I know you’re probably rolling your eyes, going “Not this debate again.” But as a bibliophile with two jobs, kids, and a merciless D&D campaign schedule, I ask you honestly: do I have to be conscious during consumption to cross a book off my TBR?

I have reading goals just like everyone else. I have dreams of an epic streak on Fable. I want to stuff a DIY built-in library with special edition hardcovers. Unfortunately, I don’t have any time to read in the traditional sense so I really have no choice other than audiobooks—I concede that. But do I have to be awake while I’m listening to them? I just can’t fit them in during the day! And what am I supposed to do, give up on my dreams? What would the most recent popular novel’s main character have to say about that? Seriously, what? I don’t know. I’ve probably only heard the description of their room before knocking out.

Some part of my subconscious is absorbing everything though, right? Sure, I can’t remember any major plot points or make a cute Instagram Reel listing the book’s tropes but, let’s be honest, if I read the same book with my eyeballs, would I be able to do all that then? Not after three weeks—if I even ever finished it! See, if we start pulling the thread on sleeping through audiobooks, where does it end? We’d unravel this concept of “reading” altogether. Sorry Phoenicians!

Don’t get me wrong, I brush my teeth, turn on my heated blanket, and clap off the lights with every intention of laying in bed awake for several hours listening to Brandon Sanderson’s prose with wrapped attention. But, man, am I exhausted by 11:00 PM. As my eyelids flutter shut, I fall in love with a character only to wake up to their death scene the following morning—that and their diaper blowout. Sorry, I meant my newborn’s blowout. What a start to the day! As frustrating as it is, I think you’ll agree that I’m getting the gist of these stories. Life, death, and flatulence right? Or, hold on, I’m mixing something up.

It’s like how my mom always falls asleep at the movie theater. She never makes it past the trailers, but you’d never know from her Letterboxd. As far as she’s concerned, she’s present for the viewing of the movie and that’s that. Why should I think any differently about audiobooks? I’m there. The narrator stops talking. The book ends. I’m dreaming that I’m the dungeon master for once. The app says I’ve “read” it, so haven’t I?

It’s like tests in school. If I sit through the whole period without touching my paper—or if I’m, in fact, completely asleep—and I fail the test, doesn’t that mean I took the test? What matters is I was there. I flunked my philosophy class so I’m no expert, but this is all sounding like petty robust logic to me.

Someone might be saying, “If sleeping with an audiobook playing on your nightstand counts as reading, what doesn’t?” And the answer is simple: sleeping without an audiobook playing. Unless maybe someone in your house is listening to an audiobook in another room and you can just barely make it out; or if anybody in your neighborhood is listening to one, and the sound waves bounce in your direction. Those scenarios probably count as reading too. How far do sound waves travel? Maybe it’s just best to assume that at any given moment someone in the world is listening to an audiobook and, therefore, so are you. That’s just science.

And think about it, when people post about the hundreds of books they’ve read so far this year, doesn’t that sound impossible—unless they’re reading in their sleep! I posit, like me, they definitely are.