When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness

Are humans the only dreamers on Earth? What goes on in the minds of animals when they sleep? In this conversation with Ellie Anderson, David M. Peña-Guzmán will bring behavioural and neuroscientific research on animal sleep into conversation with philosophical theories of dreaming, proposing 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.

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, Peña-Guzmán's new book 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 Speaker:
David M. Peña-Guzmán (https://humanitiesliberalstudies.sfsu.edu/david-pena-guzman) 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. His new book When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness is published in May by Princeton University Press.
In Conversation With:
Ellie Anderson (https://www.ellieandersonphd.com/) is assistant professor of philosophy at Pomona College, specializing in continental European philosophy, with an emphasis on twentieth-century French philosophy and feminist theory. Her research focuses on relational theories of selfhood, the philosophy of love, and sexual ethics. She is co-host (with David M. Peña-Guzmán) of the Overthink podcast.

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Note: This is an online discussion and audience Q&A presented by the UK-based journal The Philosopher. It is open to the public and held on Zoom.
About The Philosopher (https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/):
The Philosopher is the longest-running public philosophy journal in the UK (founded in 1923). It is published by the The Philosophical Society of England (http://www.philsoceng.uk/), a registered charity founded ten years earlier than the journal in 1913, and still running regular groups, workshops, and conferences around the UK. As of 2018, The Philosopher is edited by Newcastle-based philosopher Anthony Morgan and is published quarterly, both in print and digitally.
The journal aims to represent contemporary philosophy in all its many and constantly evolving forms, both within academia and beyond. Contributors over the years have ranged from John Dewey and G.K. Chesterton to contemporary thinkers like Christine Korsgaard, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elizabeth Anderson, Martin Hägglund, Cary Wolfe, Avital Ronell, and Adam Kotsko.