Imagination and Dreaming
We have seen that Aristotle’s philosophy had both rational and empirical components. For exam- ple, his account of memory and recall was very empirical, and we see that again in his explana- tion of imagination and dreaming. According to Ar istotle, when sensations occur, they cre- ate images that long outlast the stimulation that caused them. The retention of these images is what constitutes memory. These images also create the important link between sensation and ratio- nal thought because it is the images provided by experience that are pondered by the passive and active intellects. Imagination, then, is explained as the lingering effects of sensory experience. Aris- totle did question the reliability of the products of imagination. Sensations, he said, tend to be free of error because of the close relationship between objects of sense and the sense organs. Because imagination is removed from this relationship, it is much more susceptible to error.
Aristotle also explained dreaming in terms of the images of past experience. During sleep, the images of past experience may be stimulated by events inside or outside the body. The reasons that our residual impressions (images) may seem odd during a dream are that (1) during sleep, the images are not organized by reason and (2) while awake, our images are coordinated with or controlled by ongoing sensory stimulation, which interacts with the images of previous experience, but during sleep this does not occur.
