A dream character, sometimes abbreviated as DC, is an interactable human-like entity in the person's

dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensation (psychology), sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around ...

, especially while the person is REM-sleeping. The topic has been profoundly addressed in the

lucid dreaming In the psychology subfield of oneirology, a lucid dream is a type of dream wherein the dreamer realizes that they are dreaming during their dream. The capacity to have lucid dreams is a trainable cognitive skill. During a lucid dream, the dreamer ...

community, since while experiencing a lucid dream, the person can consciously interact with dream characters. A specific dream character may reappear from dream to dream.

Capabilities

Dream characters may agree or disagree if asked to perform specific tasks. If they agree, they can solve tasks such as rhyming or drawing, although they have relatively poor arithmetical skills. Furthermore, dream characters have the ability to come up with ways to outwit the dreamer, like switching off the light to avoid his or her gaze. Recurring dream characters can learn from previous dreams and adapt their behaviour accordingly.

Nature

The nature of dream characters is subject to debate amongst dream researchers. Some psychotherapists suggest that they represent parts of the dreamer's self. The hypothesis that dream characters may have a

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

of their own has been brought forth by some researchers, such as Paul Tholey. Although this hypothesis is impossible to prove, experiments have shown them to have capabilities which suggest that they may have independent points of view and behave like conscious beings.

References

{{Dreaming Character