I guess I've always rejected idealism in all its forms, be it Berkeleyan, or transcendental or absolute.

Which means, I suppose, that I have always subscribed to some brand of realism, if one must fall into one of these two camps to some extent. — Brian

Just a comment on this, but realism and idealism are compatible. See objective idealism. Perhaps also phenomenalism.

If we're going down this line where altered states of consciousness (which dreaming is) is proof then why isn't being drunk vs being sober also evidence? There is an obvious phenomenal difference between the two. — JupiterJess

Sleep/Dreaming is not classified as an altered state of consciousness, because altered states are waking states which diverge from normal waking states. However, daydreaming may be classified as an ordinary fluctuation of normal waking states, hence; an altered state.

Schmidt, T.T.; Majic, Timoslav. (2016). Empirische Untersuchung Veränderter Bewusstseinszustände. Handbuch Psychoaktive Substanzen. Part of the series Springer Reference Psychologie pp 1-25.

Your question is certainly valid: if dreaming, why not altered states as proof of idealism?

I think dreams are evidence the waking experience is not [what] we think it is. I believe it is just a continuation of the same ontological sort but with the sensory inputs combined into it... if you focus on the between the waking moment or going into sleep you can actually feel the change first hand. — JupiterJess

Non-conscious mental activity (e.g., automatic thoughts, forgotten memories, etc.) may be continuous, occurring simultaneously with conscious and semi-conscious mind-body conditions.

Wakefulness is a conscious mind-body condition. Sleep (including dreaming episodes) is a semi-conscious mind-body condition.

Hypnagogia (wakefulness-sleep transition) occurs at the interface between conscious and semi-conscious mind-body conditions. Lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis and sleep walking occur during hypnagogia.

Daydreaming also occurs at the interface between conscious and semi-conscious mind-body conditions, where parallel (controlled and automatic) information processing occurs.

Christoff, Kalina; Alan M. Gordon; Jonathan Smallwood; Rachelle Smith; Jonathan W. Schooler (2009-05-11). Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/21/8719.full.pdf

...dreams are neither sufficient evidence nor arguments for the truth of 'idealism'...We could, of course, discuss the nature of dreams, whether they have anything to do with the nature of reality and so on... — jkop

I agree. While this discussion on dreams of various sorts is interesting, the OP is going nowhere without an argument or even just a proposition (i.e., a complete declarative sentence). "Dreams, as proof of [absolute] idealism" is an incomplete sentence, hence; incoherent.

The question though, is a question for the lucid dreamer who has control over the dream. How can one have control over what is happening in the dream, yet still believe that what is being seen in the dream is as real as what is seen in waking like? Wouldn't having control over it make it like a daydream? And in a daydream I know that what I am daydreaming is not real, because I have control over it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Lucid dreaming occurs during hypnagogia (when both conscious, controlled processing and semi-conscious, automatic processing occur). Your sense of control in a lucid dream is a function of controlled processing, and the dream is a function of automatic processing.

Just a comment on this, but realism and idealism are compatible. See objective idealism. Perhaps also phenomenalism. — Michael

Interesting. I'll have to read up on this.

What do you mean by "parallel to waking experience"? Daydreaming occurs while one is awake, it is an awake experience — Metaphysician Undercover

Waking experience=perceptual experience of the external world.

OK, so planning, thinking, conceptualizing, contemplation, and things like this are not waking experience, because they are not perceptual experience. I assume that they are "parallel to waking experience", like daydreaming. Is this what you mean by "parallel to waking experience", activity of the awake mind, which is not involved in perceptual experience?

OK, so planning, thinking, conceptualizing, contemplation, and things like this are not waking experience, because they are not perceptual experience. I assume that they are "parallel to waking experience", like daydreaming. Is this what you mean by "parallel to waking experience", activity of the awake mind, which is not involved in perceptual experience? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes.

I've always had trouble pinning down precisely what absolute idealism IS so I would love to hear your thoughts on this. — Brian

The metaphysics that I propose, in the Metaphysics & Epistemology forum, in the "A Uniquely Parsimonious and Skeptical Metaphysics" discussion-thread, is a pure Idealism metaphysics.

Michael Ossipoff

What it's particularly interesting about dreams is that the mind switches from a state of qualitatively perceived space and a psychologically felt time (duration) into a state of internal images which have a completely different sense of space and duration.

This might be understood from a holographic model of reality (when awake) where the mind via the brain is acting as a reconstruction wave generator illuminating the image "out there" (not in the brain) in a shared holographic universe. In a dream state, the mind used a different reference wave turns toward personal memory (also existing in an external holographic form) and reconstructs images based upon internal memory possibly to solve some problem or to visit a different form of existence.

I would speculate that the dream state is very close to what it may seem like after death. This is similar to Hamlet's speculation about death.

I would speculate that the dream state is very close to what it may seem like after death.. — Rich

Conceivably relatively soon after death.

But, of course, before long, there can't any longer be that much detail in the person's perception or experience.

At the eventual end of life, there'll be no time; no events;no perception of anything to overcome, improve or protect;.no identity, no concern,

That much shouldn't draw any disagreement, even from an Atheist Physicalist.

Whether the end of life occurs at the end of every particular life is a matter on which people disagree, and a matter, maybe off-topic here, that we needn't get into here.

That's another topic, maybe argued in a different discussion-thread somewhere at this forum..

This is similar to Hamlet's speculation about death.

...if Hamlet's words are interpreted very broadly.

It seems to me that the dream metaphor isn't close enough to be very helpful as an explanation or prediction.

Reported near-deat experiences (NDEs) are very similar to eachother, unlike the very diverse nature of dreams.

And, please, another issue we needn't get into is the matter of whether NDEs are "real".

As I've said elsewhere, the word "Real" isn't even metaphysically-defined.

And I remind you that life, itself, the body of every living-thing, including humans, is chemical.

Therefore every experience, of every person and other animal, has an ultimately chemical basis. So let's not quibble about what experience is "real".

Michael Ossipoff

Conceivably relatively soon after death.

But, of course, before long, there can't any longer be that much detail in the person's perception or experience. — Michael Ossipoff

This depends upon one's concept of the mind, which I perceive as memory embedded in a holographic universe. The brain within this access scenario is just acting as a reference/reconstruction generator of external memory (what is out there). What is perceived as private memory still exists, possibly as a personal dreamlike condition not dependent upon a brain.

As for Hamlet, the soliloquy refers to another type of state of being which he analogizes sleep, death, and dreams where the fear of what we may dream in sleep it's what keeps us going in life. A rather interesting point v of view which dovetails my own speculations about the nature of dreams.

To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
Read more at http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_001.html#EYFeVJLzEaboUmLM.99

Rich--

Dinnertime now, so my reply will be tomorrow morning.

Michael Ossipoff

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I had an hilarious dream last night, where I was in a service station and wanted to buy a can of Coke Zero. I looked around and noticed that things were in a bit of disarray, like they were moving out, or something. I asked the guy behind the counter if I could buy a can of Coke, he said, 'sure, only four million bucks'. I said (jokingly) 'that's a pity, I only have $3,750,000 on me.' He said 'I'll take it!' We both laughed, and I gave him four bucks in 50 cent coins. He directed me to a fridge, but I couldn't actually find a can of Coke Zero - every time I saw one and tried to put my hand on it, it turned out to be something else.

(Although I hasten to add, there's no way I would regard that as 'proof of absolute idealism'.)

Coke Zero living up to its name, hahaaaaaa, *slaps knee.*

Rich—
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I’d said:
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Conceivably relatively soon after death.
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But, of course, before long, there can't any longer be that much detail in the person's perception or experience.

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— Michael Ossipoff
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You reply:
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This depends upon one's concept of the mind, which I perceive as memory embedded in a holographic universe. The brain within this access scenario is just acting as a reference/reconstruction generator of external memory (what is out there). What is perceived as private memory still exists, possibly as a personal dreamlike condition not dependent upon a brain.

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I’ll return to the last sentence later in this post, but, for now, regarding the above paragraph’s position in general:
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That isn't parsimonious. If you’ve seen my initial post at my discussion-thread (A Uniquely Parsimonious and Skeptical Metaphysics", at the Metaphysics & Epistemology forum), you know that I emphasize Ockham’s Principle of Parsimony for comparing metaphysicses and metaphysical statements. Minimize, or, better yet, completely avoid unnecessary or unjustified assumptions and brute-facts..
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It’s agreed by all that, for each person, there’s a body. That’s what there’s undeniable evidence for. There’s really no evidence that we are anything other than our body. Any unsupported assumption is a violation of the Principle of Parsimony…a negative point in any comparison of metaphysicses.
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The holographic universe memory-repository is an unnecessary assumption, and a comparison disadvantage, for a comparison with a metaphysics that doesn’t need any assumptions.
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And you’d be asked to explain why there’s that holographic universe memory-repository. Otherwise, you’re positing it as a brute-fact.
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My proposed metaphysics completely avoids assumptions and brute-facts.
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Now, more about that paragraph’s last sentence:
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I’ll re-copy it here:
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What is perceived as private memory still exists, possibly as a personal dreamlike condition not dependent upon a brain.

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Yes, I’m not saying that everything ends at death, or that nothing lasts after death.
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Sure, that statement seems at-odds with my claim that you’re the body, and only that. So let me explain:
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Some things can be agreed-on by advocates of very different metaphysicses, and such a thing is what I’ve started with, in my previous post to this thread. I said that it should be agreeable, even by an Atheists Physicalist.
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I said that, at the end of life, before long, there’s no longer anything as elaborate as dreams. For that person, there’s no time, events, identity, concern, lack, incompletion, need, or worry—or any memory that there ever were such things, or that there’s was, or could be such a thing as, existence as a body.
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That seems an uncontroversial statement, agreeable to most everyone, from Vedantists to Physicalists.
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Timelessness is being approached and seen, if not already arrived at.
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Of course the body is about to shut down, but the person doesn’t know that there ever was one anyway. The person is arriving, or has already arrived, at timelessness, and knows only its peace, completeness, and absence of concern and lack.
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Michael Ossipoff

It’s agreed by all that, for each person, there’s a body. That’s what there’s undeniable evidence for. There’s really no evidence that we are anything other than our body. — Michael Ossipoff

Best current evidence is that everything is composed of quanta (non-material) and there is no reason to suppose that mind/body is anything but a continuum. This is about as simple as it can get. In addition, all current evidence is that information (memory) is never lost so they is no reason to supposed so. The simplest model for a universe is a holographic model which avoids the gymnastics of everything magically springing from a brain and genes and magically disappearing upon death.

Dependency on the body is only simple if one embraces the body as the Creator of all things which gets us into the realm of religion.