I could totally see that!

“Aaaaahhh! ……….. Aaaaaaaaahhhhh! ……….. aaaah! … AAAAAaaaaaaaahhh! …….. aaah -*SPLAT*”

Hey, you want proof he takes this reality seriously, drawing blood on someone who threatens your life pretty much qualifies.

Of course this is me, and I’ve got a temper.

Yeah, Alex is being careless and flippant, but let’s consider the possibility that he’s acting that way to keep from going nuts.
Let’s review: He’s a college slacker— no great point of pride, but not exactly a crime, either— who’s spent, what, the past several weeks/months of his life split between two worlds, one of which is full of creatures and people and things that all the experience of his life tell him should not, do not and even cannot exist, and the other which would not hesitate to lock him up in an asylum for insisting his experiences in the first were real. He has spent most of that time trying to convince just two other people in the Waking world that Dreamworld even exists— again, mind you, at risk of losing everything and ending up riding the happy-pill train the rest of his life. Meanwhile, the Dreamworld has slapped armor, a sword, and a prophecy on his back and has been throwing soldiers, pirates, monsters, and Dragons headlong at him nonstop. His “friends” in the waking world don’t believe what he’s going through, and consider him an idiot; his “friends” in the Dreamworld can’t understand what he’s going through and consider him an overgrown child. He has no comparable training or background in battle or leadership yet he is expected to instantly become a full-blown warrior and King of Dreamland(!)….

And now some short-tempered ersatz Indian with a horse growing out of his ass, who has spent the past several days mouthing Yoda-isms at him, has throttled him and called him “selfish” because he jokes around and refuses to walk off a cliff.

Grab any one of us and put us through the same nonsense and I assure you, we would either snap like gingerbread or develop a seriously nasty temper…. or simply fall flat on our faces, utterly useless failures. The fact Alex has stuck to it as he has done and kept his laid back personality, rather than going postal, is a better outcome than the situation warrants.

you know what might be funny to watch from the POV of a dreamlander? alex drifting in and out of sleep while falling… XD