What dreams? Why is it obvious he dreams?

Because...that's the whole premise of the show. Hell, he even has the line about either seeing the 611 in a dream or being in a dream at the moment.

We sleep less than we are awake.

And dreams have time dilation.

Because...that's the whole premise of the show

The premise of the show, in my reading, is two existences of unknown validity. You're saying it's impossible, by definition, that they're both real?

he even has the line about either seeing the 611 in a dream or being in a dream at the moment.

I don't consider him a reliable narrator. He's obviously not fully informed as to what's going on.

Right now, they could both be equally valid reality--divergent timelines; or they could both be creations of his mind brought on by some condition mental or physical; or one could be a figment of some sort and the other real--I don't see where it's definite that it's the last one.

If one of them is a dream, it's the most boring and disappointing explanation possible. I'd hate that explanation, and I'd feel like it was a retroactive waste of time. And I rarely say that about finding out a given scenario wasn't actually real.

Grimm: Sebastian Roche in episode 18.

ita,

I don't think you're wrong given the pilot, but I think the creators are striving for one reality being "true" and the other not.

Meta knowledge aside, have we been presented with anything that supports that?

For all we know, he's the only one that died in the crash, and this is his Jacob's Ladder/Life on Mars moment as he winks out of life. It's so far just as supportable by the text, and even moreso, if information flows both way between red world and green world.

Besides he and his counselors asserting this? I guess we can choose to ignore what was presented to his counselors, but then should we ignore everything else that was presented in the episode as well? Maybe he doesn't have a son after all?

At this point, the viewer is supposed to believe that there are only 2 people (perhaps 3) who do not exist at this point in time: the counselor in the son or wife's "dream" and the son or wife. The possible third is the son's coach if the son is not the one who is still living.

Everyone else is alive and running around.

Besides he and his counselors asserting this?

Him and his counsellors asserting what? His counsellors are asserting somewhat conflicting scenarios, so obviously the explanation could trivially be something that neither of them understand.

I mean, take Life on Mars. People in the past scenario asserted that they were real--does that mean they were? Turns out, it didn't. And then look how Ashes to Ashes ended. I'm not sure why this show suddenly has reliably informed narrators.

The more I talk about it, the less I like the show, I think. That's no good.

Take, for instance, Wilmer Valderama's character. Britten knew nothing about him before the crash, right? So if that isn't the correct reality, does he really exist? Take the perps--they're new people to him since the crash, so one of them doesn't exist, right? There are tons of people that are going to be new to him in either reality every week, so there are tons of people that don't exist, not just his wife or son, not just the relevant counsellor and his wife or son.

I don't know enough about "Life on Mars" to discuss it, but isn't it the case that in "Awake", both of the counselors agree that he is "dreaming" one scenario and that the other is real? I did not hear another explanation besides this posed by either counselor or the patient.

That's what I am referring to.

This is NBC, not Fox, so I think they've laid their cards on the table.

As far as the perp - didn't the perp appear in red and green-land? I think Wilmer was in both as well, just not his partner in the other.

Dr. Evans said it "wasn't that simple' re: one being real and the other not when she had him read the Constitution. Fwtw.

I like that he is choosing to believe they are both real. Time is clearly not flowing concurrently between the realities - he closes his eyes at night in one and opens them in the morning in the other - so I don't see any reason to postulate that the amount of time he spends awake in one correlates to the amount of time he spends asleep in the other. That just seems like a non-issue to me.

I love that the premise is complicated enough that it alone generates lots of discussion.

I feel like I don't know enough yet to make a decision about what is going on.