So, how does this "dream species" survive?

[at Quark's]

I can't be the first to ask this question, but still…

In Waking moments, we have this species that invades dreams of other species, and they claim that this is 'their reality'. They also have physical bodies but they are mainly seen sleeping. Being in a waking state seems to be an exception.

So, how does this species survive in 'our' world? With physical bodies like ours and sleeping in a cave, they would probably need a source of energy (food for example). Why would they have physical bodies at all and still see 'the dream world' as their primary reality?

 

[Refuge]

They seemed to have the capacity to function in a waking state as that transmitter device they were using was disabled by one of them who Chakotay awakened. They just had more power in Dreamtime. I guess their corporal selves were maintained by those who were awake.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's possible they have some kind of telepathic energy source of nutrition and some kind of automated machine help to clean up and such.

 

[Sophie74656]

I assume they were in a "hibernation" they have a deep sleep part of the time and then they are awake part of the time. Or they have populations that rotate who is asleep and who is awake

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Or perhaps they were formerly a symbiotic species with another race who for reasons untold are no longer able to keep up their end of the bargain.

 

[at Quark's]

Or perhaps they were formerly a symbiotic species with another race who for reasons untold are no longer able to keep up their end of the bargain.

I like that idea. This species would seem to be at a huge disadvantage unless a symbiosis would cover for those weaknesses (probably even to the degree that the species never could have evolved the way it did without it).

 

[Kor]

Their bodies survive the same way as all the people in "The Matrix."

Kor

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Second species cares for their needs (dreams, food, water) and maybe gets something in return.

 

[Ghost]

I always found it weird that Chakotay found the species' physical bodies just lying in a big cave, as the OP mentions with no means of supplying them with nutrients or protection.

I think it would have made more sense if Chakotay would have transported into some kind of underground complex, a bunker of some kind, with the aliens' bodies being in some type of stasis pods, perhaps even some automated defenses.

 

[Sophie74656]

I always found it weird that Chakotay found the species' physical bodies just lying in a big cave, as the OP mentions with no means of supplying them with nutrients or protection.

I think it would have made more sense if Chakotay would have transported into some kind of underground complex, a bunker of some kind, with the aliens' bodies being in some type of stasis pods, perhaps even some automated defenses.

This is exactly why i don't believe they function this way all the time.

 

[Kor]

Perhaps they experience a form of somnambulism in which their physical bodies perform necessary functions such as eating and waste elimination while asleep.

Kor

 

[Pondwater]

Their bodies survive the same way as all the people in "The Matrix."

Kor

Or the Collective.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Perhaps they experience a form of somnambulism in which their physical bodies perform necessary functions such as eating and waste elimination while asleep.

Kor

That must be one smelly cave.

 

[at Quark's]

That must be one smelly cave.

Ah, that explains. I always thought Chakotay was only fighting against the sleep, while he was actually fighting against throwing up and passing out