Descartes and the Journey Into Dreams and Reality

In Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy and more specifically in his first meditation, the eternal question of what is real is explored and dissected to the point of asking whether our own senses can be trusted in this search for truth. In this first meditation, the nature of dreams and its role in the search for reality is explored. Descartes believes neither dreams nor what we call reality can be trusted and distinguished as he writes " I see so plainly that there are no definite signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep"(14). I believe that dreams and its role in our lives is not sufficiently explored on a metaphysical level and also its role on a day to day basis. It is interesting to observe the connection between Aristotle and Descartes in the sense of what is real. Aristotle wouldn't view a hand as something that might not exist but something that truly exists as a differentia. The hand is connected to a person, who would be the primary substance and Aristotle believes the primary substance to be what is real and which all nature stems from. Descartes asks the question of how do we know the primary substance actually exists and how do we know the nature of something if it truly might not exist at all? Most people have such lucid dreams that seem so real and when just awaking it seems hard to distinguish between the real world and the dream world. In a movie called Inception, there was a character, who entered the dream world often and needed a physical object, an anchor, to let him distinguish between the dream world and the real world and let him know whether he is still dreaming. It would be interesting to know what Descartes thought of this idea and even more interesting if future technology would let us to be able to examine our own dreams on a deeper level. If this was possible, would Descartes still question the distinction between dreams and reality. Has technology let us to be able to view our beings and consciences in a more objective fashion such as viewing our own selves on television. Or does this make no difference? Can viewing ourselves in any fashion, television or otherwise. still be a subjective manifestation of our imagination? It seems these questions are eternal and might possibly never be answered because even forming these questions and thinking about them, might not actually be happening according to Descartes because reality and imagination might never be distinguished. At the end of the first meditation, Descartes seems to favor the notion of "ignorance is bliss" because living in the dream world seems more peaceful than having to fight the notions of what is real and what is not real on a day to day basis. The question of whether we would choose a particular dream and live in it forever or have to battle the day to day questioning of what is real seems to depend on how much time we spend towards metaphysical examination on a day to to day basis and how much it means to us as humans.