I’ve been having some rather intense dreams lately, in which I imagine entire worlds filled with people. As I wander through a surreal office building, or carnival, or social gathering, I look at all of the people around me, and I wonder where they come from.
Clearly they came from my mind, but why the high level of detail? Do they each have individual personalities, back stories, goals and desires? Do they have persistence?
Sometimes I will have a recurring dream, in which I find myself back at a dream place that I have visited on previous nights. Are the people I meet there the same people as before, or are they merely a form of procedural texture, generated by my mind in that moment to flesh out a desired feeling of place and time?
It would be intriguing to think that there is a cast of characters waiting in the wings, poised to inhabit these dreams. Perhaps when I am not in slumberland they spend their down time hanging out in each others’ company.
They gossip and flirt and prepare for future performances. And the next time I see them, perhaps in a dream cafe or island, as I wander in silence through these shadowy crowds, I remain unaware of the rich world that has continued on its way while I have been absent and awake.