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diff --git a/essays/dream_reality.tex b/essays/dream_reality.tex index 33b901c..109aee2 100644 --- a/essays/dream_reality.tex +++ b/essays/dream_reality.tex @@ -215,7 +215,7 @@ is easily taken up and easily discarded. The question is whether there can be a rational empiricism which differs from science in placing dreamed episodes on the same level as waking -episodes, but which stops short of the "nihilistic empiricism" of my +episodes, but which stops short of the \enquote{nihilistic empiricism} of my philosophical essay entitled \essaytitle{The Flaws Underlying Beliefs}. (In effect, the latter essay rejects other minds, causality, persistent objective entities, past time, the possibility of objective categories and significant language, and so @@ -236,8 +236,8 @@ accurate expectations about it. These examples illustrate that we are not nihilistic empiricists in our dreams. The question is whether acceptance of the pragmatic outlook which we have in dreams is consistent with not regarding the dream-world as a subjective phenomenon of individual -consciousness. Can we accept dreams as "literal reality"; or must we reject -the very concept of "reality" on order to defend the placing of the dream +consciousness. Can we accept dreams as \enquote{literal reality}; or must we reject +the very concept of \enquote{reality} on order to defend the placing of the dream world on the same level as the waking world? In summary, the question is whether we can place dreams on the same @@ -325,7 +325,7 @@ several people have reported experiences in that category. The principal characteristic of the approach which these conventions represent is that each dream is treated as a separate world. There is no -attempt to arrive at an account, for a given "objective" time period, which is +attempt to arrive at an account, for a given \enquote{objective} time period, which is consistent with more than one dream or with both dreamed and waking periods. Thus, many parallel worlds could be confirmed as real. As our discussion proceeds, we will move away from this approach, probably out of @@ -388,7 +388,7 @@ Perhaps science insists on the elimination of personal anecdotes from the natural order which it recognizes because the scientist wants results which can be transferred from one life to another and which will give one person power over another. At any rate, science excludes anecdotal anomalies which -cannot be made somehow into "objective" events. As an example, I may be +cannot be made somehow into \enquote{objective} events. As an example, I may be walking down the street and suddenly find myself on the other side of the street with no awareness of any act of crossing the street. @@ -407,7 +407,7 @@ experiences---embedding them in an extraneous pre-scientific belief system, or treating them as controversions of scientific propositions. We, on the other hand, maintain more literally than science does that the only raw material of cognition is experience. We differ from science in draping -experiences on a different organizational framework. The "reality" we arrive +experiences on a different organizational framework. The \enquote{reality} we arrive at is incommensurate with science; it does not falsify any scientific proposition. As for science and superstition, we headed this essay with the quotation by d'Abro to emphasize that the scientist himself is superstitious: @@ -434,11 +434,11 @@ yields only two types of reality cues. \begin{enumerate} \item Presence of the peripheral environment. -\item "Single consciousness." This cue is missing when we see a +\item {\sloppy \enquote{Single consciousness.} This cue is missing when we see a three-dimensional scene and move about in it, and yet have a background awareness that we are awake in bed; and lose the scene through a mere shift of attention. Its absence is even more marked if the scene is a momentary -one between two waking periods. + one between two waking periods. \par} \end{enumerate} Let us recall our earlier discussion of the empiricism of science. Science @@ -447,7 +447,7 @@ intellectual framework in such a way as to simulate Aristotelian realism. It feeds experience into a maze of verification procedures in order to confirm a model which is not explicit in ungraded experience. It short, science grades experience as to its reality on the basis of standards which are -"intellectually" supplied. Internal reality cues are thus characteristics of +\enquote{intellectually} supplied. Internal reality cues are thus characteristics of experience which are given special weight by the grading procedure. The immediate problem for us is that ordinary descriptive language implicitly recognizes these reality cues; one would never say without qualification that @@ -461,7 +461,7 @@ For purposes of further comparison I may mention an experience I have had on rare occasions while lying on my back in bed fully awake. It is as if colored spheres whose centers are located a few feet or yards in front of my chest expand until they press against me, one after the other. I use the -phrase "as if" because reality cues are missing in this experience, and thus I +phrase \enquote{as if} because reality cues are missing in this experience, and thus I cannot use the language of stable object gestalts without qualification in describing it. The colors are not vivid as real colors are. They are like visualized colors. The spheres pass through each other, and through me---with @@ -469,8 +469,8 @@ only a moderate sensation of pressure. I can turn the experience off by getting out of bed. The point, again, is that it is inherent in ordinary language not to use unqualified object descriptions in these circumstances. Yet the only language I have for such sensory configurations is the language -of stable object gestalts-this is particularly obvious in the example of the -Courant Institute plaza. (Is "ringing in the ears' in the same class of +of stable object gestalts---this is particularly obvious in the example of the +Courant Institute plaza. (Is \enquote{ringing in the ears} in the same class of phenomena?) An insight that is crucial in elucidating this problem is that when I @@ -484,10 +484,10 @@ event, it will not be the same event: the beliefs implicit in ordinary language helped give the event its quality. As a further example, now that I have recognized experiences such as that of 1/12/1974, I am willing to entertain the possibility that they are the basis for claims by superstitious persons to -have projected astrally. But to use the phrase "astral projection" is to embed +have projected astrally. But to use the phrase \enquote{astral projection} is to embed the experiences in a pre-scientific belief system extraneous to the experiences themselves. If we learn to report such experiences by using -idioms like "ringing in the ears" and blocking any comparison with notions +idioms like \enquote{ringing in the ears} and blocking any comparison with notions of objective reality or intersubjective import, we will have flattened out experience and will have moved in the direction of ungraded experience and nihilistic empiricism. @@ -504,7 +504,7 @@ study because we may wish to create such connections deliberately, and even to attribute causal significance to them. Initially, we define the concept of dream control: it is to conduct one's waking life so that it is supportive of one's dreamed life in some sense. We also define controlled dreaming: it is to -manipulate a person "from outside" before sleep (or during sleep) so as to +manipulate a person \enquote{from outside} before sleep (or during sleep) so as to influence the content of that person's dreams. (An example would be to give somebody a psychoactive sleeping pill.) @@ -534,7 +534,7 @@ experiences in which a headlong dive or an attempt to whistle continued from dream to waking, right through waking up. These experiences are causally continuous actions. However, I cannot bring them about at will. -\item We can manipulate a person "from outside" before sleep (or during sleep) +\item We can manipulate a person \enquote{from outside} before sleep (or during sleep) so as to influence the content of that person's dreams. The dream is not an echo of the waking action; the causal relationship is manipulative. Examples are to give someone a psychoactive sleeping drug or to create a special @@ -571,9 +571,9 @@ found in waking periods as well as in dreams. Entities which resemble common object gestalts but which lack some of the reality cues of object gestalts can be encountered whicle we are fully awake. Now we can recognize a further symmetry between dreamed and waking life. A dreamed -misfortune is usually "lost" when we awaken, and its disappearance is taken +misfortune is usually \enquote{lost} when we awaken, and its disappearance is taken as evidence of the unreality of the dream (the nightmare). But we can also -"lose" a waking misfortune by going to sleep and dreaming. Further, just as +\enquote{lose} a waking misfortune by going to sleep and dreaming. Further, just as a waking misfortune can persist from one waking period to another, a dreamed misfortune can persist from one dream to another (recurrent nightmares). Thus, we conclude that in regard to the consistency of episodes @@ -589,9 +589,9 @@ reports of reality. Suppose I am awake in my apartment at 3 AM on 2/6/1974, but that someone dreams at that time that I am out of my apartment. Multiple existences which I do not even experience are now being attributed to me. (My own episodes also pose a problem of whether -"multiple existences" are being attributed to me, but that problem concerns +\enquote{multiple existences} are being attributed to me, but that problem concerns events I experience myself.) What we should recognize is that the problem of -"multiple existences" is not as unique to our investigation as may at first +\enquote{multiple existences} is not as unique to our investigation as may at first appear. Natural science has an analogous problem in disposing of the notion of other minds. The notion of the existence of many minds, none of which can experience any other, is difficult to assimilate to the cognitive model of |