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Dreaming
Norman Malcolm
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Dreaming
Norman Malcolm
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Originally published in 1959, with some corrections in 1962, the author examines the common view at the time that dreams are mental activities or mental occurrences taking place during sleep. He starts off by offering a proof that the sentence 'I am asleep' is a senseless form of words and cannot express a judgment. After commenting on various features of the concept of sleep, the author expands his argument to prove that the notion of making any judgment at all while asleep is without sense. He takes the further step of showing that this same conclusion holds for all other mental acts and mental occurrences, with the exception of dreams.
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CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
MANY philosophers and psychologists who have thought about the nature of dreams, have believed that a dream is both a form of mental activity and a conscious experience. Descartes held that a human mind must be conscious at all times, this notion resulting from his supposed demonstration that the âessenceâ or âprincipal attributeâ of mental substance is consciousness, and that so long as a mind exists there must exist âmodesâ of that essence, i.e. states of consciousness, mental occurrences and mental acts. He says in a letter:
I had good reason to assert that the human soul is always conscious in any circumstancesâeven in a motherâs womb. For what more certain or more evident reason could be required than my proof that the soulâs nature or essence consists in its being conscious, just as the essence of a body consists in its being extended? A thing can never be deprived of its own essence (Descartes (1), p. 266).
According to Descartes, a dream is a part of this continuous mental life. It consists of thoughts, feelings and impressions that one has when asleep. In Part IV of the Discourse on the Method, speaking of the âillusionsâ of dreams, he says that âall the same thoughts and conceptions which we have while awake may also come to us in sleepâ (Descartes (2), I, p. 101). In the First Meditation he represents himself as at first thinking that surely it is certain that he is seated by a fire, but then as rejecting this in the following remark: âBut in thinking over this I remind myself that on many occasions I have in sleep been deceived by similar illusions, and in dwelling carefully on this reflection I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishmentâ (Ibid., p. 146). In his reply to Hobbesâ criticisms of the Meditations, the assertion that he has often been deceived while asleep is repeated in the rhetorical question: âFor who denies that in his sleep a man may be deceived?â (Ibid., II, p. 78). Descartes thinks not only that a man might have thoughts and make judgments while sleeping, but also that if those thoughts are âclear and distinctâ they are true, regardless of the fact that he is sleeping. In his reply to the Jesuit, Bourdin, he says: â. . . everything which anyone clearly and distinctly perceives is true, although that person in the meantime may doubt whether he is dreaming or awake, nay if you want it so, even though he is really dreaming or is deliriousâ (Ibid., II, p. 267). In the Discourse he makes a similar comment: âFor even if in sleep we had some very distinct idea such as a geometrician might have who discovered some new demonstration, the fact of being asleep would not militate against its truthâ (Ibid., I, p. 105). He further remarks that âwhether we are awake or asleep, we should never allow ourselves to be persuaded excepting by the evidence of our Reasonâ (Ibid., pp. 195-106), implying that a person can reason, can be persuaded, and can resist persuasion though all the while he is asleep.
The idea that to dream is to be mentally active while asleep and that a dream is a conscious experience is not peculiar to Descartes. Aristotle says that âthe soulâ makes âassertionsâ in sleep, giving in the way of example a dream that âsome object approaching is a man or a horseâ or that âthe object is white or beautifulâ (Aristotle, 458b). Kant makes the following remark: âIn deepest sleep perhaps the greatest perfection of the mind might be exercised in rational thought. For we have no reason for asserting the opposite except that we do not remember the idea when awake. This reason, however, proves nothingâ (Kant (1), p. 275). Moore, speaking of âmental acts or acts of consciousnessâ, says: âWe cease to perform them only while we are asleep, without dreaming; and even in sleep, so long as we dream, we are performing acts of consciousnessâ (Moore (1), p. 4). Russell makes the following assertion: âWhat, in dreams, we see and hear, we do in fact see and hear, though, owing to the unusual context, what we see and hear gives rise to false beliefs. Similarly, what we remember in dreams we do really remember; that is to say, the experience called ârememberingâ does occurâ (Russell (1), pp. 214-215).
Freud remarks that âObviously, the dream is the life of the mind during sleep . . .â (Freud (1), p. 79) and that âDreams . . . are the mode of reaction of the mind to stimuli acting upon it during sleepâ (Ibid., p. 80). He thinks of dreams as âmental processes during sleepâ and undertakes to compare them with the mental processes of persons who are awake (e.g., Ibid., pp. 80-81). A contemporary psychologist declares that âDreams are a form, probably the most primitive form, of ideation in which experiences and situations of the day and of life are reproduced on the screen of the mind during sleep as images, usually in visual formâ (Hadfield, p. 70).
Quite recently two philosophers have explicitly endorsed the Cartesian view of dreams. âTo say that one dreams is to say that one sees, hears, touches, etc., while asleepâ. . . . we should maintain, with Descartes, that if anyone dreams that he believes, doubts, expects, desires, etc., then he really doesâ (Yost & Kalish, pp. 120-121). âPeople can really believe sentences to be true while they are dreamingâ (Ibid., p. 121). âDreaming is a real experience. And since dreams can be remembered, they must be conscious experiences. Just as it is correct to say that a dreamer really dreams and does not merely dream that he dreams, so it is correct to say that a dreamer is really aware of the contents of his dream and does not merely dream that he is aware of themâ (Ibid., p. 118).
It is no exaggeration to say that it is the received opinion, among philosophers and psychologists, that dreams are âthe activity of the mind during sleepâ (Hadfield, p. 17). I wish to examine this opinion.
CHAPTER TWO
ASSERTING THAT ONE IS ASLEEP
IF Aristotle were right in saying that when a man is asleep he can assert that âan approaching objectâ is a man or a horse, one would think that another thing he could do would be to assert that he himself is asleep. It will be useful to reflect on the sentence âI am asleepâ and the supposed possibility that, by uttering it, a person could claim that he is asleep. It is possible that the sentence âI am asleepâ should come from the lips of a sleeping person. In this sense he could âsayâ that he is asleep: but could he assert (claim, maintain) that he is asleep? If so it would appear that you might find out that he is asleep from his own testimony. This will strike everyone as absurd. If it was a question in a court of law whether a certain man had been asleep at such and such a time, the fact that he had said the sentence âI am asleepâ at that time would not be admitted as affirmative evidence.
In general we rely heavily on a manâs own testimony when it is a question whether he is hungry, depressed, or in love. Should we do the same when we want to know whether he is asleep? We may discount a young manâs claim to be in love on the ground that he is exaggerating or is not entirely sincere. Would similar considerations make us discount someoneâs claim that he is asleep? Should we wonder if he is perhaps overstating the case or even lying? Of course not. âHe claims that he is asleep but I suspect he is not telling the truthâ, âHe says that he is asleep and I believe himâ, are both ridiculous sentences. Their absurdity brings out the point that we should not consider an utterance of the words âI am asleepâ as the making of a claim, and therefore not as either a trustworthy or untrustworthy claim. In saying them to us a man can neither lie nor tell the truth. If you say to someone, who looks as if he might be asleep, âAre you asleep?â, his reply âYes I amâ is playful nonsense.
Hypnotists often say to their subjects, âYou are asleep now, arenât you?â, and it is hoped that the subject will say âYes I amâ. This does not mean that his words are taken as testimony but rather as showing that he is responsive to the suggestions of the hypnotist. The same purpose would be served by the question âYou are sitting down now, arenât you?â (when the subject is standing). In both cases the affirmative reply is useful not as testimony but as showing that the hypnotist has succeeded in bringing the subject under his influence.
If I say âHe is sleepyâ of someone, I make an assertion that entails the assertion he would make if he said âI am sleepyâ. There is not this relationship between âHe is asleepâ and âI am asleepâ. If someone said the latter either he would be making no assertion at all or else he would be using his words in a different sense, e.g. to mean that he does not wish to be disturbed. âI am asleepâ does not have a use that is homogeneous with the normal use of âHe is asleepâ. Here there is a similarity between âI am asleepâ and âI am unconsciousâ: neither sentence has a use that is homogeneous with the normal use of the corresponding third person sentence. It would not occur to anyone to conclude that a man is asleep from his saying âI am asleepâ any more than to conclude that he is unconscious from his saying âI am unconsciousâ, or to conclude that he is dead from his saying âI am deadâ. He can say the words but he cannot assert that he is asleep, unconscious, or dead. If a man could assert that he is asleep, his assertion would involve a kind of self-contradiction, since from the fact that he made the assertion it would follow that it was false. If such an assertion were possible then it could sometimes be true. While actually asleep a man could assert that he was asleep. There is where the absurdity is located. âWhile asleep, he asserted that he was asleepâ is as senseless as âWhile unconscious, he asserted that he was unconsciousâ, or â While dead, he asserted that he was deadâ.
CHAPTER THREE
JUDGING THAT ONE IS ASLEEP
IT may be thought that my argument obtains a specious plausibility from a feature of the connotation of âassertâ, namely, that to say that someone asserted so and so is to say that he declared it to another person. Admittedly a man who is asleep cannot address another person, it may be said, because this would imply a perception of the presence of the other person, which would falsify the hypothesis that he is asleep.1 âClaimâ and âmaintainâ have the same connotation, and so it is true that a sleeping man cannot assert or claim or maintain that he is asleep. But âjudgeâ does not have this connotation. People make many judgments that they do not express to anyone. From the fact, therefore, that one cannot make assertions while asleep, it does not follow that one cannot make judgments. And indeed they are made during sleep. For example, St. Thomas says that âsometimes while asleep a man may judge that what he sees is a dream . . .â (Aquinas, I, Q. 84, Art. 8).1
If a man can make judgments during sleep then it ought to be possible for him to judge, among other things, that he is asleep. The view being considered is that this is a possible judgment but not a possible assertion. Is it possible that I should be able to say to myself something that is significant and perhaps even true but that if I were to try to say this very same thing to others my statement would be logically absurd? Surely there is something dubious in the assumption that there can be a true judgment that cannot be communicated to others.
I will not pursue this problem. Instead I will raise the question of whether it can be verified that someone understands how to use the sentence âI am asleepâ to describe his own state. If there is that use of the sentence it ought to make sense to verify that someone has or has not mastered it. An indication that someone understands the use of a sentence to describe some state of affairs might be the fact that he utters the sentence sometimes when, and only when, that state of affairs does exist and utters the negation of the sentence sometimes when, and only when, that state of affairs does not exist: for example, he says âThe wind is blowing hardâ sometimes when and only when the wind is blowing hard; and he says âthe wind is not blowing hardâ sometimes when and only when the wind is not blowing hard. In general such a correlation is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for understanding the use of a sentence: it is possible that a particular sentence should be understood and yet each time it is uttered the description it expresses should be false, just as it is possible that a particular order (âPut your hand in this Areâ!) should always be disobeyed, even though it is impossible that all orders should always be disobeyed Wittgenstein § 345). Still the correlation would, in some circumstances, provide evidence of understanding. Could we obtain evidence of this sort in the case of the sentence âI am asleepâ? Could we observe that someone utters it sometimes. when (and only when) the ârightâ state of affairs exists, namely, when he is indeed asleep? And could we infer from this, with some probability, that he understands the supposed use of that sentence to describe his own state?
Now how could one verify that a man says âI am asleepâ to himself when he is asleep? How could one find out that he did this even once? If he talked in his sleep, saying aloud âI am asleepâ, this would not count either for or against his understanding of that sentence, since a man who is talking in his sleep is not aware of what he is saying. Here I am merely commenting on the idiomatic use of the expression âtalking in his sleepâ. We do not affirm it of someone who is aware that he is talking.
In order to know that when a man said âI am asleepâ he gave a true description of his own state, one would have to know that he said it while asleep and that he was aware of saying it. This is an impossible thing to know, because whatever showed that he was aware of saying that sentence would also show that he was not asleep. The knowledge required is impossible because it is self-contradictory. Can there, therefore, be such a thing as knowing that another person under-stands the supposed use of the sentence âI am asleepâ to make a judgment about his own state?
It may be thought that we could appeal to the sleeperâs testimony after he awakened. Suppose he told us that he had said âI am asleepâ while he was asleep. But this report would presuppose that he already knew when to say âI am asleepâ, and so it could not be used to establish the point at issue without begging the question. That is to say, his claim that he said certain words while asleep, implies that he was aware of being asleep and so implies that he knows how to apply the sentence âI am asleepâ. If he does not, his report is worthless. If we have no way of establishing that he knows how to use the sentence other than by appeal to his testimony, then we cannot appeal to his testimony.
It may be thought that from the fact that a person could be taught and learn how to use the third person sentence âHe is asleepâ we could safely conclude that he would know how to use the first person sentence. This conclusion would have no justification at all. The use of the sentence âHe is asleepâ is governed by criteria of the following sort: that the body of the person...