When Animals Dream by David M. Peña-Guzmán, reviewed

An interesting look at animals and their interior world and the types of consciousness they may have. The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness by David M Peña-Guzmán. Published by Princeton University Press 2nd August 2022 | Hardback | £20.00. See more about the book here.

When Animals Dream by David M. Peña-Guzmán, reviewed

This book tackles an interesting concept, which, in one way you might argue we can never really know about. The author takes a while to make the case for why animals do dream, slightly longer than perhaps needed. Surely anyone who has owned a pet can tell you that animals dream, when your dog is both clearly fast asleep and yet, whining, barking, wincing, in their sleep, they are clearly replaying, reliving or simply dreaming about things they have encountered in their waking world.

The author then does cite the example of octopi, who, while asleep, were observed to go through the sequence of colours and motions that they would have done while waking to stalk, attack and then eat prey. There have been plenty of studies to show that octopi are intelligent, so the fact that they dream too seems highly plausible. The question that the book then struggles to grapple with, is, where do we go with this knowledge? As we still struggle to know what they are exactly dream about, and what this says about their wider intelligence.

The author does use the concept of dreaming as one way to validate and enhance the concept of the importance of respecting and not mistreating animals. When one ape recounts the horrific experience of having their mother killed by hunters and then being passed into slavery, it of course validates that animals have a consciousness and an innate right to be respected for their own existence and it would of course be a lot better if humans didn’t torture, kill and eat them. You could say that research like this nudges us further along the path towards veganism, but this is not necessarily a series of dots being joined up in this book.

This is an interesting book, but it is perhaps the book before the book that crosses over and becomes a massive popular science hit. Naturally if it helps increase awareness about why we should treat animals fairly and kindly then it has had some impact, but it perhaps leaving you with as many, although different, questions as when you started the book.

More about the book

Are humans the only dreamers on Earth? What goes on in the minds of animals when they sleep? When Animals Dream brings together behavioural and neuroscientific research on animal sleep with philosophical theories of dreaming. It shows that dreams provide an invaluable window into the cognitive and emotional lives of nonhuman animals, giving us access to a seemingly inaccessible realm of animal experience.

David Peña-Guzmán uncovers evidence of animal dreaming throughout the scientific literature, suggesting that many animals run “reality simulations” while asleep, with a dream-ego moving through a dynamic and coherent dreamscape. He builds a convincing case for animals as conscious beings and examines the thorny scientific, philosophical, and ethical questions it raises. Once we accept that animals dream, we incur a host of moral obligations and have no choice but to rethink our views about who animals are and the interior lives they lead.

A mesmerizing journey into the otherworldly domain of nonhuman consciousness, When Animals Dream carries profound implications for contemporary debates about animal cognition, animal ethics, and animal rights, challenging us to regard animals as beings who matter, and for whom things matter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David M. Peña-Guzmán is associate professor of humanities and liberal studies at San Francisco State University. He specializes in critical animal studies, the history and philosophy of science, and contemporary European philosophy. He is a co-author of Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief and co-host of the popular Overthink podcast.

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