Do animals dream?
Josie E Malinowski, D Scheel, M Mccloskey
Consciousness and Cognition October 1, 2021 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2021.103214 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Animal consciousness Cephalopods Dream-enacting behaviours |
| Citations | 25 |
| Key points | Proposes that parallels in phenomenology, physiology, and sleep behaviors between human and non-human animals can be used to investigate dreaming in non-human animals, with octopuses as promising candidates for studying dream-enacting behaviors. |
Abstract
The understanding of biological functions of sleep has improved recently, including an understanding of the deep evolutionary roots of sleep among animals. However, dreaming as an element of sleep may be particularly difficult to address in non-human animals because in humans dreaming involves a non-wakeful form of awareness typically identified through verbal report. Here, we argue that parallels that exist between the phenomenology, physiology, and sleep behaviors during human dreaming provide an avenue to investigate dreaming in non-human animals. We review three alternative measurements of human dreaming - neural correlates of dreaming, 'replay' of newly-acquired memories, and dream-enacting behaviors - and consider how these may be applied to non-human animal models. We suggest that while animals close in brain structure to humans (such as mammals and birds) may be optimal models for the first two of these measurements, cephalopods, especially octopuses, may be particularly good candidates for the third.