I would like to post here why I think that Richard is the dreamer. This is a lot of speculation but I'm curious to know what you think.

Richard is a frustrated FBI agent who becomes obsessed with Carrie and breaks into her house. I suggest that Richard is the one who shot Carrie's husband. He had been sneaking around the house for a while (not unlike Bob), and that's why Carrie's husband sat guard with an assault rifle. One day Richard enters the house by the window at the front. (We can see in the image below that the window is damaged.) He enters Carrie's room but she is not there. When he walks through the door he sees the man with the rifle and shoots him. (Looking at the scene in Carrie's house: the rifle is not likely to be the murder weapon, and the angle of the bullet wound indicates that the killer came from Carrie's room. We saw in the diner scene that Richard is a good aim, and carries a pistol.)

As this was a traumatising moment for Richard, he remembers all the objects in the room.

Richard then drives to the motel and hooks up with Linda (Diane) who is a prostitute. Here his psychogenic fugue starts, and he dreams up all three seasons of Peaks, in three days (Carrie has been home for three days, her colleague tells Richard at the diner. This might be a reference to the three seasons?). The objects in Carrie's room (and the pole number 6) reappear in his dream. The blue plate becomes an eye, and the horse "is the white of the eye". The bucket, vaccuum cleaner and door stopper become Phillip Jeffries.

As he is going into the fugue state, Linda sees that Richard is becoming different and that's why she leaves him.

The reason Richard is having these dreams is that his unconcious is trying to decide whether he should kill (Mr. C) or rescue (Coop) Carrie. Mr. C wants to find Judy (Judy's) which is where Carrie works. The way for him to enter Judy's, meaning Richard's reality, is through the transmission tower which resembles the symbol on his card. (It's ironic that in the end "good Coop" wins, but he is the one to kidnap Carrie anyway.)

Also, by turning Carrie's husband into an evil character in his dream (the vomit on his shirt became creamed corn), he could justify the fact that he had killed him.

In Lost Highway there is the night that Pete's parents cannot speak about, because it's the only plot-hole in Fred's fantasy and that would force Fred to wake up from his dream. Therefore the topic must be avoided for Fred to continue to surpress the guilt he feels about murdering his wife.

Mulholland Drive: The man behind the diner is a negative energy that causes Diane to face the truth and her conscience and thereby wake up to reality.

TP: Judy's is an "extreme negative force" because it's the restaurant where Carrie works and therefore the connection between dream and reality. The FBI doesn't want to talk about Judy at all, because they want to prevent Richard's fantasy from entering into his reality.

What is Richard's connection with Twin Peaks? He couldn't have dreamed up everything if he had never been there. I believe that he is in fact born in Twin Peaks, and that he grew up in the "Palmer house". Notice the button on his suit. If his real name is Richard Chalfont, that explains his initials (Richard Chalfont - Dick Chalfont - Dale Cooper).

How many references to his old life are there in the dream? Richard's mother was abusive and an alcoholic, as represented by the evil Mother or Sarah Palmer in the dream. Perhaps he moved at some point to the trailer park, with his grandmother, and they sold the house to the Tremonds. The Mother gave birth to Bob, which may be Richard's evil side. The scene of the guy looking at the box is from Richard's memory: he is watching TV with a girl one day, when his mother catches them and throws a rage. Headley shouting at Wilson is another scene from Richard's life, when he was bullied for being a lousy agent. Did Richard become corrupted at some point (Chad = riCHArD)? Dougie Jones solves a big case for Bushnell which is the big break that Richard never made in his career. Carrie wears a flower-patterned shirt that looks like the ones Janey-E uses. Her relationship with Dougie Jones is is what Richard wants with Carrie.

I believe Carrie's scream in the end is when she realizes that he is the one who killed her husband. The sound of Sarah's voice and the lights flickering might indicate that Richard is getting deeper in the fugue state, or that he's about to commit a murder. "Is it future or is it past" could mean that the real murder of Laura/Carrie will be committed in the future.

The fact that the actors playing the new owners of the Palmer house are the actual owners, reinforces the idea that this part of the episode is reality.