I had the strangest dream last night about a family of ducks walking into a bar...
Wake up! It's time for this week's thought experiment.
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Lucy was having the most awful nightmare. She was dreaming that wolf-like monsters had burst through the windows in her bedroom while she was asleep and then started to tear her apart. She fought and screamed but she could feel their claws and teeth tear into her.
Then she awoke, sweating and breathing heavily. She looked around her bedroom, just to be sure, and let out a sigh of relief that it had all, indeed, been a dream.
Then, with a heart-stopping crash, monsters burst through her window and started to attack her, just as in her dream. The terror was magnified by the remembrance of the nightmare she had endured. Her screams were mixed with sobs as she felt the helplessness of her situation.
Then she awoke, sweating even more, breathing even faster. This was absurd. She had dreamed within a dream, and so the first time she had apparently woken up she was in fact still in her dream. She looked around her room again. The windows were intact, there were no monsters. But how could she be sure she had really woken up this time? She waited, terrified, for time to tell.
Sources: The first meditation from Meditations by René Descartes (1641); An American Werewolf in London, directed by John Landis (1981)
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 82.
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Zzzzzzzzz......
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Lucy was having the most awful nightmare. She was dreaming that wolf-like monsters had burst through the windows in her bedroom while she was asleep and then started to tear her apart. She fought and screamed but she could feel their claws and teeth tear into her.
Then she awoke, sweating and breathing heavily. She looked around her bedroom, just to be sure, and let out a sigh of relief that it had all, indeed, been a dream.
Then, with a heart-stopping crash, monsters burst through her window and started to attack her, just as in her dream. The terror was magnified by the remembrance of the nightmare she had endured. Her screams were mixed with sobs as she felt the helplessness of her situation.
Then she awoke, sweating even more, breathing even faster. This was absurd. She had dreamed within a dream, and so the first time she had apparently woken up she was in fact still in her dream. She looked around her room again. The windows were intact, there were no monsters. But how could she be sure she had really woken up this time? She waited, terrified, for time to tell.
Sources: The first meditation from Meditations by René Descartes (1641); An American Werewolf in London, directed by John Landis (1981)
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 82.
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Zzzzzzzzz......
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