Dream Characters and their realism

Do most people like me have very original dream characters that if it wasn’t a dream, could seem real. It never ceases to amaze me how life-like these imaginary-people act.

In my dreams the characters I meet are usually dream versions of people that I know from my daily life – it is very rare that I will dream up a completely original character. Although for dream versions of real people, they are very life-like. They behave the way I’d expect them to if I were awake, and usually, they look the same too – so it’s pretty rare than I’ll dream of a friend or family member with say, very odd clothes or a new haircut, though this does happen more than dreaming of a completely new character I’ve never met in real life. Is anyone else’s ‘dream-imagination’ as un-creative as mine? :tongue:

I also have realistic dream characters! Or perhaps ‘interesting’ would be a better word. They can have the strangest personalities, but they’re always consistent, and sometimes I revisit them. I’m still amazed by how convincing they can be.

My dream characters can be very realistic, and convincing. They can also be very weird, ghost like and stupid.

Usually, in my normal dreams they are very convincing. At lucid dreams, I would often meet DCs that don’t respond properly to my actions. For example I would kick them out off the road, and they’d just go back to the road and keep on walking.

My DCs often say very curious things. Unfortunately, I only remember the fact that it was strange but can’t remember what they said.

I have definitely met some “interesting” dream characters!

One time I had a very long lucid dream where I traveled across a bridge into a bustling city populated with hundreds of young people my age (twenties). The first locale that I visited was an office suite of an urban shaman who wore sports-themed pajamas and had a spiky hairstyle. I traded shirts with a nice young man in the audience (we all gathered around the shaman together.) I later met the young man’s girlfriend or spouse. As the dream continues, I met all kinds of unique and very self-individuated types of people! They were very intelligent for all being so young. I remember one small group that I encountered was perusing some sort of scientific graph and explaining things that I didn’t understand. I asked them where we were. I explained that I come from a place called Earth in the year 2012. Someone replied, “Earth is not my country,” as though she was unfamiliar with the concept. While at first everyone had seemed really friendly and warm, the further I ventured into the city, the tone became increasingly dark and fearful until I began to suspect that there was some sort of government oppression holding these characters back and that the science they were conducting had to do with an attempted uprising. I followed one young woman into an otherwise empty room and really started grilling her about the nature of the reality there. I asked her if she knew that I had traveled there in a dream, and if she thought that her reality might just be a product of my mind. She seemed extremely aggravated. Her face was buried in some sort of puzzle book, and she started mumbling about how she can never just do the puzzle. She seemed like she wanted to be left alone, so I let it go.

More recently, I floated into a home in a LD to find that it was occupied! The man was friendly and inviting, didn’t seem to mind that I had just let myself into his home. We had a very long conversation, most of which I don’t remember. I do recall wanting to ask him if he was real, but my lucidity wasn’t at its strongest. I ended up saying, “I don’t have a body right now. Do you have a body?” (meaning I wasn’t in my flesh/waking body) His answer was, “No, I don’t. And I don’t have any bone structure either!” He referred to his neighborhood as Walden (a waking reference from earlier that day). He also had a pet dog who was playing in his garden. He pointed to his dog and said, “That’s Charles.” I told him I liked his flowers.

… Just a couple of direct examples of how complex and independent my dream characters seem to be. Of course, in Robert Waggoner’s book he frequently just commands, “May all thought forms now disappear!” For some reason I never fully remember to try his technique, but you could at least ask them if they are a thought form, and if they are then you can ask them what they represent.

I have also had several out-of-body experiences, including one that seemed mixed into a series of lucid dreams. A character in that dreamscape taught me that I had wings attached to my body that I hadn’t been aware of! I think that character could be considered a DG. Also, because I have experience with traveling consciously out of my body, I believe it is likely that lots of people travel out of body while asleep whether they are aware of it or not. Therefore it is likely possible to encounter other dreamers or even the deceased within what is considered the astral realm or a shared dream space.

(Sorry for the long reply, but I have been getting really interested in this topic lately!!)

I found a great article on the realness of dream characters! Someone here conducted an experiment.

Testing the “Realness” of Dream Characters

I finally got a conclusive answer from a DC last night. I asked if she thought she was an aspect of my SC. She said yes, but she also indicated that she has her own life experiences and memories. Now I’m curious to know if DCs persist independently when we are not dreaming! I have heard that they can recur for some people and even take different forms. Does that mean that they have independent (or just dependent) consciousness of their own? Or perhaps they share our consciousness? I rarely (almost never) encounter purely “hollow” characters. I’d like to become more involved in actively interviewing them and learning from them more directly. Cut to the chase!

In my dreams, random DC’s pop up with guns trying to kill me. Random attractive DC’s love me. This is as far from my real life.

Yeah I had a dream that had one last night. I jumped a fence to a school that I used to go to and someone chased me down and asked me why I was trespassing so I told him the truth. Amazing how real it can feel sometimes :eek:

My DC’s are always pretty realistic. Often they are quite uninterested in me and give nonchalant responses when i question them whilst lucid.