Imagination and belief in dreams
Episteme September 18, 2025 Manhal Hamdo
Dream skepticism—the worry that we cannot know we are not dreaming—arises not from the content of dreams but from their immersive, belief-like quality. This paper examines three conceptions of imagination (propositional, processual, and imagistic) and argues that only the imagistic kind captures the vivid, involuntary nature of dream experience. Propositional and inferential models fail because dreams simulate the phenomenology of belief without involving actual belief formation. Interpreting dream skepticism through imagistic imagination shows why the dream scenario remains epistemically troubling despite attempts to explain it away.