A Dubious Twilight

Reflections on Dreams in Patristic Literature

Bibliographic Data

ID3841697
AuthorsPatricia Cox Miller (Syracuse University, corresponding author)
Year1986
Volume55
Issue2
Pages153-164
Publication date1986-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueChurch History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3167417
OpenAlexW2163171476
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited11

As Wendy O'Flaherty has argued persuasively in her recent book,Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities, it is possible to falsify the hypothesis that one is dreaming-by waking up; but it is not possible to verify that one is awake by falling asleep. The thought that one cannot verify the fact that one is awake but only only falsify the fact that one is asleep (by waking up) delivers something of a jolt to Western "common sense," which typically takes for granted the distinctness of such categories as "real" and "unreal,""conscious" and "unconscious,""dream" and "waking life." Yet, as O'Flaherty points out, we know that we cannot see ourselves seeing an illusion, just as we cannot verify the "reality" of ourselves in the moment when we are engaged in testing our reality

Aesthetics · Cognitive psychology · Dream · Epistemology · Falling (accident) · Illusion · Nothing · Psychoanalysis · Twilight · Unconscious mind · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · History · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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