Anyone with a dog probably takes for granted the existence of animal dreams. Watch your pup’s legs pound the air as they yip drowsily, and it’s hard to think of an explanation other than an imaginary mail vehicle chase.
To take a less commonplace example, an octopus named Costello was recently caught on camera during what appeared to be a nightmare. Apparently battling an invisible predator, the creature thrashed, shifted color and spewed a cloud of ink.
Do Animals Dream?
But how can we be sure these animals are really dreaming?
“Do they experience those penetrating nightly visions that humans do?” asks San Francisco State University philosopher David Peña-Guzmán in When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness. “Or do their minds simply plummet into a psychic void in which no conscious experience takes place?”
