Morality and Lucidity

Listening to the song Rebellion (Lies), by the Arcade Fire today, I heard the lyric, "Come on baby in our dreams, we can live our misbehaviors." This got me thinking about a dream-related question that I've considered many times.

Can we be held morally responsible for what occurs while we dream?

As usual, the question digs deeper than I expect on first glance. Many moral systems hold that, as individuals, we are responsible for our actions in waking life. Such moral systems, by consistency, should also hold that we have free will, as it seems ridiculous to hold a person responsible for something which they have no control.

Within these same moral systems, the above question is really equivalent to the epistemological question; do we have free will whilst dreaming? If the answer is yes, then we must also transfer responsibility for actions to the dream world. If the answer is no, then we should not make such an extension. In the case of lucidity, it seems clear that if we have free will in waking life, we should have free will (perhaps even greater will, to seemingly bend the laws of nature) while dreaming lucidly. The case of non-lucid dreams is much more difficult to unravel.

This is not the end of discussion, however, as establishing moral responsibility does not imply the moral laws for the waking life and the dream life are the same. This is a question which must be answered by the supporters of individual moral systems, but I think it boils down to a few key points, some moral, some epistemological.

1. Is moral reprehensibility dependent upon the action, the result, or both? The U.S. courts distinguish between these cases often, such as with murder, attempted murder, reckless endangerment, etc.

2. Is thought of an action as reprehensible as performing an action? I'm reminded of a passage in the Bible which states (paraphrasing), if you think of lusting with your eyes, gouge out those eyes so that you may sin no more. This, of course, leads to an epistemological question:

3. Is thought of an action the same as dreaming of performing an action, or dreaming of thinking about the action? It would seem that answers here would depend upon lucidity and free will.

4. As suggested in the Arcade Fire song, can we use the dream world as a place to live out our misbehaviors, to prevent our waking selves from indulging in these sins? Would that be morally good, in that we are preventing ourselves from committing evil?

5. Are the consequences of actions occurring in the waking life as important as consequences of actions occurring in dreams? This is related to my thoughts last time, about how real/not real the dream world is.

Obviously, I don't know of any concrete answers to these questions, and there may not be any, but the certainly must be answered, at least personally, before we can answer my initial inquiry.