The first is scientific, that all these studies really do prove that animals dream. Paul Rand: There are two arguments Peña-Guzmán makes. In many ways, the book is me trying to situate myself at the heart of that absence and asking, “Why is it missing?” and making the argument that that absence needs to be filled out. It might be symptomatic of an attempt to avoid an issue. Paul Rand: The scientific community has been so agnostic on this that until 2020, almost no study of sleeping animals in the whole literature use the word dream.ĭavid Peña-Guzmán: I told myself, “There’s no way that there are literally thousands and thousands of publications on the sleep of so many different species, and yet virtually none of them in the 20th century mention the word dream, dreams, or dreaming.” So you don’t find the verb, you don’t find the noun, you don’t find the gerund.ĭavid Peña-Guzmán: As I began digging deeper and deeper into the science, I began to realize that this absence was actually quite systematic to the point that it seemed like it almost might be symptomatic. Let me tell you about it.” And so, with animals, given the absence of that shared common linguistic schema, how do we get to the conclusion that, in fact, other animals also dream and maybe dream in ways that might be similar to the way we dream? “Oh, last night I had a really bizarre dream. But this is an academic podcast, and actually proving that animals dream isn’t so simple.ĭavid Peña-Guzmán: Because, historically, the way that we know that other people dream has been because we ask them and they answer. We’ve all seen our dogs yipping in their sleep, or are cats meowing during a nap. Paul Rand: If you are a pet owner, it may seem obvious to you that your furry friends dream. You really see that diversity at the level of dreams. And even if we are particularly attracted to it because it’s the one that we have, there’s nothing objective that suggests that it’s the only one or even the highest one. Paul Rand: That’s David Peña-Guzmán, a philosopher at San Francisco State University and the author of a new book, When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness.ĭavid Peña-Guzmán: The human mind is only one of the many minds that nature has produced by the process of evolution. But not everyone agrees.ĭavid Peña-Guzmán: I think it’s deeply problematic that we tend to think about mind by beginning from the human case and then looking to see which animals fit into our framework of the human mind. Some have gone so far as to say that dreams are an example of what makes humans different from all other animals, that they’re evidence of our unique consciousness that no other creatures possess. Paul Rand: There are a few things in life that are more personal and more mysterious than dreams. Why do sleeping dogs look like they're running? Experts weigh in-CBS Milwaukee.(Episode published July 21, 2022) Related: Subscribe to Big Brains on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify. Pena-Guzman of San Francisco State University argues the science shows that animals really do dream, and that those dreams are evidence of consciousness. In his new book, When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness, philosopher David M.

But this is an academic podcast and really proving that animals dream isn’t so simple. Most of us have seen dogs running in their sleep or cats meowing during a nap. Do animals dream? If you’re a pet owner, it may seem obvious that your furry friends dream.

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