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Do animals dream?

andyandy

anthropomorphic ape
andyandy
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
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It would appear that rats do....

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Animals have complex dreams and are able to retain and recall long sequences of events while they are asleep, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers report for the first time in the Jan. 25 issue of the journal Neuron.

Wilson, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, and biology graduate student Kenway Louie trained rats to run along a circular track for a food reward.

They monitored the animals' brain activity during the task and while they were asleep. While the animal ran, its brain created a distinctive pattern of neurons firing in the hippocampus, a brain area known to be involved in memory.

Like us, rats go through multiple stages of sleep, from slow-wave sleep to REM sleep. In humans, it is during REM sleep that most dreaming occurs.

The researchers then examined more than 40 REM episodes recorded while the rats slept. About half repeated the unique signature of brain activity that was created as the animal ran. The correlation was so close that the researchers found that as the animal dreamed, they could reconstruct where it would be in the maze if it were awake and whether the animal was dreaming of running or standing still.

These memories were replayed at about the same speed that the animal had experienced them while awake.
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http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/dreaming.html

what animals are thought to dream?
Do more intelligent animals have more complex dreams?
Do animal dreams go beyond reconstruction (replay of events) into more imaginative sequences?
If one can dream can one be said to have "imagination?"

many many questions.....:D
 
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andyandy said:
what animals are thought to dream?
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I'm pretty sure dogs do. Since dreaming seems to be to do with sorting out the brain after a busy day, I would suppose most animals with complex nervous systems dream, at least to some extent. It would be interesting to see more studies done on this.

Do more intelligent animals have more complex dreams?
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I would think yes, but even if we can tell animals are dreaming, I doubt we will ever be able to tell what they are dreaming about, so I doubt we will ever answer this question.

Do animal dreams go beyond reconstruction (replay of events) into more imaginative sequences?
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Dreams are not just a replay of events, they involve many parts of the brain being active as well as just memory, so things that have not happened can be dreamed. I see no reason to think animals would be any different.

If one can dream can one be said to have "imagination?"
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No. Sorting out your brain while asleep is not the same as imagining things while awake. In order to imagine things you need to have concepts of past, future and prediction, which seems to be what sets higher primates apart from most other animals.
 
My dog dreams; moreover he snarls and barks in his sleep. Interestingly, if you wake him while he's acting aggressive, he immediately switches to happy puppy mode. This suggests to me that not only do dogs dream, but they also recognize the dream as such.
 
I read somewhere that if it's a bad dream the dog will snarl or whine (easy enough to conclude), and if it's a good one the paws will twitch. Not sure where they get that from.

I've been known to wake up my dog if he seems to be having a nightmare.
 
Two of my cats, Murray and Vinny, dreamed. I would sometimes see their nose and mouth twitch, as well as their paws move a bit in an excited manner. I guess they were having hunting dreams. Murray would also snore, but that a discussion for another thread.

Michael
 
how can animals moving in their sleep be signs of dreaming? Does dreaming in and of itself shutdown part of your nervous system so that you are paralyzed?
 
...JR said:
how can animals moving in their sleep be signs of dreaming? Does dreaming in and of itself shutdown part of your nervous system so that you are paralyzed?
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I've wondered this myself. I think it implies that either the timing or degree of sleep paralysis do not 100% match the REM state. I've had nightmares myself where I woke on the floor with sheets tangled round me. (one reason I hate top bunks).
I recall watching a labrador who seemed to be dreaming. He was whining and making vague leg movements, but they were far from vigorous chasing / running movements, more a rather spastic juddering of the limbs.

He certainly looked like he was dreaming, but its a dangerously anthropomorphic comment without the sort of sleeplab data andyandy refers to.
 
Just to echo previous comments, I've grown up with dogs and watched them many times in their sleep. They do indeed make juddery little leg movements at times, and I always guessed that they were dreaming of long walks or runs.

And yes, I'm anthropomorphising. However, I'm an animal, and I dream. It's not a great leap, I think, to assume that other animals can too - but assumptions are nothing without empirical proof, so research of the type mentioned is valuable.

That animals dream is a good thing. The more evidence we collect that we're not so different to the rest of animalkind, the less we'll have a tendency to believe that we alone are "special" - forged in the image of some fictional deity.

Research was done in the UK into whether animals such as foxes and deer feel fear. The eventual conclusion that deer stock DO feel fear was one of the justifications for banning hunting with hounds on National Trust property; "hunted deer quite often face the distress of close contact with humans" (Bateson). The argument that other species DON'T feel emotions such as fear was a political point, not a scientific one. If we convinced ourselves that the animal was actually pretty cool with being hunted and shot, there was no harm in it!
 
REM normally is expected to cause sleep paralysis but there are exceptions, see Rem Behavior Disorder (RBD) which can become so violent patients sometimes need to be given drugs to suppress rem sleep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REM_Behavior_Disorder

Just to echo previous comments, I've grown up with dogs and watched them many times in their sleep. They do indeed make juddery little leg movements at times, and I always guessed that they were dreaming of long walks or runs.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk
 
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My cat definetly dreams. Sometime he'll start crying out, and if you wake him up he wants lots of loving and attention, like he's had a scary nightmare. Once when he woke up he was in fighting mode, but he soon calmed down when he realized whatever he was fighting in his sleep was gone.
 
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