# Does Anyone Else Dream in Third Person Omniscient?



## JD Rhoades (Feb 18, 2011)

It doesn't happen often, but once in a while 'll have a dream in which I am not a character or participant. I can see everything that happens, and affect it to some degree, but I'm not "in" the dream. 

Maybe it's a writer thing....anyone else do this? It freaks me out a little.


----------



## Annalog (Dec 28, 2008)

When I read the title of this thread, my first thought was "Sometimes but not very often." After reading the post, my first thought was still accurate. In addition, I sometimes dream in first person but where that person is not really me. In those dreams, I am someone I do not know in real life and usually none of the other people in the dream are people that I know in real life. I am not a writer or storyteller.

ETA: My dreams are detailed with color, sound, taste, smell, and touch. If something goes wrong or is headed in a bad direction I often recognize that I am dreaming and change the course of the dream or "rewind" a bit and change a dream decision. This is even when I am in the dream. When I tell my dreams to DH, he says that my dreams are much more involved, detailed, and strange compared to his dreams. It is possible that my dream mind has a lot of stories to tell.


----------



## Coral Moore (Nov 29, 2009)

Oh ya! I actually have these kinds of dreams all the time. It's almost like watching a movie right? You're watching what's happening to someone else, you can feel strongly about what's happening, but it's not really you.

I guess it is kind of freaky, but I've never thought of it that way before.


----------



## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

Annalog said:


> ETA: My dreams are detailed with color, sound, taste, smell, and touch. If something goes wrong or is headed in a bad direction I often recognize that I am dreaming and change the course of the dream or "rewind" a bit and change a dream decision. This is even when I am in the dream. When I tell my dreams to DH, he says that my dreams are much more involved, detailed, and strange compared to his dreams. It is possible that my dream mind has a lot of storys to tell.


Me too! My boyfriend doesn't remember his dreams at all and is mystified by the complex dreams I tell him about.

As for the topic, very occasionally. I'm often not myself, but I usually take part as some character in the dream. I can remember a few where I just watched from afar, though.


----------



## Ben White (Feb 11, 2011)

Not often, although I do quite regularly dream that I'm reading a book.


----------



## JD Rhoades (Feb 18, 2011)

Ben White said:


> Not often, although I do quite regularly dream that I'm reading a book.


A book you know or something you've never read?


----------



## Cliff Ball (Apr 10, 2010)

I've had those on occasion. It must be cool to have lucid dreams, where you can see everything in color and control everything that happens and know you're dreaming. I've had a couple of dreams that predicted something would happen, and it did!


----------



## JD Rhoades (Feb 18, 2011)

I always dream with color, sound. and touch. Taste and smell, I don't recall.


----------



## Ben White (Feb 11, 2011)

JD Rhoades said:


> A book you know or something you've never read?


Something I've never read. It's always different, too. The last one I had was about a future where genetic engineering had produced all of these strange and wonderful mutant plants, and the female scientist/arsekicker whose job it was to catalogue them and deal with 'rogue elements', both dangerous plants and people using the plants to create drugs, some of which granted superpower-like abilities. It was pretty good, actually. I was a little disappointed when I woke up and realised I couldn't continue reading 

I put it down to not having a visual mind at all, when I think it's always in sound and text. Even if I try my hardest to visualise something it's like I'm looking at it through a metre of dark ice, dim and blurred and indistinct.


----------



## JD Rhoades (Feb 18, 2011)

Ben White said:


> Something I've never read. It's always different, too. The last one I had was about a future where genetic engineering had produced all of these strange and wonderful mutant plants, and the female scientist/arsekicker whose job it was to catalogue them and deal with 'rogue elements', both dangerous plants and people using the plants to create drugs, some of which granted superpower-like abilities. It was pretty good, actually. I was a little disappointed when I woke up and realised I couldn't continue reading
> 
> I put it down to not having a visual mind at all, when I think it's always in sound and text. Even if I try my hardest to visualise something it's like I'm looking at it through a metre of dark ice, dim and blurred and indistinct.


You should totally write this stuff down. This is how I began STORM SURGE.


----------



## Ben White (Feb 11, 2011)

JD Rhoades said:


> You should totally write this stuff down. This is how I began STORM SURGE.


I would, but I've already got about a dozen books to write as it is. If I started with my dream novels I'd never be finished


----------



## Annalog (Dec 28, 2008)

JD Rhoades said:


> I always dream with color, sound. and touch. Taste and smell, I don't recall.


The earliest dream I still remember where I know I dreamed with taste and smell, as well as color, sound, and touch, was a dream that included a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, etc. It was back when I was in high school. The reason I still remember that example was because I had used it as an example in a discussion with my friends. I had brought up the dream as an example of proof I dreamed in color but had mentioned that I could also taste and smell the food. Remembering taste is more common for me with my dreams than remembering smells. It could be because I often have dreams that include eating. It is good that dream food has no calories!


----------



## Scheherazade (Apr 11, 2009)

I have... normal dreams I guess, a lot, but usually when I remember them it's in an odd place with people who I know but who represent other people I know... if that makes any sense.  Like someone in my dream will be my sister, and they'll act like my sister and I'll know them as my sister, but they'll physically be a friend from high school.  My dreams also tend to morph a lot.  I'll start out in an amusement park and end up on cliffs or something.

I work for and have played a text-based RPG for... over 10 years now.  So I also actually dream in text a lot, which is odd because it feels just as real as the more realistic dreams.  The first dreams I remember as a child were me jumping off the top of a flight of stairs and flying but being scared I'd hit the ground and be hurt... one when I'm running across a checkerboard with my family and people start dropping off by falling through black squares that are actually holes... and the earliest which I had every morning when we lived by the shipyard and the shift change bell went off of me being chased by a giant monster horn with teeth.

And yes, to answer the question, I often dream in third person omniscient too.


----------



## Shayne Parkinson (Mar 19, 2010)

Yes, I sometimes have third-person dreams. The experience is somewhere between watching a play and being really absorbed in reading a book. They tend to be semi-lucid dreams, where I'm somewhat aware that I'm dreaming. 

Generally I don't manage to get to the end of whatever story I'm watching. I did once dream a whole, self-contained story, though - a good one, too. I might even write it some day.  It was in my genre (hist. fic.)


----------



## NapCat (retired) (Jan 17, 2011)

JD Rhoades said:


> You should totally write this stuff down. This is how I began STORM SURGE.


That got my attention......just ordered STORM SURGE !!

P.S. I dream about doing math.....boring !!


----------



## JD Rhoades (Feb 18, 2011)

NapCat said:


> That got my attention......just ordered STORM SURGE !!
> 
> P.S. I dream about doing math.....boring !!


Thanks! Hope you enjoy it...

And my sister in law says she dreams about math, too. But then, she teaches high school calculus.


----------



## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

JD Rhoades said:


> It doesn't happen often, but once in a while 'll have a dream in which I am not a character or participant. I can see everything that happens, and affect it to some degree, but I'm not "in" the dream.
> 
> Maybe it's a writer thing....anyone else do this? It freaks me out a little.


Gee I thought everyone dreamed this way. At least until I got married, then I thought I was a freak. I also dream in color, and hear, touch,taste etc everything. What about 3rd person dreams where you are watching yourself do something, and you know something can't possibly be right and you start talking to yourself in the dream?

Oh and if my "dream self" starts looking for a bathroom, I tell myself to wake up and go potty, and I do.


----------

