In my paper, I make a claim that The Metamorphosis is actually not Gregor's dream, as clearly stated by the author, but the dream of his family, the Samsas. However, a contradiction was pointed out to me: How can the story be a dream of the Samsas' when Gregor has a different view of his personality than his family? The story is from Gregor's point of view after all. Both he and his family view him as a valuable asset to the family monetarily in the beginning of the novel, and both feel that he was never needed at the end, but he at points differs from their opinion of him, because he feels under-appreciated and is therefore resentful.
I want to point out that there is no discrepancy with how the two "units" (his family and himself) view him, meaning that his family could potentially be the dreamers, because he has no thoughts of his own in this regard.
However, his resentment for his family is his own. What I want to suggest here is that Gregor's negative feelings towards his family due to their under-appreciation of him are actually a projection of their guilt onto his character. The reader never actually gets into the head of Gregor Samsa, but rather the subconscious of his family, which could be seen as better; deeper into one subconscious (because I am presenting the family as one collective unit) is better than shallow in another.
So, if I present the family as one collective unit, it does simplify the whole multiple dreamers issue, but how did they get there? Argue philosophy of a higher dream world in which the subconsciouses connect. They meet in the dream world. They feel the guilt "as one".
Then again, this "dream" may be only that: a "dream". Not a dream, but an enmeshment of the dream world within reality.
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