A Problem Squared - 083 = Sunbeams and Dog Dreams

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

🌒 What’s the best place to see the next solar eclipse?  💤 Do animals dream?  💼 The Any Other Business briefcase is…half open.  Send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. For a detailed look at the path of the 2026 eclipse, here’s the website referenced by Matt: https://eclipsophile.com/future-eclipses-2024-2028/ If you want to hear the full interview with David Pena Guzman about animal consciousness referenced by Bec, you can do that here: https://news.uchicago.edu/do-animals-dream-david-m-pena-guzman. Videos of Sky potentially dreaming will be on social media. Tell us what you think? Do dogs dream?  And, if you want more from A Problem Squared, you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord and on Patreon.

Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the problem-solving podcast which is a lot like poo, in that ideally it comes out regularly, but sometimes it is released at delayed or unexpected times. Your hosts are myself, Bec Hill, and Matt Parker. Matt Parker is a comedian, author, and mathematician who refers to pooping as working something out with his calculus. And I'm a comedian and writer of kids books who puts the diarrhea in diarrhea of a wimpy kid. Wow. That thanks i think it's maybe the best intro i've ever written it's up there and we are i should i should point out that i did not write diary of a wimpy kid in case anyone listening was like wait she wrote those books i did not i'm not old enough to have written

those it was merely there for the pun good pun and you've written books of a similar caliber so it'll check that and i feel like to avoid being in the poo with our fine listeners we should apologize for missing an episode well we still put something out we provided yes yeah apologies for that my co-host on enemy in paris got either food poisoning or a tummy bug. And then the following day, he was feeling much better. And we recorded Enemy in Paris. And we talked about the fact that he'd been incredibly ill. And then the day after that, when we were supposed to record

Problem Squared, and I had a voiceover gig as well, I woke up and was violently ill out of both ends super ill yeah serves me right for sharing a toilet yes there was no recording to be had and due to your schedule and my schedule and lauren's schedule this is we this is the fastest we could get out the episode. Already cutting it fine because we had so little common availability overlap. That was it. We had no redundancy in the system.

So we apologize to our very understanding listeners. In this episode... I've cracked the precise location to watch the next total solar eclipse. Would you say it's a total eclipse of the fart? I would not. Just in line with my theme for this episode. Well, your theme. I look into whether electric sheep dream of androids.

And we will open up the Any Other business briefcase to see what it contains maybe nothing it might be empty we haven't checked we have we're not thought that far ahead it might be empty get to that yeah it's normally filled by lauren all right matt back hater i'm good i'm good you? How have you been since I lost, other than my food poisoning, how have you been? I have been good. I attempted to see a total solar eclipse and for both narrative tension and just a sensible order to do things in, I'm going to be solving a problem about seeing total solar eclipses. So I feel like I'm going to keep everyone in suspense and I will talk about our viewing experience in that section of the show.

Okay. But I can give a somewhat important update to my cycling every day until I'm healthy challenge if people would like to speak with that so for those who are unfamiliar are you healthy did you achieve health not yet closer definitely I definitely feel healthier than last time and the the guiding principle of the project for the people I'm familiar with this is I was just cycling every day until I deemed myself sufficiently healthy and originally I thought you know what I'll do I'll do 100 days and I think the

last update I gave I was on like day 80 and I felt about 40% healthy and so I was kind of expecting to do 200 days well my bike my bike broke oh no yeah land is this the new one that you got new with your the new one i got number engraved with pie engraved on the top tube correct i mean it was a normal level of bike braking it wasn't a fundamental flaw with the bike the free hub stopped working what's a free hub that's the part of the bike where if you stop pedaling you can still keep rolling. Okay. If the pedals like the crank of the pedals was fixed like locked with the back wheel that's great when you're pedaling because you're driving the back wheel but it means you can't stop pedaling and not all bikes have a free hub. Yeah yeah yeah. Somehow

some you know something like your BMXs you've got to keep pedaling but the free hub. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some have, some, you know, something like the old BMXs, you've got to keep pedaling. But the free hub is the thing that lets the back wheel continue to spin and the pedals are no longer spinning. And it makes that noise. And in fact, I recorded the sound of the free hub spinning and we'll play it in now. So this this is the classic the rear wheel is spinning but the pedals are not. And that ceased to work on my bike and initially i didn't realize how big an issue it was i just thought like oh there's something wrong with the chain

and then i realized no actually the the free hub has is bust and it broke right when i was going to be doing the 100th ride ah so i went out to the 100th ride and realized I was not able to repair the bike to be able to do the ride that day. And I was like, okay, so what I'm going to do is book it into a bike shop for the next morning. So I found a local bike shop who I didn't tell them I'm doing this ridiculous challenge. I just said, I was going to do a ride and the freehub's not working. Kind of bring it in. You'll have a look. And they're like,'re like yeah sure bring it in first thing tomorrow and we'll see what we can do so i did my 100th ride because that day i had to be in london anyway so i used one of the city bikes one of the santander city bikes to cycle around a bunch in london okay and so i was like 100 rides

achieved took the bike in the next morning, drove it over there, had to awkwardly roll it into the shop with the pedals spinning with the back wheel, handed it in, and they're like, oh, we're really sorry. Our mechanic had to call in sick. They're like,

I hear it happens a lot in podcasts and bike shops, and the bike won't be done today, but we'll give you a call in the next day or two once it's done. To make it more galling, one of our listeners got in touch and said, because we talked about this on a previous episode, their record is 867 consecutive days doing a bike ride. Oh, my goodness.

I was like, what? Their name is, I think it's Tisek t-i-s-e-k so they emailed in after they heard me mention this and they've had two perfect years they cycled every day in the year 2017 and they cycled every day in the year 2021 they've done several long streaks and had breaks in between what they did point out, is what they haven't achieved is cycling every day in a year, which is also a leap year, because that gives you one extra day. And that's the longest full perfect year of cycling. And we are in such a year. And so I realized if I was able to keep cycling every day for all of of 2024 potentially not saying i'm committing to that i realized i could do a perfect year in a leap year which would be pretty exciting

and then at three o'clock i got a phone call from the bike shop saying one of the other mechanics had some time between other repairs thought they'd have a quick look and they'd fix the bike i was like no and i'm like can i get it today they're like yeah we're open to like 5 or 5 30 or something and so i was able to race over there get on the bike and cycle at home from the bike shop and that was ride 101 the streak is still alive today right before this call i did a cycle 116. Wow. And I did almost lose it when we came to San Antonio because the fitness room in the hotel hasn't got an exercise bike.

I just assumed there would be one. I checked it was a fitness room. No bike. We were able to find a bike hire place and I hired a bike. So yeah, 116 days and counting. Impressive. You'd be proud of me i've been cycling a lot more i was i went to palm springs for oh you went to park for three nights just on my own how was it it was amazing oh my goodness quite a few people told me to get the cable car up uh i

was one of those people like a mountain yes so i got the cable car up to the top. So in the same day, I made a snowman and lazed by a pool. Wow. It was a very surreal change of climate. I was one of the people who had to spend 40 bucks on a jumper because I didn't realize it was going to be three degrees at the top of the mountain. Is there just someone selling jumpers at the top? It was like 27 degrees. Yeah, yeah.

I had to buy one of the souvenir ones. It was great. They're not even that nice. It's comfy. But it comes with a story. So I did that. But I, yes, it does. Yeah, yeah. I had to buy one of the souvenir ones. It was great. They're not even that nice. It's comfy. But it comes with a story. So I did that. Yes, it does. Yeah.

And the hotel I stayed at had free bike hire. They were very, very nice bikes. So I rode all around Palm Springs. Ah, so good. That was awesome. And then I was staying in a friend's place here in LA in Studio City. And they let me borrow one of their bicycles. And I was like, great. I I'm gonna use that to get around and Google Maps in LA is just as optimistic as LA people

like in London Google Maps will be like that'll be an hour-long walk and I'm like yeah that's gonna take me 35 minutes I can slam through that i know like that's yeah here google maps was like that'll be a 20 minute cycle so i was like brilliant texting my friends cool i'll see you at the see you at the bar in 20 minutes like an hour later i show up drenched in sweat yeah i'm sore and so um i only lasted a couple of trips uh cycling before I realized that was not going to be a great way to get around here. I will keep an eye out for the electric ones. But yeah, it's been fun. Went to Disneyland.

That was awesome. I can't say who, but a friend of mine is part of the Club 33, which is the secret Disney club. You said you were going to. Did you get in? I got to go into the lounge i'm very obvious got to to see uh walt disney's harpsichord it was very it was very cool it was very cool and that's all i can say that's it i can't really i don't i might not even be able to say that much you may it was very cool there's there's some people out there for whom you've just confirmed the existence of the harpsichord. Yeah, probably.

I'd like to say hello to all the Disney theme park lore people who are listening to this one episode, just for that one reason. Yeah, I did. I put up a picture on Instagram standing on the 33 sort of logo mosaic in the tiles on the ground, logo mosaic in the tiles on the ground which my benevolent host said this is the photo that people you can't really take photos inside or anything you know you can get banned but they said this is the photo people tend to take as their feet on this so i took a photo and put it up on my instagram stories with like if you know you know and then yeah a couple of hardcore a couple of hardcore theme park fans contacted me going, what? I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's pretty cool. But yeah, should we get on with the show? Let's do it. Our first problem comes from Goliath on the problem posing page, which is at aproblemsquared.com. And Goliath asks, there's going to be a total solar eclipse going through Spain in August of 2026. What would be the best place to watch it? Yes, that's particularly relevant for me right now, as I am currently in San Antonio, Texas, because we wanted to come and see a total solar eclipse. Actually, you know what? I brought the parkascope to try and record the brightness of the sky during

the total solar eclipse, which is a sentence that requires a little bit of unpacking. So a total solar eclipse, for anyone unfamiliar, the moon is constantly casting a shadow because the sun's shining on it. So there's a shadow on the other side and every now and, the moon is constantly casting a shadow because the sun's shining on it. So there's a shadow on the other side. And every now and then, the moon's shadow will hit the earth because the moon goes between the sun and the earth. And when that shadow hits the earth, that's a total solar eclipse. If you can get inside the shadow. And this only happens just less frequently than once a year.

And a lot of people think, oh, I mean, is it that great? I mean, it goes dark. It's like nighttime. You get a couple minutes of nighttime in the middle of the day. So you see a lot of people who are like, what's the big deal? It goes dark for a bit of time in the middle of the day. However, that really undersells the experience of the total solar eclipse because if the moon was way bigger than the sun from our point of view that might be true

but the moon is just big enough to cover the sun's main disk but all the atmosphere of the sun extends around that and so it's not just the sky going black, the disc of the sun becomes completely black because it's the moon, but around it you see all the upper atmosphere of the sun extending out into the sky. And we also saw a very cool prominence, which is structure in the sun's atmosphere that was visible with the naked eye when the moon was covering it. And videos and photos don't do it completely justice, like it's an absolutely phenomenal experience to see it in person. I love it. The fifth one that I've gone to visit is Lucy, my wife, who's a solar physicist.

I've been to six of them. And the reason I've been to so many is because Lucy will go to see them. Sometimes for work, sometimes just because it's fun. It's like following a band around. We're solar groupies. I like it as a type of vacation because where it occurs on the planet is for all purposes random.

So it's like throwing a dart at the map and it's just like the next eclipse is here. It's just some place on the earth and you're like, right, how are we going to get there to see the eclipse. In this case the eclipse went right across Mexico up through Texas and then all the way across the United States up towards kind of Niagara Falls into Canada and then out. So anywhere along that path if you could get to that path you'd see a total solar eclipse. The Parkascope is my ridiculous one pixel telescope. So all it does is it measures how bright the sky is. And I took this to Australia last year for a total solar

eclipse. And I just, I think it's very funny because I think we discussed this before. It's a cardboard tube painted black with some fake dials glued onto it. And then a single detector at the back. Yeah, we did. And there's some interesting stuff you can do with it. And I thought it'd be very funny to put the Parkascope on an overly good telescope mount. So I got one of these computerized auto-control mounts that you'd put like a very expensive telescope on yeah and i'm then made an attachment to put my cardboard tube on the side of it and so that way

it will it will track with the sun because one of my problems last time was the angle between the parka scope and the sun kept changing and that was messing with the data whereas now i can have a fixed angle between the sun and the detector and that will stay the same even as the sun's moving through the sky. The issue is clouds. So this is why Goliath is asking. Because if it was just a case of getting into the path of where the shadow of the moon is going to be, anywhere would be equal. You just go find somewhere and you go there.

The issue is you don't want to go all that way and it's super cloudy and you can't see it we are two years over two years away from the eclipse and that's going to go through spain so at this point long-range forecasts you're like well you can look at the historic data to see how often it's been cloudy previously and that's what we did for this one you know we looked at for this time of year of year, if you're going right across Mexico, US into Canada, historically, where would there be the least cloud cover? And Mexico was the best, Texas was pretty good. And then the further north you went, kind of the worse it got very crudely. crudely in the lead up to the eclipse this time as we got closer and closer the modeling showed more and more cloud above san antonio so we were like oh that's not good and you looked in fact i screen grabbed one of them we can share it on social media where we are in san antonio was just like clouds you've got two options at this point you can either stick with the plan or you can try and go somewhere else and some people

some of lucy's colleagues got up at like four in the morning of the day of the eclipse to try and drive to dallas or somewhere else that had marginally better prediction of clouds i figured nowhere we could get to would have a statistically significant improvement in cloud cover compared to staying with the plan. Okay. And I'd rather see it with our buddies, you know, because the real eclipse is the friends that blocked the view along the way. So we decided to stay the course. And I'd been watching in the days leading up and it wasn't total cloud cover

the whole time it would kind of clear as the afternoon rolled around and the main event was at about 1 30 p.m local time i was like oh you know what we might be all right and on the day it was mixed cloud and then during the total eclipse there was a break in the clouds so we we saw it fine it was amazing and it was a particularly long eclipse so it was four minutes and 20 seconds of totality which is a lot previously yeah last year in australia was like a minute so this was way more it was long enough that it started in a break in the clouds. We got to see it. Everyone marveled at it. A cloud then came, went in front of the sun. Everyone booed. We waited and the cloud moved on and we saw the second half of the

total eclipse. And then it ended. So we saw the beginning and the end, but not the middle. and then it ended so we saw the beginning and the end but not the middle it was absolutely phenomenal and i mean i maybe i'd have a different opinion it hadn't worked out so well but i think form a plan and stick to the plan unless you do a lot of research and have backup plans otherwise you you'll have a viewing site set and it's not normal conditions because there are so many people traveling to these locations it's not a simple case of like we had to allow three times as long to drive anywhere just because there's more traffic and it's not as simple as oh we'll drive out to wherever and what are you going to do there was massive signs no viewing it from the highway but then you've got to try and find somewhere you can pull off.

Right, right. And I want to see the whole thing. And the whole thing is like two hours and 40 minutes. The totality is only like the few minutes in the middle. But I want the whole moon gradually covering the sun up, then totality, and then moon gradually moving on with its business. So my first bit of advice is if you must have a backup plan make sure you've thought it through and you don't just do it on a whim

there's a few different countries you can see the 26 one from when i saw this question from goliath i'm like here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna look up historical weather data for all the places where you can see it and then i'm gonna work out the average cloud cover over the the equivalent time of year for enough years and then be able to work out you know where would be the best place to go see it which i was going to do anyway so we can go see it so when this problem came in i was like perfect i'm going to work that out anyway i might as well do it now for goliath and then it doubles up as my own research but then i found a website where someone had done all of that already so this this answer is brought to you largely from a handful of very good websites and my very vague recollection of year nine geography so there is a website called eclipso file where someone has gone through and crunched all the weather data for the August 12th

2026 eclipse which will go through Europe. So first of all you can try and see it in Greenland. Now the automatic data of cloud cover is not great because it's not good at distinguishing snow and cloud. So what Jay has done, who runs this fantastic website, is go through the actual data from the last 21 years on Greenland where you could see this eclipse from and look to see if on the equivalent date and time there was a break in the cloud cover or not. And of the 21 years for which Jay had data,

on 13 of them the sky is totally clear and on a further four days it's only thin cloud so that's 17 out of 21 times talking around 81 likelihood going off historic data of seeing it if you can get yourself to greenland which is good good odds i wouldn't recommend trying to see it in in Iceland and then you've got the main event of Spain goes right through Spain and Spain in August is pretty clear skies you now need to factor in the different parts of Spain because your cloud cover is not equal so i was desperately trying to remember like oh mountain ranges near the coast force the moisture up to become rain or clouds so you don't want to be between you don't want to be on the coast yeah it's the short version of this because if you're on the coast you're

way more likely to have clouds you want to be on the inland side of a mountain range okay and there are three mountain ranges that the eclipse path goes over i had a good look at it and you basically want to be on the first large plane which so it hits the north coast of spain goes straight over a mountain range then you've got this big kind of high altitude plateau before it hits another mountain range. And the towns in the middle of that, there's one called Lerma, there's one called Burgos, I'm sure I'm mispronouncing these.

On the map I happen to be looking at, it's labeled as the Meseta Central North Plain. the Meseta Central North Plain. That is the best place to see the eclipse because that's where you've got the lowest chance of... Also combined with, this is quite late in the eclipse, the eclipse happens right before the sun sets in Spain. If you're at the north of Spain where it starts... That'll be pretty... The sun is only 10 degrees above the horizon.

By the time you get over to Barcelona, it's only four degrees above the horizon. You could very easily have a mountain or a forest or several things could block your view to see that. Right, of course. So the further north you are the higher sun will be in the sky for the eclipse if you end up watching it like me orca or somewhere ibiza you can see it from ibiza but you're basically going to see the totality right as the sun is

setting so unless you can sit yeah so that's why i'm favoring the north section of as the sun is setting. So less Yucca. Yeah. So that's why I'm favoring the north section of Spain is your winner. On your map, there's a town called Leon in Spain. And there's another town called Lerma. If you draw a line between those, that kind of section of Spain, that plateau between two mountain ranges north of Madrid, that's your winner. And if you go onto the Eclipso file website, if you scroll down a bit on that page, they've done plots for either side of the shadow band and the exact middle showing average cloud cover for that time of year. and the exact middle showing average cloud cover for that time of year. You still got to factor in the fact that, you know,

the further along the path you go, the lower it's going to be in the sky. But once you're at Leon, you're sitting around 30 to 40% chance of clouds, which, you know, doesn't sound great. It's worth doing. And it sounds like it's a pretty good community. You know, get some friends together, do a trip or find something, do a tour or find somewhere you can go and do it. And this time, even though we got to see the eclipse, which was amazing, because the cloud cover was coming and going the whole time,

it totally ruined the data from the parkascope. So spoiler, it'll seem like going to an eclipse and it being perfectly sunny is easy. Whereas I feel like the fact that we got lucky this time to see it, but my data was ruined, is still a story worth telling. So I'll still put out some kind of video. Yeah. I think so too. And it means when you do manage to get that data, everyone will be very excited.

And I might make some improvements. I've got two years now to improve it. I don't know. I'm not getting my hopes up for 26, given how low the sun's going to be. And the cloud cover is pretty promising, but not perfect. It might take until 27. But, you know, I'll keep trying. And one day, one day it'll work.

Well, Matt, I mean, you not only answered the question, but you went into great detail. You showed you're working. I mean, I don't want to speak on behalf almost like i had a vested interest in doing this research anyway and making sure i got it right and it had checked everything before i committed to my eclipse plans but i'm gonna give it a ding our next problem was sent in by Natan. They went to the problem posing page at a problemsquared.com and said,

do animals dream? They elaborate. Natan recently read a book in which a dog had a dream, and it made them wonder if animals have the ability to dream. Does it depend on the intelligence of the species? If animals can dream, are they capable of differentiating between dreams and reality?

And I'm also interested in this because up until Natan put this in the problem posing page, I just assumed, yes, animals dream in so much as my dog. I'm convinced my dog Skylab dreams, but I'm curious to find out what you've found out. Yeah. So I was recently, I've been recently staying at various places with dogs

and have noticed dogs sort of in their sleep, you know, and they're like, you know, little legs go and stuff. And so I think it's quite common for people to talk about like you know and they're like you know little legs go and stuff and so i think it's quite common for people to talk about like oh they're dreaming of like chasing the postal worker or whatever you know yeah garbage trucks and stuff chasing a rabbit yeah classic that's it but i looked into it and there's been a lot of research into the sleeping pattern of different animals and how they differentiate between humans and blah, blah, blah. But no mention of dreams. And a philosopher called David M. Pina Guzman,

I'm hoping I'm pronouncing that correctly, from the San Francisco State University, wrote a book called When Animals Dream, The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness. And they noticed that, yeah, there'd been very little covering dreaming in previous research and papers and that sort of thing. And they've realized it's because when it comes to the world of science, you know, science likes to report on cold, hard facts.

And when it comes to something like dream, that's far more conceptual. So it's really hard to prove if dreams are real. You can sort of talk about your findings in terms of the way the animals behave, the brain patterns that they've observed. I mean, we humans, we know we can dream because we can say, I had a dream last night. Oh, I was dreaming. I dreamt this yeah so you know when we wake up we're not like oh i was in this other place last night but now i'm here how strange we're like well that was a dream yeah that was a dream they might be displaying similar characteristics

to humans and that you know sometimes humans talk in their sleep or move in their sleep while they're dreaming and animals do the same we can't 100% say that it is for the same reason because animal brains are different and every animal is different have they like rigged up a dog let's say with sensors to try and track the dog's brain activity while it's asleep to see if it shows similar activity to humans when they're dreaming. Yeah, well, not just dogs, all sorts of animals, actually. Spiders. Spider dreams.

Yep, they exhibit rapid eye movement. In fact, I should, before I go into any of this, talk about what happens when humans dream. So essentially when we fall asleep, usually the first phase of our sleep is deep sleep it's the most restorative it's when we're basically totally unconscious then the next phase is our rem which is rapid eye movement and that's usually when the dreaming when dreaming occurs it's a lot more brain activity and usually you'll get body twitches your heart rate your breathing might go up and it's also when we get sort of temporary paralysis of skeletal muscles so the

parts of our body there is a part of our brain that can make sure that we don't act out what is happening in our dreams got it so we are somewhat paralyzed on purpose. Yeah, the right amount. Yeah. Yes. And then at the final stages is a light sleep. And the thing is, human dreams can occur in other stages of sleep. It's not necessarily REM, but it's kind of when most of it occurs. So the sleep phases can look different for different animals. Some animals don't have any REM. Dolphins don't. Some animals only have REM sleep and tend to move quite a lot. So I think birds generally tend to have rapid eye movement sleep like most of the time.

So they've done a lot of studies on different animals, looking at the activity in their brain, things like that. They've done a lot of studies on different animals, looking at the activity in their brain, things like that. They've done it on pigeons. They train pigeons to sleep in an MRI machine so that they could measure their brains. That's amazing. Yeah, right? They found that they sort of have rapid eye movement stuff. So you could suggest that that is because they are dreaming. They've got muscle twitches.

They're displaying all the same sort of things that humans do sometimes when they're dreaming. But you don't know. One thing I found very fascinating is cuttlefish they found that sometimes when cuttlefish are asleep their camouflage will flash between signals of like attention grabbing ones yeah and and sometimes the sort that you would get if they were uh under threat so it suggested that they could be playing that out in a dream but then again you don't know it could just be that you know they're just evolutionary way of like strengthening those neuron patterns and dreaming is a very pleasing explanation for that yes you're right it could just be well it's just cycling through as part of its you know reset like no other animals had rem or

had these weird you know muscle spasms or uh camouflage turning on and off while they're asleep because if they did none of that would be like animals don't dream seemingly because they're not doing any of these things that humans do when they're dreaming the fact that they are doing these things is tantalizing because it is like but you're right it's far from proof there's there's other logical explanations for what they could be doing yeah um there was one one scientist called michelle juve he removed the part of the brain that brings about the state of atonia, which is the paralysis that we, to stop us from moving in our sleep, and filmed it. There are videos on YouTube.

It's not actually, I thought it was going to be really disturbing, but it wasn't. When the cats were asleep, they started to jump around and like, you know, reach for stuff and pour for stuff. All of the brain signals coming from them was that they were asleep, other than the fact that they were jumping around and like trying to grab stuff that wasn't there. They did think that could suggest dreaming. But again, as you and I were just saying, it could also be like the brain running through a cycle of different, you know, behaviors and stuff like that.

Hard to rule out. Yeah. Yeah. They did find that elephants, when they experience something traumatic, so they found that young elephants, their sleep would be affected by it. they would start reacting in a way that seemed that they were being threatened or reacting in a way that seemed that they were feeling defensive which suggests that they might be having nightmares where they're replaying the scenes in their head it's interesting and depressing yes super depressing but then it sort of gets into the question of like consciousness are they aware that it's a dream is it the body replaying it to help them process

what happened or is it a defense thing david the guy wrote the book actually said if you ask 10 experts to define consciousness you're going to get at least 11 answers so it's a yeah unfortunately when it comes to this side of study, it's not the sort of evidence that scientists like, which is why there isn't anything. I thought the most compelling argument that animals can dream was from a study where there was these chimpanzees that had been trained to speak in ASL,

which is American Sign Language. And that's quite common. You know, that allows them to speak speak in ASL, American Sign Language. And that's quite common. That allows them to speak to their keepers to communicate if they want something or feel something. And they found that there was a chimpanzee who was doing the sign language for coffee in his sleep. And they were like, how does the chimp know the sign language for coffee? And one of the keepers was like, oh, yeah, we used to give them coffee.

So they learned the sign language for coffee because they wanted more. But the chimp was doing it in its sleep, which is different, I guess, from just sort of making general noises and stuff. That's when you know it's definitely trying to communicate something. It's the same as, you know, you saying something aloud in your sleep. But also it's something that isn't found in the wild. So it's not a case of, you know, run through this cycle of like, oh, they're jumping around and climbing trees or whatever.

This chimp was dreaming about coffee or was at least asking for coffee in its sleep and then the question is like why that is such a specific to that animal it wouldn't happen in the wild which it sort of more suggests that that isn't an evolutionary thing in terms of like oh all the animals are doing this it's it's that they are replaying something that they picked up on in their course of experience you convinced me yeah i thought that was the best argument for it and in fact there was there was an interview with the with this author and at the end of it they said this research will mean that pet owners will think of their pets in a new light and david pina guzman said pet owners are already

on this side anyone who wants a pet yes or lives with animals has witnessed behavior that you would describe as dreaming and it's not so much them that need the convincing it's it's usually the everyone else when I you mentioned you were going to tackle this problem. I was like, for my first thought was, well, of course animals dream because my dog dreams. I was like, oh, you know what? Every now and then if Skye is dreaming, I'll try and film her on my phone dreaming. Cause it's very funny. It's very adorable. Now, normally I'm not quite quickly. So I've got a lot of videos of Skye asleep not doing anything. But I went back through all the videos, of which there are many, and found a couple where I was able to start filming fast enough. It happened twice to capture her dreaming.

And both from when she was much younger. I don't seem to have caught her dreaming in the last couple of years. But when we had two times. One is when she was asleep next to me on the sofa and she she's it's always she yips and has muscle spasms like she which is what i can see why everyone says they're they're running or chasing something because it looks like she's running and her paws will twitch as well. The yipping noise she's making is this, it's not a common noise she makes, she doesn't make it very often. The only time she makes it is

when she's chasing another dog and the other dog is faster than her and our interpretation, our human projection of what she's doing is she's annoyed why she's not going fast enough. And she'll make this yipping noise very rarely. But if she's like chasing a whippet or something that's running circles around her and she's desperately trying to keep up, that's the noise she makes. It's the same noise she makes the noise when she's confused as to why she's not able to run fast enough. Yeah, yeah. And she often wakes herself up when she's confused as to why she's not able to run fast enough. Yeah, yeah. And she often wakes herself up when she's dreaming. But she's never startled or surprised.

She just wakes up and she's like, oh, and then goes back to sleep or, you know, will carry on her life. So the question of do animals know it's a dream, she never wakes up and is surprised she's no longer doing whatever she was dreaming, assuming the dog was dreaming. If it's taken that they're dreaming, let's say they're dreaming of running or chasing or whatever, she never seems confused as to why she's no longer doing that when she wakes up. Yeah, so David Pina Guzman talks about this as well,

talks about metacognitive monitoring, which is when essentially thinking about thinking. And so there were these, an example that he gives in this interview is saying there was a rhesus monkey that was given a very simple task. They had to look at two pictures and decide which one was a friend

and which one was a stranger. And if they got the test right, if they choose the friend, they get a grape as a reward. And they noticed that these rhesus monkeys would start hesitating before they would choose which one it was, and they would sort of start to take a moment, which means it suggests that they're actually trying to work out, like, how sure am I about this answer?

They're not just choosing for the sake of choosing they're really trying to think about like how much can i stand by this choice so then they started adding a third option where it was a button that basically meant if you pressed it it means i don't know and if they press the i don't know button they'd get half a grape so if they chose correctly they'd get a a grape. So if they chose correctly, they'd get a whole grape. But if they're willing to admit that they weren't sure, they get half a grape. That showed a level of metacognitive monitoring. Because some animals are able to display this, they suspect that that shows that those animals probably, if they can dream, being aware that they are in a dream yeah thinking

about dreaming yes yeah well beck i don't want to speak on behalf of natan but i'm going to give you all the hallmarks and indications as if i gave you a ding but we can't know for absolute certainty if i did give you a ding, but it certainly seems, it appears for all purposes, like I gave you a ding. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate that. And I'm conscious of this ding, but, uh, Yeah. Yeah. You thought about thinking about the ding. Yeah. Yes, I did. Yeah. Thank you. And if anyone has any videos of their pets potentially dreaming, please send them to us on Twitter at A Problem Squared,

or you can DM them to us or tag us in them on Instagram at A Problem Squared, and we'll repost them. I mean, none are going to be more adorable than Skylab, but the challenge is open. Yes. Can I have half a grape now? You can have the whole grape, Bec. Yes. Can I have half a grape now? You can have the whole grape, Bec.

Yes. Now we're up to any other business. Business being slang for poo. Staying on theme here that's okay yeah i mean to tie it all together that's our command for sky is to do your business and that's yeah she does a business we we opened the the business briefcase and uh which is not a analogy for poo why would we put this in here and uh and it's coming up empty. Half because this is a very long episode already and half because Lauren normally helps us

choose what we should do and she's not here. There's no shortage of things I'm sure listeners have sent in. We just haven't got Lauren to put them in the briefcase for us. Yeah. Next episode. So if anyone has sent us a solution that they're dying to hear We're sorry. We're useless.

Yeah, we're sorry. But when we do have Lauren we can thank our Patreon supporters for that because they help pay her to help us. And goodness knows we need it. Yeah. So we every episode if you're new to this we like to

thank three of our patreon supporters we choose them at random some of them have been thanked before some of them have not but for this episode in particular we would like to thank valent in valentine Valentin. And I. And why. And why. Ha. Nay. Andy Harney. For you.

Oh Roy. Hello. Oh Roy. Hello. Oh. Yeah. It's a sentence. Hello. Yeah, it's a sentence. Nice.

And thank you, my wonderful listeners, for listening, tuning in, and for telling other people to listen because word of mouth is hugely appreciated and very helpful. So if you enjoy the show, please tell other people. Put it out on social media. Send it in text to friends, send it to text to associates, send it in text to your family's WhatsApp. Put it in there.

Tell them to listen. Play it to your pets while they're sleeping. I thought you were done. I'd also like to thank my co-host, Matt Parker. Thank you. I've been back here. And in advance, I'm going to thank producer and editor, Lauren Armstrong Carter, who isn't here now,

but will be in the future. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Beck, you're in Los Angeles. I'm in San Antonio. The jar of dice is still back in Godeming.

However, I do know how many dice are in the jar. Do you? Yes, I do. Oh, that's handy. It'd be a bit disappointing if Lauren wasn't here for it, but let's hear the guess. It's four hundred and sixty-six. Lower.