Do you dream in first or third person?
Do you dream in first or third person?
For me it is always 3rd. Its almost like I'm an actor in my own dream. Few times I realize it, but then just wake up.
Wow this is so interesting. Always first person for me - maybe there were other times otherwise but I don't remember. Wow I never imagined people would dream otherwise.
I shocked me when I read somewhere else that a lot of people don't dream in color. What the hey?
Yeah this is blowing my brain! Literally 100% of my dreams are first person. I don't even understand how you can dream in 3rd person. Like, you're seeing yourself from a distance? But like, then there are two of you - the one you're looking at, and also the floating you that's doing the looking.
WHAT?!
Yup. I practically never dream in first person perspective and that's about it. Think of it like watching a tv show or a movie and accepting uncritically that the character on the screen is you.
Funnily enough I have another weird aspect of dreaming that I have discovered is very common amongst other trans people. My dream self used to roughly 95% of the time used to be represented physically as my internalized gender...or sometimes would just be rendered as a featureless void capable of interacting with the world and recognized internally as me I suppose is the best way to explain it. Probably sounds a bit Magnus Archives. However post social transition the ratio has changed the opposite direction and now I am represented in dreams by my real world like appearance about 60% of the time... Which I am not the biggest fan of to be honest but my waking world comfort levels have increased so it's not the worst.
I do this all the time even when I am awake. I try to look at myself from a camera above me.
I go back and forth within my dreams. Usually it's first person, but sometimes I seem to be floating just above watching myself
Same; except I’m to the side, like another person watching.
Either I don’t remember my dreams or I don’t dream. Last dream I had was when I was like 8 and I still remember it 26 years later. Sleep for me is like sleep in Skyrim. Close eyes. Try not to think about anything, blackness then like a snap I’m awake again. Even my train of thought just picks pack up from before I fell asleep.
I will say that the one dream I remember was in 1st person.
Why was my dick a gas pump nozzle…Fill er up!
But for real though, I remember reading somewhere that even people who think they don't dream are actually dreaming, they just can't remember any of it. My wife is the same way but I've seen her say shit and act stuff out in her sleep so I know she's dreaming but she doesn't remember anything.
Sometimes not remebering dreams can happen due to medication, recreational drugs or alcohol consumption. Not getting aproper sleep and interrupting the sleep cycle makes it difficult to remember.
Anecdotally i "stopped dreaming" or at least remembering them when i started smoking weed. For years i didnt remember a dream. When i stopped smoking i suddenly started dreaming alot.
I like dreams.
Yeah, I can remember dreaming (waking up and knowing I had dreamt) only a half dozen times in my life. It sounds fun.
A variably disassociated first person … sometimes like a third person that’s about to snap back to first any moment.
I switch between
I'm not even in my dreams half the time. More often than not my dreams feel more like something I'm watching as opposed to something I'm in. Tho every now and again I'll randomly be in the dream, and it's usually 1st person. Otherwise... 3rd I guess?
Both and neither?
Hell sometimes I'm not even the focus of my dreams. It's sometimes like watching a movie without me in it, or in a third person omniscient point of view, and sometimes it's like watching surrealism folding in on itself without any sense of form or even reasoning.
My dreams are all over the place, hell and sometimes my dreams will be like a continuous story or theme over multiple nights.
I do have to say though my dreams are way more intense (and memorable) on days when I focus hard on my cardio a few hours before bed. Like yesterday where I pushed my heart rate to about 180bmp (over double (about 2.5x) my resting rate) for 30min. Absolutely insanely vivid dreams and I slept like a stone.
Can relate to the surrealism one, it gives me such strange vibes when I'm half waken up yet still dreaming
A little of both. I remember sometimes being surprised while dreaming because it's suddenly shifted to 3rd person. Usually when that happens I'm no longer physically present in the dream, just watching it like a movie.
My dreams sometimes seem like a well choreographed movie. happens both in 1st person and 3rd person at times and often I'm also aware it's a dream.
first
Same, has only ever been first person
When I was a kid they were almost always like movies - I wasn't involved at all, just watching things play out. Sometimes they would be first person though. In early adulthood it flipped, now they're almost always first person.
First person, and an interesting note. I was experimenting with lucid dreaming for awhile, with some very minor success. One thing that ALWAYS woke me up though, was doing something I had never done in real life. I was unable to breathe underwater. The mere attempt would wake me.
Then I got scuba certified in real life, and like magic, I was suddenly able to breathe underwater in my dreams.
It makes me wonder how you think about yourself in real life.
Always first-person. But my dreams are like movies with no special effects. There's no fire, no gunshot, no blood, etc. It's weird
Same, its rare for me
A mixture of both 1st and 3rd person when my mind decides to fashion me a body. When my mind forgets to give me a body and I'm just an orb, it's always 1st person.
In my last vivid dream I was both. Initially it was first person, but then the scene changed and I was watching myself.
I don't recall ever being in third person in a dream. Though sometimes the camera changes. Like when I fell in the ice at the football game, there was a floating loading screen before the respawn. And once there was rolling credits with an unknown Rush song playing. Those weren't really my views.
Funny you ask. Most of the time I dream in the first person but I recently had one where it was in the third person. It was strange - almost felt like watching a movie. I tried to analyze or read more deeply into the dream to think if I could connect myself to it but nope. Just a random mind-movie.
I get these often and I wouldn't define them as third person but more "non-person". To me first person dreams are where I'm watching it through my eyes and Thurs person would be watching myself as I do things (like third person video games). Not even being in the dream, just a mind movie as you called it, seems like another level removed.
I wonder how much the amount of movies and video games around these days has changed this - whether dreams in the past would have only been first person because that's the only thing people had experienced.
Both, usually 1st. Except when I'm in 3rd person, I usually morph back into first. Usually happens when I'm not "me" and following someone else. I may hop from multiple people in the same dream. It's the weirdest when they are different genders lol.
People mentioned not seeing in color - I usually don't have sound. Like people "talk" sure, but not really? Idk how to explain it. I only realized this when I had one dream with sound, a little music box, and it was wonderful.
Either. The third person ones tend to be long and involved eg murder mysteries and they don't have me in them at all. I just sort of watch it unfold.
In first person I'm not always me. I remember once in a dream I looked at my hands to see who I was and they were paws, the dream turned out to just be about trying to hunt antelope.
I also have lucid dreams sometimes.
And sometimes I dream I don't exist which is a hard one to explain. Nothing happens in those dreams except knowing that there is nothing.
But that still sounds first person to me. If you're not in the events then "you" are still inside your singular consciousness as you watch events unfolding in from of you. It sounds more like you're an invisible observer, but you're still seeing these events from behind your own eyes (so to speak)
@LanternEverywhere Not really because it's more like reading a book insfar as there's a lot of stuff I "know" instead of see.
It's hard to explain but I'm one of those people who doesn't have an interior monologue and a lot of my thoughts are more like spatial/kinetic maps. So when I'm dreaming there can be things I'm looking at and other things I just know are happening without seeing them.
So that's like 3rd person in a book. First person is where there's a "me" of some kind that has consciousness.
For me, it changes a lot, sometimes multiple times in the same dream. Rarely I see dreams where I'm not involved at all and just watch other people do stuff.
You mean like seeing the back of your head? I never understood how people can do that. I dream through the same eyes I see things with in the waking world.
I dream in 3rd person primarily and the sort of video game-ish angle you're thinking of isn't my experience. It's more like watching a tv show of yourself with you as the main character. You are in control of your actions in the dream and accept that wholly as you but it's like your veiw point changes like a series of fixed camera angles... But still seems fluid.
When you do that, does it involve a depiction of how you look from behind the back of your head (or from any other angle) that is true to how you look in the waking world, or are there differences? One thing that comes to mind is how people with DID say they dream, and I am intrigued to what's going on.
He dreams in third person.
Or else it gets the hose.
I don't really remember my dreams well enough to answer that...
Both! And only very occasionally does the 3rd person view look anything like me
@Wolfrasin so, when you dream in third person you tend to have a main character?
Yes. It's a different avatar or character as me in different dreams. Sometimes there will be another person from life also in the dream as themselves, sometimes a person from life will be there in a different avatar then what they look like in life.
Both actually. It’s really weird when I think about it
Mostly, but not always first person. But I'm not always the same person - my age and sex isn't at all consistent in my dreams. I've been an old woman or a baby boy, and pretty much everything across those spectrums. In my dreams it's completely unremarkable.
Same but when I was 13 I believe for some reason I was always a girl in my dreams. It just kept on happening until it just kinda stopped happening. I'm still wondering wtf was my brain doing then.
Interesting, I've definitely been other dudes (I kind of see as other versions/images of myself -- ?). I also tend to dream in first person but occasionally third person. I don't think I've ever been a woman or a baby in any of my dreams though.
Most of my dreams tend to be ridiculous action-film like stuff. If dreams are a portal into alternative realities/versions of yourself, I'm the most boring version of me 😂 And maybe I've never dreamed of being old because those versions of me don't live to an old age 😬
First person, but sometimes there's a soundtrack.
I dream mostly in 3rd and often my physical self is not in it.
For example I just dreamed about a being a worker in a warehouse. I never seen that dude before in my life but "camera" and I controlled him so that was me.
Both. My vivid dreams tend to be in first person (one way to recognize the vividness) while a lot of my just weird ass dreams are in 3rd person.
The time I woke myself up by talking in my sleep, it was in first person and I walked down the street to a friend's house and when his mom answered the door I spoke in my sleep "can Shane play?" And my own voice woke me up.
But the dream I once had of riding a T-Rex through a McDonald's warehouse was in 3rd person.
My dreams are what I can only describe as what it would look like for a 4th dimensional being looking into the 3rd dimensional world.
I can see every part of my body while also seeing from my personal perspective. It took me years to make sense of any of my dreams because of how confusing it all was.
It varies. If I become lucid then shit's about to go down so my brain slips out of my body and I start doing sick moves like Neo. That requires 3rd person to see the full awesomeness of the stuff I do.
Calmer more dreamy-dreams it will be first person with occasional slip outs to close 3rd person to the side of my head.
Non-lucid nightmares tend to be first person.
But none of these really do the feelings justice. My sight can be 3rd person but my emotional state and how I feel is very first person. If that makes sense?
The only times I've dreamt in 3rd person was when in 1st person I saw another me
4th. Like deadpool.
You're thinking of walls.
Yeah but Kali said it was acceptable. So did Dr Who. He was traveling through a black hole though. 'Twas even Math Smith no less. And David Tennant. Kind switched and back as the story went along too.
I have no idea what's happening in most of my dreams and never remember anything concrete.
My most vivid dreams have always been in first person. But I'm not always me. One dream I remember in particular is that I think I was a younger sister to an older brother? Other than that one time, all my dreams I have always been me. Even when I dream of movies or some some sort of third person narrative it feels like I'm watching a movie on a TV.
I recently dreamt that I was a Bulgarian guy in a series of comedy movies called The Adventures of The drizzle and it was fucking hilarious, at least in my dream, but it was so abstract and weird. I woke up kind of freaking out like what the fuck. Why am I dreaming about being some Bulgarian guy in a comedy movie?
Maybe you watched a comedy movie with a Bulgarian dude? I remember I was thinking of a new story about a younger sister and brother a few times so maybe that's the reason? Either way, it's a good way to break into writing comedy
People dream?
It's always first person for me, but the one lucid dream I ever had I dreamed I was playing kirby on a gameboy advance and I was absolutely the kirby. So I suppose that was third person at least once.
First person.
1st
Second person, i think..? I'm the viewer, distinct from myself, but also not a detached non-entity. The dream body is never mine.
I have dreamed in third person, but I don't think I could tell when the last time was. I dream a lot more often in first person.
Both, sort of.
Last night, i dreamed about a new AR/VR ride at a local theme park. It was like a giant crane shaped building, but it wasnt a metal structure, it was like a skyscraper with a structure built horiOntally at the top with a glass ball at the end with a bunch of chairs inside and a laser gun sticking out from it. You got in as a group and shot as flying alien ships, and it moved around like the gun pods in Star Wars. There was another building next to it that housed a VR game. Both buildings were wonky/leaning over and wouldn't be able to stand up without some supports (or being a dream)
In the case of the AR shooting thing i was both some distance away, looking at the towers whilst also being inside the ball doing some shooting amd sometimes watchk g from some floating point outside of the ball with me and my family in the ball.
The VR thing was odd. You were in a medium-sized room with a table and some couches and an open space in the middle. You had a laser gun thing, but it wasn't really a gun. You had to shoot these little shadow things that came towards you. Some were shaped like teddy bears, and some were shaped lake ants. They both made a weird creaking/squeaky noise as they moved so you knew where to look. Eventually, when you kill enough, a big dragon comes down, and you have to dodge its fire breath whilst shooting it. Beat it, and you win.
My wife went first, and you could see what she saw on a tv screen. I both watched her on the screen and also saw from her perspective. I k ow i watched on the screen because i remember when another person had a go. i was telling their friends they could watch on the screen. And then when i had my go, i remember thinking I've done this before, but i was my wife.
Dreams are weird.
I dream exclusively in 2nd person.
@ivanafterall I knew someone out there was dreaming about me!
Most of the time 1st person, sometimes 3rd person like a TV or drone camera showing me with the scenery around, like I'm watching a movie. Very rarely is it following behind my head like in a 3D video game.
Unless there is some sort of cinematic scene or I am not the focus of the dream, the dream is 100% first person.
I have found a bit of a way for me at least to control wether it's first person or theird person. Often when I'm just daydreaming some fantasy until I fall asleep the dream is 70% of the time first person. But when I'm daydreaming some sort of movie until I fall asleep 70% of the time my dream is theird person and if I'm just thinking random thoughts like who am I gonna take my car to get it's oil changed 70% of the time there's no dream. I just open my eyes and now it's mid day.
Depends. I can be me, an invisible, incorporeal observer or someone else. My POV changes depending on the action.
I can dream in color, with nuances that cannot be expressed, or black and white. I can dream in pseudo-blindness where I don't see anything, but I know what's happening. I can dream in text where all I see are letters, well more like symbols... Full sentences aren't part of my repertoire, but I can catch a word or two before they squiggle and change into incomprehensible garble.
I can even simulate physics at times, but it's not pleasant.
I know it's all me because I can become anyone and anything. I was a rock, a bullet, a bird, a fish, a dragon, the abyss, a tree, even the enemies I was fighting against when the plot took that direction. Nothing is fixed.I dream in first person, and sometimes if I realize it I can lucid dream.
Either like cinematic or just first person view
No
Typically first person.
Yes!
The only dreams I remember are those where I'm stabbed or punched in the back because I wake up with back pain.
Most, if not all, of my experienced dreams so far, have been in 1st person, as if I'm the one living through whatever realism-fantasy-scifi shenanigans I'm in; thing is, most of the time, they're almost exclusively set within my home province, including the central capital city, highways and all.
Consuming and creating various creative media also has its own part in aligning perspectives in those dreams, as well as how the supposed "plot"/"storyline" plays out in its entirety.First person I guess, because I don't remember shit. Also I don't really dream that much, but still more than a decade ago.