ABSTRACT
THE main thesis of this monograph would appear to be refuted by the fact that very often there is continuity between the contents of one’s dreams and one’s emotions and sensations after awaking. A psychological study of childrens’ dreams found that one-half of the children in the study ‘were so disturbed by unpleasant dreams that they expressed a wish that they would never dream again’. Another investigation discovered that two-thirds of the subjects ‘had day-time worries about unpleasant night dreams’ (Ramsey, pp. 443-444). The difficulty for my thesis is the following: Suppose someone relates a dream in which, say, he was very frightened of horses. He shows a persisting fear of horses throughout the day and says it is the same feeling he had in his dream. Should we not take this testimony as establishing that he had a certain feeling when asleep in the same sense that he now has it when awake? If so, sleep can have a genuine ‘content of experience’. 1 Or consider this example:
