Dream characters: Friends or Puppets?

Well, I don’t have much… experience with DC’s :tongue: (in LD’s that is)
I rarely have a decent conversation, so I’m far from making a real DC friend :cry: I guess it’s ok. I don’t really like to see DC’s like puppets, even if I see them as a part of my personality…

I’ve fallen in love with a DC (but only in a ND) but the feeling ended when I woke up. Actually falling in love with a DC and repeatedly meeting them would be weird. Might feel good but I agree it doesn’t sound really healthy in the long run… :sad:

I wish :cry:

Well, before I move on, I want to say that I feel dreams are made of emotions - you leave your rational mind behind: that’s why everything is so awe-inspiring and we don’t really mind pink elephants dancing around and count them as normal. That being said, I like to deal with DC as friends (to a certain extent). Lets expand the reasons:

  • I like to think I’m doing that to everyone IWL or while dreaming.
  • Some of the DC are my friends from waking life, so I try to deal with them in the same matter.
  • Some people say that DC are real entities… I don’t really believe them, but better safe than sorry, eh?
  • If dreams are emotions, then your SC is providing them based on your life… I feel it’s better to deal with them as equals and try to learn something about yourself than just treat them like puppets.

Next topic: Funny thing you mentioned falling in love with a DC, because today I dreamt of a gal, and in my dream I said I’d might propose to her sometime. Don’t get me wrong - I haven’t seem my girlfriend for months (she lives in another city), and this dreamgirl was perfect in everyway for me: she was beautiful, sang marvelously, liked the same things/hobbies as I, was funny, etc… What I want to say is that probably this was my SC trying to make up for me emotionally, as I miss my girlfriend very much, it gave a super girl I can relate and feel love mutually while sleeping. I mean, I won’t plan on marrying her now knowing she’s a DC, but I would like it very much if I could dream with her again, she was very fine. Nothing wrong with that, right?

For some reason, I could never think of dream characters as anything other than shadows IWL. They have their meaning only when inside the dream - and never outside it.

Therefore, I take dreams as a stroll to their domain: I am just a visitor, who happens to know more than them - and be able to control many things they cannot.

On the other hand, I might lack some common logic - common dream logic - that they have.

Therefore, while I prefer to treat them as equals, I can never think of them just this way - eventually, we are too different. They are more of pets than humans. While one might sacrifice themselves to save their dog - the dog has little meaning to life without it’s master. And while your dog can certainly do some things far better than you do - You are the one who feeds it.

Just my two cents - Though my LDs are not many.

Hmm, I like everyone’s answers! You guys make sense, and I agree.

I suppose everyone has their way of thinking about it. After all, it’s their world and logic right?

Well, this pretty much sums up my curiosity, but if anyone comes across this topic and wants to post their opinion, please do! Hehe. :tongue:

Happy dreams everyone,
~Namine

I have an imaginary friend (a created DC) that I use to talk to him IWL as an atempt to do CALD, but the only time I really saw he in a dream we were running from something and he Asked me for helping him to get out that place… It was really weird…

But I think some times DC’s may be just reflections of your own SC, however sometimes you may dream with people you’ve never met before but they do exist in the real world!! (of course not exactly as in the dream world, but still is weird to dream about someone than later you discover that he/she exists and with the exact name and face of your dreams!!!).

So, I don’t think of DC as puppets anyway!! I can’t say they are “friends”, but they surely have some purpose to help you somehow in your real life, being them just interpretations from your SC or manifestations from real people…

to me, my DC’s aren’t really friends or puppets. I know that they don’t exist outside of my mind, but i usually respect them (unless my intent is to purposely disrespect or hurt them) because they often times tell me some very unexpected, but helpful, information. I see them as my peers. i respect them as another being of my dream. they have their own thoughts just like i do. befriending them isn’t normal for me because i don’t have many DC’s that i see on a regular basis.

Seems simple: If they do anything or everything you want, they are puppets with no character whatsoever.

(LMAO)

There is a note to this however: many people are not in control of their whole mind, and as such, they are not in complete control of their dreams. Many people look for their SC in dreams, and that’s because there’s not a stable and clear link to it during daytime.

Similarly, like you can or cannot control elements of a dreamscape, you can voluntarily (in a best-case scenario) choose whether to control or not any part of a DC, form the body to its emotions, to its memories, and whatever else.
In such a way, a DC can both stay stable and still be completely independent form the choices of the conscious mind, and become almost a separate entity, if one lets it be so. It’s a way like another to access another part of our mind (for example, it could write poetry that you, as in the conscious you, didn’t think about beforehand), and also a way to bring more familiarity with Lucid Dreaming in general.

Good point. Actually this might come as a surprise for many, but we don’t have such a thing as a “concious mind”. What we call our everyday self is the sum of a vast amount of thoughts as self-images that we identify as ourselves, taking turns in handling us.

People lacks of psychic integrity, something greatly described by Gurdjieff and Ounspensky in many of their books.

In the case of lucid dreaming it depends on the general intent of the dream. If you intent an empty landscape or a populated city. At any rate you are in direct or indirect control of everything your mind projects.

The questionis: Is it all being projected by you?

That was I was trying to say: many people do identify themselves with their thoughts, losing often a stable contact with the rest of the mind.

It is of course possible to gain control of oneself and be conscious to the whole mind, but it is not the norm, and as such, terms like conscious and SC become useful in describing the workings of the everyday mind.

Like many can do an action without participating in it (like driving home on autopilot), in the same way a dream can or cannot be directly controlled by the conscious dreamer; it is all a product of our mind, of course, but we can willingly leave the workings unknown to the present experience of the self.

I like where you guys are going with this. Your tapping into what I was really trying to portray. Like how it was mentioned that a dream character could possibly think for itself and come up with something that you wouldn’t have in real life. (Referring to what Tosxychor said) And also how it was mentioned that a dream character could do so if one let it.

So, let’s say you do. You’re somehow able to let the dream character develop it’s own personality. What then? I say that’d be pretty cool/interesting. A new friend maybe? (once again, to that certain extent)

:smile:

~Namine

The fundamental point of meditation is that you shut off the movie that goes on in your head.

No movies means no actors and no actors means not having something to identify yourself with.

And that’s one of the reasons why I am practicing it :tongue: I even let almost completely go of the idea of having a DG… (my SC told me I would have to create one myself); you could say DC are a way of communicating with different sides of yourself while you’re going for the enlightenment :smile:

Anyway, back on topic, having a persistent DC with you is very cool to begin with, and more so to a friends’ person; I’d say it’s a very nice way to look forward to next LD’s, thus raising chances of having them.
Just keep in mind that they’re always a part of yourself, so there’s not really the risk of the relationship running on undesired tracks (you do like yourself afterall, don’t you? :colgate:), plus whatever they did for you (like sharing some insight, or some art), it was really you, doubling the reasons to be happy :happy: .

I find that an odd statement. [size=75]Disclaimer: I don’t mean to imply it’s “wrong” in any way!!![/size]

I believe I’m a friend’s person (as Tosxychor puts it), and also a weakling empath, which means I have a little insight to people’s emotions - that explains a lot of my life, and why I’ve always been attracted to acting, music, writing, friends and many other things.

So, what strucks me as odd is that although I don’t have any recurring DC s (except people IWL which do reoccur), every single DC of mine has it’s own (and usually quite strong) personality… Do I make sense? For me it’s very strong, like they are pure personality (since they don’t have physical bodies, etc), which makes me think as odd that DC might have to develop one.

One could always ask the guidance of the higher self; the part of us that not embodied and indirectly guide us.

That’s a real “independent” guide from our bodily-self that we are. It has better perspective than us in our evolutionary trip.

The more you get close to your higher self, the more you’ll know what you came here to do.

Call your Higher Self up for a dream meeting!

I see DC s as a fragment of my mind and thus, I see them as teachers to my conciouss, limited self :wink:

I’ve had DC experiences during my childhood. I had friends, that would stick with me for a period of time, until I would realize something, then we would merge. I also had an innocent love for one of my female characters. But we both realized this sort of relationship was to end when the time would come. And it came. I don’t see falling in love with a DC as literal love for a individual or person, it’s just your mind sending a message in the most appealing way ^^ I mean, it’s way better than the unintentional, primitive erotic dreams I sometimes allow myself to have now in my teenage phaze :happy: not that I have trouble with relationships in RL. I just think life and emotion is not only around you, but also within you. Grasp the moment and the DC / your mind may teach you so much.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thinking of Dcs as friends. I have met some Dcs that didn’t seem that intelligent or coherent, but I wouldn’t go as far too call them puppets. I can’t really control my Dcs in my dreams. There have been times when I made Dcs disappear by yelling at them, but that’s as far as I have gone in controlling my dream characters.

There are three types of Dcs I’ve met; those who I can tell are a figment of my imagination, those with their own personalities, which make them seem real and the ones that seem like separate entities. I’ve only ran into the third type once or twice, but even that was enough to change my perception of Dcs and what they really are.

Could you tell us more about that last type? :eh:

Interesting thoughts everyone!

I think I’m getting to the point where I could see dream characters as friends, that is if they seem to have a personality of some sort. I guess I don’t see why not.

~Namine

Typical lucid dreamer?

No, not even Q gets LD’s every night.

Or does she? :eh: