Do Animals Dream Like Us?

[DrmDoc]

Here is a recent DNews video that tries to answer that question. Perhaps new to the uninitiated, the video discuses established evidence some researchers have found supporting their conclusions in addition to an established MIT study where researchers were able to map the neural patterns of dreaming rats associated with their maze running patterns. Essentially, researchers were able to decipher aspects of the sleeping rats dream content.

[A trickle of science]

This is a very interesting subject, most studies do show that when asleep we learn most of our abilities, plus many more. However, what would be more interesting would what they are actually dreaming about, plus does this also mean that animals think via visual and auditory the same as humans, obviously without the language.

[DrmDoc]

This is a very interesting subject, most studies do show that when asleep we learn most of our abilities, plus many more. However, what would be more interesting would what they are actually dreaming about, plus does this also mean that animals think via visual and auditory the same as humans, obviously without the language.

 

I think there was always an easy, empirical way to prove other animals dream as we do and that has to do with the evolution of eye movement. As many of us know, rapid-eye-movement (REM) in sleep is an indicator of the onset of dreaming in humans and it is the only active muscle directed movement among our voluntary/involuntary muscle motor controls that occurs amid the dreaming phrase of sleep. Prior to the onset of normal REM sleep, our gross musculature experiences atonia, which is that inelasticity state of our muscle posture where movement appears disabled. Essentially, eye movement (voluntary and involuntary) evolved concurrent with those neural elements associated with the perception of visual stimuli and after those associated with gross locomotion. When our brain becomes active in sleep, eye movement is an outward indicator that our brain's visual circuitry is active and stimulated. When other animals experience similar eye movement amid sleep, this suggests that these animals are also experiencing visual stimuli attributable to the dreaming state of brain activation of the kind humans experience.

[mongoloidz]

If those animals can remote view and lucid dream maybe we all really do have sheep jumping over us constantly.

[Raider5678]

I could have answered this by looking at my dog. She whimpers, barks, moans, moves, cries, drools, snores, and pants, all in her sleep. I always wondered what she was dreaming about.....

[DrmDoc]

I could have answered this by looking at my dog. She whimpers, barks, moans, moves, cries, drools, snores, and pants, all in her sleep. I always wondered what she was dreaming about.....

 

In my sleep, I've been known to whimper, bark, moan, pant...I think those dreams had something to do with squirrels

[Raider5678]

 

In my sleep, I've been known to whimper, bark, moan, pant...I think those dreams had something to do with squirrels

She sure does LOVE squirrels. Especially when I go chasing her through town in my PJs because she really wanted to say hi to one.