Thanks for this post! You might be interested to read Eric Schwitzgebel’s “Dream Argument” against utilitarianism:
If hedonic theories of value are true, we have compelling moral and prudential reason to invest large amounts of resources to improving the quality of our dream lives. But we don’t have compelling moral or prudential reason to invest large amounts of resources to improving the quality of our dream lives. Therefore, hedonic theories of value are not true.
I was puzzled at the time by his second premise. I don’t know how tractable the issue is, but if our dream experiences can be significantly improved at low cost, then I would have thought that well worth doing.
I agree that it’s weird to discount experiences in dreams. I haven’t read that paper, but if we have genuine conscious preferences or pleasure or suffering in our dreams, then I imagine arguments that dreams don’t matter will prove too much:
If they don’t matter because we usually don’t remember them or they don’t really affect what happens after, then we don’t remember anything after we’re dead and life doesn’t really affect us after death, and so by a similar argument, what happens in our lives before death doesn’t matter, and nothing matters!
If they don’t matter in themselves because we’re not sufficiently reflective during them (but still assuming conscious experience), then nonhuman animals and certain humans are also not reflective enough to matter in themselves. Also, some extremely intense experiences, possibly torture or panic, may prevent reflection, but I wouldn’t be indifferent between them and unconsciousness, even setting indirect effects aside.
I also think the same way about infants’ experiences. I don’t remember anything from before around 3 or 4 years old, but that doesn’t mean my first 3 years of life didn’t matter to me at the time.
Maybe there are other important arguments I’ve missed, though. Maybe reflective preferences matter more in humans, but I would give intense suffering without reflection more weight.
(Of course, OP is also concerned with the effects of dreams on wakeful life.)
I also think the same way about infants’ experiences. I don’t remember anything from before around 3 or 4 years old, but that doesn’t mean my first 3 years of life didn’t matter to me at the time.
I agree with everything you said Michael. And this makes me think of the hernia operation that I can no longer remember. My mother told me that the doctor said he would give me some anesthetic. But I was still tied up by adhesive tapes and I was struggling violently during the operation, so much that the bruises on my limbs are still there after a week.
I really enjoyed the Schwitzgebel post, thanks. When he says “We don’t really care that much about our hedonic states in sleep” it reminded me of the TV show Severance.
In the show (minor spoilers) a group of people get a procedure so that their working self has no memory of their self when they are not at work, and vice versa. The selves that work are treated almost like slaves by the selves don’t work, even though it’s technically the same person.
It’s weird to imagine that there is one version of me that routinely goes through torturous experiences. Meanwhile, the awake version of me is mostly just like, “Meh, whatever, dream Drew has been bitten by poisonous snakes before, one more time won’t hurt him.”
For what it’s worth, I think Schwitzgebel’s premise makes more sense in the case of good dreams than bad dreams. In particular, it is intuitive to many people that positive fulfillment requires not just positive feelings, but also the appropriate grounding for these feelings—i.e. if your child died and someone gives you a shot that causes you to be thrilled about it, intuitively this is not good for you. On the other hand negative experiences don’t seem to have this same requirement, if your child is alive, and someone gives you a shot that makes you miserable about this, that is still bad for you even if it is not properly grounded in this same way.
In the case of dreams you could imagine a more direct connection, for instance if you improve your “dream life” that might mean giving yourself a sense of accomplishment you re-evaluate the overall quality of your life through, a sense of how well your life is going that is actually hollow and will either be forgotten, or cause regret on waking. Personally I’m not compelled by this very much either and think it actually would be a good thing to enhance one’s dreams to be even more positive, but if this is ultimately what is behind Schwitzgebel’s intuition, then it doesn’t undermine the case for reducing nightmares. I think it is actually pretty hard to come up with a compelling theory of value that would rule out the value of reducing nightmares.
For my own part I can’t relate very much because I rarely have nightmares and usually wake up from those I do have quickly, but I’m very sorry to hear the author does, and I can imagine this issue has gotten ignored for mostly very poor reasons. I’m excited to see more work done on it.
I’d be interested to here your views beyond suffering/pleasure on how the cognitive benefits could fit in here given that these could translate into useful abilities in waking life:
normal dreams are important for processing of experiences, memories, etc.
Thanks for this post! You might be interested to read Eric Schwitzgebel’s “Dream Argument” against utilitarianism:
I was puzzled at the time by his second premise. I don’t know how tractable the issue is, but if our dream experiences can be significantly improved at low cost, then I would have thought that well worth doing.
I agree that it’s weird to discount experiences in dreams. I haven’t read that paper, but if we have genuine conscious preferences or pleasure or suffering in our dreams, then I imagine arguments that dreams don’t matter will prove too much:
If they don’t matter because we usually don’t remember them or they don’t really affect what happens after, then we don’t remember anything after we’re dead and life doesn’t really affect us after death, and so by a similar argument, what happens in our lives before death doesn’t matter, and nothing matters!
If they don’t matter in themselves because we’re not sufficiently reflective during them (but still assuming conscious experience), then nonhuman animals and certain humans are also not reflective enough to matter in themselves. Also, some extremely intense experiences, possibly torture or panic, may prevent reflection, but I wouldn’t be indifferent between them and unconsciousness, even setting indirect effects aside.
I also think the same way about infants’ experiences. I don’t remember anything from before around 3 or 4 years old, but that doesn’t mean my first 3 years of life didn’t matter to me at the time.
Maybe there are other important arguments I’ve missed, though. Maybe reflective preferences matter more in humans, but I would give intense suffering without reflection more weight.
(Of course, OP is also concerned with the effects of dreams on wakeful life.)
I agree with everything you said Michael. And this makes me think of the hernia operation that I can no longer remember. My mother told me that the doctor said he would give me some anesthetic. But I was still tied up by adhesive tapes and I was struggling violently during the operation, so much that the bruises on my limbs are still there after a week.
I really enjoyed the Schwitzgebel post, thanks. When he says “We don’t really care that much about our hedonic states in sleep” it reminded me of the TV show Severance.
In the show (minor spoilers) a group of people get a procedure so that their working self has no memory of their self when they are not at work, and vice versa. The selves that work are treated almost like slaves by the selves don’t work, even though it’s technically the same person.
It’s weird to imagine that there is one version of me that routinely goes through torturous experiences. Meanwhile, the awake version of me is mostly just like, “Meh, whatever, dream Drew has been bitten by poisonous snakes before, one more time won’t hurt him.”
For what it’s worth, I think Schwitzgebel’s premise makes more sense in the case of good dreams than bad dreams. In particular, it is intuitive to many people that positive fulfillment requires not just positive feelings, but also the appropriate grounding for these feelings—i.e. if your child died and someone gives you a shot that causes you to be thrilled about it, intuitively this is not good for you. On the other hand negative experiences don’t seem to have this same requirement, if your child is alive, and someone gives you a shot that makes you miserable about this, that is still bad for you even if it is not properly grounded in this same way.
In the case of dreams you could imagine a more direct connection, for instance if you improve your “dream life” that might mean giving yourself a sense of accomplishment you re-evaluate the overall quality of your life through, a sense of how well your life is going that is actually hollow and will either be forgotten, or cause regret on waking. Personally I’m not compelled by this very much either and think it actually would be a good thing to enhance one’s dreams to be even more positive, but if this is ultimately what is behind Schwitzgebel’s intuition, then it doesn’t undermine the case for reducing nightmares. I think it is actually pretty hard to come up with a compelling theory of value that would rule out the value of reducing nightmares.
For my own part I can’t relate very much because I rarely have nightmares and usually wake up from those I do have quickly, but I’m very sorry to hear the author does, and I can imagine this issue has gotten ignored for mostly very poor reasons. I’m excited to see more work done on it.
I’d be interested to here your views beyond suffering/pleasure on how the cognitive benefits could fit in here given that these could translate into useful abilities in waking life:
normal dreams are important for processing of experiences, memories, etc.
some evidence that lucid dreaming can improve motor performance in real life (not sure how robust)
likewise I’d expect there to be creative utility to influence a world without physical limitations (not dissimilar to video games)