I’ve got a question. What is the general level of life in most NDs? I’m only asking this because in the past, my NDs have always been barren and lifeless. Usually they take place during the winter with snow and ice all around. Many times all the buildings in my dreams are ruined and destroyed. Usually it is around 3:00 AM in my dreams with a reddish glow in the sky. There are usually few DCs hanging around, and when they are, they aren’t too receptive towards me. My NDs are pretty bleak. Is this normal?
hmm… i can’t identify. my NDs usually have something going on. i have noticed that some of them are pretty barren (ie no DCs, i’m the only one around) but for the most part that isn’t the case for me
i dunno, maybe somebody else can shed some light on this 
I’ve had some dreams like that, but my NDs aren’t “always” a certain thing. They occur in myriad places, usually based around what happened to me that day IRL. So I’d say that the interesting part isn’t the barren-ness of your NDs, but the fact that they’re all pretty consistently barren/wintery/etc…
Id say that all of my ND’s have at least a little bit of nature in them. By this i mean trees, sky, wind, etc. Ive only had a few ‘barren’ ones that i can recall, one being of snow (but it didnt seem bleak), another in like a dried up field (that one was pretty bleak, felt really hot but there was still alot going on, got chased by mafia LOL), and a third where there was a ton of undead on some island, i think ive posted about that but that was the bleakest of them all.
I dont think that there is a normal level of life or activity in ND’s for the general population, i think it depends on the person. Most of mine involve me in a nature setting like Bidwell Park or something and its totally vivid and beatiful, yeah im a nature freak 
I’ve been getting snow in my past 4 LDs at least - and I love it!
Winters in my dreams aren’t that great. They are utterly bleak. Take the downtown of a town with a population of about 25,000 people. Make it winter outside. Then have the town abandoned for about five years. Make it 3:00 AM with a clear, but eerily-red sky. Then be by yourself and walk for long distances (exact distance in one recent ND was 40 miles). Have about 20 DCs at most inhabit your dream. That makes up a good chunk of my NDs. I’m almost always alone in my dreams. When there ARE DCs, they either give me the cold-shoulder (no pun intended) or are just plain hostile.
wow, to have ND like that shakes head thats not too fun. Guess your subconscious dont got too much to say…or maybe it does, to each his own [interpretation] lol. Next ld you have, it might be a good idea to question the nature of the town (if you become Lucid in such settings), like fly to the library and look thru old newsclippings. You might be surprised. 
Good luck with the LD’ing and whatnot 
The killer here is that this exact same setting makes up about half of my NDs. My DCs are ALWAYS hostile/absent/dead/etherial. Kinda creepy… What really gets me are the low populations. Usually the few DCs I can identify with end up having something bad to them. Recent examples:
A) A few years ago, I had a dream where I had some powerful friends who lived at the top of a massive wooden tower (zero other DCs), who were powerful and guarded over something. In a recent dream, they were being attacked by other DCs. I managed to get to them and they gave me the artifact before they fled.
B) I found somebody I “knew” in a dream in a private school nearby (about one of five DCs I saw in the dream), and he was abducted and taken somewhere else after I met him.
C) An old teacher of mine was taking me on a tour of some building (ramshackle and falling apart), but everybody around was belittling him and making him feel miserable.
It isn’t just me that gets the cold shoulder, but any and all DCs that identify with me also get the cold shoulder… Kinda odd in my opinion… 
most of my nd’s involve me and 1 or 2 other people who are usually my RL friends. Most also take place in school during passing period. (which is odd because during passing period theres tons of people in the halls IRL)
Hmm Daed, maybe your subconscious is pissed off at you or something??? Sorry for the dry humor there ahem
Have you ever just tried to observe them in their natural environment? perhaps this is a good time to try out a simple shapeshifting – that to complete invisibility. In this state you can observe your DCs and see if their collaboration with you truly causes bad things to happen to them, or if bad things also happen to them when youre not collaborating w/ them as well.
As far as accomplishing that, i havent the slightest clue!!! 
Never trying it before, i offer the following mental framework that may just work: Observe the empty air in front of you, know that what you are looking at is really you, you just cant see yourself, youre invisible. Close your eyes (risky!!!) and then tell yourself when you open them, you will be in this invisible form. OR, you can look at your hands and arms, imagine what can be seen behind them if they werent there, like the ground. Turn away, turn back, theyre gone but you can still feel them.
Uh, probably the above is just too overly/unecesarily complicated. Just use willpower and be like 'i am invisible" (in fact that prob more effective than that ‘framework’)
Or, you can in an LD ask your DC’s what they honestly think of you. Heck, like call the whole town (of 10 ppl) to the town square or something, announce that ______ (mayor or something), and see thier reaction, like if they throw tomatoes at you or something hehe Or, go to the local pub, get someone drunk, and see what they think of you, heck drink and be merry, that could improve your relations.
Woa an odd thought that just occurred, did you treat your DC’s like crap in the past maybe? If so im not surprised at the low population and the bad reputation you seem to have. (lol maybe i just put too much realness stock into DC’s). Not that im implying you have done that, just maybe could be a reason, so here i ask. Or, maybe you went thru some sort of event in real life and it harmed your sub-c. Or, maybe theyre all just indoors? …Town meeting and waiting for you???
DnLMicky, do you consider the tons of people in the halls IRL to be real? Do you talk to each one of them and acknowledge them as being existent? I am guessing that like most people, you are just chilling with just your friends, they are the reality, not the strangers passing thru the halls IRL. Then such is reflected in your ND more symbolically. Mebbe. 
Geez, the plot runs thicker, doesn’t it?
As far as I can remember, I didn’t treat my DCs like garbage in the past. In fact, it was them that treated me miserable. I’d always have people leaving me behind at places, attacking me, etc. I’ve been able to recall many of my dreams from 4th to 9th grades. Some of the more notorious people include the following. This is going to be very dreary, so you might want to skip:
- A serial-killer by the name of (I’m not kidding here) “The J’j’j’j’j’j’j’j’j’j’j’jee-er.” He chased me and two DCs (real people I knew at the time) around. He killed them, and kept chasing after me. If I remember correctly, he had a missile launcher under the hood of his car.
- A fifth-grader who had the unique skill of knife-throwing. Throwing at me, that is. He would never hit, but he would always be so close that I had to keep running (he popped up in two different dreams).
- A man dressed entirely in rags. He lived in a small warehouse filled with water where he kept the bodies of his victims. I found the place and was promptly stabbed.
As for locations:
- The aforementioned winter-town (usually around nine PM with waning sunlight). This started about 4 years ago and persists to today.
- An old neighborhood I lived in. There is a dismal red fog, a reddish-sky with a few bright stars (sparsely-placed). The entire place is inhabited by zombies and DCs that hated me (even those that I was friends with in real life). All the buildings are in ruins. This one has dropped off over the last year or so, being replaced by the winter-town. This started about seven years ago.
Maybe it is fair that I mention that I was depressed for about 6 years from 4th to 10th grades, which could be a factor. Yeah, pretty lousy times. I’m better now, but the themes persist.
Your ideas, however, sound very good. I’ll keep them in mind. If subtlety fails, I’ll confront them head-on. Shapeshifting was next on my list anyway.
HEH, sorry i could not help but laugh at that name, the ‘j’'j’j’j’j’j’jee-er man oh man! 
hmm the knife thrower reminds me of a few dark dreams like that. Its like an extremely powerful something that always seems a step right behind me, or like some crazy darkness, but yeah i remember the feeling of ‘evil’ so…dark it makes me sick to the stomach 
just the thought of how its very presence felt, and like the hopelessness and the thoughts like ‘wtf why is this happening?!?’
Yes, that depression i am guessing plays a huge factor. Maybe its just that the depression sort of ravaged your insides. Its good that youve gotten past that, nows the time to travel and observe the ruinous lands?
I am guessing that at this point it will just take time, the rebuilding after such a ravaging period is not instantaneous. Maybe you can help with the rebuilding, restore the sense of community w/ your DC’s? Might be a good idea though, to really find out if theres anything you have yet to deal with, some repressed baggage or unanswered questions and the like. Conversation w/ DC, a mirror whose reflection acts on its own, etc. I must tell you ahead of time, that if you do find something, dont let it get you down, lest you regress, but rather think ‘okay what can i do to resolve this’ 
Then again, it could not be the depression. Current life events maybe. So yeah, i suggest observance without prebias or expectation would be best. Good luck w/ the shapeshifting!
Heh, a weird idea that just popped to mind. In your next LD, walk to the nearest forest and find a clearing. Hold before you your closed fist, and imagine inside it a seed. A seed like the tree of life or something (hehe), and then plant it. Maybe this will help your environment.
Keep us posted! Dont worry if you dont get immediate results, give the sub-c some time.
Don’t worry. I don’t expect instantaneous results. Six years of misery taught me not to. Heh heh. At least I got one useful lesson out of all that.
Strange. My Lucids rarely are populated, but my ND’s have lots of people.