Direct Realism about Remembering Dreams

Abstract: I present a direct realist, representationalist account of perception and episodic memory. Perception represents objects and events in the present. The perceiving subject does not experience a representation or an experience, but what is represented in the experience itself: the object or event. Perception thus makes perceiving subjects directly aware of objects and events: perception is a kind of awareness or acquaintance (A-relations). Episodic memory represents objects and events from the personal past of the remembering subject. Again, the remembering subject does not experience a representation or an experience, but what is represented in the memorial experience itself: the object or event in the personal past of the remembering subject.

I extend this account to dreams, and remembering dreams. I argue that when we dream, it seems to us that the world is a certain way. However, in most cases, the contents of dreams are unsatisfied. In such cases our experience fails make us aware of events. It fails to establish A-relations with the events represented in the dream. Though dreams are experiences, they cannot be the basis for a memory in which we are aware of the events represented in the dream.

One consequence of this view is that memories of dreams are not, strictly speaking, episodic memories. They are memorial experiences, but not memories. Another consequence is that when you remember the events about which you dreamed, you are not remembering events in your personal past — you are not remembering events that happened to you. This is an important anti-individualist result. Your personal past is not a solipsistic past. Your personal past is part of a world, a world of physical objects, events, and other persons.

Finally, I consider dreams of events that did happen, and happened to you. Do such dreams make us aware of the events represented in your initial perceptual experience? I argue that this question is a category mistake. Dreams are not memories. They aren’t even memorial experiences. But what about the memory of such dreams? The dream may not establish A-relations with the events represented in the dream, but does the memory of the dream do so? I argue that this possibility should be treated the same way as the standard case: your memorial experience is not, strictly speaking, an episodic memory. And the past represented in your memorial experience is not, strictly speaking, your personal past. That happens in the world.