Telling DC's they're not real.

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Originally Posted by PeaceL

An example would be really simple but somewhat hard to imagine, although it doesn't make it impossible: Maybe our universe is only but a small lab test gone wrong (or right!) in another dimension. Maybe even the test didn't last long (if an comparison is possible) and is of course on-going!! I've always been intrigued by that possibility.

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Haha! That's the kind of stuff I love to talk about when I'm drunk! But really, it's not that big a stretch. Think of The Sims. You leave it on and they go about their lives completing tasks based on a set of "stimuli" and rules relating to how they are influenced by that stimuli. They aren't very sophisticated simulations, and are not what we'd call intelligent or self-aware, but they aren't too far behind us. Humans do things based on various stimuli as well. Hungry? Eat. Millions of influencing factors (and a bit of abstract thought) largely control what we do with ourselves.

Say one day, a Sims x is created where the game has become so sophisticated that the simulated people are indistinguishable from actual human beings. They wonder about the origin of their universe and how they came to be. There's no way they could actually prove they were segments of computer code running in a computer simulation. In their universe, they are real. Put the game on "Ultra Speed" and they won't notice. Generations could come and go in the blink of an eye, but they would all have lived actual lives in seconds of our time, outside the simulation. Say one day some clever sim invents his own computer game, one in which you can create simulations of human lives and let it run. The chain could go on and on. How could we even know if we were nothing but a link in the chain of universes? Also, who's the ultimate programmer?

Or if you prefer a more organic idea, layers of dreams/minds. The DC's in our dreams having dreams of their own, in which they find more DC's and so on.

/end bizzare philosophy

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Originally Posted by J.D.

The chain could go on and on. How could we even know if we were nothing but a link in the chain of universes? Also, who's the ultimate programmer?

Or if you prefer a more organic idea, layers of dreams/minds. The DC's in our dreams having dreams of their own, in which they find more DC's and so on.

/end bizzare philosophy

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I like that idea! I've often thought of this. I mean I guess it was sort of proposed in Men in Black haha, with the marbles. Anyway every time I've ever told a dream character they're not real, they've always already knew, and usually smiled :P In my last LD a few weeks ago, right as I became lucid (via DILD), an already apparently very disgruntled DC bumped into me and said, "Watch out, I need to go [something something, I forget what he said]" and I said, "No you don't....you're not even real! This is a dream haha." He became even more annoyed and said, "Yeah. Now you're getting it." Crazy DC's :roll:

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Originally Posted by J.D.

Say one day, a Sims x is created where the game has become so sophisticated that the simulated people are indistinguishable from actual human beings. They wonder about the origin of their universe and how they came to be. There's no way they could actually prove they were segments of computer code running in a computer simulation. In their universe, they are real. Put the game on "Ultra Speed" and they won't notice. Generations could come and go in the blink of an eye, but they would all have lived actual lives in seconds of our time, outside the simulation. Say one day some clever sim invents his own computer game, one in which you can create simulations of human lives and let it run. The chain could go on and on. How could we even know if we were nothing but a link in the chain of universes? Also, who's the ultimate programmer?

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I've thought about this... Like how do we really know that we aren't just sims ourselves? Cos if we are, why hasn't the person micro-managing my life figured out the cheat codes yet so I can have tons of money and a kick ass figure? Do I have one of those players that want to play the game 'true-to-life?' That sadistic bastard!!

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Originally Posted by J.D.

Or if you prefer a more organic idea, layers of dreams/minds. The DC's in our dreams having dreams of their own, in which they find more DC's and so on.

/end bizzare philosophy

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Is it possible we're DC's in someone elses dream? (playing on the shared dreaming theory a bit, here).

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. ;)

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.

Apparently they have flotation tanks, that are computer programmed so that when you go in them your living a programmed life of how you want it. You wouldnt know that you got into that tank, you wouldnt know anything. You could be 5 again or you could be now. You could be born again living your programmed life. Would you get into that tank knowing what you know now? without any upset or heartache, anything like that? How would you know the difference between reality? If as morpheus said about electrical signals from your brain. If its just that.

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Originally Posted by TurtleLG

[P]ost what happened when you tell DC's they're not real.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Morphenius

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."

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Have you tried to honor her wishes? Do something for you subconscious it works hard.

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Originally Posted by JJA79

Have you tried to honor her wishes? Do something for you subconscious it works hard.

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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.

kinda reminds me of the end of Vanilla Sky where the DG guy tells the psychologist he's not real and he freaks out. It's so funny. I never really tell my DC's they're not real. I treat them like real people except I have the higher knowledge and know I can control them if I want.

I once told a random DC guy on the street that he wasn't real. "Prove it", he said.
I tried to pierce through his head with my finger put I failed and he just laughed ;_;

This is going to sound corrupt, but I treat my dreamworld as if I am a strange entity invading their universe. As if I am some sort of god or creature that can play with time, weather, matter, and brake their world in seconds.
If you ever see a young white male, with curly brown hair, standing in a black suit, with black shades on, staring at you as if he isn't human, not saying a word to you - thats me invading your dreams ;) . Last time I took on this personality I caused a tornado with a mere rotation of my wrist which ripped a city apart. Despite my destructive nature, I do have a considerable amount of respect for my dream universe and everything in it, including the monsters, bugs, and ghouls that torment me every time I get the odd nightmare.

Anyway the point is you don't know they aren't real. What if DCs do exist, live, think, and constantly keep doing things even in waking life but we just don't know? What if DCs do live but just in a different perspective to the way we live.
As John Lennon once said, “I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?” (in fact that would be awesome to put in my sig, I think I will).
People often say that DCs say stupid things, but its not the DCs that are illogical. Its the dream world that is illogical. DCs are just telling us what they see. Think about that next time you kill one.

So, to conclude, I have never questioned a DCs existence because in retrospect they do exist. Just differently to the way we do. But I will tell one that they don't exist next time I'm lucid. Thanks for the idea, TurtleLG! :D

After reading this thread, I don't think I would ever tell my DC's they don't exist. I always had this suspicion that they are just other people, dreaming, that I met on the astral plane (or dream plane, whatever you want to call it). I don't necessarily even mean dream-sharing (though it's possible that's what it could be), but just that I came into contact with their energy and thus they were manifested into my dreams.

And I'm insanely jealous of your John Lennon quote, Loaf :P I forgot he said that, it's absolutely perfect :)

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Originally Posted by TurtleLG

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.

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:laugh: That is funny. If only my DC's were complex enough to have that kind of personality.

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

I don't really have an answer to this question but reading some of the responses lead me to ask this to myself:

How would someone react to you if you told them that they were figments of your imagination/manifestations of your subconscious etc. in reality? I'll bet most people would react the same way that you'd expect them to

They'd probably disregard the rubbish spewing out of your mouth and continue on through their daily lives.

They might be a bit more surprised if you could prove it (you can have fun with this part. Maybe pretend to shoot at their feet with nothing but your fingers, sorta like they did in westerns, and actually have bullets come out!).

Furthermore...

What would you do if you KNEW you were awake and someone came up to you in a public place or whereever and "proved" to you that they were dreaming?

To me, that'd be much more interesting. :)

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Originally Posted by MakoEyes

What would you do if you KNEW you were awake and someone came up to you in a public place or whereever and "proved" to you that they were dreaming?

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Well I hope that never happens to me. I don't think I would be able to handle something like that. ::eek: But I know I woudln't want to do that to a DC anyway. If you think about it, these characters were created by your subconscious and it is controlling them. It chooses what they say and what they do, so in a way the characters ARE your subconscious and I think it would be a bit insulting to tell your subconscious that it doesn't exist.

And as we all know, the unconscious mind is just as real as the conscious mind.

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Originally Posted by MakoEyes

What would you do if you KNEW you were awake and someone came up to you in a public place or whereever and "proved" to you that they were dreaming?

To me, that'd be much more interesting. :)

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Two possibilities. Most probably I will think it is just a dream (even though it 'is' real life, I would wait ceaselessly to 'wake' up, and try to RC lol.

Or I would accept the fact and do whatever pleases me (maybe ask him to give me some powers or whatnot). In fact,

has anyone been asked by one of his DC to give them something extraordinary? Like a special object or a power or money?

I never tried it, but I get the feeling they wouldn't be terribly surprised. My DCs always seem to know what's going on. So far, I've only come across a dumb one and it was a person from real life. Come to think of it, given the circunstances and the person, that wasn't entirely surprising either... :roll:

So many people on here seem to have such interesting answers from DCs. I only have lucid dreams about once every few months, and have very little control when I do.

The last one was about a couple weeks ago. I don't remember if I told my DCs directly that they were not real, but I kept talking about how I was dreaming, and they just went along with it. At one point we were running through a field of flowers, all very excited. I started waving my hands around to get their attention and yelling for them to calm down because getting too excited would wake me up, but none of them listened. I actually managed not to wake up until a later scene when I was having a conversation with one of them.

i don't know what to answer....this morning in a ld a dc that looked like a good friend of mine told me when she saw me... "How can you be there if i'm on the phone with you."...she looked friggin surprised and almost horrified at the same time....and it totally scared the heck outta me...

lol I just did that, I got a nasty reply

"And What if someone told you, that YOU were not real!?"

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

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

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Originally Posted by J.D.

Haha! That's the kind of stuff I love to talk about when I'm drunk! But really, it's not that big a stretch. Think of The Sims. You leave it on and they go about their lives completing tasks based on a set of "stimuli" and rules relating to how they are influenced by that stimuli. They aren't very sophisticated simulations, and are not what we'd call intelligent or self-aware, but they aren't too far behind us. Humans do things based on various stimuli as well. Hungry? Eat. Millions of influencing factors (and a bit of abstract thought) largely control what we do with ourselves.

Say one day, a Sims x is created where the game has become so sophisticated that the simulated people are indistinguishable from actual human beings. They wonder about the origin of their universe and how they came to be. There's no way they could actually prove they were segments of computer code running in a computer simulation. In their universe, they are real. Put the game on "Ultra Speed" and they won't notice. Generations could come and go in the blink of an eye, but they would all have lived actual lives in seconds of our time, outside the simulation. Say one day some clever sim invents his own computer game, one in which you can create simulations of human lives and let it run. The chain could go on and on. How could we even know if we were nothing but a link in the chain of universes? Also, who's the ultimate programmer?

Or if you prefer a more organic idea, layers of dreams/minds. The DC's in our dreams having dreams of their own, in which they find more DC's and so on.

/end bizzare philosophy

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Did you write this with knowledge of the computer simulation theory? If not...

Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

To briefly summarize: If it is possible to create such a simulation as you have described, we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. The reason being that there could be an infinite amount of computer simulations, but there can only be one reality. This means the odds of us living in reality are basically 1/infinity, which is as close to 0 as you can possibly get.