Experience, Dreaming, and the Phenomenology of Wakeful Consciousness
Oxford Scholarship Online June 21, 2018 Thomas Crowther 10 citations
Wakeful consciousness contributes something distinctive to the stream of consciousness that is absent during non-wakeful states like dreaming. Assuming dreaming is a form of perceptual imagination, the chapter contrasts perceptual imagination when awake with that during dreaming sleep. Drawing on Brian O'Shaughnessy's ideas, it suggests that what is missing in dreaming is intentional mental action accompanied by non-inferential self-awareness. After critiquing O'Shaughnessy, the chapter proposes a 'Capacitation Thesis': wakefulness is a state of being capacitated with respect to relevant capacities. Dream imagination is then examined in light of this thesis.