Imagination and belief in dreams

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.

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Abstract

Abstract Imagination plays various epistemic roles but can it help us address dream skepticism? This paper explores different conceptions of imagination – propositional, processual, and imagistic – and examines their relevance to the Cartesian dream argument. I distinguish between the phenomenology of dreaming and its epistemological threat, arguing that dream skepticism arises not from the content of dreams, but from the immersive, belief-like quality of dream experience. While some models treat dreaming as propositional or inferential, I argue that these fail to capture the distinctive imagistic nature of dream experience. This kind of imagination, vivid and involuntary, simulates the phenomenology of belief without involving actual belief formation. By interpreting dream skepticism through the lens of imagistic imagination, we gain a better understanding of why the dream scenario remains epistemically troubling – despite attempts to explain it away through propositional or inferential models.