Butterfly Dream
"Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, 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 Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, 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. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things."
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The ‘Butterfly Dream’ is a famous philosophical parable from around 300 BC. It’s found in the second chapter of The Book of Chuang Tzu, a collection of stories, anecdotes, and parables centered around, and likely written by, the pivotal figure in Classical Philosophical Taoism.
This parable is pointing out the relationship between the waking state and the dream-state, or between illusion and reality. It highlights the following philosophical questions:
- How do we know when we’re dreaming, and when we’re awake?
- How do we know if what we’re perceiving is “real” or a mere “illusion” or “fantasy”?
- Is the “me” of various dream-characters the same as or different from the “me” of my waking world?
- How do I know, when I experience something I call “waking up,” that it is a waking up to “reality” as opposed to merely waking up into another level of dream?