dreams

Book review – When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness

7-minute read
keywords: ethology, neurobiology, psychology

If trying to figure out what goes on in the minds of animals when they are awake seems hard, how much harder is it not to figure this out when they are asleep? Do animals even dream? David M. Peña-Guzmán, a professor of humanities and liberal studies, thinks they do. When Animals Dream delves into both empirical research and philosophy to explore whether animals dream, what they might be dreaming of, and what the philosophical and moral implications of this are.

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Book review – Metazoa: Animal Minds and the Birth of Consciousness

7-minute read

In 2016, the scuba-diving philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith wrote Other Minds where he explored the mind of the octopus—I reviewed it right before reading this book. Its bestseller status, including translations in more than 20 languages, was not entirely unpredictable. Octopuses are a sexy topic. Four years later, he explores animal minds further with Metazoa, with the tour now also including sponges, corals, shrimp, insects, fish, and mammals. Godfrey-Smith convinced me he is no one-trick pony when it comes to writing a good book, though this one is more cerebral than its predecessor.

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Book review – Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason

6-minute read

2020. A time of Trump. Written during a period of pandemic, it is a chronicle of conspiracies embellished with the flowers of falsehoods. In other words, it is tempting to think of the current moment as one of irrationality run rampant. If you have been entertaining similar thoughts, Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason provides a poignant note and a fascinating reflection. Because, when you take some distance, you might ask if it has ever been different. How many people past have wondered the same from their unique vantage point? Have we really made any progress towards enlightenment, or is our history merely the back-and-forth sloshing of the tides of reason and unreason?

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Book review – Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

The Chernobyl disaster. The stranding of the Exxon Valdez. Car crashes. Suicide. Cancer. Heart attacks. Alzheimer’s disease. What does this list of calamities have in common?

Sleep, or rather a lack thereof, has either caused, or greatly increases the risk of this rather arbitrary and short list. Many more unpleasant things can be added to it. Neuroscientist Matthew Walker is a man on a mission: to impress upon you the importance of sufficient sleep. Why We Sleep is a book that is sure to make you lose some sleep, seeing that it is both fascinating and extremely well-written, but also deeply disturbing in showing the damage we inflict upon ourselves by cutting short our sleep. And, hopefully, it then proceeds to be a book that will make you get more sleep. This is the most important and influential book I have read this year.

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