"The Multiplicity of Dreams. Memory, Imagination, and Consciousness", By Harry T. Hunt, New Haven And London: Yale University Press, 1989.

Abstract

Neuropsychological findings suggest that on the cortical level, apes are able to "translate" visual perceptions into tactile or kinaesthetic patterns, and vice versa, without interference of the reinforcement mechanisms located in the brain stem. On the other hand, they make less creative use of auditory perceptions, so that their vocal signals remain stereotyped. In The Multiplicity of DreamsHarry T. Hunt, psychology professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, postulates that in contrast with other primates, the consciousness of humans is based on "translations" including not only visual, tactile and kinaesthetic, but auditory perceptions as well. That is, for us to perceive, we must break down the patterns of these modalities with fundamentally different and virtually incompatible sensory systems and approach the aspects of a situation, not one after the other like a computer, but simultaneously on different levels of articulation, which constantly interact to form novel connections. The reciprocal reorganization and rearrangement among the perceptual patterns of the separate senses is the core of symbolic intelligence; the "synaesthetic" tying together of all these simultaneously occurring processes is consciousness.