Dreaming is raw state of perception

 Kevin Kelly blog post about the similarities between dreaming and NN AI (like ChatGPT)

I have a proto-theory: That our brains tend to produce dreams at all times, and that during waking hours, our brains tame the dream machine into perception and truthiness. At night, we let it run free to keep the brain areas occupied. The foundational mode of the intelligence is therefore dreaming.

A corollary of this theory —that dreaming is the raw state of perception — is that all animals with eyeballs will dream. Without language they will not have access to their dreams the same way, but dream they would.  

He also references this researcher who talks about the biological function of dreaming that I've come across before:

Neurobiologist David Eagleman has a theory that the evolutionary purpose of dreaming is to protect our visual apparatus. Our brains are so plastic and malleable, that their processing power can be quickly taken over by different brain functions. So if the huge visual/auditory department closes down at night, or 1/3 of the day, other brain functions would begin to colonize this resource that was not being used. To prevent that hijacking, the brain keeps its sensory department busy 24/7 by running dreams. That keeps it occupied and fully staffed for daytime.