Dashboard is more like a "reader." Everybody you follow is found there. Also any tags you subscribe to are there. Interactions like replies are also found there. I'd compare it to your Facebook feed or Twitter.com stream. It's your base of operations.
Lots of read-only content, and then a decent amount of interactions and events (messages/new follows/like notifications).
Lots of read-only content, and then a decent amount of interactions and events (messages/new follows/like notifications).