Reflections from a Dry Bed

I woke from a dream at a quarter to two this morning. In that dream I was lying on my stomach on some type of plastic contraption with a hole cut out near my groin. It was apparently the world’s most elaborate—and comfortable, I’d add—urinal, for I was relieving my bladder abundantly for what seemed like two solid minutes. A friend of mine, for whatever reason, was monitoring my progress. I woke to find myself lying face down on my bed, my arms up near my head, assuming an identical position to what I held in my dream. My arms, as they are wont to do in that position, felt largely numb, and I sat up in order to let the sensation flow back into them. And of course, I became aware of a strong urge to go to the bathroom.

I mention this ridiculous dream because I realized then that had I dreamt that dream as a small child, I would likely have awoken to a wet bed as opposed to the dry one I found in the wee hours of this morning. But, having dreamt it as an adult, I woke to reality, shuffled off to the bathroom, and came back to bed for more visits to dreamland.

It made me think about how we recognize reality for what it is. What was it around me when I woke to tell me that I was no longer in a dream, that I would not shuffle off to an unreal bathroom and wake up from that dream soaked and bemused? The shortest and simplest answer I can give is that I don’t know.

This thought doesn’t originate with me. I remember reading essays on the perception of reality in my philosophy classes back in college, one of which posed the question, here loosely paraphrased: “If we were merely brains floating in a nutrient solution, with all our sensory information fed to us through wires, could we tell?” Of course, this issue was also touched upon to great box-office success in the Matrix films, and a new spurt of philosophy books emerged to capitalize on the attention.

Whatever has been written about the issue, it remains unresolved. (I issue this pronouncement having read little of any recent philosophical treatments of this particular subject, haphazardly wielding my unsanctioned gavel.) It is not purely sensory information that tells us when we are awake, since I have had many convincing dreams that have employed all five senses in all their glory. Dreams of mine have even employed metacognition, and I have spent time in dreamland thinking about how I was thinking about something.

For sure, there is a certain suspension of disbelief in dreams, and we happily accept some outlandish situations and disruptions in continuity and logic. Most of that we forget once we are awake, but we can catch a glimpse of it as we fall asleep or remain in the twilight immediately after waking. As we start to experience hypnagogic imagery, we start to lose the linear, logical flow in our thoughts, and disparate images begin to seem connected in ways that would confound our waking selves. But is it merely the logical framework to our waking thoughts that distinguishes reality from dreams?

I sometimes think about this issue in another way: When we experience physical sensation, it is because a nerve has been stimulated somewhere in the body and it sends a signal to the brain for interpretation. The actual sensation we feel is in the brain, and if anything acts to disrupt the connection between the nerve and the brain, no sensation will be felt (except in the eerie case of phantom limb syndrome, wherein sensation—often itching—will be registered in the brain for a limb that has been amputated). In other words, we are used to feeling things happening in one place, despite the actual feeling taking place somewhere else. I have often wondered whether the reality I feel as here and now is really being felt somewhere else, somewhere far removed from what seems so familiar.

I don’t know.

I’ll leave you with that thought as I await the weekend from my desk . . . or perhaps from my comfy, nutrient-rich jar, sitting on a shelf somewhere far, far away.