imo, the answer is that you can not know what the true nature of your perceptions are. descartes resolution to his meditation is a fallacy, imo. the 'great deciever' concept is a possiblity, and as such, one can not know what the relationship between perception and any objective reality is.

a type of epistemic faith is required; a person must at some level just believe that he is alive/awake/etc.

in order to get beyond this, i think we'd need some sort of metaphysical machinery (conceptual or otherwise). naturally, that's are hard to come by, and i haven't yet encountered a satisfying metaphysical solution. however, i haven't looked that hard.. it's not something i worry about much.



if you allow a soul to exist (i.e., a metaphysical seat of personal identity), there may be a simple solution, because death need not be an end to, nor necessarily a break in the stream of conscious experience.