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| Upon waking from a dream, I am almost immediately struck by the awareness that any dreams I had while asleep were just constructs of my mind. |
When I am awake, I utilize my physical senses. I register sounds through hearing, physical sensations through touch, temperatures through thermoception [1], and so on. When I am asleep and dreaming, many of my senses seem absent from my inward mental experiences. I do not recall "hearing" or "feeling" things during dreams with the clarity and directness I am experiencing as I write this sentence--because I am not actually experiencing stimuli from the external world, just immaterial perceptions of my mind. After all, a nonphysical faculty cannot produce or receive a physical sensation; only a physical organ could perceive a physical sensation. Thus, the reason I do not recall experiencing physical sensations while asleep but do experience them while awake is the fact that during dreams I have retreated inward into my mind, whereas when I wake I am restored to awareness of my physical senses.
When I dream, my mind retreats into a state where I am at least largely unaware of what is occurring outside of my body. My body lies dormant and mostly motionless and my senses are not actively stimulated. Yet my consciousness is still active, presenting itself with imagined scenarios that, upon waking, I find to be nothing but the fading inventions of my mind. It often does not require more than a handful of seconds for me to snap to awareness of my surroundings. By this I mean that even if I remain tired, I am once again aware of my sensory perceptions.
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| When sleeping, my mind can be awoken by external sounds or sensations, but my senses may require far greater stimulation to get my attention than otherwise necessary when I am awake. |
Because of these objective distinctions between sleeping and waking that I am aware of, the idea that I might be dreaming right now (sometimes called the dream argument) is asinine. But even if someone was right in suggesting that I am just in a dream when it seems as if I am really awake, then it is still as if I am what I now call awake. That is, I am still actively reasoning, learning, and perceiving, and since I can only dream if there is such a thing as being awake, all that I might be deceived about is whether or not I am dreaming, not about the existence of the state of being awake. There would be no point in even distinguishing between the states of dreaming and being awake if "awakeness" did not exist. Thus, the possibility for a being to dream can only exist if there is such a thing as being awake. However, I know by direct experience and deductive reasoning that I am indeed not dreaming as I write this; I am awake.
I want to add that the dream argument is distinct from the simulation hypothesis, the idea that my sensory experiences are being manipulated by some external object or being. The former is falsifiable, as I have shown in this post, while the latter is unverifiable and unfalsifiable. However, I have proven that the fact that I have physical sensations at all means that I have a corporeal body of some sort and that there is an external world, even if both my body and the material world have appearances different from my perceptions (I have written about the senses and their reliability elsewhere [2]).
Contemplating dreams during the past few hours has been quite the epistemological pleasure! I can only dream if I have consciousness; I can only dream if there is such a thing as being awake. And since a totally immaterial being cannot experience actual physical sensations and dreams are immaterial images perceived by my imagination, sensory perception of external stimuli is what indicates to me that I am awake and not sleeping. This proof confirms my strong perception that when I am awake I truly am awake and not experiencing a dream of some kind. If nothing else, I hope this post provides an accessible refutation of a classic epistemology question about whether or not a particular person has dreamed their perceptions of the external world beyond their consciousness into seeming existence.
Summary of observations:
1. I recall objective differences in perception between my experiences while dreaming and while awake--particularly regarding sensory perceptions.
2. The fact that I experience physical sensations while awake is what confirms to me that I am indeed awake, as a dream only involves immaterial perceptions of my mind.
3. Whether or not I am dreaming, I am still thinking and perceiving.
4. I can only dream if there is such a thing as being awake; otherwise the distinction between the two states doesn't exist and is meaningless.
[1]. Other senses besides the traditional five exist:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/more-than-five-senses.html
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-reliability-of-senses.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/brain-in-vat.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/brain-in-vat-reality-remains-unchanged.html
Interesting! What about moments when you wake after thinking a dream was real that involved sensations like pain?
ReplyDeleteSometimes dreams might involve muted sensory perceptions, like when someone is saying or calling your name next to you while you are asleep, or when someone feels bladder sensations while asleep. But dreams themselves never involve actual stimuli; the only way actual sensory perceptions can seep into a dream is if something other than your mind causes them. The sense of touch is primarily what distinguishes dreaming from being awake. If I experience physical sensations by interacting with physical stimuli, I cannot be dreaming at that moment, because a dream is created by my consciousness, not by external stimuli.
DeleteOkay, but how do you explain sensations like smelling something very specific in a dream or tasting something good without stimulation from reality?
DeleteI always acknowledged that some sensory perceptions, like the hearing of sounds, can appear in dreams, though perhaps in a comparatively muted form. Since physical sensations prove that one is interacting with a physical reality, it is primarily the sense of touch that distinguishes the external world from a dream. Even when I am awake, just seeing or hearing something doesn’t mean there is necessarily a corresponding outside stimuli. But if I touch something, and feel a physical sensation as a result, it follows 1) that I have some sort of body and 2) I am contacting some sort of physical stimuli. Without a body I would be incapable of experiencing physical sensations at all—even if they were distorted from reality (ie feeling something hot and something cold and so on).
DeleteWhat about the very rare percentage of people that can't feel stimuli like pain? Can they not fully distinguish between being awake and asleep?
DeleteIf someone truly does not have a sense of touch (nociception, the sense of pain, is distinct from the general sense of touch), then he or she unfortunately cannot fully distinguish between them. That person might have a strong perception that they are either awake or asleep, but what I am talking about is the only way to know with absolute certainty. Anything else is a mere probability estimate that is open to refutation. Since the only things about reality that can’t change are logical truths, things like scientific laws are never definite indicators that one is awake, as they could change while you are dreaming, leaving you without the ability to accurately call them proof that you are not in a dream.
DeleteWith lucid dreaming people might use “reality checks” (as if the existence of dreams is not a part of reality!) to try to distinguish dreams from waking experiences, through means such as pressing one hand into another to see if it goes all the way through, but these things don’t actually prove that one is or isn’t dreaming for the reason I just explained. Actually, I’ve written about this as it pertains to lucid dreaming here:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/lucid-dreaming-godlike-world.html
One other distinction I’ve noticed is that when I wake from a dream my memory resumes, whereas in a dream I have a much more limited, focused recollection of certain things. This is like scientific laws in that it serves as evidence, but not proof, as the deduction I have explained is how I know when I am awake.
By the way, up there I meant to say feeling something hot “as” something cold, not “and.” Sorry!
Okay, that makes sense. I'll check out you're other blog about lucid dreaming. Thanks!
DeleteYou're welcome!
Delete