this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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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.

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[–] Orionza@lemmy.world 34 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] LanternEverywhere@kbin.social 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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?!

[–] SoonaPaana@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

I do this all the time even when I am awake. I try to look at myself from a camera above me.

[–] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I go back and forth within my dreams. Usually it's first person, but sometimes I seem to be floating just above watching myself

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[–] Nikku772@kbin.social 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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…

[–] KingJalopy@lemm.ee 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 13 points 9 months ago

A variably disassociated first person … sometimes like a third person that’s about to snap back to first any moment.

[–] solivine@sopuli.xyz 10 points 9 months ago

I switch between

[–] Battle_Masker@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

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?

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 9 months ago

Can relate to the surrealism one, it gives me such strange vibes when I'm half waken up yet still dreaming

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] 474D@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Same, has only ever been first person

[–] loki@lemmy.ml 7 points 9 months ago

My dreams sometimes seem like a well choreographed movie. happens both 1st person and 3rd person at times and often I'm also aware it's a dream.

[–] paddirn@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I used to dream all the time when I was a kid (mostly in 3rd person from what I can recall), but for quite a few years now, I just don't even feel like I dream at all. It's not even that I don't remember what the dreams were (when I dreamt before, I could tell when I had a dream, even if it was just a vague notion that I couldn't recall), I just don't even have a sense that any dreams are happening period. Not sure if it was from all the drug & alcohol use during my teen/early 20s, but sleep for me now is like time travel. It just happens and suddenly I wake up a few hours in the future, assuming I'm able to actually get a good amount of sleep.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago

Try some fat before bed. I used to do a pea size amount of coconut oil, or an egg at supper.

[–] ani@endlesstalk.org 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Not sure if it was from all the drug & alcohol use during my teen/early 20s

Most likely. When I was on psych drugs I had no dreams. But things improved when I quit them. You may have some long-lasting brain damage. I have anhedonia due to the drugs

[–] toomanypancakes@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

I'm almost exactly the same way, except I never dreamed in my youth either. As far I'm concerned I don't dream, and sleep is far and away the fastest way to pass time.

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Same, its rare for me

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] Kage520@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] wellee@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 4 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] livus@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

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.

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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.

[–] june@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Both actually. It’s really weird when I think about it

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

[–] clark@midwest.social 3 points 9 months ago

In my last vivid dream I was both. Initially it was first person, but then the scene changed and I was watching myself.

[–] sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

He dreams in third person.

[–] livus@kbin.social 3 points 9 months ago

Or else it gets the hose.

[–] emptybamboo@midwest.social 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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.

[–] Wolfrasin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Both! And only very occasionally does the 3rd person view look anything like me

[–] livus@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

@Wolfrasin so, when you dream in third person you tend to have a main character?

First person, but sometimes there's a soundtrack.

[–] Fudoshin@feddit.uk 3 points 9 months ago

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?

[–] n3m37h@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

People dream?

[–] Monster96@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] KingJalopy@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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?

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[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I dream exclusively in 2nd person.

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[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 months ago

I don't really remember my dreams well enough to answer that...

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

I dream in first person, and sometimes if I realize it I can lucid dream.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago

First person.

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