And last night, I did dream about Doctor Who - a whole Fifth Doctor/Master episode, set post-Planet of Fire, in glorious detail. Curiously enough, the story was also being propelled by a future-Master not from the show in a grey suit with blonde hair. Not sure where he came from.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. Because after that, in the early morning, I had another one which won't quite leave my imagination alone.

I'll spell out the story for you. There is a war between two factions, in a ruined Venitian city in an area which resembles the Everglades, all swamps and green trees. On our side, there are two commanders - I and my closest friend in the universe, with whom I have always been inseperable, and jointly we have been running the war for many years. This is where "I" dreaming join the story - I'm in charge of a battle, in front of a Georgian edifice poking out of the jungle, and our small band has just sneak attacked a larger band of the enemy. So there's chaos and gunfire, and after a few moments as a passive observer I realise I'm meant to be part of the dream. So I pick off a girl in the distance, white dress, dark hair and all - and as she does the slo-mo death thing, I have a shuddering feeling that the whole situation is just wrong, murder is wrong, war is wrong, the whole Fivey shebang. (there's a question about whether that's my reaction, or the Commander's reaction in terms of the story, but let it pass for now.)

So I drop the gun and turn away from the battle, abandon the whole war and run off into the undergrowth. My close friend and co-commander sends the three greatest heroes of the war to track me down, and for days they pursue me on horseback. I'm not sure whether this is out of a sense of anger and betrayal, or from genuine love and concern. Eventually I get tired of running, and I reluctantly return to her and our base which is hidden behind a shop in windey, Parisian streets. If I could accurately convey the reunion, that scene alone would sell a million copies - nothing is said, I just slot back into the machinery, and despite a mass of held back tears on both my and her parts, there are no recriminations or questions. I would like to have known what happened next.

I'm sure my shrink would have fascinating things to say about responsibility, internal division and my insecurities with friendships - Vapila has already suggested that I was killing part of myself. I personally think the physical appearance of the dead girl suggests this is more Lord M. is working through his issues than me, especially taking other recent dreams into account. There's also the fact that I had been dreaming earlier about the Fifth Doctor, who would also have very clear feelings on me gunning people down (particularly because I remember him picking up a gun in the previous dream, and suspect it may be the same one; particularly because the previous dream, featuring the Master, was also about a very intense yet contradictory relationship about two people close personally but separated morally)

Yet it's troubled me a great deal. For one thing, the dream was pretty intense, and dreams always take me a long time to get over. If I have a bad dream, then it ruins my day. If I have a good dream, chances are I'll be psycho-bubbly and positive. But more than this: did I actually kill someone? I'm not crazy, honest - I mean it as a question of ethics.

How do we judge actions - on the performance, or the result. If result, then it was all a dream and no one is actually harmed. She never existed. She still doesn't exist, as a corpse or otherwise.

But in terms of actually pointing a firearm at someone and pulling a trigger, I did do it. It was as lucid as my dreams ever are, and at the time I believed it to be perfectly real. In terms of intent and performance, I still did kill someone.

I wonder if a study has ever been done on dream morality?

So is he guilty? Minority Report territory, naturally - but for Tuor's intervention, the crime would have been committed. So like my dream: the intent in the brain occurred, if not the actual physical results. And then there's courts of law - intent is vital for them. In terms of result, there's no difference between a murder and a manslaughter. The separation is intent alone.

What is an action anyway? I have the emotional memory of it happening. I remember experiencing it, in terms of sight and sound; and when I fall back into the mood of the dream, I even feel guilty. How is this less real, for me at least, than had it actually happened? The experience is still there, and that's the only way to measure the past. It's occurred to me about Lord M. in the past too - again, it's all fictional and I accept that, even if my definition of "reality" is a little more flexible than most.

For those just joining us, Lord M. was a roleplay character of mine who kinda never went away. I do tend to occasionally find myself mixing up pronouns, voicing his opinions, or finding the strangest mirrors in our behavior. Several facts I incorporated into his character regarding Regency history later turned out to be correct (the way he handles his gun, tipped on the side which I never understood at the time, turned out to be the only way of handling pistols of that period; a close correspondance between the date of the real life burning of Newgate Gaol and his interferance in events which led to the same result within the game); similarly, facets of his personality which I hadn't known were there tend to surface in my own. In particular, I've always known him as a completely morose, introspective drunk, who tends to lapse into a pit of self-pity. It was at least three years later that I consumed enough booze to discover that I also am a very unhappy drunk, although naturally I have far lesser crimes to brood about than he does. He's always had a very curious way of expressing pure anger too - that point where it goes past anger, past fury, past any sane comprehension. Not a situation I've experienced more than once or twice in my life. But every time I have, and both occurences of this were in the last six months, my reaction was the same as his. And that wasn't funny. I'm probably overstating things here - there are even more places where our lives do not tally than do. You might note that my father is fine, I've yet to propose disasterously to anyone and try as I might, I'm not irresitable either. And when it comes to historical accuracy, my original draft of his novel had the sun rising in the wrong direction in relative to where he was standing. So it's not foolproof, and I am aware not only is this entirely unlikely - probably my imagination - I'm definitely close to crazy territory here. Not to mention that there are purely psychological, not supernatural, reasons that an avatar of mine would reveal personality features and internal concerns of mine. "I like top hats because Lord M does" may be true, but more likely is "Lord M likes top hats because I do" even though I didn't consciously think that at the time. He's not real in the usual definition of the word, but this post is all about stretching that definition to its limits.

In the process of writing his stories down, I do have crystal clear memories of all his actions, and from a first person perspective. And having acnowledged a closeness between us, is there a level at which the way he behaves and things he does is expressing secret feelings and concepts not even I admit to? Do authors have a responsibility towards their characters? I let Lucy jump off that bridge - a bit of fictional sleight of hand could have salvaged the situation entirely. Again, at what level am I personally responsible for her death? As an author, who let her jump? As Lord M. himself, who we've noted is almost certainly an outlet for my own personality?

And is that responsibility, in terms of intent and action, and of remembering it happening, and of only recently reaching a sort of catharsis about this event that never strictly happened, as valid as the experience of a real girl throwing herself off a real bridge?

There's no real answer to all of this, except maybe "it's all in your imagination, get over it." But even saying "it's not real, so didn't matter" is a stance.

I suppose the question is "are you responsible, morally, for what you do in lucid dreams?" and as an extention of that, in an area doubtless related, "are you responsible, morally, for your characters?", particularly those in roleplay. I suspect if polled, most people would say no. Then why do people wake up and feel afraid, disgusted, elated - or guilty?