I look at it like a video game. Is it arguably wrong to kill someone, no matter who they are? Yes. But do I go out in video games and kill civilians? No. I kill enemies in games and I'd do the same in a lucid dream because it's all fiction and it's not going to keep me up at night.

As for the characters, I think they're just about as real as your daytime fantasies. Highly complex, life-like avatars consciously or unknowingly created by you. And just like fantasies, they're meant to give the impression they're real, and so many people have claimed their DC's were convinced they were real people. If they didn't, it'd be like asking a game character, "You know this is just a video game and you're not real, right?" So maybe they're just doing their job when they say in the dreams that you're crazy and they are real.

Bottom line is I know there aren't real, living human beings inside my head. That said, I don't do in fantasy, what I'd find deplorable in real life. You wouldn't steal candy from a child, so why is a dream an excuse to do it? It's not.