how do we come up with dream characters?

I was ive been hearing a lot about lucid dreaming and talking to people in dreams. I was just wondering how we create people in our dreams who we have never seen before with such detail? Any thoughts?

What a fascinating question. I believe it has to do with how our brains make judgements and has expectations of people before we meet them or while we are meeting them. Our Brains are very very powerful. I do not really know the psychology behind it; how we can make perceivingly real separate individuals in our mind.

I would suggest that it's one or two methods that our brain uses to generate people.

Perhaps the brain creates a "collage" of sorts out of people we know (your dad's arms, your best friend's eyes, etc.), and creates a whole new person.

Or perhaps it’s that we all have an understanding of what a person should look like, we can generate someone using these guidelines, and simply throw in variations to create individuality. That is to say, your mind might want make someone’s arms longer, but you have an understanding of just how long they should be. That way, they don’t end up having 5 meter long arms, if you see what I’m saying.

Quite possibly it’s a combination of the two.

edited

QUOTE: "How do we come up with dream characters?"

You could always try asking them.

I have had a few dreams where I have sat down and asked my self the same question. One dream in particular though is this one http://dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22945 . If you take the time to read it you will see what I mean. The appearance of dream characters I don't have much idea about, but I have some input on how dream characters act and the dialouge they use. I think in dreams especailly lucid dreams you can have some control over the other dream characters around you, it just takes some thought control. If I am faced with a good looking girl in a lucid dream and think about anything sexual she will almost immediately come on to me. The same thing happend in a dream once when I needed to find the keys for a car, they ended up just being in the ignition.

I agree with Mark. I think it's just some random parts thrown together to form a person.

I bet you could see some randomly created cars in your dreams aswell... can you>?

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Originally posted by Neruo
I agree with Mark. I think it's just some random parts thrown together to form a person.

I bet you could see some randomly created cars in your dreams aswell... can you>?

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I wanted the police and i got a schoolbus with police lights on the hood.
But they did come after awhile.

That's a very good question. I think it has something to do with that whole "We only use 6(or something) percent of our brains" thing. I bet the brain does plenty of things that we don't even know about. Like for example one of my Theology teachers brought up how some people are succeptible to peer pressure and others aren't.