Changing Dream Characters

[Arra]

For as long as I can remember, about half of my dreams involve something a bit odd which I'll describe below. I'm curious to know whether this is normal or not, if anyone else has experienced it, and any ideas on why this may happen. There's usually at least one person in my dreams who becomes a different person one or two times throughout the dream. Usually, I'll know all of the people in real life. What I mean is, a dream will be going along normally with a certain dream character. But, after a while, that person will change into a different person, yet retain the same role in the story as the other person. I don't realize that anything has gone amiss in the dream. My dream-self is clueless and simply acts as though this is who the person was all along, once his or her identity is changed. Sometimes, both people play similar roles in my life, and it might make sense for my mind to get confused. For example, a dream might involve my boyfriend, and then later on that person changes to my ex or a guy I used to like or something. But other times, the people have no apparent connection at all. It isn't rare that someone is replaced by the someone of the other gender, or that the two people have completely different personalities and relationships to me. I won't realize in the dream that this is odd. I'll only realize it afterward, while writing it down, and then it becomes awkward to write down. I'll have to make a note such as "personA was now personB," and I always feel like anyone reading won't understand what I mean by that.

[Nagirroc]

I've noticed this as well, more recently my wife will pop in and out of the dream, sometimes I'll start talking to her as if she was there the entire time and she just happened out of thin air.

[Phoenixkmc91]

Well it`s obviously cause im awesome you just don't notice me cause of my awesome stealth techniques lol but I know what you mean it happens to me too where you just pop up and you act like you've been there the whole time.

[Arra]

Are you two husband and wife?

[EarthInferno]

Yeah it gets strange when you were talking to Bob in your dream and he somehow becomes Jim. That kind of confuses me, like I'm asking myself "why didn't I notice it was really Jim to start off with not Bob?" Or, "I was about to tell Bob something important, now it is Jim. Bob needs to know this I can't tell Jim." It is awkward and funny somehow. I used to get this happening more often when I was unable to control my dreams. Now it seems more rare to happen. Oh and I used alias names here for my DCs to keep thier identity safe.

[Nagirroc]

Are you two husband and wife? Yup.

[Valhallan]

I've experienced it many times, and I sure hope it would be considered normal. Sometimes i think it's meant to invoke a feeling or speak symbolically. I had a dream many years ago where a male friend became angry with me over something I was teasing him about, he transformed into a very bad Gene Hackman (Little Bill from Unforgiven) and i got pretty scared, "oh crap, he's seriously pissed now" and backed off right away.

[Arra]

The thing that seems odd to me though is that, when it happens to me, I don't realize that anything has changed while still in the dream. I'm with a person, and then later in the dream they're a different person playing the same role. There's one type in particular that I've been getting for years involving my boyfriend. Not too often, maybe once every few months or so that I remember. But it's such a specific, weird thing that even that often seems like an odd coincidence. For example, a couple years ago I had a long, vivid dream involving a female friend who I used to know. Except, in this dream I was in a relationship with her, and her role was like what my (now ex) boyfriend's role was in real life. I was with her and I had to continue to be with her because I was supposed to love her. But, in the dream, although I didn't realize the absurdity, something felt very wrong. She was still herself in the dream, and since I'm not even attracted to women in a romantic way, I just didn't feel anything for her. I felt bad, since in the dream my boyfriend's role was replaced by her. And so, in the dream, I felt as guilty as I would in real life. But then, later on, she turned into my boyfriend and I realized I'd been wrong before and had mistaken her for someone else... or something. It's really hard to explain. I guess in that dream I did notice the change within the dream, but still didn't think it was anything strange, just that I had made a mistake.