Complex Numbers

Living the Dream

I don't have a lot to say about today's link, but I'll say what I do have. Here it is:

Is Dreaming Real?  
When you’re lucid, it can feel so real the distinction ceases to matter.

As you've probably noticed, I'm not one to resort to dictionary definitions of things. Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive, and the definitions often have a subjective element.

That said, let me put up the pertinent Oxford Dictionary definition of "reality:"

the state or quality of having existence or substance.

And the stated philosophical definition:

existence that is absolute, self-sufficient, or objective, and not subject to human decisions or conventions.

I find these definitions problematic. "having existence or substance" just kicks the can down the road, forcing one to try to define "existence" and "substance." A good example is the question posed in the title of the article above: A dream has existence, if not substance, but that "or" in there means that either condition can be met. A photon has existence, but no substance. On the other hand, I can't think of anything with substance that doesn't possess existence - that would be a chunk of matter that doesn't exist. Perhaps you can think of one.

As for the philosophical definition, perhaps I'm being dense here, but our decisions create things that are objectively real on a regular basis. I can decide to bake a cake, and an hour later, behold, there is a cake.

It could be argued that there's a Platonic ideal of "cake," that it, in a sense, has always existed, will always exist, in the realm of the possible. I promise you, any cake I bake will not be ideal, Platonic or otherwise.

But the realm of Platonic ideals is itself a thing that has no physical, substantive existence. Plato thought that shit up. It's a mental construct. Oh, I suppose it could correlate to a particular arrangement of neural firings in his brain and that of his students, on down to the present day and hopefully beyond. That's hardly what we think of when we consider "reality."

Being a pragmatist of sorts, I tend to my own, ideosyncratic definition of "reality:" that which is still there when we don't believe in it.

I'm not a philosopher; I just read about them. So I'm sure my own definition leads to all kinds of roadblocks and paradoxes, too. Consider it a working definition, a practical tool to help me divide the real from the unreal. The chair I'm sitting in is real and won't disappear if I stop believing in it. It won't even disappear when I die; someone will have to decide what to do with the damn thing. I can imagine a much better chair, one that's more comfortable and with hydraulics that won't jar my spine by giving out every time I lean back to stretch. If I stop believing in this ideal notion of "chair," or die, then poof, this ideal chair exists nowhere. Well. Unless you count this paragraph.

Point is, any attempt to define what is reality and what isn't is a bit like gripping a bar of soap, or trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

Getting back to dreams, though, as is so often the case on the internet, the headline is somewhat misleading. It's not asking these deeper, subjective, and possibly unanswerable questions; it mostly talks about lucid dreaming, and the difference between being a passive observer in one's dreams and taking an active role in their unfolding. There are implications on dreams' effects on our minds, and hence our brains -- which, for most people who aren't politicians, I'm prepared to postulate the real existence of.

Consequently, the article is interesting -- which is why I linked it in the first place -- but I feel like it asks the wrong question, precisely because we can't really define what "real" is. We all dream, whether we end up remembering them or not. Since it's a subjective experience, a dream unremembered might as well never have happened at all. Most of us, myself included, only remember fragments of dreams, with a vague idea that more happened but we just can't seem to grasp what it was.

I don't doubt that, as the article suggests, unlike Vegas, what happens in dreams doesn't always stay in dreams. It can impact our thoughts in the waking world. This can even change other peoples' entire perception of the world; the article uses Einstein's dream as an example, something that led to one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in history and has had an effect on all of us, whether we believe in it or not.

And if something changes perceptions or actions in consensus reality, is that something not, in some sense, real?

Well. Like I said. I don't have much to say about the article itself, but it turns out I had quite a bit to say about its philosophical underpinnings. There are those who assert that we each create our own reality, and there are certain interpretations of quantum mechanics that seem to bear that out -- though by no means all of them.

Perhaps those who remember their dreams can do so more effectively than others.