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Wed 21 Sep, 2016 07:56 pm
I have very vivid dreams: I think in them, I plan and reason in them and sometimes I have profound insights that I wake up and realize I had never thought about before.
A few nights ago, I had a dream where I remember thinking, "Oh, I've had a dream like this before, but I am 100% sure that this time it is real."
As it happened to be, it was not, and I woke up.
This brought me to think about Descartes' famous assertion "I think, therefore I am."
Later, Kant added to this by stating that be being asserting being in some place and time; therefore, an outside world where time and space exist must exist.
This intrigued me because, as a Psychology major, I learned about dreams and how they can access memories of the past.
The problem wasn't that though!
It was my certainty that I was not dreaming and that what I was experiencing was real. I mean I remember the wrinkles on the man's face, the hardness of the stone staircase, and my interest in a specific girl (one that I do know).
Regardless, what does this say about reality?
I have also had dreams where I have woken up in my room and looked around and then finally woken up back to this reality.
I know this is highly speculative, but I am looking for any answers whatsoever because I consider the matter intriguing.
@saw038,
"Life is but a dream within a dream."
Ah good o' Poe.
Dreams and the questions of self and reality or existents are always fun.
So let's start with this. How do you define reality for yourself? Is it what you can experience through your senses? Or is it something more than that? Do you define it by your bouncing around other humans and things and getting response and reactions out of them? Do their thoughts of you help define that yes you are in fact here. An in so doing say to yourself that this is reality and you are existing within it.
Let's say we toss your dreams into this mix now. Is the dreaming you real? You have those dreams where you can touch and think and all of that. So is that version of you real as well in someway? Is it a echo of something that could be or even is in another place and time?
So do we go with that old saying you have quoted up there of "I think, therefore I am" or do we need something else? Because here is the fun idea, can you prove that you are not just another random collection of thoughts and ideas that is floating through someone else's mind.. A voice that is just another echoing ghost in that great expanse of mind.
But that's just my rambling in the dead of night.
@saw038,
Every dream is it's own reality, equally as valid as the other.
I'm not buyin' the deep insights in dreams routine. Dorothy Parker claimed that she had had a dream in which she figured out the differences between men and women, and she sat up and wrote it down. This is what she found in the morning:
Hogamous, Higamous,
Man is polygamous,
Higamous, Hogamous,
Woman is monagamous.
@Setanta,
Okay, well I'm not her and you are not me nor do you experience my dreams and there have been times where I have had a major breakthrough that affected my life because of a dream. Not the emotions of the dream but the thought process I had in a dream.
Believe me or not, I don't care because it affected my life.
@saw038,
I learnt how to properly pronounce "Ticonderoga" in a dream. I was watching a three stooges program and I fell asleep nd there it was.
@farmerman,
Is this a true experience or are you being facetious?
@saw038,
Quote: Okay, well I'm not her and you are not me nor do you experience my dreams and there have been times where I have had a major breakthrough that affected my life because of a dream. Not the emotions of the dream but the thought process I had in a dream.
Believe me or not, I don't care because it affected my life.
saw,
I believe you. The subconscious knows what's going on with us; I've had similar to you.
S.
...dreams within dreams within dreams...layers of reality...not exclusions on what is real...a dream is a TRUE dream ! (not nothingness to state it doesn't exist or is not real). People keep missing the point about phenomenology.
Phenomena are no less real then noumena. In fact on close scrutiny all phenomena are noumena themselves...archetypes ! The problem afflicting the mind is to establish the order on what is more fundamental and not to deny any layer of reality. People decide the topic as if anything one can speak about is not in any way real. Well...again, a dream is a TRUE dream ! Bang your heads in the wall till you get the point.
sometimes it is a nightmare: (
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