Indeed. I have had some first hand experiences that has shown me that i have a totally different link to my memories than in the waking state.
I’ve had DCs I would have been glad to kick their big dream butts…
(cough creapy physics teacher cough)
but there were also some DCs I realy liked. I remember I had once dreamt of a bumble bee (quite huge… it was a bit bigger than lemon) named Kleo (you pronounce it like “leo” with a K at the front). Although it was not human, it sure acted and talked like one… it felt like we were friends for ages, maybe that was my SG… 
OK, unless there’s a dimension of talking bumblebees, I think we can rule out the interdimensional beings theory. 
My DCs are often real people. I don’t think the former prime minister of my country is an interdimensional being, nor the leader of the leftist party, nor my father.
It is intersting to think about, though. The above examples are pretty easy to see where they came from, but many of my DC’s must be made up. Even when I rack my mind I can’t think of anybody quite similar. Maybe the DC’s you know more about IWL have clearer personalities?
I sort of get the impression alot of you seem to think that DC have a SET personality. This would be true if they are REAL. But if they are simply construct of the mind they are created “on the go”. And respond to the expectations we have of them at the time. Therefore they could Present ANY personality traits that we see fit at any moment. This ofcourse is subconscious so on the surface they may seem as real as anyone in waking life. They are not programs with a more or less complicated code. This is my belief.
I really liked the Idea of The whole Cowboys and Indians maybe they just want to have fun and decide to do as you will them too. Also I dont think they are just DC from my dreams extradimensional beings,or spirits or real people. but i dont know what they are. Its weird knowing what something is not but not knowing what something is
DC’s are not real beings, they are characters created by your brain during the dream, however I do not recommend treating them poorly all the time because that style of thinking could project itself into real life.
This is what I think:
It’s totally irrelevant whether dream characters have rights or not, because the way you treat people reflects more on yourself than them. If you go around in your dreams torturing and killing people for fun, what does that say about YOU, hmm?
Let’s say for the sake of argument that DCs are totally fictional, totally unreal. Let’s also say that you’re in a dream with a DC who is acts like he/she is mentally braindead, is really ugly, and totally ignores you. But they’re not doing you any harm. Do you go up to them and call them names, or attack them? If so, I think all it proves is that you’re not a very nice person. It doesn’t matter if they’re not real; if you saw somebody ugly who appeared to be braindead in real life, you wouldn’t go up and yell at them, so why do it in a dream unless you secretly wanted to all along in reality?
In lucid dreams particularly, when the dream is potentially anything you want it to be, it really disturbs me when some people say that, even with everything imaginable to choose from, they would still choose violence and “war games”. In my view this is totally wrong, no matter whether it is real or not. It really does reflect on you as a person, especially those dark hidden tendencies you might not show in reality. But it’s wrong all the same.
[color=darkblue]I don’t believe they are real. What is the purpose of being able to contact people from other dimensions? Why do they always seem so similar to people you know or are based on people you know?
If you hear another language this is probably something your subconscious picked up that you weren’t aware of. The SC stores a hell of a lot of information that we aren’t able to consciously access and that comes out in dreams.
I often dream about school friends I haven’t seen in years or animals such as dogs with human like intelligence!
Do you seriously expect me to believe these are real people? And what would be the point in that?
I don’t see how it would be possible or even useful if they were real and since dreams tend to incorporate things you have taken in during the day (conscious or not) I am inclined to believe that this is all it is. In the absence of further evidence, I will continue to believe this but of course my mind is open to change (if the evidence is there)…[/color]
[color=darkblue]Also…
Did you know that your social personality is only a limited view of you actual personality? The rest is hidden and is made up of things you don’t want others to know in case it reflects badly on you?
Just because you feel like killing your boss sometimes, doesn’t make you a bad person! I would say this is quite normal. Secretly, you know that you will never act this out and perhaps would do it in a dream instead.
Even on a website, when talking with other’s that you may respect, people often sugar coat their true views to fit into what is expected. That isn’t to say that 90% of what they say is sugar coated spin, but it does mean that there is a big part of each person that they like to hide, a side they would be reluctant to talk about.
LD’s give people the opportunity to express themselves in this way without hurting anyone, so I personally don’t think it reflects badly on how they are when awake… [/color]
You people are a bit mistaken, but I guess thats my fault. I dont think that DCs are real people in the sense that they phisicly exist. I meant real as in they should have the same rights as a person. I dont go in for that other dimentional stuff.
I have never committed violence myself, but i still totally agree with you. I think it could in fact be healthy as it would be a nice way to let of some steam during a frustrating time.
The question if they are real people. just, dream people. What does it mean to be a real person? I think it is defined by consciousness, so how could we know? As for their rights if they are, what would they be? Killing them is not an issue, since they cannot die. They don’t rely on a physical body. That should be clear. In the dream it’s just a game. Maybe they deserve respect though.
They can’t be real people since they are created from your brain and they can’t have human right since they are not alive, but Dcs are a part of you so if you make fun of them, you are just making fun of yourself! 
The way I see it, there are two possibilities:
A. They are mere tools of my subconscious to keep me in check while I sleep. They have no perception of their own and I can do with them as I please because they cannot exist outside of my mind. They are mine to control in each and every LD.
B. They are sentient, and for whatever reason they trick me night by night into accepting their illusions as reality, denying me lucidity. Further, they are in my mind, my “property”, and I don’t remember inviting them over.
My solution: Give them ample warning, just to be on the safe side, and if they continuously refuse to stop deceiving me, I get nasty.
Anyway, this business intrigues me almost as much as the possibility of slowing down time in LDs. Provided I don’t scare them all away, I’d like to investigate the DCs more closely.
wwhats the point of treating them badly? all it does is hurt them
You cannot hurt something that does not exist.
For the italian phrase that made perfect sense, there are two explanations.
The first being that over the course of your life, your subconscious has heard enough Italian through movies, TV, idle conversations in real life etc that it has learned the subtleties of the Italian language structure. Although this is not information that’s available to you on a conscious level (like people with photographic memories), it is available to your sleeping unconscious mind and thus able to be produced flawlessly for your dream self to hear.
The second explanation is a little more out there. There is a theory that everyone on Earth is connected in someway, and that we can all subconsciously ‘tune in’ to this Collective Memory of information from the last 4 billion years (this theory is sometimes used to explain instincts and intuitions). While dreaming, your subconscious mind saw the need for an Italian speaking dream character, and reached out into the Ether to find a codex for Italian dialogue.
As for treating dream characters badly - They don’t exist. They are figments of your imagination. Your every day run of the mill dream character is contained in the same amount of substance as the last thought you had. The only reason to treat DCs with non-violence is so you don’t propigate that violence towards REAL people out here in the real world.
However if you were having a shared dream, then you probably just woke someone up by setting their dream self on fire with that handful of napalm.
Ohhhhh, cool topic. I could think forever. Our dreams are self creative and maybe completly original, but inspired and sometimes are I have never met… at least I think. 
sometimes are of what we live and expeirience, I dream of people i have met and people I think I have never met…
sorry 
I think there is a good chance that DC are real people, I feel bad when I hurt them in a LD, but when I was starting out with LDing, I could only stay lucid for about 15 secounds, so I would just beat up the nearest DC.