Dream Pluralism: A Philosophy of the Dreaming Mind By Melanie Rosen A THESIS SUBMITTED TO MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE, FACULTY OF HUMAN SCIENCE MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY, NSW 2109, AUSTRALIA JULY 2012 Table of Contents Abstract 9 Declaration 11 Acknowledgements 13 Introduction 15 Part 1: Dream Pluralism 25 Chapter 1: The Empirical Study of Dreams: Discoveries and Disputes 27 1.1 Stages of sleep 29 1.1.1 NREM Sleep 30 1.1.2 REM Sleep 32 1.1.3 The Scanning Hypothesis: an attempt to correlate eye movements with dream reports 33 1.2 Dream reports 35 1.2.1 The benefits of lab-based research 36 1.2.2 The benefits of home-based research 38 1.3 Measuring the physiology of the sleeping brain and body 41 1.3.1 Physiological measures: pros and cons 42 1.4 Cognitive and neural features of sleep 48 1.5 Lucid dreamers in the dream lab 55 Conclusion 59 1 Chapter 2: Bizarreness and Metacognition in Dreams: the Pluralist View of Content and Cognition 61 2.1 A pluralistic account of dream content 62 2.1.1 Bizarre and incoherent dreams 63 2.1.2 Dreams are not particularly bizarre 66 2.1.3 Explanations of the conflicting results 69 2.1.4 Dreams vs. fantasy reports 72 2.2 Cognition in dreams: deficient or equivalent? 80 2.2.1 What is metacognition? 80 2.2.2 Metacognition in dreams 83 Conclusion 97 Chapter 3: Rethinking the Received View: Anti-Experience and Narrative Fabrication 99 3.1 Malcolm on dreaming 101 3.1.1 Dreams and verification 102 3.1.2 Evidence against Malcolm 109 3.2 Metaphysical anti-experience theses 115 3.2.1 The cassette view 115 3.2.2 Arguments against the cassette view 118 3.2.3 Consciousness requires recognition or clout 120 3.3 Narrative fabrication in dream reports 122 3.3.1 Rationalisation of strange content 123 3.3.2 Confabulation and memory loss 127 3.3.3 Altered states of consciousness and what it’s like to be a bat. 131 2 3.4 Individual differences in dream fabrication 133 3.4.1 Imagination inflation 134 3.4.2 Individual differences 134 3.5 Evidence against dream narrative fabrication 138 3.5.1) Lucid dreams and RBD 138 3.5.2) Dream A vs. dream B: accurate lab reports 139 Conclusion 141 Chapter 4: Dreaming as Imagination 143 4.1 The imagination model of dreaming 143 4.1.1 Believing in dreams 144 4.1.2 The ‘in the dream’ operator 146 4.1.3 Six phenomena: support for the imagination model? 148 4.2 Counter-arguments to the imagination model 153 4.2.1 The spectrum between imagining and perceiving 153 4.2.2 Reply to Sosa and Ichikawa’s arguments 156 4.3 The pluralistic account: both perceptual and imaginative 171 4.3.1 Dreams which are perception-like or hallucinatory 171 4.3.2 Dream imagination 173 Conclusion 176 Chapter 5 Perceptual Views of Dreams 179 5.1 Immersive dreams: the dream body image and schema 180 5.1.1 Dream bodies and disembodied dreaming 181 5.1.2 The dream body image and schema 182 3 5.2 Dreams as hallucinations 192 5.2.1 Hobson’s hallucinations 192 5.2.2 The immersive spatiotemporal hallucination model 194 5.2.3 Hallucination as a contingent aspect of dreaming 198 5.3 The dream world; the virtual reality of sleep 200 5.3.1 The phenomenal self-model 201 5.3.2 Dreams are not the matrix 204 Conclusion 209 4 Part II: Philosophy of Dreams: Self, Mind and Cognition 211 Chapter 6: Dreaming Vicariously: Implications for the Self 213 6.1 Vicarious dreams are a real phenomenon 215 6.2 Self-reference and self-representation 217 6.3 Imagining vs. dreaming that I am Napoleon 219 6.3.1 Imagining I am someone else 220 6.3.2 Dreamed Napoleon is not analogous to imagined Napoleon 222 6.4 Denying psychological identity between waking and dreaming selves 226 6.4.1 Dream protagonists as ‘alters’ 227 6.4.2 Psychological discontinuity and memory 230 6.4.3 Disrupted psychology in dreams 233 6.4.4 NB and personal identity 240 Conclusion 242 Chapter 7: Extended Mind, Dreaming Mind 243 7.1 Extended cognition and dreaming 244 7.1.1 Does cognition extend? 245 7.1.2 Integration is the key 247 7.1.3 Extended dreaming 249 7.2 The extended conscious mind 256 7.2.1 The extended substrate thesis 256 7.2.2 Noë on Dreams 259 5 7.2.3 Dreaming as a counter argument to the extended substrate thesis 261 7.2.4 Differences between dreaming and waking 262 7.2.5 Similarities between dreaming and waking 265 7.2.6 Dream phenomenology as externally constituted 270 Conclusion 272 Chapter 8: Consciousness in Dreams 273 8.1 Unconscious dreaming 275 8.1.1 Unconscious dreaming and memory deficits 275 8.1.2 HOT or not? 279 8.2 Full consciousness in dreams 285 8.2.1 Global workspace theory 286 8.2.2 Global workspace and dreamscape 288 8.3 Impoverished consciousness 291 8.3.1 Access and phenomenal consciousness 291 8.3.2 Phenomenal dreams 295 Conclusion 302 Conclusion 305 References 311 6 For Mum 7 8 Abstract This thesis applies a cross-disciplinary, integrative approach to the study of dreams. I propose a pluralistic view of dreams which opposes reductive accounts, instead focusing on the variety of experiences that can occur during sleep. I begin, in Part I, by demonstrating that dreams are highly varied and involve a multitude of features. Some dreams contain a variety of bizarre elements and irrational cognition, whereas others are accurate representations of waking life and display waking levels of cognition. I then argue that reductive theories of dreaming do not account for all dreams. Reductive views include the anti-experience thesis, the imagination model and perceptual views of dreams. Dreams cannot be reduced to any of these particular elements: a dream can be either imaginative, or perceptual or contain elements of both. In Part II, I apply a variety of dream phenomena to debates in modern philosophy, areas where dreams have received insufficient attention. Firstly, I analyse a type of dreaming that I refer to as “dreaming vicariously”, in which the protagonist of the dream is not the same person as the dreamer. I argue that these types of dreams pose an interesting problem for philosophy of the self, because it is conceivable that one brain can contain multiple minds. I then discuss dreams and the extended mind. I argue that it is feasible that dreaming cognition could be extended into the external environment in the future if we develop wi-fi cognitive enhancement devices. However, dreaming usually involves only internal, isolated cognition and this provides a counter argument to the theory of extended consciousness. Finally, I demonstrate that dreams have interesting implications for philosophical theories of consciousness. Since dreaming is a pervasive conscious experience that occurs for most people multiple times every night, it is important that any theory of consciousness provides a plausible account of dreaming that is consistent with the current dream theory. I evaluate theories that as yet fail to provide convincing accounts of dreaming. An integrative approach provides new insight into both the ontology of dreams and our understanding of the mind. 9 10 Declaration I certify that the work in this thesis has not been submitted for a degree nor has it been submitted as part of requirement for a degree except as fully acknowledged within the text. I also certify that the thesis has been written by me. Any help that I have received in my research work and the presentation of the thesis itself has been acknowledged. I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis. _____________________ Melanie Rosen 11 12 Acknowledgments I would like to especially thank my supervisors John Sutton and Peter Menzies for going beyond the call of duty to provide inspiration, knowledge and support. You both have an uncanny ability for morale building and I always looked forward to our meetings. I have so many people to thank for their help and support, providing inspiration and advice. Lise-Marie Andersen, Rodney Bishop, Carlo Bradac, Glenn Carruthers, Steve Collins, Marinus Ferreira, Helen Gillespie, Thomas Harvey, Yik Kun Heng and Jordan Taylor all contributed to this thesis. Thank you so much. All the people whom I met at conferences in Australia, New Zealand, America and Europe, who inspired, critiqued and advised me. Travelling around the world to meet you has been a fulfilling experience. Thanks to Lise-Marie Andersen and Carlo Bradac for being essential ingredients to my post-grad life in Australia and for your support and friendship. I look forward to many new adventures with you. A big thank you to my friends and family, Jason, Mum and Dad, for supporting me throughout. I am especially grateful to Mum, for reading my entire thesis. Throughout my university experience you have been there for me, reading endless philosophy essays not matter how obscure, critiquing my sculptures and multimedia projects, no matter how bizarre, providing advice… mostly good and generally being an awesome person. 13 14 Introduction We must, in the next place, investigate the subject of the dream, and first inquire to which of the faculties of the psyche it presents itself, i.e. whether the affection is one which pertains to the faculty of intelligence or to that of sense-perception; for these are the only faculties within us by which we acquire knowledge.