Are you always a character in your dreams?

When you dream, do you always have an active role as a participant in the events of your dream?

I can't recall any dreams where I wasn't at least present in the setting of the dream, perhaps witnessing an event unfold. For example, I tend to have recurring plane crash dreams. While I know that my dream is about a crash that doesn't directly involve me, I know that I am in that dream because I am aware of where my body is located within the setting of that dream as I watch the plane come down. I know that I am there. It's not like a scene unfolding on a television screen where you are physically separate from what is happening on the screen.

Of course you are.It is your dream!

Even if you do not see yourself, you are viewing it in the first person.

If you use a video camera and walk around video taping then play it back later would you see yourself there?

I am sure you wouldn't assume you must not have been because you don't see yourself.

reply to post by Oneolddude


You're not understanding my point of view as the dreamer. I am referring to my point of view as a dreamer being once removed from what you are talking about.

Let me use a stage performance analogy to get you to understand the idea of not being "in" the dream:

If you are an 'extra' in a play who is merely representing an unimportant non-speaking role and are on the stage merely watching the main characters do their thing is what I equate to being 'in' the dream but not playing an active part in the events. The spectator (who is the equivalent of the 'dreamer') is once removed -- they see the action in the dream, but they are not a role player at any level.

Think of the dream as being the 'play'. When you dream, are you an actor on the stage either actively involved in the main drama or even on the fringes, or are you as the dreamer just the spectator.

Often play the 'God' role in dreams!

Like making events unfold as I think them, picking and choosing what happens next, I love having these type dreams!

reply to post by GoneGrey


I think what you are getting at is that clearly a dream can occur in 1st, second, or 3rd person. Many dreams start off in 1st person, but sometimes go to third for me. One time I was two at once, Third person visually, first person feeling and hearing (as I tried to escape from a car that was on fire) I don't have control over this, at least never have.

The dreamer is obviously not only the first person perspective that we dream from. It can be anything from first to third person. It relates to the way we perceive life from this limited perespective. The dreamer exists in it's own little fourth dimension, it's not tied to the first person dream body perspective, and obviously not the others. It can be any.

And to go with what you were asking in your first post, I think yes, the dream body, my dream body I identify most with, is almost always at least part of the picture or part of the play. I can't recall a third person perspective that wasn't looking in on my dream body or it's situation.

And then again, if we are going to label what is doing all this the dreamer, and give him a name.. maybe what we are calling third person is truly second. I've never fully grasped the differences in third person and second on a heavy intellectual level. I'm always wanting the good guys to win while in third person, I guess if third person has an opinion on the matter and is not purely objective and narrative, then it is really second person from a fluid and good vantage point.

Great topic for a dreaming thread. This also can tie into life itself, as we understand why the perspectives are what they are, and how it all relates to what occurs in dreams.

I have some dreams where I'm just an observer, like watching a movie, or observing but also have some control, like a 3rd person video game. In the dreams in which I am an active character I can sometimes control the events to some extent. I think that's called lucid dreaming?

sorry, double post

[edit on 16-2-2010 by HarvestMoon]

reply to post by HarvestMoon


It is likely you are lucid dreaming in those instances. A lucid dream is any dream where you realize you are dreaming while in it. Though it is possible and common maybe, for your thoughts to effect a dream while not being lucid.

reply to post by Novise


Sometimes I am aware I'm dreaming when that happens, but not always. It's weird.

One of the most scary (fever-induced) nightmares I've ever had was about a really long and thin greyish strand of some type, or a string maybe - elegant in its thinness, articulate in its shine. It was situated in a serene darkness - no distractions, simplicity. Then, out of the void, a clump of the same kind of material - but without the elegant gloss - wrapped itself around the string, trying to envelop as much of the line as possible, growing while succeeding. It just grew larger and larger, taking more and more of the line's simplicity and beauty and replacing it with .. I'm not sure how to describe it. I had this nightmare as a kid, promptly woke up, ran to my mom's bedroom (which wasn't the habit anymore, at the age of 10) - frantically awakened her, and told her the world was going to end; 'it' was going to get the whole world. I didn't mean that the clump was going to physically envelop the world (as a 10yo might dream) - I remember specifically feeling like that process I witnessed - the smothering of beauty by banality, perhaps - was happening around the world already, and it would continue so if not actively stopped. We should all be panicking.

Needless to say I felt a lot better the next day, but still this has been the most influential nightmare I've had. To this day I can easily connect to the idea of that process, although the frame of reference (and subsequent interpretation) changes, as do I.

Of course this is cheating in some way - I was dreaming in a world without characters, and as such I was no character in my dream. However, unlike that time I was a triangle and tried to push a sphere around with me fellow triangles inside a pyramid, in this nightmare the scene didn't include me, or even an observer. Hope it qualifies ;D

Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful input.

I wonder if there is something 'special' about a 3rd person dream?

I've always felt that due to my inevitable involvement in all of my dreams, that it is merely a product or expression of the day's events or an emotional 'working through' other subconscious concerns or fears. So, if one is having a dream that doesn't include one's self, could they be receiving a message of some sort?

scraze, I get the impression that your childhood dream must have been quite a profound experience that you can still recall it with such clarity and to know that it impacts you to this day. How can you write something like that off as a benign event?

reply to post by GoneGrey


Indeed it was a profound experience - but although the process I witnessed seemed very negative and elicited a panic at the time (during a fever), even at the moment it seemed more of an explanation of what was already happening than a warning of what was coming to be. Thus, in the end, I'd be better off being familiar with the process, than being unaware and perhaps part of it. In that way, it was benign.

As I mentioned before, the interpretation of what that process might mean changes with time, so in a way I've been projecting my subconscious on the concept of the process. By doing that, it forms a mental tool with which I can try to form opinions on certain matters. Since the dream gave me a visual tool (clump & line) to connect to a type of process I dislike and connecting to that negative emotion is easy to do, it gives me the feeling that I can spot these things when I try. Now in a way this is all quite crazy and cynical, but that's not how I experience it - mostly because the image doesn't haunt me. It's just available for use, like an optional sensitivity.

I hope that explains my ambivalent relationship with the nightmare :]

Like you I do feel that my dreams are a product of subconscious processes. The fun part of that is that often I feel like our subconsciousness has information that our consciousness can't reach (supported by the fact that our consciousness can't process information quite as fast and integral as our subconsciousness) - and most importantly, that the subconsciousness might have its own priorities set for certain information and trying to get it through to the consciousness. Not just concerns or fears, but also more complex ideas, concepts, and emotions perhaps - constructed through subconscious observation of inner processes. All speculation of course, but it does make dreaming an adventure :] As for the nightmare, I've always thought of it as a realization more than a message, and in that way it fits the concept of subconscious expression.




[edit on 17-2-2010 by scraze]

reply to post by HarvestMoon


Same here personally, definetly.

You can fly and stuff without being lucid, do all kinds of crazy things. Sounds like you've been lucid before, many times, since you are able to distinguish between the two states (in saying sometimes you are aware of it and sometimes you aren't)