Perhaps the "pattern" itself is nothing more than an certain number of threads woven an (approximately)infinite number of times, such that Rand's (or, the Drangon's) "weave" of reality is the only one that doesn't snag, so to speak...so, each soul experiences a certain number of weaves over the turning of the ages and thus constructs a totality out of it -- but only one soul's "construct" will be perfected enough to finally "break on through", if you will, past the DO or, the tendency towards negation/oblivion/what-have-you (that soul being, of course, the Dragon's).

If this is true, then I guess Tel'aran'rhiod would be the sort of "lowest common denominator" level of reality, where the only things that subside are the things that we all agree on, or consider objects.
Hmmm... is it not said that domesticated animals do not appear in TAR? Could it be because we consider them to be "personalities" and not just objects? This would explain a lot. T'A'R could be thought of as a single "object" that can only tolerate a single subjective perception at one time -- thus the battle of wills that often finds one dreamer alter the whole scape, including the straights of any other people embedded in the dream at the time -- the others essentially become part of the object. Indubitably.