Philosophy Of Dreams 1/3 & 2/3

        Today people tend to hold different values for their dreams. Their are ones that dismiss their dreams, and their are ones that find answers, or even closure in dreams that they could never have in reality. According to Descartes, "dreams pose a threat towards knowledge because it seems impossible to rule out, at any given moment, that one is now dreaming." I understand what Descartes meant, how do we know if we are dreaming right now? There is no answer. In dreams I always find myself pinching my left arm to prove if I'm dreaming or not, even though I know I am. In dreams I don't feel physical pain, but I feel my emotions heighten. I believe this is why many people feel like they hold attachments to their dreams, they believe their dreams are trying to tell them something. I remember my mother telling me about a dream she had around the time when her cousin had passed away. She was not able to attend the funeral, since it was held in California, and she was living in Nashville at the time. She became very depressed, because there was no sense of closure with her passing. In her dream she was in the house that they both grew up together, but it was dark and cold, she said her cousin came in the front door, and the sun came out, it beamed through all the windows, and she was wearing a white dress, she was dressed like an angel, and her presence carried like one. My mother apologized about not being there for her, and her cousin forgave her in the dream. When my mother woke up from the dream she felt relief, and through that dream she received closure. Even though there is no proof that was real it brought the emotion of relief that she felt in the dream into reality which is what most of us experience in our dreams. 

2/3

       When i was younger i remember always hearing phrases along the lines of, "pinch me, because i must be dreaming." Little did i know i would actually find myself pinching myself in dreams to remind myself I am only dreaming. Going back to the first installment i mentioned how in my dreams i do not feel physical pain, but i feel every emotion as if it were heighten. I can wake up crying, scared, or even angry, but i never feel the pain from falling off a building. Why do we correlate the sense of pain being real life, but feeling no pain unreal? I believe dreams can be a mere image of our lives, our most hidden inner thoughts being expressed into images in our brains. Similar to what Plato and Aristotle hypothesized, which was the idea that dreams let people act out "unconscious desires"in a safe unreal setting in their brain. Descartes was always troubled by the thought of dreaming because  he felt his question did not have an answer. How do we know were not always dreaming? Studies show that the brain is awake and is most active during the time we sleep, so how do we know if dreams aren't apart of another real life. How can we possibly sleep when our brain is wide awake? Do we ever sleep, or is it the day when we die our brain actually sleeps, and is out to rest. 

Sleep Foundation Article
Descarte Theory