Thursday, June 18, 2009

Avowing Dream Skepticism in a Dream

Last night I dreamt I was giving a talk -- a talk I am due to give next week in Australia. The talk wasn't going so well, and I suggested to the audience that maybe, just maybe, I was actually dreaming giving the talk. My evidence was that I remembered having planned to polish things up in the remaining few days before the talk but now I couldn't remember those days having occurred.

Alex Byrne, in the back of the room, looked highly skeptical and a bit dyspeptic. Dave Chalmers looked mildly amused. Dan Dennett stood up and said, "I very much doubt that you are dreaming, but I agree that your talk is nightmarishly bad."

Of course, it turns out that I was right and they were wrong. So there!

3 comments:

Joel Bass said...

Hilarious. Thanks for sharing this. (And you nailed Dennett's voice, by the way!)

sapience said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Eric Schwitzgebel said...

Shelly/sapience, if you want to repost your comment without the link, it would be welcome.