Morgsboi, you may be interested to know, assuming you don't already, the views of Socrates and Descartes on the subject of Dreams.

This goes off topic slightly from your original question, but considering my last post on this topic already went off on a tangent, I don't see any harm in doing it again.

Socrates believed in something called a 'Daemonion', which was essentially a divine inner voice which could only be accessed or heard within the dream state.
Thomas Aquinas later backed this up, but instead of simply a divine inner voice, he stated that it was the voice of God, but that we should not listen to it, as it may be the voice of a demon, attempting to trick you into sin.
Moving back to Socrates and i'm going to claw at scraps right now trying to fit this with the topic, perhaps the voice, which has, after centuries of scrutiny been reverted back down to human intuition is the only thing that stops the dream state from becoming our reality?

Moving swiftly onto Rene Descartes, author of the famous philosophical phrase, 'I think therefore I am', disagreed with Socrates and instead stated that empirically, it is impossible to differentiate between the dream state and reality.

This fits nicely with the theory that we could all be in a coma right now.
Without the voice or intuition guiding us, we would be aware and unaware at the same time if Descartes is correct.

I apologize if this is a little hard to understand, but you are intelligent and educated on the subject, so I doubt you will have any trouble.

Edit:

Why stop at 2?

German Philosopher 'Kant' suggested that there are two types of worlds, Noumenal world, how things actually were independent of our perceptions of them [dreams] and the Phenomenal world, how we perceive the world around us.
However, Kant also stated that there was no way to travel between the two.
But, there was an American Philosopher called William James, he was also a psychologist and he moved Kant's theory up a level, stating that when we were in a dream state it was reality because that's where our thoughts were.
This is an extension of the theory that nothing exists until you perceive it. His reasoning was that if you cannot perceive anything real while you are dreaming, then where are you?
You can't be nowhere, otherwise you would die, so he stated that a dream was the bodies way of providing somewhere to exist for the duration of time you are asleep.
What if, the first time you fall asleep, the body is unable to begin perceiving the phenomenal world again so you are stuck in the false reality that your mind has created for you.

Kant also suggested that if one were able to travel between the two worlds, that person would be gifted or given prophetic visions because the Phenomenal world would run parallel to, but not equal with the Noumenal world.
Perhaps Nostradamus and other prophets had the ability to switch back and forth between these worlds?

Great post, but there are a couple more you could mention, Theo.

Take for instance Avicenna. He believed that during sleep all souls would travel to a 'Supernal' world, as he called it. In this place, the soul would be separated from the body and harbored with all of the other souls, in order to prevent demonic possession.

How could you forget Al Ghazali?
He was the first to ever connect dreams with the possibility of higher reality or dimensions activated by entering or deactivated by exiting a dream state, as they demonstrate both the fallibility of reliance on sense perception.

I was considering adding Al-Ghazali, but his theory doesn't seem to fit with this topic.

I agree though, Al-Ghazali was very much a pioneer in the higher reality/dimension field.
You should post your opinion on the whole topic, much more qualified than most to speak on the subject and not just because of your name...

I suppose I can be swayed to the view that being in a coma may be better than being in what we would consider reality.

Then again, like Theo has said, if you were to become conscious within your dream state you would realize that nothing in the dream is real including people. You would realize you are talking to what would essentially be robots.

This is where it all comes down to the individual state of mind that a person has. If you enjoy and can stand having that knowledge, then yes, I guess it would be better. On the other hand, having that knowledge could make you feel isolated and alone, which drives most people insane.

So I agree, but I also disagree.