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Recently had a dream where I was in a situation I have never been before in "real life" - (no real experience prior to the dream of this situation).

After waking, all the feelings, thoughts, memories of what I did in the dream were still there, and could now do this activity through the skills and experience I learned in the dream.

Thus, what is the difference of experience gained from a dream versus a "real experience"?

Please note I am not asking: How does one know one is not dreaming? or how one knows one is or is not dreaming? This is irrelevant.

Put in everyday terms: Someone experienced a certain action of work in a dream and listed the experience on a resume - how can I deny it or say it is false - only by the definition of it being documented or effecting others?

QuietThud
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Greg McNulty
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    Seems pretty close to this -- http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/24/how-does-one-know-one-is-not-dreaming -- could you maybe develop this a bit further, maybe try to show what this question is asking that's not covered in the other one? – Joseph Weissman Oct 31 '12 at 00:34
  • @JosephWeissman: yes I saw that one but not the same, let me rework... – Greg McNulty Oct 31 '12 at 00:36
  • Presumably one difference is the impact you make on others – Xodarap Oct 31 '12 at 00:37
  • @Xodarap: so if I had the experience awake and no one was there to witness or effect, there is no difference? – Greg McNulty Oct 31 '12 at 00:40
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    See If a tree falls in a forest.... If you genuinely influenced the external world not at all (which seems impossible), it's hard to differentiate that from a dream. – Xodarap Oct 31 '12 at 00:44
  • @Xodarap: ok, great, I wasn't sure I could apply that philosophy here.... – Greg McNulty Oct 31 '12 at 00:48
  • Thanks so much for the revisions! Though it's still maybe a little unclear to me what you are asking after beyond the primary question about reality (whether we can know we are dreaming.) Is there any chance I might be able to get you to share a little more about the context and motivations behind your question? (What sort of answer are you expecting? What might you have found out so far? Is there anything in particular you might be reading or studying that has made this question urgent or important for you?) – Joseph Weissman Oct 31 '12 at 00:53
  • It's not really clear: Do you want to address differences in the phenomenological, subjective experience ("how does it feel like") or differences as studied in the domain of scientific inquiry of sensory experiences in wake-states and sleep-states? – DBK Oct 31 '12 at 01:07
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    After your revision, I am in doubt if you are concerned at all with experience proper or with "gaining experience" in the sense of acquiring skills. In the last sense it seems pretty clear that dreaming about playing basketball doesn't really affect your skills like actually playing basketball does. – DBK Oct 31 '12 at 01:39
  • @DBK: "dreaming about playing basketball doesn't really affect your skills" <-- how do you know that, can you back that up with anything? and what do you mean by "doesn't really" - please explain, perhaps with an answer to the question... – Greg McNulty Oct 31 '12 at 16:15
  • @DBK: "I am in doubt if you are concerned at all with experience proper or with "gaining experience" <-- I don't get what you mean, why do you doubt this? – Greg McNulty Oct 31 '12 at 16:16
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    If you aren't asking whether one can know whether one is dreaming or not, and we accept the commonly discerned distinctions between dream and the real, what you are asking about is related to the capacity of imagination. While you may have never literally been in the dreamed scenario before, all of the elements composing that scenario have been experienced by you, and so none of the elements in the dream are anything that wasn't already present in your memory before. You can imagine doing something while awake, perhaps with the exception of knowing that it is imaginary. – danielm Oct 31 '12 at 17:32
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    Now, I'm not sure what you mean when you say you gained experience doing whatever it is that you were doing. You are perfectly able to do things you've never done before without having done them before, otherwise you would never have been able to gain the experience of them in the first place. Perhaps mirror neurons may play a role here... – danielm Oct 31 '12 at 17:33
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    Formulated this way I don't see how this is a philosophical question. Aren't capabilities and aptitudes objects of other sciences, at least in this practical way? – iphigenie Oct 31 '12 at 20:12
  • @iphigenie: yes, but it was moved here from cognitive science SE. – Greg McNulty Oct 31 '12 at 23:32
  • @danielm: it sounds like you are on to what I am trying to ask here. Notice that if I tried to use my imagination while awake it would not be nearly the same experience as the dream. The dream quality was created WAY beyond my imagination capabilities while awake. – Greg McNulty Oct 31 '12 at 23:35

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There are papers in the philosophy of literature (I don't remember names and authors, I can look them up if this sounds interesting to you) that talk about literature as a tool for gaining ethical knowledge by "placing" oneself into novel situations. I believe there is a reference to mirror neurons, which are a mechanism for sympathy that works by forcing the brain to mirror someone else's emotions (as opposed to simulating them). There is also evidence in psychology that, say, practicing an instrument in one's sleep is a lot like real practice (once again, haven't read this stuff in a while but would be able to find it).

I think this question would do well being moved to the cognitive sciences SE. But as a quick answer, it appears that experiences in one's sleep (and thought-experiments, for that matter), can indeed be very useful. But, as was mentioned by @danielm above, the system one is working in at these times is no longer the world, but is rather one's imagination. This means one is bound to make mistakes where one's knowledge falls short, and won't necessarily notice that such mistakes were made, because there is neither physical reality nor other people to provide a natural "check".

This was Plato's problem with the arts, as presented in The Republic (see SEP on Plato's aesthetics): an artist imitates the truth as it appears to his or her imagination, and the unwitting public takes it as fact. There need not be an artist/audience separation; the same can be said of an individual undertaking a thought-experiment, or dreaming.

QuietThud
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