Lucid is an RPG by @LinkIncGames about (and you're never gonna believe this) lucid dreaming.

The protagonist is Jacob, a kid who learns about lucid dreaming from a friend and nails it his first night (kinda jealous, honestly). But when he gets to this universe within his mind, he doesn't seem to have any control.

Ash, a friend who greets Jacob upon the beginning of the dream, explains that the lack of control is a result of some trauma from Jacob's past taking its own form in this lucid dream, and it has all the control Jacob's missing.

We get a cutscene with this really banger song that explains to us how Lucid dreams function: Any thought that enters your mind while you're awake manifests into what is called a Positite or a Negatite based on whether the thought is positive or negative.

Positites and Negatites come in different "levels" of danger and intelligence, and Jacob's mysterious past classifies as a Level 4.

Now, I thought for a moment that perhaps the LV4's presence eliminated ALL of Jacob's control of the dream, but there is one piece of evidence against that...

So I had the honor of playtesting the first demo build (GG so far), and something that stands out from the rest of the game is this TV. Upon interaction, it plays the Disney cartoon "Steamboat Willie". I personally was a little freaked out and did not wanna watch the whole thing, but I came here for 100% completion, right?

Besides, once I was in, there was no skipping it...

It's such a strange disruption from the vibe of the game surely it had some hidden purpose. I mean, why not just make a cutscene to hint at the lore or something?

Well, this is no ordinary TV.

It has an antenna, so it's most likely playing from a channel, but it waits for you before playing, and repeats the cartoon as much as you like. A cartoon from the real world, with no aspects from the LV4 or the other strange new stuff you see in the Lucid World. You called all the shots. That's what a Positite should be, right? After all, it's a dream. It is what you want it to be.

So, why aren't Ash and Axel the same? Why can't Jacob just predict and/or decide what they're going to say and do next?

Your brain can't fabricate faces to put in your dreams. Everyone you see in a dream is someone you've seen in real life, meaning Ash and Axel are manifestations of people from Jacob's life, and considering this is a story, I'd put my money on them being involved in the trauma that manifested as the LV4.

The game tells you that you feel like you've known Ash forever, and based on her behavior I'd say she's either Jacob's mother, sibling, or best friend.

The LV4 could be something bad that happened to Ash, but she also asks Jacob if there's something he wanted to tell them, which gives me the feeling she was around after the event and an interaction like this took place in Jacob's life.

The game's "narrator" would theoretically be Jacob's brain, which says you don't know Axel very well, and unless he's just some random person Jacob saw in his day-to-day and Link missed tons of opportunities with his character, I think the LV4 involves something bad happening to the real-world manifestation of Axel.

My theory on what their significance was in the real world is that Jacob and Ash were close, Jacob probably went to school or something with Axel, saw him enough to recognize him, and something terrible happened to Axel that Jacob witnessed or maybe even caused. Ash tried to talk to Jacob about it but he was difficult about it and simply buried the memories away, and Lucid is the story of his past coming back for him in the form of the LV4.

The LV4's objective is to take complete control of Jacob's brain, which gives me reason to believe Jacob maybe influenced whatever happened to Axel in some way. Maybe if the LV4 took over, it would hurt more people on the outside in a similar way using Jacob.

Long story short, the LV4 is basically Bill Cipher but he was created by some kid's trauma instead of entering the world from who knows where.

Here's the other half of the theory though. Back to the TV: It bends completely to your will. You have complete control and that's what a lucid dream is supposed to be, right? But your friends, Ash and Axel, who were most likely involved in what brought the most powerful Negatite into being, don't bend to your will in any way, they just try to "help" you, and end up leading you to the LV4 on multiple occasions, considering they're the ones who seemingly know their way around the place.

Are they even Positites?

It makes no sense. If they were truly a positive thought, Jacob would have control, but he doesn't, and they exist for the exact same reason the LV4 does, AND they inadvertently got Jacob in more danger on their journey with the choices they made. I initially brushed this off as how the world works in this game, but it isn't. The TV has no will.

Think about it...