Understanding reality and presence in dreams through imagery

Abstract

It is generally said that dreams are experienced as real. But the notion of reality is often used, in the philosophical literature, along with that of presence. A big problem, in this respect, is that both these terms may assume different meanings. So understanding the nature of presence and reality in dreams depends on the way we conceive these two notions. This paper contributes to the literature on dreaming by describing the experience of presence and reality in dreams in a very specific sense. I consider the experience of presence as related to the experience of possibility of motoric interaction, and the experience of reality as related to the experience of mind-independence. Then, endorsing that dream experiences are different from perception, and similar to imagery, I suggest that the dreamer can experience reality but not presence, with three lines of argument, concerning visual determinacy, stereopsis and peripersonal localization.