This paper shall examine the dream argument of Rene Descartes in the fifth paragraph of his “Meditations.” Descartes argument in this paragraph is built on his realization that sometimes dreams are utterly indistinguishable from waking life and that it might even be possible to convince one that he was still dreaming, thinking to himself that he was not. Descartes is beginning to examine what differentiates illusion from reality, the ephemeral from the substantive. This paper will detail the particulars and implications of such an argument.
