed form or what. What he emphasized strongly was how substantial the relationships with people in this other life in the dream were. He felt he knew these people, had a long history with them, he had proper conversations with them, there were actual friendships and romances with the texture of true lived experiences. When he woke up he was traumatically shocked to be back to his life in this world that he hated. It took a long time for him to adjust. He couldn't believe he was separated from the people in the dream and desperately wanted to get back to them. He had never experienced anything like it and at the time he posted he hadn't experienced it again. I remember being impressed by the seeming authenticity in the post as I felt there was serious emotional pain from the poster coming through.

The other comment was much briefer and less dramatic. The poster succinctly reported that all of his life he had felt his actual life was experienced in his dreams. He claimed, as far as I could tell completely sincerely, that the typical experience of dreams being unreal and hazy and real life being, well, real, was reversed in his case. Because of that he said that his waking life was not very important to him and he mostly wanted to get back to the real world and the people there he cared about, which meant going to sleep to dream. I'm pretty sure he said the people in the dream world were completely different people from the ones in his waking life.

When I read these comments I knew very little about the paranormal. I was struck by them but they were basically curiosities. Only much later on when I got seriously interested in paranormal phenomena did their possible significance hit me. But now I can't find them. I also haven't had luck finding a name for this phenomenon if there is one and I haven't found more accounts like this.

Does anyone know if there's a name for this or where I can read more? Any thoughts besides?

[Ninshub]

That first one sounds vaguely familiar, or maybe I've heard something like it. Can't help you with what that type of phenomena is called or if it has a "name".

I've always been a big dreamer since I was very young and while I would never say that this life never felt real I can very much relate to the feeling expressed by the second poster, especially when younger, of sometimes wanting to get back to that other world, which seemed equally as "real" or rich anyway. Nothing like those experiences though!

[Ninshub]

This isn't exactly what you're describing, but maybe there's references in here that might connect...
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/artic...ife-memory

What you're describing I'd be tempted to label "dreams and parallel lives".

[Ninshub]

This seems more to be connected:

Robert Moss Describes Parallel Realities He’s Accessed in Dreams

“I’ve long been fascinated by dream experiences of parallel lives,” Robert Moss wrote. “These can take many forms. We find ourselves in the situation of a person living in a different time. We seem to be enjoying — or not enjoying — a continuous life in another reality. We slip into the perspective and apparently the bodies of other people (including even members of other species) who may be living in our present world, but are not ourselves.”

Here's one interview:

Wow thanks for these. It's good to have a bit of possible corroboration on the existence of the first account I described. I feel certain I read something with the essential details in my description.

My own dream life is basically dull. I don't remember my dreams often. When I do the dreams are either pretty much nonsensical or stressful and I'm glad to be awake and out of them! It's pretty awe-inspiring for me to learn about people having coherent dreams with high verisimilitude. But the possible ontological implications of the accounts I gave are especially fascinating. Someone could argue that the first account just reflects the guy's subconscious trying to satisfy his unmet needs. That's not unreasonable but it seems too pat and simple. I'm not sure why if that were the reason the experience would've only happened once and been so totally unique.

[Ninshub]

Somehow the first poster's story seems to bring to mind something about an NDEr having an experience where he lived an entire life as someone else, or maybe it was another kind of mystical experience (astral travel?), but it had that same oddness you're describing about.

We can speculate endlessly about these things - does this mean we're tapping into somebody else's experience we think is our own, or are we in effect tapping into a parallel life, or is it some other self's livf but we're somehow connected at a higher self level? etc. etc.

Silver Birch, a spirit who communicated through the medium Maurice Barbanell, said this:

"There are also what I call facets of the one diamond. This is the over-soul, the greater individuality, and the facets are aspects of it which incarnate into your world for experiences that will add lustre to the diamond when they return to it.

...

Also there are people who, although separate persons, are aspects of the one individuality. For instance, my medium, his wife and myself are parts of one individual. So you can have facets of the one guide. You can call these extensions if you like, but it comes to the same thing. Only an infinitesimal part of the whole individuality can be manifested in physical form on earth."

Silver Birch, a spirit who communicated through the medium Maurice Barbanell, said this:

Well, bits of this line up nicely to where my thoughts about incarnation have been evermore strongly leaning ~ a whole Soul is too vast to incarnate into a physical form, so only a small aspect undergoes incarnation. Thus does incarnation does bring about a dissociation of incarnate aspect from the whole. It also explains the phenomena of the Higher Self for me quite nicely ~ or whatever you call it when you encounter the personification of your Soul as though it were Other.

I'm not sure about the bit of his medium, his wife and himself being one individual... that reminds me of the whole New Age concept of "twin flames", though perhaps they are completely unrelated.

[Laird]

Does anyone know if there's a name for this or where I can read more? Any thoughts besides?

@Mediochre is your man here. He's had incredible dream experiences, some similar to that - see, e.g., his Loderunner dream.