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Often when I’m dreaming I “feel” that I’m awake. When I’m awake, however, I always “feel” that I’m awake and have no conscious doubt (except in the philosophical sense) that I’m not dreaming.
But logically when I “feel” awake I should believe there is a non-trivial chance that I’m dreaming. This has implications for how I should behave.
For example, imagine I’m considering eating spinach or chocolate. I like the taste of chocolate more than spinach, but recognize that spinach is healthier for me. Let’s say that if the probability of my being awake were greater than 99% then to maximize the expected overall quality of my life I should eat the spinach otherwise I should pick the chocolate.
Rationally, I should probably figure that the chance of my being awake is less than 99% so I should go with the chocolate. Yet like most other humans I don’t take into account that I might be dreaming when I “feel” awake.
Over the long run you would likely reduce your inclusive genetic fitness if when you “feel” awake you act as if there is a less than 100% chance of your actually being awake. For this reason I suspect we are “genetically programmed” to never doubt that we are awake when we “feel” awake even though it would be rational to hold such a doubt.
Are you dreaming?
These are all interesting experiences, but we have to take into account that not al people experience dreams and waking reality as most. I, myself, find it very hard to distinguish between dreams and wake reality; philosophically speaking, there is no difference. My memories of dreams present themselves the same as 'actual' memories. And so, for myself, i can never 100% guarantee that I am awake right now.
I ALWAYS dream in first person. I have NEVER experienced lucid dreams, or that realisation that I am dreaming, when dreaming. The 'pinch test' doesn't work for two reasons: 1, I am not in control of my dreams, so I cannot decide to test myself. 2, If I experience pain in a dream, it is experienced the exactly the same as being awake. Pain being a mental event (philosophically termed 'mental event', despite whether mental events exist, to which I believe they do), if experienced in dreams, how then can one distinguish it from the experience of pain in waking reality?
I realise that I am quite unique in the topic of dream experience. I know this from philosophical classes, and discussions with friends. And I may be alone with how I experience dreams, but this IS how I experience them; and so long as there is one variable, there cannot be a unified theory/concept/thought.
Other than 'in waking reality' I go to bed and rise from bed, I have NO way to distinguish dreams from reality. It's a very weird, scary, exciting, and philosophically interesting experience.
I assign higher utility to eating spinach when I'm dreaming, completely independently of any doubt of my awake status.
I do not consider instant gratification to be beneficial inside of dreams. In fact, if anything I would prefer my dreaming self to be more self controlled than my waking self. I would thereby benefit from reinforcing and processing the outcomes of rational behaviors without some of the associated stress.
I reject the implicit assumption that we should want to submit to instant gratification in our dreams. I accept your conclusion. I acknowledge that there is likely a good reason for evolution to have made it difficult for us to be aware that we are dreaming. I wouldn't trust people with that sort of information either. At least, not until they were able to rationally explain the purpose of dreams and demonstrate that they can use that knowledge to effectively achieve reproductive goals.