"Every thought I was having while awake I can also think of myself as sometimes having while asleep; and since I do not believe that what I seem to perceive in sleep comes from things located outside me, I did not see why I should be any more inclined to believe this of what I think I perceive while awake." (The Philosophical Writings of Descartes).
John Locke, an English philosopher who is considered the "Father of Classical Liberalism", hassles Rene Descartes argument by asking the presence of physical pain experienced in reality versus pain experienced within a dream. "I believe he [Descartes] will allow a very manifest difference between dreaming of being in the Fire, and being actually in it." (An Essay concerning Human Understanding). John Locke's claim is that we cannot have the same physical presence of pain in dreams as we seemingly have in real life. His claim, if proved true, could sabotage Descartes's argument by providing evidence that there is an indeed certain distinction between reality within waking life and dreams. .
Yet, Locke's assumption has seemed have been proved otherwise as science and technology advance. During a study in 1998, conducted by the Medical Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada titled, the Nature and Prevalence of Pain in Dreams, one hundred and eighty-five participants completed a series of questions while logging their dreams for two consecutive weeks and shocking results were brought to attention. Eighteen of the dreams recorded showed the presence of experiencing pain while three of the eighteen subjects were victims to "excruciating" symptoms. While John Locke's assertion is logical, the conclusion of the study in 1998 was as follows. "Cognitive systems that contribute to the representation of pain imagery are sometimes functional during dreaming.
