Do You Think Animals Dream?

Cool!!!

I hope my animals have had more fun dreams than THAT, though!!!

I remember that!!!

Still got the scars?


Sowwy...didn't mean to be so rough...but that damned wet, cold nose was a hell of a shock when I was sleeping!

Hi Dadpad,

Thank you for chasing that up...... Very interesting!

Kind regards.
mark...

I wonder if fish dream.





David

fish are reputed to have a 7 second memory
They wouldnt remember a dream by the time they woke up.

my wife reminded me of a passage from a 1967 psycology text book.

This passage related research into muscle tone during sleep. A small portion of our brain paralyses our muscles during REM sleep.
In experiments on animals, when this portion of the brain was rendered inactive, animals jumped and moved about in a near normal way.
the conclusion drawn was that if this part of a humans brain was inactive we would act out our dreams.

That is concerning given that as a teenager i was prone to flying type dreams.

Although i love wildlife......... i have no direct experiences of bear around me.
I observe them in zoos sometimes and when they are brought by street vendors who catch them (sloth bears - though its illegal now).
You may be surprised to know that bears and dogs share same ancestory, and are anatomically related.

How many holidays do thay celebrate ?

U don 't see them with firecrackers on the 4th of July.





David

Hi Jack,
Thank you for the info. I do believe that all mammals share common ancestry - All lifeforms too - All material in the universe also, come to think of it.

But with bears and dogs - I think it shows in the eyes mostly.

We don't have bears in the UK anymore. They were all killed off centuries ago. Oh well....

Have a fantastic day Jack.
Mark...

The somatic symetry n congruity were strikingly apparent to me in the early years of my life.

I thawt:
bear : dog

lion : pussycat





David

Do u keep bunny rabbits ?

I was watching a video recently (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCW31VLi-5s), it said the whole 'three-second memory' thing is a myth and they can remember upto a few months.

It even showed a goldfish performing tricks in order to get treats, such as a limbo dance!

Ah science...

Thanks for looking that up, Dadpad. Very interesting. No doubt in my mind that what I've seen my dogs and cats do is dreaming. All my dogs are gone now, but I still have four of my cats -- all well over 10 years young and still dreaming.

I used to laugh at myself when I'd pretend that my cats were saying one thing or another, but over the years I've decided that my anthropomorphisizing (gosh, is that a word?) was not only OK but not that unrealistic. So I don't believe my assumptions about my cats are a fantasy. I'll never know exactly what's going on inside their heads, of course, but what I see and hear outside, "in" their bodies, tells me I'm not, in many ways, that different from them.

Their behavior also tells me that they remember things for years, not just minutes, days or months. Yes, they seem to live in the here and now more than humans do, but more than once I've experienced them remembering something from the past that even I had forgotten. They probably don't "think" about the future as we do, but it isn't much of a stretch, at least for me, to interpret some of the things I see them do as anticipating/planning for something not in the present moment. Stalking a gopher, for example, implies something they are waiting for in the future. Well, maybe I am reaching too far for that one, and if so, please don't hesitate to laugh at me...

Yes any living animal can dream i think!!!!

I completely believe that animals dream. I have had cats and dogs (and a myriad of other animals) all my life. Currently I have 4 cats and a dog and they all dream from time to time. My dog twitches, "runs" and growls in his sleep, sometimes he even barks himself awake. All of my cats do the same thing minus the barking. My one girl cat had a very traumatic kittenhood and she will literally wake up screaming and she has to see my husband, myself or one of the other cats before she will calm back down.

nice dog

Yes, its been proven that any type of animal can dream because there's a part of the mind that has visions and senses imaginary or sometimes real actions and visions during the stages of sleep. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense because although we are not the same as animals, we share a lot in common with them and we have the same thinking processes that they do. It is the same for how we sleep compared to them. So they are capable of dreaming.

Connections noted.
It varies from almost no dream to complete dream, though it might not make sense external.