Since there is no way of knowing if I am dreaming or not, how can I know if I am actually awake right now?

Question

How can I objectively find out if I am dreaming or not?

exempt.. or whatever. that's pretty funny.

Answer 1

O, great question, this question is good!!! Well, you can't really figure it all out. If you think too much on this, you would think that the world is like in your dream and stuff and it becomes all weird. What I am trying to say is. You can always do the pinch your arm thing. Or even go ask a girl you don't know out. If she accepts, your dreaming :D! If not, then your in reality!!

Answer 2

Well, for starters your question is flawed, you answered it the only way you are going to believe it. When you say, "since there is no way..." you have accepted that you cannot know no matter what I say, therefore you personally cannot objectively know. However I'm going to try and give you an interesting hint.

Get in the habit of looking at an object that you pickup repeatedly, especially if it has pictures or words. If you are dreaming, since your brain doesn't have the "RAM" to remember what the words say, the wording on the object will usually change after a few times of looking at it. I say to do it in your real life b/c your habits, if conscious, may carry over into your dreaming life.

Up until about the Romans it was accepted that anything that affected you emotionally, was something that really happens. Therefore there was no distinction between a real experience, a hallucination, or a dream. This is called Mythopoic thinking. Kind of weird to think about.

Answer 3

The dream state, is not dependent to the state of awake or asleep! However, your assumption, of dreaming, you are awake, could be a dream, and therefore proves the idea, that the state of awake or asleep has nothing to do with dreaming1 The correct number of parts to this comparison , at its optimum, is four part harmony!

First dream you are awake, in daylight, and second dream you are awake in night, now go to sleep, and dream, it is daylight in the late afternoon, wherein it is still daylight, and then allow night to come into your dream! You will notice, there is no diference, and when you awaken the next morning you will still be dreaming, and your memory will be of the daylight, in the original experiment! I do this all the time! I have not stopped dreaming for many years! I dream about watching black and white television in the dark, and color television, in the daylight!

I have more than 3/4 million black and white images, on a slide show, on my computer, which i run often! I have never gotten through it!

Answer 4

This is an age-old argument debated by many philosophers. I believe it was Zhuangzi who brought up the case most appropriately; he dreamed one night that he was a butterfly, and when he awoke, he found himself wondering if he was a man who just dreamt of being a buttefly, or if he was a butterfly currently dreaming he was a man.

We know we're awake (at least we think we know) because everything in this life is continuous. If we were to fall asleep and dream, we'd dream of different things. Yet we always return to this life. However, we could just be wandering souls with the same dream that we return to after trips to other worlds. It's unknown what really is.

All I can tell you is, if you live life happily like it was your best dream, this question would disappear because you would no longer care as long as you were happy. Sure, you'll probably think of it again, but with a mindset like this, you won't worry about it too long.

Answer 5

This question, which of course is impossible to answer, has been a recurrent theme in literature throughout the centuries. The earliest example I know of is the Nahuatl poet Nezahualcoyotl.

In these literary works, often the person who is awake but thinks he is dreaming can accomplish incredible feats, just because he thinks that it isn't real and so anything he can imagine is possible.

Answer 6

Well I know I'm not dreaming and I'm certainly not inside your dream, so you can take my word for it. The problem with that, of course, is that you may still think that you dreamt this answer. Best way is just to get on with things and it will sort itself out eventually. Just don't do anything too stupid because you may have to live with it if it turns out you're not dreaming.

Answer 7

You assume that being awake is an on/off state. Since you probably know that there are different levels of sleep, is it such a stretch to imagine that there are continuous levels between sleep and extreme consciousness? It is only a matter of how awake/asleep you are. So don't worry, you are definitely asleep. If you are driving however, try waking up.

Answer 8

Well, dreaming is a function of the left brain. Reading is a function of the right. One cannot read or write much in dreams. Ergo... if you're writing that question and/or reading the answers - you're AWAKE!

Answer 9

Does it matter? Because if you're dreaming but it's so like real life then you may as well go on living the dream life and THEN live the real life. But who knows - the life that we call 'dreaming' could in fact be our 'real' life and vice versa. Oh god I've gone and got myself all confuzzled now =S

Answer 10

See what you do is you ask this question on a site like answers.yahoo.com. Then when you get an answer telling you to go onto answers.yahoo.com and the answer is a looping continuing idiocy, you realize that you are dreaming because no person in reality is that stupid.