http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/prog...ms/6685462
EXCERPT: [...] dreams bring up a bunch of deeply philosophical questions that remain largely unresolved, from the nature of consciousness to personal identity and selfhood.
[...] Melanie Rosen, a lecturer in philosophy at Macquarie University, recalls her experience of what science describes as a ‘vicarious dream’—a dream dreamt through the perspective of a character within the dream.
[...] ‘Vicarious dreams bring up some issues in terms of sense of self and sense of personal identity,’ says Rosen. ‘Who is that person? [...] If you say, “I’m dreaming that I’m someone else,” you’re kind of making the assumption that it’s actually you in that dream.’
[...] ‘Sometimes I can dream of myself being a completely different person, I can dream of myself being a man, or an animal or a younger version of myself. So there might be interesting questions about the narrative self, about person identity,’ says [... Jennifer Windt, philosophy lecturer at Monash University...].
Melanie Rosen has attempted to investigate some of these questions in her research.
‘My question is not “who are you when you’re dreaming”, but “who is the protagonist of your dream?”’
[...] ‘If you are talking about identity in the sense of memory continuity over time—what makes me me—in dreams you might have no access to your waking self.
‘So usually when I’m dreaming, I don’t know much about myself [as an awake person] and sometimes nothing at all,’ says Rosen.
According to the philosophy lecturer, this seems to work in both directions.
‘Studies show that most dreams are forgotten, so if you’ve had one of these vicarious dreams, then you’ve probably forgotten it. If that’s the case, then that dream is entirely shut off from your waking self.’
In essence, Rosen contends that our dream state—and our dream protagonist—is not able to access the memory of our conscious or awake self.
[...] ‘In dreaming, I completely drop out of the picture altogether. It doesn’t seem like I’m there dreaming of being someone. It’s just a dream protagonist who is someone else.
‘Do we have a case for separate entities, separate identities that exist, while my brain is doing interesting dream activity?
‘It’s very hard to define them, one way or another.’
EXCERPT: [...] dreams bring up a bunch of deeply philosophical questions that remain largely unresolved, from the nature of consciousness to personal identity and selfhood.
[...] Melanie Rosen, a lecturer in philosophy at Macquarie University, recalls her experience of what science describes as a ‘vicarious dream’—a dream dreamt through the perspective of a character within the dream.
[...] ‘Vicarious dreams bring up some issues in terms of sense of self and sense of personal identity,’ says Rosen. ‘Who is that person? [...] If you say, “I’m dreaming that I’m someone else,” you’re kind of making the assumption that it’s actually you in that dream.’
[...] ‘Sometimes I can dream of myself being a completely different person, I can dream of myself being a man, or an animal or a younger version of myself. So there might be interesting questions about the narrative self, about person identity,’ says [... Jennifer Windt, philosophy lecturer at Monash University...].
Melanie Rosen has attempted to investigate some of these questions in her research.
‘My question is not “who are you when you’re dreaming”, but “who is the protagonist of your dream?”’
[...] ‘If you are talking about identity in the sense of memory continuity over time—what makes me me—in dreams you might have no access to your waking self.
‘So usually when I’m dreaming, I don’t know much about myself [as an awake person] and sometimes nothing at all,’ says Rosen.
According to the philosophy lecturer, this seems to work in both directions.
‘Studies show that most dreams are forgotten, so if you’ve had one of these vicarious dreams, then you’ve probably forgotten it. If that’s the case, then that dream is entirely shut off from your waking self.’
In essence, Rosen contends that our dream state—and our dream protagonist—is not able to access the memory of our conscious or awake self.
[...] ‘In dreaming, I completely drop out of the picture altogether. It doesn’t seem like I’m there dreaming of being someone. It’s just a dream protagonist who is someone else.
‘Do we have a case for separate entities, separate identities that exist, while my brain is doing interesting dream activity?
‘It’s very hard to define them, one way or another.’