Thread: Could you consider a DC as a person?

Thats how most of my DCs act (Like normal people), so I treat them all as real and equally, that includes non-human DCs, of course. But that is only limited to dreams and lucids.

Originally Posted by Hukif

Thats how most of my DCs act (Like normal people), so I treat them all as real and equally, that includes non-human DCs, of course. But that is only limited to dreams and lucids.

But do you think of them as people? Or just treat them as such?

I believe that no person my mind was able to create could be superior or equal to myself. So I would not consider such a DC to be an equal. This could be taken as proof that it's not a person, but humane principles dictate that we should also treat those who are lesser than us well. There is however another possibility, as such a DC might be the manifestation of a split personality disorder I was unaware of. If this was the case, then it would be a person. It would be me. Therefore I would probably consider such a character to be a person, just to be on the safe side.

Originally Posted by JussiKala

But do you think of them as people? Or just treat them as such?

While in the dream, yes. Outside of a dream, no.

Originally Posted by Hukif

While in the dream, yes. Outside of a dream, no.

What do you mean by " outside a dream, no." Do you mean that once you wake up you consider that person in the dream you just had to just be a DC? I'm just curious about what you mean by that. Did I translate that correctly?

No part of your dream is seperate from yourself. You can't measure them as being "better, worse or equal" to yourself because they are yourself. At best you could think of them as a well developed conceptualization of another person. Do you consider the buildings and objects in your dreams to be better, worse or equal to yourself? What about the complicated ones? No, they're just your ideas and perceptions. They aren't "seperate buildings" and "seperate objects" because they exist as your ideas and perceptions. Even the highly developed ones.

Yeah once I wake up will see them as nothing more than DCs, pretty much share the views of mark once awake, but I like to treat them differently while in a dream to make it more exciting.

K, I catch your drift. Yea I treat the DC that I've talked to as real people most of the times, but If i wanted to i could easily go ape shit and start killing everyone or taking everyone's clothes off lol

There is no you in a dream. You are the dream. Some people talk about a dream avatar. The 'body' that you percieve the dream through. But you are no more that avatar then you are a DC. Let me ask you something, What is more a part of you. Your liver or your kidneys?

Originally Posted by spockman

There is no you in a dream. You are the dream. Some people talk about a dream avatar. The 'body' that you percieve the dream through. But you are no more that avatar then you are a DC. Let me ask you something, What is more a part of you. Your liver or your kidneys?

I'm going to say they are both equally part of you because they are yours. So whatever makes you is you.

I've had a bunch of dreams where I was 2 different people that interacted throughout the dream, with independant opinions and thoughts and actions, neither knowing what the other one was thinking, and I receive the memories of both people when waking up. You would consider me a person, yes? Which one was I? I was both. Yet, in the eyes of the other person, the other one was just a complicated DC. Until I woke up and received both memories.

I would probably treat such a DC as a real person inside a dream, but even inside the dream I wouldn't conceptually consider them a real person outside of myself. No DC has rights, IMO, and I would not feel bad about doing nasty things to them. They'd be back later if I wanted them to be.

I wouldn't go around saying, "Yeah, Taylor only exists in my dreams, but he/she's my best friend!" and treat him/her like a living person IRL. I would not consider the DC a real person any more than I could consider an imaginary friend or a nonexistent character, like Jay Gatsby, a real person.
However, I would treat a favored DC like a real person, especially if he/she has insights that I consciously would not consider or think about. There is no doubt about that.
So I wouldn't consider the DC a real person, but I would treat him/her as such in the dream.
btw, this is a really good question.

it is a manifestion of yourself, so it is sort of a person, but outside of a dream, its still just a fabrication.

This reminds me of people with MPD/DID. Whereas people without MPD/DID are similar to them in the sense that we so have multiple personalities but only reveal or witness them in dreams. A synonym question would be, are people with MPD/DID multiple people or one? I think the answer also depends on how you define a person. Do you define them by their personality or physicality? Anyway, when I'm having a regular dream, I treat DC's as people, because I assume I am in waking reality. When I'm in a lucid dream, I treat them as figments. When awake, I think they are still figments.

Well this is kinda complicated. Yes and no, but mostly yes.

Why no: The obvious reason is because no matter how different or complicated the DC may appear they are still rooted back to "you".

Why yes: A few reasons.
1. I think our DC's still exist in our head without us knowing about it. Let's say you play a MMORPG (runescape or WoW for ex.) and you've got some friends that you done personally know but they're still people none the less. When you log off, that doesn't mean all your friends just blink out of existence and stop playing. I feel our dreams are a game and when we sleep that's when we log in. So until you logged in, the DC's were just doing their own thing. Kinda human like IMO. (Just a theory I mean. You don't have to believe it, I'm not sure I do myself but the possibility is there.)

2. Ever read a book, or watch a t.v show where the main character meets his evil half or goes into the future and meets himself? Technically they are all one in the same, but could you really consider the guy "you" when he looks so much older or acts like a jerk? You'd tend to want to think they're different people.

I'm just throwing that out there. =P

Originally Posted by Zeff

I think our DC's still exist in our head without us knowing about it. Let's say you play a MMORPG (runescape or WoW for ex.) and you've got some friends that you done personally know but they're still people none the less. When you log off, that doesn't mean all your friends just blink out of existence and stop playing. I feel our dreams are a game and when we sleep that's when we log in. So until you logged in, the DC's were just doing their own thing. Kinda human like IMO. (Just a theory I mean. You don't have to believe it, I'm not sure I do myself but the possibility is there.)

Just commenting on this, when playing an online game or talking to online friends, you know that these friends go on with their lives and interact with the world independent of you when they log off or when you log off. When you "log off" of a dream, though, the DCs do not continue living and interacting with the world, they dissipate, oftentimes forever, from the "dream world."
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I don't think that your analogy is very strong.

Originally Posted by kookyinc

Just commenting on this, when playing an online game or talking to online friends, you know that these friends go on with their lives and interact with the world independent of you when they log off or when you log off. When you "log off" of a dream, though, the DCs do not continue living and interacting with the world, they dissipate, oftentimes forever, from the "dream world."
I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I don't think that your analogy is very strong.

Hmm, yeah, I see what you're getting at.
I mean, it only occurred to me as a possibility, don't have any proof for it. But again, we don't really know what happens in the dream world when we wake up. I don't think there's any proof that dictates the dream world totally disapears when we're not there. I mean isn't there a large % of our brain we don't use, so what the hell's it doing? xD (Although, I assume it's more likely that it does vanish but, until we know for a fact...)

Zeff that is a really interesting idea. Of course most evidence points to DCs etc just ceasing to exist once we wake up, but it is very interesting. Because there are always those few exceptions for DCs who behave differently and may pop up in your dreams more than once, and seem to remember meeting you. That's happened to me before. In some cases these are interpreted as dream guides, but I think your idea of the dream world not completely shutting down the second you wake up is interesting. Maybe there is one little part of our brains keeping the most important 'characters' awake or something.....

Originally Posted by Zeff

I mean isn't there a large % of our brain we don't use, so what the hell's it doing?

No, that's just a myth.

Originally Posted by NightCrawler

Zeff that is a really interesting idea. Of course most evidence points to DCs etc just ceasing to exist once we wake up, but it is very interesting. Because there are always those few exceptions for DCs who behave differently and may pop up in your dreams more than once, and seem to remember meeting you. That's happened to me before. In some cases these are interpreted as dream guides, but I think your idea of the dream world not completely shutting down the second you wake up is interesting. Maybe there is one little part of our brains keeping the most important 'characters' awake or something.....

Here's another take on it: When you said "Because there are always those few exceptions for DCs who behave differently and may pop up in your dreams more than once" it got me thinking. Perhaps the dreamworld does indeed shut down and vanish completely and as such the DC's cannot communicate without you being there. But, maybe your brain records each and everything you do in a dream inside a datalog, almost like that of a games "savefile". That way, when you shut the game off (or wake up from the dream) the data of your interactions and activities are logged, ready to be uploaded the next time you play. (Or dream)

Originally Posted by kookyinc

No, that's just a myth[/URL].

Ah you're right. Thanks for educating me. =]

I consider my DC's as other people... as far as I'm concerned, DC's and Waking life people do not differ from much. I have as much knowledge of "real people" as I have on my DC's.
Maybe I give them too much credit... But they're there for a reason, don't you think. Maybe they're parts of you that you didn't know.. or memories of others you met in real life... Them being the latter, it would be no different talking to a memory than to a real person.
It's just my opinion, feel free to comment on it.
Tata

The idea that that its like logging in makes sense, our brain activity always exists, and dreams are thoughts that are very vivid because of REM.

Originally Posted by kookyinc

No, that's just a myth.

There is only a small portion of our brain dedicated to conscious thought. That doesn't mean the rest of it is not working hard on subconscious things or sustaining life. The brain isn't 100 percent mapped, so there are parts of it we aren't sure about.

I do agree that it is a myth. But it is a myth one can see how easy it would be to believe. Slightly misinterpreting real facts is all it would take.