I had a dream recently wherein I (as far as I can tell) woke up lucid in my parents’ house. I knew I was dreaming, at any rate. I had resolved (in my waking life) to do three different RCs in a particular order and I began with the hands RC. It was dark, though, and I couldn’t see them. Perhaps because I got impatient, I decided to skip the other two and entered a room in the house which looked just like the real thing. Suddenly, the light went on and my parents (DCs, of course) showed up behind me. I spoke to them and they convinced me that I wasn’t dreaming. Everything seemed perfectly realistic, so I believed them.
I’ve read that DCs generally deny that you are dreaming, but can anyone say why this is? What are the possibilities? I’d say there is some sort of subconscious resistance that goes beyond just lack of practice in LDing, it’s as if someone doesn’t want you to get lucid.
Note that my dreams are rarely that realistic, yet as soon as I became lucid DCs adapted their behavior to trick me, and succeeded. The environment was also familiar, a rarity in my dreams.
So, please share your insights on DC behaviour and the barriers that come between you and lucidity in NDs.
I often wonder if DC’s have their own consciousness and know that they are all just actors in a play. Like if you shot a DC with a gun, are they really dead or are they just acting dead? or if you hurt a DC are they really in pain or just pretending to be in pain? I often ask them if they know its a dream and they usually just ignore the question. There seems to be something weird going on, why are DC’s so obsessed with acting out this play? perhaps because they are a product of yourself and yourself wants to get all the relaxation/unwinding it needs so the DC’s go to great lengths to keep you unconscious. So I guess, in a way, they do have a little bit of our consciousness inside them and they will act their hearts out to keep you unaware.
You read that DC’s say you are not dreaming so when you asked that information was in your head.
The only way to prove is they always say you are not dreaming is to get ~100 people who have never heard of Dream characters and instruct that become lucid and asks characters if they are dreaming.
Yes, that’s what I tend to believe. They’re a sort of mechanism to prevent you from getting lucid. I think it’s universal, not dependent on expectations, contrary to what Slinking_ferret suggested. I had an LD long before I found out how to induce them, and in it DCs were no less in denial than they are in my dreams now.
Dream characters denying the nature of the dream is common enough, but I don’t think it’s true all across the board—it just happens a lot. I’ve had at least one experience where the opposite happened in a lucid dream: I was walking through a dark hallway, when I suddenly wondered that I might be dreaming. I turned around, when I noticed my mother walking behind me. “Is this a dream?” I asked. She simply smiled and nodded.
In some of my earlier lucid dreams, I asked dream characters if they knew that they were no more than dream characters. Like my mother, they nodded—although sadly.
I’ve had my shared of denial from dream characters too, such as a debate between my sister and I in which both of us firmly held our ground. I think what it boils down to is how you believe they will react deep down, and I think this is true for a lot of things within lucid dreams. If you truly believe that you will succeed at something within a lucid dream, you most likely will. When there’s a sliver of a doubt, that’s going to take over. And it may not be about what your conscious mind wants. It’s usually about what the subconscious believes, and that’s probably where a lot of lucid dreaming problems originate.
Asking DCs if you are dreaming is usually a good sign of the level of your lucidity.
If they are in denial or trying to convince you of something else, your lucidity is probably quite low.
IF they can aknowledge you that its a dream you are quite in control
Sadly if you are at a low level doing so can easily be a setback and switch the dream back into normal more
DCs don’t always deny that it’s a dream. For me they usually ignore the question. But a few times It was actually a DC that told ME it was a dream.
In dreams, expectations play a huge role. So, stay openminded!
Thanks for your insights, everyone. To me, DCs are another hurdle to overcome, like limited recall. But I look forward to experimenting with them once I can more reliably have LDs.
By the way, Kavaa’s post gave me an idea: What if DCs could be conditioned to do whatever you want of them automatically? Like telling you you are dreaming and making you lucid on a regular basis. Has anyone managed to alter their DCs’ behavior permanently?
I think DC’s, who are so closely tied to your subconscious, tend to do the opposite of what you want. People have said SG’s will often do it for them but I haven’t heard of regular DC’s doing it on a regular basis.
I had my first ever conversation with a DC this morning. It was with a middle-aged man I saw walking down the street. I tried to find a way to increase lucidity. The conversation went something like this:
Me: ‘Why can’t I become more lucid?’
Him: ‘It’s like flipping a coin…[something about the two sides to a coin]’
Me: ‘Oh, you mean the contrast’
Him: ‘You’re in luck, Channel 4 isn’t evilly aligned. I learnt that from Eastenders’ (!!!)
Me: ‘Is BBC1 evil?’
Him: ‘No’
It doesn’t fill me with confidence for future interactions.
Well, as everyone has been stating, dream characters are just another part of your subconscience. Dream characters denying the fact that you’re dreaming must mean that you, subconsciencely don’t 100% believe you’re really dreaming. It kind of reminds me when I try to do something in a lucid dream and I can’t do it because I don’t fully believe it’s gonna work. Like, one time I tried to walk through a mirror, but in the back of my mind I didn’t think it would work and it didn’t, even though I told myself it would. I think there’s a slight similarity.
To me, they’re experiments. just see what you can do to an DC in an ld. once, I can’t remember much of the dream, but I imploded this DC on a couch. it looked like the couch was eating him, lol. but, either that, or just having really strange conversations with them is fun.
Majority of my DCs deny its a dream. I no longer ask them or try to convince them.
One DC was kind enough to make me lucid and show me an RC. Unfortunately he has only appeared in 1 dream
I tried in a few LDs to get DCs to promise to tell me I am lucid when they appear in my dreams. They agreed they would, but didn’t
If you think you might be dreaming - YOU ARE!
Its good to develop and practice a RC as well.
There are a number of theories that part of dream logic is to keep you asleep. So DC’s telling you that its not a dream is consistent with that theory.
You know, it never actually occurred to me that so many people would have trouble with their DCs like this. Mine never seem to cause me any problems or convince me I’m not dreaming. Usually, when I first become lucid, I walk around telling everyone I meet, just to get it into my head. They mostly ignore me, or just give me the kind of weird look I’d get if I did the same thing IWL.
As far as DCs go, the weirdest experience I had with one was actually my subconscious that I got into an epic Street Fighter/Dragon Ball Z/wuxia film-style brawl with over control of the dreamscape.
Apparently, my subconscious (backed by the entire DC population) didn’t want me to have lucidity and it vehemently expressed this by saying, “All these loopy, shoddy defective universes you’ve been making offend my esthetic sense!” It even tryid to persuade me that I was having “another episode” and that accepting this and turning dreamscape omnipotence back over to it would make me feel better
I totally disagreed, saying, “Never! That’s completely idiotic!” And from there a battle royale of epic proportions ensued all across the dreamverse–me against an infinite amount of DCs–the superconscious…and my subconscious.
The whole dream was weird–even creepy The fight was awesome And I won’t give away any more because I really want to post it
I’m just here to advocate for the purpose of the subconscious and DCs in dreams to try to trick us and even resort to more dramatic measures to keep us unconscious and happy
The most interesting thing about DCs is the analogy that they contain with the people I meet in Real Life.
Just like when I try to convince a DC that this is a dream and he never accepts the fact (they even make me non lucid),
the same thing goes in Real Life with people when I try to convince them that the essence of life is to be a free person, without authority, borders, religion and other conservative elements. To be a free person next to Mother Nature. They always deny it.
Just like I have a little quantity of friends who are anarchists-pacifists like me, it’s the same thing: Only a few of DCs will actually TELL me that this is a dream.
I met my college roommate as a DC inside my first extensive lucid dream. When I told him I was inside a lucid dream, he spoke empathetically: “I’ve been there myself before.” The exchange was reminiscent of the conversation between the protagonist and the Richard Linklater character toward the end of Waking Life, which I had not yet seen when I had my dream.
Has anyone had a dream in which a DC speaks extensively about his/her own dreamworld?
The fight was awesome 
And I won’t give away any more because I really want to post it 