It is interesting that witches are always evil in your dreams because they always seem to be good in mine so far. Last night a talking kitten explained to me that while some are good many are evil and asked me to help fight them. He actually persisted over at least two dreams. I am excited that I am starting to be able to chain non lucid dream stories together. I would love to have your guidance in making it persist to even lasting multiple nights. I, too, wonder about the whole male witch thing. Gandalf has shown up a lot in my dreams and he is a wizard. I wonder if he is the same class of dream character as witches. I will have to ask him or maybe that cat about it soon.

My hypothesis about how persistence works in dreams is that we all have persistent dreams it is just mostly made of stuff that is persistent in our waking life such as our homes and family members. We fully expect them to show up often. If, when we recall our dreams when we awake as illusions they immediately loose persistence. However, if we give weight to those things and see them as existing even if just in our heads they are more likely to show up again. This also goes into the whole "I can't know that I am not dreaming at any given time." thing. If you think you could be dreaming at any given time then those dream elements could show up at any moment. You learn to expect them during waking life like you would a family member or something else you are familiar with. This makes them much more likely to show up in dreams. Let me know what you think about this idea.