I'm not entirely sure whether it's better or worse for the people we care about to dream of the same places we do. My fiancee dreams of the same world I do, as do some of our closest friends, and all of around the same point in time. Which is good because we can discuss what happens and at the same time - it's not because they see exactly what I do there and every instinct I have is to protect them from that.
They take an enormous amount of time and attention it's true but I wouldn't give up our animals for anything in the world. It's rather handy to have a third responsible figure in the house with twins and two rather sweet but not bright animals. Even if the third figure is a Tibetan Mastiff.