Animal Dreams

Animal Dreams

I have a close relationship with my pet parakeet Eloise. She likes to climb on my fingers and be enveloped in my hand; we play together every day. We are friends, companions. At night I carry her cage (with two other birds) to my study where I place it in a high place so that the cat can’t get to them. The other night I began to wonder whether Eloise ever thinks of me while in this place. Does she think of absent objects, me in particular? I concluded that she very likely does, because birds have good memories. Then I couldn’t help wondering whether she ever dreams of me. It seemed like a crazy question, but reflection suggests that she does: birds do dream, apparently, and what would Eloise dream about but her closest companion? They have REM sleep and a limbic system: they dream emotionally, no doubt visually. But what does she dream? Does she simply replay our daily playful encounters, or does she wax more imaginative? Does she dream of flying with me, or being my size, or building a nest with me? We will never know: her dreams are private. For all I know, she has wonderful warm extravagant dreams about me. What a thought! What we have here is the problem of other minds in one specific department—dreams. It’s not the problem of whether parakeets have minds at all; the problem is that animal dreams are out of bounds epistemically. Maybe she wakes with fond memories of her dreams. Maybe she has a rich dream life centered on yours truly. I’ll never know. Somehow this increases my respect for my feathered friend. It makes me more religious about animals.