“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
Virginia Tech Conference Submission
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
Virginia Tech Philosophy Graduate Conference Submission
2997 Words
Abstract: Historically, philosophers have assumed that dreams
deceive – that my belief that p is epistemically threatened by the
possibility that it is cased by a dream that p. I argue that dreams
do not typically cause us to have false beliefs – rather, dreams
should be understood as imaginings. Dreams are experienced the
same way that fictions are. I offer three arguments for this
conclusion, and I draw on contemporary work in the philosophy
of imagination to explain how imagination can accommodate the
phenomenology of dreaming.
One philosophical upshot is that Descartes’s ‘dream scenario’, as
originally conceived, does not threaten knowledge. But another is
that a modification of it threatens knowledge in a deeper way that
Descartes realized – it even threatens our certainty in the cogito.
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
Virginia Tech Conference Submission
Descartes assumes in the Meditations that dreaming is like hallucinating – that
when we dream, we have sensations and form beliefs. This is why he thinks that dreams
can deceive us.1 I reject this orthodox model of dreaming in favor of an imagination
model, according to which dreams are less like hallucinations and more like fictions.2 I
will argue that when I dream that there is a fire before me, I do not thereby believe that
there is a fire before me, or experience redness or heat – rather, I imagine that there is a
fire before me, and experience the imagination-counterparts of those sensations. A
consequence of the imagination model is that Descartes is wrong about the way in which
the dream scenario leads to skepticism – my imaginings are not false beliefs.
Nevertheless, the imagination model will not assist in a Cartesian project to overcome
skepticism – rather, I suggest that a proper understanding of dreams will demonstrate a
deeper threat of error against not only Descartes’s meditator’s knowledge of the fire, but
even his cogito argument for his certainty of his own existence.
My claim is that we do not experience sensations and form beliefs in our sleep
when we dream. But clearly, we do something like these activities3. I believe that we
perform and experience the imagination-correlates of these events, much as we do when
we sit down and deliberately engage in a vivid daydream. (Throughout, I will follow
1Descartes, Meditation I, p. 105
2The suggestion of an application of an imagination model of dreams to Descartes’s project is from Ernest
Sosa. Kendall Walton (1990) also mentions the possibility, but does not consider it in any depth:
“Perhaps (as Descartes assumes) dreamers believe what is only fictional in their dreams, as well as
imagining it. We needn’t decide.” (Walton p. 50)
3This is not entirely uncontroversial. For instance, it has been denied, I think rather implausibly, by
Norman Malcolm.
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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Gregory Currie4 and use the superscript I to denote the imaginary version of a mental
state. I will also use R to denote the non-imaginary version.) Is this plausible? After all,
dreams (sometimes) seem to really feel like waking life. There’s clearly some explaining
to be done if the imagination model is to be taken seriously. This is my project.
I dream it, therefore it is true. In general, dreamed things do not entail their
actual counterparts. The following is utterly implausible:
I dream that p.
Therefore, p.
At issue is whether the inference is valid for beliefs and sensory experiences. What
if we limit the inference to conscious mental states? Consider volitions. Ernest Sosa has
suggested an ethics-based reductio against that inference:
If I dream that I form an intention to succumb to temptation, I
haven’t done anything wrong. If I formed that intention, I would
have done something wrong. Therefore, the inference, ‘I dreamed
I formed intention X, therefore I formed intention X,’ is invalid.
Is believing like dreaming in this respect? It would be at least a little odd to insist
on there being an important difference. I do not see any way to posit a difference
between intending and believing that would justify treating them differently with respect
to this inference.
Once we accept that dreaming believing and intending does not entail really doing
so, a similar argument demonstrates false the inference for sensory experiences – that
dreaming having conscious experience e implies actually having it:
Let e be the experience as if a lion were chasing me. Then if I
have e in a dream, I would be epistemically required to form the
4Currie (1997), p. 67
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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belief that a lion is chasing me, and prudentially required to form
the intention to run away. Failure to form that belief and intention
would constitute irrationality. But I am not irrational in failing to
form the belief and intention, therefore the inference is invalid.5
Long-Standing Beliefs. Another line of reasoning that favors the imagination
model of dreaming has to do with long-standing beliefs. I currently have the beliefR that
I cannot fly. Suppose I have a dream in which I can fly. If the orthodox view is correct, I
will form the real beliefR that I can fly. What happens to my old beliefR, that I cannot
fly? If I still have it while asleep, I now seem to have contradictory beliefs. Intuitively,
this is not correct – it is no more irrational for me to dream that I am flying then it is for
me to deliberately imagine it. It is therefore incumbent upon the orthodox theorist to
posit a mechanism whereby my long-standing beliefs disappear and reappear in response
to dreams. This seems difficult.
One might attempt to ‘explain away’ my intuition that it is not irrational for me to
dream that I can fly by characterizing it as an intuition that I am not epistemically
blameworthy for dream-based contradictory beliefs. We do not blame people for
irrationality issuing from involuntary circumstances – when, for instance, I am forcibly
drugged and hallucinate. It may be, the objection goes, that when we dream things that
contradict our beliefs, we are blamelessly irrational.
But dreaming is not like being forcibly drugged with respect to rationality and
epistemic blameworthiness. As a rational agent, I should take measures to ensure that I
do not find myself in circumstances in which I am likely to be irrational. I fail
5 Technically, the prescription of practical irrationality will depend on certain desires in addition to beliefs.
But unless one wishes to claim that when I dream, I lose my desire not to be eaten by a lion, this
complication is peripheral to my point.
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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epistemically and am also blameworthy if I voluntarily ingest hallucinogenic drugs,
knowing that they will lead to irrationality. But since my interest in being a rational
agent does not require me to take steps to avoid dreaming, the objection fails.
Confusion in introspection. We do not always remain aware of the fact that we
are dreaming, as we remain aware of conscious imaginings. The imagination model
seems committed to the counter-intuitive view that we can mistake our imaginings for
other mental states. However, there is independent reason to think that we can and
sometimes do confuse beliefs, sensations, desires, etc., for their imagination counterparts.
I will briefly mention three such cases in order to demonstrate reasonable the suggestion
that imagination could be confused with reality.
1. Desires in Fiction. I watch an episode of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer and think, I
hopeR Buffy doesn’t die. I may be conscious of that thought, and come to believe that it is
true. I could sincerely utter: “I hopeR Buffy doesn’t die.” But I know that Buffy is going
to die – I’ve seen this episode before. I do not hopeR that Buffy doesn’t die – instead, I
hopeI that she won’t die6. If my alleged desire were realized, and Buffy did not die, I
would be confused and upset. And Buffy the television show would be inferior if Buffy
lived, and I don’t desireR that state of affairs. So I have confused my desireI for a desireR.
2. Imagery and Sensation. I close my eyes and imagine seeing a tree. I do not
have the visual sensationsR associated with seeing a tree, but I have the associated
sensationsI. Empirical research has demonstrated that subjects sometimes mistake one
6This point is made by Currie and Ravenscroft (§1.4), Walton (ch. 7), and Currie (1990) (§5.3). But the
emphasis in these works is on the nature of the propositional attitude, not our error about it.
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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for the other. In one early experiment7, subjects were asked to visualize an object on a
screen. Unbeknowst to them, there were actual faint images being projected to the spot
where their eyes were focused. A description by Roger Brown and Richard Herrnstein:
They were, in short, seeing a picture and calling it an image. ... In
every case the answer left no doubt that the experiment succeeded
in passing off stimuli as images without the subject’s awareness.8
The Cornell study demonstrates that sensationsR can be taken for sensationsI. There
is also evidence suggesting that the reverse is true. In one case study9, a blind woman
denied that she was completely blind. The researchers concluded that she had retained
visual imagery (visual sensationI), and took herself to be experiencing visual sensationR.
She mistook her imaginings for genuine perception.
3.1 Memory of Dreamt Color. The room for error is even more pronounced when
we have to rely on memory of past visual experiences. A consideration of dreamt color
sensation10 will suggest widespread error about sensation in dreams. I believe we should
conclude that our memories are extremely unreliable about the phenomenology of
dreaming, and that it is inappropriate to reject the imagination model based solely on
reports of the phenomenology of dreaming.
Almost all Americans report dreaming in color. In the 1940s and ‘50s, most people
believed that visual experience in dreams was a primarily black-and-white phenomenon.
This is a difficult discrepancy for the orthodox theorist to accommodate. Assuming that
7Perky (1910)
8Brown and Herstein, pp. 46-47
9Goldenberg et al. (1995)
10I take this data and much of the analysis from Eric Schwitzgebel (2002).
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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our dreams didn’t actually become colorized in the late 1950s, he must conclude that
either (a) almost everybody in the ‘40s and ‘50s was wrong about the nature of visual
experience in dreams, or (b) almost everybody today is. So if the orthodox view is
correct, then some people are deeply mistaken about what color sensations they have in
their dreams. This counts against rejecting the imagination model on phenomenological
grounds.11
3.2 Color in Fiction. Even once we say that at least one group has been seriously
mistaken about the nature of visual experience in dreams, we are still left with something
of a puzzle: which group is mistaken? The imagination theorist need not choose either
one – if there are no sensations, the question of whether they’re color sensations is
senseless. Eric Schwitzgebel explicitly discusses the advantages in adopting a fiction
model of dreaming as an alternative:
Consider, as an analogy, a novel. While novels surely are not in
black and white, it also seems a little strange to say that they are
‘in color’. ... Perhaps dream-objects and dream-events are similar
to fictional objects and events, or to the images evoked by fiction,
in having, typically, a certain indeterminacy of color….12
Once we accept that we can be and are mistaken about sensation experiences as
basic as color, it is plausible to generalize the non-sensation sensationR of color to nonsensationR in general. Once we let go of colorR, it won’t be too difficult to let go of coldR,
painR, the auditory sensationR associated with an oboe playing a concert A, etc.
Wittgenstein on Agency and Imagination. Once we see that sometimes we
11
Schwitzgebel’s proposed explanation of the discrepancy is based on the prevelance of black-and-white
media during the 1940’s and ‘50’s. The idea is that we project our experiences of films to experiences
of dreams. Whether this is correct is immaterial to my project.
12Schwitzgebel 655-56
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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confuse imagination with reality, the question becomes pressing: how do we tell mental
statesR from mental statesI? Ideally, we will eventually be in a position to tell a positive
story of how it could come to be that we can imagine without realizing it when we dream.
Some insights from Wittgenstein will put us in a position to sketch the beginning of that
story. Wittgenstein focuses on visual imagery, but this generalizes to other kinds of
imagination as well.13
Wittgenstein develops a positive account based on a sense of agency. The
difference between imagery and sensation is that sensations, unlike imagery, tell us
something (true or false) about the external world. Sensation is something that happens
to us, while imagery is something that we do.14 He points out that imagining something
is the kind of thing that it makes sense to be told to do (or stop doing). Imagining is
active, while seeing is passive.
It is easily objected against Wittgenstein’s view that imagery, and imagination in
general, are not always voluntary. We sometimes are surprised at what we imagine, and
we sometimes have difficulty expelling imagery from our heads. I paraphrase Malcolm
Budd’s response15 to this objection: the fact that sometimes we have images against our
will doesn’t mean we’re not active in Wittgenstein’s sense in creating them. Consider the
difference between a case in which I am being prodded against my will and a case in
which I am thinking about something unpleasant against my will. My thinking, unlike
my being prodded, is something I do, not something that merely happens to me.
13For an argument that imagery is a kind of imagination, see Currie and Ravenscroft, ch. 2.
14Wittgenstein, Zettel §621 et seq.
15Budd p. 109
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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I am not suggesting that we always are in conscious control of our imaginings –
only that they do in fact issue from within, and that in typical cases, the phenomenology
of imagining reflects this; imagining feels a certain way, and the way it feels seems to
have to do with agency.16 This is the understanding behind Wittgenstein’s observation
that imagining is something that it makes sense to be told to stop doing – you’re the one
doing it, even if you can’t get yourself to stop.
Schizophrenia and Loss of Agency. Suppose Wittgenstein is right, and the way
we distinguish imagery from sensation is through the sense of agency that accompanies
imagery. It follows, then, that if we lost that sense of agency, we’d lose access to the fact
that we are merely imagining. Gregory Currie has developed a theory of schizophrenia
which capitalizes on this result: schizophrenic delusions are best understood as issuing
from confusion of one’s own imaginings as beliefs. And this confusion is caused, Currie
suggests, by a loss of a sense of agency17. On Currie’s model, subjects imagine things,
but are not aware of their own agency in causing them. The imaginings feel like things
that happen to them. If Wittgenstein’s model of imagination recognition is correct, then
it is not surprising that these subjects would fail to recognize imaginations as such. The
16 Not all imaginings, of course, issue purely from within. When I watch a movie or read a book, I
imagine the events of the fiction, and those events do not come from within me – they come from the
fiction. I have no control, perceived or otherwise, over whether Desdemona will survive. To see the
sense in which a sense of agency is relevant here, consider Kendall Walton’s understanding of works of
fiction as invitations to imagine. If this even makes sense, then imagining is something we control. My
going along with the film, play, or novel – my seeing it as a story instead of a projector screen and a
pattern of color and sounds – constitutes the imagining. And that is something that I do. So it makes
sense for someone to tell me to continue to watch the movie but to stop imagining the story – this,
presumably, is a skill that film editors develop.
17
Loss of sense of agency has been independently proposed as characteristic of schizophrenia by Colin
Firth (1992).
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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agency loss is able to provide explanation of schizophrenic delusions18.
Agency and Dreams. If we can give a satisfactory account of an agency-based
imagination model of schizophrenia, may we do the same for dreaming? If, when we
dream, we ‘lose track’ of our roles as creators – that is, we lose our sense of agency, we
fail to recognize that we’re only imagining. In ordinary dreaming, I do not consciously
control what I dream (although obviously my dreams are still issuing from me). If
Wittgenstein’s account is correct, then, it is not surprising that I fail to recognize them at
the time as imaginings.
Note the continuity with daydreams and other imaginings in this respect. Just as we
‘get lost’ in dreams, it is possible to get lost in daydreams which begin as deliberate
imaginings. We focus not on the fact that we are imagining, but on the content of our
imaginings. Note that it is possible to so fully engage in a daydream that we do lose
conscious awareness of the fact that our impressions are only imagination – it can be
jarring to be pulled from a reverie, just as it can to be pulled from a dream.19 This fits
well with the imagination model – according to my view, the phenomenology of
dreaming is continuous with that of daydreaming – both are acts of imagination.
Summary: The Case for the Imagination Model. I have offered three lines of
18This also may account for the hitherto-inexplicable phenomenon of “thought insertion”, whereby
schizophrenic patients report experiencing other people’s thoughts . The following description of
thought insertion is from John Campbell (1999): “...there is, the patient insists, a sense in which the
thought is not his, a sense in which the thought is someone else’s, and not just in that someone else
originated the thought and communicated it to the subject; there is a sense in which the thought, as it
were, remains the property of someone else.” (p. 610) When we imagine propositions, we do ‘insert’
them into our minds, and a person with limited awareness of his own agency in that insertion might
describe the phenomenon in this way.
19Kendall Walton (p. 50) hints at this point, drawing a connection between dreaming, daydreaming, and
imagining.
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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reasoning in favor of the imagination model of dreaming. First, since we can explain
dreams in a compelling way without reference to beliefs and sensations, we find no
reason to suppose that there are such experiences in our dreams. Second, counterintuitive
attributions of immorality and irrationality follow from the orthodox model of dreaming,
but not from the imagination model. Third, lack of sensations in dreams may be the best
explanation for phenomena like the disagreement about color in dreams. In addition, I’ve
sketched out a positive story which may help explain why our dreams don’t feel like
typical imaginings. I will conclude with a discussion of some epistemological
consequences of the imagination model of dreaming.
Moore. I have argued that the inference I dream p, therefore p is invalid, even
when p is an occurrent mental state. This might tempt us to reconsider G. E. Moore’s
response to the dream scenario:
But what I am in doubt of is whether it is logically possible that I
should both be having all the sensory experiences and the
memories that I have and yet be dreaming. The conjunction of
the proposition that I have these same experiences and memories
with the proposition that I am dreaming does seem to me to be
very likely self-contradictory.20
If what I am saying about the nature of dreaming is correct, then maybe Moore’s
move has more plausibility than it at first appears. According to the imagination model, I
do not have sensations during dreams the way I do when awake. From this it follows that
there is a valid argument, “I am having visual sensations, therefore I am not dreaming.”
Does Moore’s response work after all?
I do not think that it does. One reason is that the considerations I’ve cited that
20Moore p. 245
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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make the imagination model plausible are also considerations that cast doubt on our
ability to introspect occurent mental states. Although “I am experiencing sensationsR,
therefore I am not dreaming” is valid, it does not provide apodictic protection from the
dream argument. I may take myself to seeR a fire, when I’m actually only seeingI one.
Also, although I think there is good reason to believe that the imagination model of
dreaming is correct – because it provides the best explanation for what we know about
dreaming, I do not think that we have sufficient evidence to justify certainty that it is
correct. So Descartes’s dream scenario still succeeds in casting doubt.21
So it does not seem that the imagination model will give the anti-skeptic certainty
about the fact that we’re not dreaming – both because we can’t be sure what our
experiences are like (whether, for instance, we’re having sensationsR or sensationsI), and
because we can’t rule out the possibility that we’re having sensationsR as a result of a
particularly unusual kind of dream. And in another way, the imagination model will
make things even more difficult. Once we recognize that “I thinkR” can be confused with
“I thinkI” (that is, “I imagine that”), we lose perfect certainty even in the cogito.
Descartes wants to argue I thinkR, therefore I am, but the premise is no longer certain – he
may only thinkI. A quick patch moves Descartes in the right direction, but at a cost: I
(thinkR or thinkI), therefore I am is valid, but that premise does not seem to be in a
position to obtain certainty either – for anyone who took himself to be asserting the
premise could ‘step up’ a hypothetical level and ask, how do I know I’m not just thinkingI
21However, if the imagination view is correct, and we never really do have dreams that are like
hallucinations, then there is a sense in which our external knowledge is ‘safer’ the Cartesian project
would suggest. The danger that we are having ‘dreams’ that are fundamentally different from ordinary
dreams (i.e. dreams about which the orthodox model is correct) seems now to be a more ‘distant’
danger – a danger more like the madman or the evil demon scenario. So there is a sense in which the
imagination model helps the anti-skeptic about the external world. Thanks to Ernest Sosa for this point.
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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that? Imaginings, unlike beliefs, are not the kinds of things that can be certain. The
Cartesian wants to evaluate all of his beliefs – he cannot do this without first knowing
what they are. On the whole, I think that because the imagination model is correct, the
Cartesian anti-skeptic is in more trouble than he would otherwise be.
“Fire and the Cogito: Dreams and Imaginings”
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References
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