So, what would you call that part of you which is conscious in your dreams?
I'm not a neurologist, so I can't tell you what part of the brain is active during dreams, but obviously some parts are. But not all. The thing that we describe as "consciousness" has several levels, from highly alert to deeply asleep. Dream phase is at the low end, but not the lowest end. Did you know that you don't even remember the vast majority of your dreams? They don't "record" unless you are awake enough to realize you are dreaming. Sort of like a ROM set to random play. If you "accidentally" wake up, the recording device becomes active.
I'm probably incorrect with some of these statements, not being well versed in the field, but I think I can say with some degree of certainty that my brain is not accessing other dimensions.
Thus far, you have been unable to demonstrate any difference between that and all the rest of the electro-chemical "figments" in your mind.
The "me" is lying in bed creating the characters with loosely structured imagination. Any characters I may be playing are also imaginary.
Do you ever have fantasies, Iacchus? In most peoples' fantasies, often there is a character that the fantasizer is playing,though he may be handsomer, smarter or better hung than the person doing the fantasizing. There are also others, like the gorgeous woman the character is making love to. Are either of those people real? No. Who is controlling what they do and say? The fantasizer.
Dreams are like this, just less structured.
Yes, it is very real to that part of me which experieces it. Which, is the same part of me that is here to tell you about what it experiences in the waking state.
It is no more real that the things that happen to you in your fantasies, regardless of how vivid. If you are shot in a dream, you do not wake to find a bullet hole in you. Only rarely does your body even play out the actions in your dreams. Then you have to change the sheets.
And "you," are nothing more than an electro-chemical discharge ... and nothing more than what you imagine yourself to be.
There are many parts of "me". (I know because I have to have some parts of me worked on from time to time.) My imagination is only one of the many many parts.