Telling DC's they're not real.

[TurtleLG]

Tell me if there is already a thread specifically on this. Anyway, post what happened when you tell DC's they're not real. I'll start: I was in a small gift shop packed with people. It had two or three rooms, and I was walking around in room one after I had left high school (don't ask). I had known I was dreaming for a while, so I went up to a lady and told her "You're not real." She looked at me, and all of a sudden I began to feel fear. She said "Not real? Not real? Not real???" and repeated it like she was insane. I started to leave the room because of the fear, and the fear subsided. I looked back to the doorway that connects the two rooms, and she had her head in it staring at me. She drew it back when she noticed I was watching.

[Ravenpulse]

When I tell my DCs when they are not real they completely ignore it as if I said nothing whatsoever. I know, not very exciting. However I have had lucids where my DCs know they are in a dream and act like normal lucid people, doing exciting crazy things and socializing about LDing, which is a lot of fun!

[J.D.]

I never tell em they're not real, it'd be too mean!

[conisag]

The thing is, how do you know there not real? You can feel them, touch them, talk to them, smell them. the case is everything in your head is real only...its all in your head!

[J.D.]

The thing is, how do you know there not real? You can feel them, touch them, talk to them, smell them. the case is everything in your head is real only...its all in your head! I know! Even though they are invented by our mind they still appear to have personalities and go about their own lives. It's a bit like AI, where does a simulation become real... eh? eh? I told my best mate he wasn't real in a dream this morning and he was properly offended! Also, an alarm went off in the shop I was in and I had to leg it.

[Zezarict]

I've tried this a few times and they usually say that they already know and if they don't, they believe me when I tell them and don't go crazy. My DC's are intelligent DC's.

[Serinanth]

Yeah they tend to argue with me too, I usualy dont bring it up.

[Naiya]

I do this all the time. It almost always pisses them off a lot. And sometimes, they glare at me and wake me up somehow. Other times they try to convince me that I'm the one who isn't real, or that it's not a dream after all, but real. So now I try not to say it to them anymore, but I still do it when they really annoy the crap out of me and I feel the need to gloat and lord over my existing over their non-existing.

[JRocks]

I had invented some crazy awsome sport, and I was at the world series of it when I realized it was a dream. So I told my dad I was in a dream. Then we argued until I woke up about it.

[Morphenius]

[P]ost what happened when you tell DC's they're not real. I don't think I've ever done that. I've never gotten the impression that the dream characters I meet aren't real. I often know I'm creating them, but usually that isn't true either. Often they seem to have a consciousness all their own that I have no more access to than I have access to yours. Sometimes they're more conscious than I am. I've had dream characters tell me that I'm dreaming and I didn't believe them! How's that for anti-lucidity? However, I have talked to dream characters about their status as dream characters. One of my personal favorite techniques is to ask a dream figure, "What do you represent?" Sometimes I'll be more wordy about it, especially when I'm not thinking very clearly in the dream. Invariably, though, they start doing something a little odd that gives me a more clear hint as to why they're in my dream. On rare occasions they'll just answer the question verbally with an understandable response, but that really is exceedingly rare. I think it may have happened all of twice in my life. One of the most intriguing responses I got was from a young woman in a tiny apartment. I have no idea how I got there, but once I was there I knew I was dreaming. Yet I couldn't control anything about the dream. I was determined to raise a glass jar using telekinesis but was getting absolutely nowhere with my efforts. She talked to me about it and gave me some suggestions, which I've largely forgotten but I think amounted to feeling that the jar had already lifted or something to that effect. Afterwards I thanked her and asked her if there was anything I could do to repay her. She thought for a few seconds and then answered with something like, "I'd really like it if you could make it so that I don't cease to exist when you wake up." My wife had an encounter with a similar theme. She was starting to have a nightmare from a kind of roaring sound in the dream, but she then became lucid and decided that the roaring was a vacuum. She went to investigate and found a friend of ours vacuuming. She went up to the friend and asked, "What's it like to be dream-you?" The friend paused for a moment and then answered with something to the effect of, "It's really hard to think because I don't have enough consciousness to think clearly." Encounters like these have made me wonder if perhaps dream characters really are sincerely conscious, although usually in a partial sort of way. It's like the consciousness we normally have while awake gets fragmented and distributed across the various feelings, attitudes, impressions, etc. that reside in our personal unconscious. I'm not sure how one would test this, though. My best guess so far has been to try creating dream characters, making current dream characters more conscious, or destroying and "reabsorbing" dream characters to see what effect that has on one's lucidity. I just haven't had the thought during a lucid dream yet. Anyway, most of the time when I tell a dream characters that they're just dream characters, they usually get kind of confused or tell me that I'm being silly. So I, like others here, have generally found it not to be worthwhile to try to argue the case. That said, I always find value in treating them as living symbols and interacting with them with an eye towards what they might represent. They'll usually respond to requests for meaning clarity in a much less frustrating (although no less confusing) way, in my experience.

[JJA79]

She thought for a few seconds and then answered with something like, "I'd really like it if you could make it so that I don't cease to exist when you wake up." Have you tried to honor her wishes? Do something for you subconscious it works hard.

[Morphenius]

Have you tried to honor her wishes? Do something for you subconscious it works hard. Yes, I have. I can't say I've been terribly successful, though. I haven't seen her since then. But I have every intention of recreating her if I have to. It fascinates me that someone who was so clearly my own creation - and I think she even knew she was my creation based on some comments she gave while helping me - could have enough self-awareness to ask for something like that. It makes me think about the macrocosm mirror of this microcosmic phenomenon where mystics claim that each of us is an illusion and in fact all of reality is a connected oneness. I think some forms of Hinduism even claim that all of reality is a dream of Brahman and we are dream characters within that dream. Anyway, that's for philosophical discussion. My point is, yes I have tried and am trying to fulfill her wish.

[youssarian]

I started to leave the room because of the fear, and the fear subsided. I looked back to the doorway that connects the two rooms, and she had her head in it staring at me. She drew it back when she noticed I was watching. That is funny. If only my DC's were complex enough to have that kind of personality.

[Rosewhip137]

In my first LD I told my two dream friends that they weren't real, they just seemed to be a little disappointed =[

[Bizarre Jester]

lol I just did that, I got a nasty reply "And What if someone told you, that YOU were not real!?"

[TurtleLG]

I thought I might bump this, I want to see more replies.

[Loaf]

I told a DC it wasn't real, it looked at me intrigued, and then looked away lost in thought. That was it.

[antu]

I've had a few experiences with dream characters like this... in one, I asked my mother if I was dreaming. She smiled compassionately and nodded. In another, I laughed at the dream characters. This pissed them off and they (well, really my sunconscious) promised to sabotage my lucidity. Not long after some attempts at scuba diving, I had a very realistic false awakening. During one really intense dream, I went around asking dream characters to help me wake up. I was panicking and begging them. They would mumble or babble and stare blankly. My one friend squatted on the television and swatted at flies, while others would just walk in strange patterns, fading in and out of sight. Besides those instances, I don't remember interacting with dream characters much. Usually they sort of fade away.

[lotsofface]

Personally i've never necessarily told a dream character that they aren't real, but I kind of have indirectly. I am a twin(not identical) and my twin was in a lucid dream and I just told him "hey you know this is a dream", and he's like "no it isn't", and i'm like "ya actually it is". Then I took off in the sky. Ha loser non-lucid DC's. They never have as much fun as i do during my dreams.

[Moonlit_Jade]

One of three things happens: a) They think I'm insane. b) They become hurt or offended. c) They suddenly act like mindless zombies.