Dream characters can be very odd. Sometimes they’re people we’ve never seen before. Sometimes they’re people we know, but with different personalities. They’re can be irritating, not talking back, or getting in the way. Or they can be very helpful. I think they’re quite interesting and worth looking into.
So whats everyones thoughts on dream characters?
They’re definately fascinating for sure, and it still blows me away how your mind is capable of so realistically creating these autonomous, “living” beings. But man are they are ignorant dumbasses when you try and tell them how they’re not real! (in all my experiences anyway)
When I try and convince my dream characters that they’re not real they go from happy and talkative and whatever to just staring straight ahead with this glazed over look in their eyes, like they either don’t hear me or they just can’t handle hearing it. It makes me feel kinda slack even, like I’ve offended em heheh… Has anyone been able to convince their dream characters that they weren’t real?
The characters in my dreams seem very transitive. For instance, I dreamt that I was the engineer of an Amtrak train the other night, and I saw a friend by the track, so I slowed down the engine and yelled for her to jump on. She jumped on the train, but when she climbed up into the cab, she had changed into someone else. Funny thing is, not only do I fail to realize I’m dreaming when something like that happens, but I seldom even skip a beat. In another dream, I turned around from a conversation to look at something, and when I turned back, the person who I WAS talking to had changed into someone else, but I simply kept right on going in the conversation exactly where it had left off. In short, my dream characters don’t seem to hold a personality for very long.
Perhaps you were not interested in the conversation jbescup, and this dis-interest manifested itself. I think DCs change for clear reasons, not at random.
In my first LDs I had trouble convincing DCs I was dreaming. I would wake up or they would act surprised and continue acting out their role anyway. The best LD conversation with a DC went something like this:
[I enter a classroom]
me (to the teacher): one moment please
me (to everyone): I have an announcement
[I write on a piece of paper “I am dreaming” and hold it up, everyone acts confused and talks then settles down]
me (to everyone): does anybody have a message for the outside world?
[a friend with an aloof and comical personality raises his hand]
friend: yeah… (pause, with a depressed look on his face) “hey”.
I had to leave he made me so sad that this “person” I had created was depressed. I felt like I had created someone just to be tortured, and they knew it and where asking politely for me to never have created them. I almost stopped LDing then, but I obviously started up again not too much later. I find that DCs will talk about being a DC if you don’t ask directlly or inform directly. Asking for written answers is good, and telling them directly via written communication is good.
I quite often find that I know a dream character is a certain person that I know in real life, but they look like someone else, does anyone else find this?
Jabbervock- yeah, definitely. A lot of times I will be with someone I know, and be calling them by name, but they will not look like theirself in real life
kmcdonald- I think you’re right when it comes to the conversational instance, but I’m not so sure about the train one. I guess some of these things can never be fully explained, but it’s very intreguing to try. Thanks for your interpretation. 
Hi
Something that just came to my mind:
Has anybody every managed to willingly “jump” into a character?
Eg. you are talking with your classmate,and then suddenly you ARE your classmate and are talking to you.
If yes,what was it like? Did you suddenly know things that you didn´t knew before?
Traumgänger
Do you mean on purpose or by accident? Although I guess it wouldn’t make much difference…