Rene Descartes Quotes

Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream

No man can prove upon awakening that he is the man who he thinks went to bed the night before, or that anything that he recollects is anything other than a convincing dream.

Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this 'reality' as you view your dreams.

Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.

If your eyes weren't open, you wouldn't know the difference between dreaming and waking.

The world doesn't just disappear when you close your eyes, does it?

I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not.

I recognise a distinction between dream life and real life, between appearances and actualities. I confess to an over-powering desire to know whether I am asleep or awake--whether the environment and laws which affect me are external and permanent, or the transitory products of my own brain.

Is a dream reality till you wake up?

It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for human beings. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.

They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?

During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream.

From birth to death man is a long sleep, sometimes dreaming with eyes closed, sometimes dreaming with eyes open, but dreaming all the same, all the time.

"Well, it's no use your talking about waking him," said Tweedledum, "when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're not real."

I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not. I am, however, quite certain that I am having certain experiences, whether they be those of a dream or those of waking life.

Whenever someone tells me he dreamed, I wonder if he realizes that he has never done anything but dream.

As for all I can tell, the only difference is that what many see we call a real thing, and what only one sees we call a dream.

Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

Much of our waking experience is but a dream in the daylight.

If this be to have sense, if to be awake Be but to see this bright, great sleep of things, For the rarer potion mine own dreams I'll take And for truth commune with imaginings

We always know when we are awake that we cannot be dreaming even though when actually dreaming we feel all this may be real.

Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.

We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.

The mind was dreaming. The world was its dream.

The world consists of images on a screen, and consciousness is the steady light that emanates from the projector.