Can Telepaths Read Animals' Minds?

A telepath is someone who can communicate with their mind, whether it's projecting their thoughts into another's mind or listening in on someone else's thoughts. They can do all of this without ever needing to make a sound. Some telepaths can even communicate over great distances or control their subjects, like Professor Xavier from X-Men.

Most people with telepathy however, are just shown to have the basic package of reading other's thoughts and projecting their own.

But what are thoughts? How can you read or hear a thought?

Our thoughts are made up of chemical and electrical signals sent from one part of our brain to another. Together they construct our personality and memories, but when one is thinking, they aren't reading or listening to their thoughts, they are experiencing them.

As babies who couldn't speak, we still had thoughts. We couldn't express them in words, but we still knew when we were hungry or tired or happy, even without these words to communicate.

Almost like a translation guide, language has allowed us to turn our thoughts into words and complex ideas that others beyond ourselves can then also understand.

But if you concentrate and think about what your thoughts are really like, you'll start to notice that they are almost shapeless. They make no sound and don't look like anything. When thinking of a past experience, one might attribute a voice to specific phrases or have images of places they've been, but generally most thoughts are just simply ideas floating in a void.

So if thoughts are in essence formless, how can one listen in on them?

I honestly don't know.

And since telepathy has yet to be proven, there may just not be an answer. But if someone could listen in on another person's formless thoughts and make sense of all the swirling ideas and feelings, wouldn't they then be able to do the same with animals?

Animals obviously have thoughts, from the most basic being 'I'm hungry' to some animals, like dolphins, having rudimentary languages to communicate with each other. And most of the time you don't even need to be a telepath to tell what an animal is thinking (they tend to have very bad poker faces). This means we as human have the ability to tell what animals are thinking in one setting, so shouldn't it work in the other?

Basic human thoughts, like when we are babies, would likely resemble animal thoughts a lot, as they would be very rudimentary and based around instinctual, basic needs. Meaning, if a telepath can understand a baby's thoughts they should be able to understand most animals. Heck, it might even be easier to read the minds of babies and animals than an adult person!

Although, I don't think I've ever seen Professor X try to read a baby's mind, so maybe telepath's need the collected, more advanced thoughts of someone who understands language and can use that language to communicate with others. Perhaps the mind readee has to give and explain their thoughts to the mind reader?

All I know is that telepathy sure seems like an over powered ability the more I think about it.

Do you think telepaths can read the thoughts of animals? Have you ever seen a telepath in media read a baby's mind?

Until next time,

Caitlin