Aarhus University Seal

Are dream emotions fitting?

Talk by Melanie Rosen (Trent University, Canada)

Info about event

Time

Friday 10 June 2022,  at 12:30 - 14:30

Location

Aarhus University, Nobel 1467-616

Abstract
What should be said about emotions in dreams? Dream emotions have often been referred to as "irrational", "unfitting" or prone to "binding failure". Here, we argue that what we should say about the fit of dream emotions depends on what dreams are. Dream theorists have recently debated whether dreams should be classified as imagination or hallucination. Here we look into philosophical theory of emotional fit and draw on the philosophical and empirical literature on dreams in order to assess claims about unfitting dream emotions. Two approaches to dream emotions, essential unfittingness (similar to the paradox of fictional emotion) and specific fit are considered. We argue that dream emotions should not be considered as 'essentially unfitting' (or paradoxical), under either model, however, dreams would be classed as more specifically fitting under a hallucination rather than imagination model.