Testing the "realness" of Dream Characters

[com]This is quite an old article (2004) I’ve reposted here, the other one is in the lab, with the ongoing “Testing Realness of DC’s” experiment. Yes, I know, I still need to do a follow up. I will. Sometime… for now, enjoy these previous findings:[/com]

[size=150][color=red]Testing the ‘Realness’ of DC’s.[/color][/size]

It all began with this theory:

A dream is just a different world, and your DC’s can be real people. So, not just your subconscious…

[b]An extended theory is that there are different kinds of DC’s.

  1. made up by your subconscious and symbolize something.
  2. real ppl (shared dreaming)
  3. spiritual beings like spirit guides.
  4. ? [/b]

To find this out the experiment was started:
So to learn more about DC’s let’s interview them. As explora has pointed out, it is important what you ask and how you ask it. If you don’t get an answer first time, try rephrasing the question and ask again.

Here are some questions to get you started but you can make up your
own interview.

I want to know if you are real(1) or a product of my imagination(2)
(1)-Do you live on earth right now? (If so: ask for name, birthday, password, things like that.)
(2)-what do you symbolize then/ why do you appear in this form in my dream?

ask on, like:

  • how did you end up here in my dream, do you symbolize something?
  • where do you come from then?
  • from another dimension?
  • from another planet?
  • from another ‘plane’?
  • are you a spirit guide?
  • what’s your name?
  • do you always appear like this?
  • have i seen you before in another shape/form?
  • can we meet again? (how, where)

remember, the purpose of this experiment is to find out more about the DC you are interviewing and in particular if he/she is real or part of your imagination. So that should be the first thing you want to find out.


The results:

As each participant encountered and questioned the DC’s we found out that indeed there are different kinds of DC’s. And that DC’s are made up by your subconscious as well as ‘real’ DC’s. With ‘real’ i mean: a seperate entity not made up by you.

As the experiment went on we found out that by asking directly if a DC is a product of your subconscious gives a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’. We also discovered another category “Dreamgods” who seem to be very powerful beings.

As each participant encountered and questioned the DC’s we found out
there are different kinds of DC’s. Some answers could be quite surprising.

One participant was shown a graph in her dream with a list of different levels of DC’s.


I now proceed with the findings so far, with some quotes from participant’s dreams to illustrate. All dreams can be found in the thread part I and II.

1 = DC’s made up by your subconscious.

Mostly, these are thee ones that look at you blankly, walk away from you or just give nonsense replies. These DC’s can feel ‘hollow’ - as if they are mere shadows or projections.

However, if asking them the right question, they can offer valuable advice.

These DC’s can also be controlled by you in a LD:

2=‘shared DC’

These aren’t made up by your subconscious, but aren’t ‘real’ either. They seem to pick up certain energies and from there appear as a DC.

3= shared dream.

Participants recall DC’s who stated that they where dreaming and they were real. Alas those DC’s disappeared soon after that or could never been verified as being shared dreams. (giving passwords etc, or shared DC didn’t remember dream IRL)

4= deceased / spirits
This one hovers between SG and SD but deserves a seperate category.
DC’s have been encountered who say they have passed away.

5 = spirit guides.
Now this is a tricky one. As explora’s dream illustrates, SG’s can take on forms of ppl you know IRL.

6. dream teachers.
Dream teachers are what the name implies: teachers. They teach you things in your dream. It can be about anything. The dreams with DT’s in them often take place in a setting with some kind of blackboard where things are explained or some kind of instructional area like a classroom.

7. Watchers
These still remain elusive…

8. dream Gods.
These seem to be the most powerful DC’s.


conclusion so far:

indeed, there are many kinds of DC’s. The problem is that DC’s can lie also. They will say they are your SG while in fact they are not.

It is now clear that indeed there are DC’s made up from your subconscious and ‘Real’ DC’s. But it has turned out that there are different categories/levels of ‘Real’ DC’s. This is an interesting area to explore.

In most cases the ‘real’ DC’s will tell you that they are real when you ask them if they are real or made up by your subconscious.

The experiment continues! We are curious to meet the Watchers, the DreamGods and the Dream Teachers. What can they tell us? Who are they?


As a bonus some interesting information given by DC’s in the
participant’s dreams:

wow.great work. I think i’ll have to start interviewing some of my DCs.

It is very interesting. I may interview DCs in my future LDs…

So to learn more about DC’s let’s interview them. As explora has pointed out, it is important what you ask and how you ask it. :cry:

Very interesting indeed. However, the results are not very scientific seeing as that nothing was verified IRL (in relation to shared DC’s and the like). Im not saying the info here is wrong, just saying that it needs more research (as you know). But this is very exciting to me and I would like to research this further in my own LD’s!

In this thread, I describe how I questioned DCs by asking them math questions. Most answered incorrectly, but I found one DC who could do math. (Although the last question I asked stumped him.)

ld4all.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t … light=math

Also, as I say in this thread, Paul Tholey did an experiment with lucid dreamers (that’s published) about the consciousness of DCs. In the study, DCs were able to come up with rhymes, answer math questions, and even, apparently, tell the dreamer a word that she didn’t know.