Do humans and animals have similar dreams? This is a question asked by a young participant in a science exhibit at the Discovery Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. I heard about the question from Jeff Bauer of Blue Sky Science, who asked if I would be willing to be taped attempting to answer the question. We’ve already taped “Can humans have similar abilities as animals,” which was great fun. (I’ll let you know when it’s up online. I love supporting science education for young, curious minds.)
The question of animal dreaming is a great one, and it’s been asked by curious people for centuries. Even Aristotle wondered about it in 350 BCE, and concluded that “all viviparous quadrupeds” probably join our species in dreaming at night. But do they? Certainly most dog lovers think so. But what do we really know about the dreams of other animals? Answer: Not much, but researchers have made some impressive discoveries lately.
First off, we know that mammals have all the structural components involved in the production of human dreams, from an active hippocampus that fires up while we are sleeping, to an structure called the pons that literally paralyzes our muscles to keep us from moving too much while dreaming (and is the structure that dysfunctions when people “sleep walk”). Mammals like our dogs have clear REM sleep periods, which is when most of our dreams occur. Basically, the state of the art of neurobiology makes it clear that mammals can and do dream, and that dreams seem to be important in our lives.
However, the research that got the most attention lately is the work of Matthew Wilson and Kenway Louie, neuroscientists at MIT who study dreams. They were able to record the firing of single cells in the hippocampus of four rats, and watch their activity as the rats ran through a maze. Different cells fired at different sections of the maze. (These cells are sometimes called “place cells;” we have them too–cells that fire only when you are standing beside your kitchen counter, for example. Who knew?) Later, the rat researchers observed the same cells firing while the rats were asleep in REM, in the same order as when they ran the maze. It was as though the rats were running the maze in their sleep.
One of the most interesting findings of this research was that there was often a cessation of place cell firing at the corners of the maze, when the rats had to make up their minds which way to turn. But even in their dreams, other cells did fire, but this time the ones associated with other places in the maze. In other words, the results looked as though the rats were thinking about where they had been, or where they could bee–they were focused not on their immediate environment, but what they knew about other areas of the environment from their memory. You can get a much better picture of what this all looks like (and means) by watching this amazing video of Wilson and Louie’s research. The entire segment on sleep and dreaming from the World Science Festival is an hour and a half. I’ve only watched part of it, but will keep on doing so because it’s so interesting.
But what might our dogs (or cats) be dreaming about? How often have we said “she must be chasing rabbits” when our dog’s paws twitch in what looks for all the world like she is dreaming? Ah, we have a long way to go to answer that question. We do know that dreams during REM tend to have a emotional content, thus the dreams we have in which pencils sprout wings or we find ourselves falling over cliffs. This is because the more cognitive areas of our brain, like the prefrontal cortex, are turned off during dreaming. We also know that although our REM dreams often have a component of something that happened during the day (you had a visit from your friend Diane), the context of that fact is radically different (you dream that you and Diane are skiing in the Alps when your skis fall off…). According to researchers Stickgold, Hobson, Fosse & Foss, “We hypothesize that these features reflect an attempt, on the part of the brain, to identify and evaluate novel cortical associations in the light of emotions mediated by limbic structures activated during REM.” (Science Vol 294, 2001). Others describe this, in simpler terms, as memory processing and consolidation.
Thus, it is reasonable to speculate that our dogs are dreaming about something that might have happened during the day, but not necessarily in context. (Herding the rabbit they saw in the woods in the afternoon, but this time in a sheepdog trial in the snow under a purple sky?) Someday, maybe we’ll know more, but for now, we can savor watching our dogs enjoy sleeping. It’s hard to beat the contented face of a sleeping dog, right? (Although cats do a fine job themselves.)
Do dogs have nightmares? [I added this paragraph a day after posting the rest of the article because so many reader’s comments were about their dogs having nightmares.] It seems very likely. Our experiences, the biological continuum between all mammals, and the emotional content of REM dreams, suggest that they do. So many of us have seen and heard dogs growl and whine while dreaming. I’ve had clients whose dogs woke up in a panic, sometimes even running across the room and trying to hide. Science teaches us to be “parsimonious” in our explanations of what we observe, and surely it is simpler to explain what we observe, and what we’ve learned about neurobiology to assume that dogs do indeed have nightmares until evidence appears that tells us that they don’t. I wouldn’t bet on that happening, myself. But it is also probably true that most of a dog’s dreams aren’t nightmares, and are either pleasant, or just bizarre. (And here’s the fun question: What do dogs think of their dreams? That’s the cognitive part of the equation, and that’s where we differ most from the mind of a dog. I suspect the answer to that question is going to take us a long time to answer!)
This all suggests to me that it’s time for some more photographs of reader’s dogs, this time while they are sleeping in amusing positions. Send your photographs in (one per dog if you would) and I’ll post a blog sometime in April of the best ones (criteria – Trisha laughs out loud, possibly doing a spit take and showering her long-suffering computer monitor with the morning’s tea). Send your photo(s) to info@patriciamcconnell.com. I won’t be able to write you back to thank you, and it’ll be a few weeks before I can sort through them and create a post out of them, but I can’t wait to see them. Maggie is especially adept at sleeping in ridiculous postures, I’ll do what I can to get a good shot of it.
Meanwhile, down at the farm. Flowers! The first flowers blooming showed up this week, and oh, it makes me so happy. I do believe I’m about to gush again. Here are the first one I spotted, some sweet little crocus we planted last fall:
Here are some of the sheep getting their first taste of spring grass after being shorn. I kept them inside before and after shearing for a few days because it was windy and rainy, so this was their first day out of the barn. In the sun. With honest to goodness real, green grass to eat. That’s Lady Godiva on the left, keeping an eye on Maggie, who is out of the picture. Not too hard to see that Lady Godiva is pregnant, is it? Her due date is April 6th, but that means about the same in sheep as it does in people.
This weekend I made a chicken/sausage confit from local, organic chicken and pork. (I had to look up the definition–basically a confit is meat cooked very slowly in oil or fat). It was one of those 2 day projects, and I think I used every dish in the kitchen. But, ummm, looks pretty yummy, doesn’t it?
Debby Gray says
This was as really interesting post! My question is: do you think dogs can have bad dreams? Several times my dog has whimpered and cried in her sleep and seemed to be so disturbed that I’ve wakened her.
Vicki in Michigan says
There’s no doubt in my mind that dogs can have nightmares. My rescue dog would clearly be having very bad dreams, for a while after I got him. Like Debby Gray, I woke him up. Carefully, as he was new to me and I didn’t know how he would react. (He never was scary when he woke up, but I didn’t take any chances.)
I had heard whimpering before, from other doggy dreamers, but his dreams were the only really bad dog dreams I’ve ever heard/seen.
I am happy to say that after he got comfortable in our house, and learned that no one here would raise chairs against him, or squirt him with the hose, or SHOOT him (!!!), his bad dreams stopped.
Ellen says
I’ve often wondered about this, especially in the context of bad dreams. My dog will build up from twitchy paws to full on barking in his sleep. When it gets to that point, I’ve found that saying his name and talking a bit will calm him down without waking him up.
He isn’t normally very vocal and only barks in ‘scary’ situations, such as an unknown person at the door or when I left the house at the height of his separation anxiety. Since he’s never been one to bark from excitement or during play, I tend to assume that he’s having a bad dream when he does it in his sleep. Of course, I’d love to know what’s really going on in that head of his!
LisaW says
Debby, I say emphatically yes, dogs can have bad dreams even PTS-type dreams. It took at least two years for the episodes where Olive would scream and jump straight up in the air like she was being shocked to abate. This from a sound (well, unsound) sleep. It is alarming to hear and even harder to watch. It would take her a few minutes to get her bearings and recognize us, and with some calming, she would eventually go back to sleep. She would also cry out sometimes from her sleep, the saddest noise I’ve ever heard.
It also took her a very long time to go to sleep initially; she was leary of any noise or movement. A few times she would wake up snapping the air. I’m happy to say she now snuggles into my neck at night, and I can move and snore and sleep as noisily as I like without her noticing a thing. She’s become quite the snorer, a sound I have grown to love. She has also learned the joy of sleeping in 🙂
Jane says
I would say most definitely dogs dream about things that have happened to them. My agility dog has much more active and vocal dreams in the 24 hours after an agility trial. He barks a lot while he runs in agility, and in his “post-agility” dreams he barks with his mouth closed even more than in his regular dreams. Also dreams during this time include more pushing off motions with his back legs together as if he were jumping in agility. At other times, his dream vocalizations have a different tone, with more threatening sounds and growling, or fearful sounding whines. Sometimes while he’s sleeping, he makes repeated licking motions with his mouth that certainly look and sound as if he’s dreaming about drinking. From your description, I would guess that the canine pons is less controlling 🙂 than the human pons.
Bruce says
I have noticed that dogs’ dreams seem to reflect their daytime activities. Vocal dogs seem more likely to “huff” (inhibited bark) while sleeping, and scent hounds seem more likely to move their nose a mile a minute while in dreamland. This is just based on observing our dogs; no scientific data.
Tricia, your confit looks particularly scrumptious. Clearly you should send samples to your readers for confirmation.
Sleeping dog pictures? We have quite a few, especially since our dogs often sleep together in furry, jumbled piles. I will try to limit the output to one picture per dog . . .
Brian Galindo says
This study seems like it would also reinforce the theory that dogs are capable of Overnight Learning. Something we Service Dog trainers see during training. We knew it all along 🙂
Jenny H says
One of my current dogs sobs like a child in her sleep.
Jo Schreiber says
Our Cheatah, a rescue Great Dane, has extreme, very intense movement in her sleep. It breaks my heart because it seems like she never gets a good night sleep (or day). I would love to participate in a sleep study with her as I do not know her ugly past from where she came. Her legs, especially the back legs have intense movement of chasing, then sometimes just freeze straight up. Her eyes and mouth twitch and usually there is no vocal. Her tail thuds hard. It is hourly and it is something I can not wake her up from very easily, if at all. I can call her name, shake her a little-but am cautious incase she would negatively react. The vet felt she had good REM. So far her dreams are too often, too intense and are heart breaking. I hope in time her fear reactivity and her quality of sleep will get better. We work & play daily on it all. She rocks!
Laura says
What I’ve noticed about Seamus is that he is only really vocal in his sleep. I have only heard him bark three times in the 5 years we’ve been together and I don’t mean a succession of barks on three different occasions. I mean he has given one bark, on three occasions and only when startled. He does whine when he’s excited to go somewhere and he yawns loudly, sounding like a wookee, but he doesn’t bark or even growl and golden retrievers are notorious for doing that, especially when they carry around a toy. When he sleeps though, he is loud. He does the little whimpers and yips, but sometimes there is a big dog growl in there and he barks with his mouth closed a lot. I wonder what he is dreaming about. Does he dream about our day? Does he dream about guide work? My husband suspects he is playing with his litter-mates and while I think this is a cute thought, I don’t have any ideas as to what he is dreaming about. I know he has happy dreams though, because he wags his tail in his sleep, so funny to watch and he eats in his sleep too, his mouth moving like he’s eating his breakfast or dinner. Also, I’ve heard the very long, plaintive whine come from him and the others are right, the saddest sound I’ve ever heard. When I hear it I pet him and wake him gently because I don’t want him to have a nightmare. Still, what could he be dreaming about? Nothing violent or traumatic has ever happened to him and so I don’t know the reason for the bad dreams. What’s going on in that head of his? As for pictures, I have some great sleep-shots of him so I’ll pick my favorite and send it along.
Alice R says
Yum! Yes, it does!
Can’t wait to see those sleeping dog pics. They are bound to be hilarious!
Enjoy the coming spring – so nice to enjoy it with our animals.
Susan says
Both of mine have “nightmares” as well as normal twitchy dreams. My girl (with probable PTSD) is getting better and not having as many scary ones, which were really intense, as she gets older and farther away from the trauma. My boy definitely had an unpleasant one last night as he usually doesn’t make any noise and was crying and thrashing in his sleep under the comforter.
Marilyn Deren says
My dog was a puppy mill breeder, caged for her first four years. Yes, she would howl in her sleep when she first came to us eight years ago, but almost never now that she has a secure loving home. What puzzled me was the way her legs would twitch, like she was running in her sleep. How could she remember running when she had been caged for four years since puppyhood? I doubt she ever had the opportunity to play, and she certainly had zero social skills, both with humans and other dogs. Any theories?
Trisha says
I just added a short paragraph to the article about nightmares. So many of you brought them up, and I had actually planned to write about them but ran out of time. So thanks for bringing them up. All the evidence is strongly in favor of dogs having nightmares: From growling and whining while clearly in REM sleep (paws twitching), to dogs of my clients and those described above who clearly appear to be struggling in their sleep, to all the recent advances in comparative neurobiology–it seems almost impossible that they would not have nightmares.
But Jo, what a heartbreaking description of your Great Dane. It sounds so extreme I’m wondering if you’ve talked to your vet about medication (anti-anxiety for example). I know so little about her, but also perhaps acupuncture, chinese or homeopathic herbs? What a lucky girl she is to have you!
Trisha says
So many amazing stories already! Seamus sounds like a riot when he’s asleep. Will we ever know what he’s dreaming about? Doubtful… but perhaps we can guess that his dreams are not too different from ours? Perhaps with a kernel of factual reality interwoven with a whole lot of ridiculous, illogical stuff? And Jenny: Sobbing like a child? Oh my! That sounds just awful.
I think we all wonder: Should we wake our dogs up? I think we should if we think they are truly having a true nightmare. I’m thinking of the veterans with PTSD whose dogs gently wake them up from nightmares, and the owners are grateful for it. I just had a true nightmare not too long ago, and believe me, I would have loved to have experienced less of it. But we do need to be careful about how we wake up our dogs. I have had clients whose dogs bit them while waking up from what looked like a dream. If there is any danger of that, I’d wrap my hand in a towel, use a wooden spoon, etc. to touch the dog. I’d speak first, perhaps put my scent next to the dog’s nose, and then very gently touch them. Maybe this is a reasonable time to be anthropomorphic. How would you want to be woken up from a bad dream?
Beth says
One way to wake up a sleeping dog: Get some yummy smelling treats and gently wave them near the nose. We use that with Maddie, now that she is (among her many other issues) losing her hearing so she doesn’t always wake up when we call her name.
I have seen dogs that appear to undoubtedly be dreaming, but my current two never really seem to move or vocalize in their sleep. They just sleep blissfully calm sleep, and I wonder if that may be in part because they have been blessed with little but love from puppyhood until present? They don’t seem to have the “chasing rabbits” dream where they paddle their feet that I am so familiar with.
Trisha says
About ‘leg twitching’ and other movements. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a dog is dreaming about running if his or her paws twitch. All of those movements seem to be the result of the pons (part of the brain that causes your muscles to be paralyzed) not completely doing its job, or being overwhelmed by other brain functions. People often move in their sleep while dreaming too, but it doesn’t nec’ly mean that they are running in the dream. Just fyi…
Gayla McCarthy says
The Wilson and Louie research – absolutely fascinating! Thank you so much!!
Andy says
The fact that dogs dream is all the more reason to abandon the belief that dogs only live in the present. Their memories are so rich, and it gives their lives an arc that should be respected, even if they can’t construct narratives from them.
I’m trying to get Cecil to look ridiculous in his sleep but he just comes out adorable. We’ll keep working on it!
Beth says
I don’t know how many readers here are familiar with the ridiculous way Corgis sleep, but I have some pretty funny pictures. Must find ones where the house isn’t in some state of disaster, though. 🙂 The dogs always look better than the rest of the place….
Sue says
Really interesting to hear that Seamus also only barks in his sleep. Same with my greyhound, I’ve never have really heard her bark, apart from one single woof once, when the cat she was chasing through the flat (had come in through the open window – talking about nightmares…!) escaped. But in her sleep she quite often will bark or whine a little and the other night there was quite a bit of sleep barking. So it must be in her somewhere 😉
I tend to not wake her up – unless it clearly is a very unpleasant dream as I think that dreams also have an important function in terms of helping us – and presumably it’s the same for dogs – to deal with and work through situations…
em says
@Laura,
Your comments about Seamus reminded me of the early days with Otis. He’s not naturally a vocal dog – Sandy has taught him the pleasure of barking these past six years, but for the first couple of years that we had him, he almost never barked at all. In the first six months, we heard him bark exactly once, at a lamp that swayed after he’d bumped it, startling him.
Yet he has ALWAYS barked little suppressed barks in his sleep. He doesn’t sound particularly distressed, but he wufwufwufwufs, as though he were launching a true volley of barking, sometimes deeper growly barks too. We used to marvel at it and wrack our brains trying to imagine what in the world he could be dreaming about since real life apparently held NO occasions for barking like he did in his dreams.
He’s always been and still is an “active sleeper”, twitching his paws and kicking out his legs as though running and jumping. I’ll wake him if he’s shaking our bed from his on the floor, (he doesn’t startle awake when I touch or call to him, but he comes slowly conscious) but he’s never seemed upset to me, and he has many long stretches of peaceful sleep during the day and night so I’ve never worried about it.
em says
I wonder if there is a genetic component to sleep activity in dogs, as well as other factors. A small Great Dane forum I participate in recently discussed this topic and among the dozen or so regular posters, nearly all report frequent kicking, twitching, lip smacking, wuffing, tail movement, etc.
Some dogs seem more anxious/distressed than others, but all seem to have a less-functional -than-average pons. Very deep sleeping (not waking if touched or spoken to, slow to rouse fully even when shaken) is also quite common.
Still, I would worry if Otis never seemed to sleep peacefully, or if he were on the distressed end of the busy sleeper spectrum, and my heart goes out to Jo and Jenny and everyone else whose dogs seem to be having distressing dreams.
Heesun Andes says
If dogs can dream they must have souls and all Dogs must go to Heaven <3
Laura says
At M and Sue,
I think Seamus is not naturally a barky dog. My first guide, Marlin, didn’t bark very much until he retired from guide work, then, he barked a bit more, at outside things, but it wasn’t exessive. Our guides kind of have the bark trained out of them but inadvertently so, because they’re expected to be quiet in harness, but some are barkers out of a working situation. My friend’s current guide barks at the door so there is no special, non-bark training they go through. M, your description of the little woofs Odis makes while sleeping reminded me of similar noises Seamus makes. He’ll sleep-bark little barks in such quick succession that it sounds like a ginny-pig. It’s histarical to listen to and I still remember laughing when I first heard it. Also, he seems to respond to me waking him the same way Odis does. I can’t tell when his eyes open, but he doesn’t startle awake. He doesn’t even move really, just sighs when I pet him awake and then readjusts his position and goes back to sleep. I can’t say that I think he’s having nightmares that often, but it could be just me hoping he always has good dreams. Perhaps he has dreams about guiding me and something frightening happens? I really hope not, but I’ve had bad dreams about work too so it’s possible. I’ve been having dreams lately that I’m back in college and it’s the last day of the semester and I realize I’ve blown off an entire class all term long… I hate those dreams.
Marion says
I don’t know if you can embed videos here, so I’m just going to post the link, but this is Riley wagging his tail in his sleep:
https://youtu.be/JnPwVj8lj6s
He does often twitch his paws and sometimes wags his tail (it thumps when he’s lying on the floor). Puzzle will also twitch. I don’t think I ever saw them have what I would think as a nightmare.
Kathy says
One of our rescued dogs used to whine and cry pitifully while sleeping, and our Chinese medicine vet prescribed a different diet and some herbs, saying that too much dreaming and dreams that are too vivid are not healthy. I wonder whether the person with the rescue Great Dane might consider consulting a Chinese veterinary medicine practitioner? It helped our rescue dog. He developed into quite a sound sleeper and didn’t wring our hearts so much either. We used to have to put treats in front of his nose and call his name softly until one (or both) of those stimuli woke him up. He always seemed kind of disoriented upon awaking, but I think he appreciated the gentle wake-up from what must have been a distressing dream.
Bren Axon says
I have never had any doubt that dogs dream. Why wouldn’t they be running through what has happened in their day, just like we do? Nightmares, well that’s different. Maybe I can understand that if a dog is a rescue from a bad situation, or the dog has had a frightening experience during the day, that may come out as a nightmare, but I think that dogs are fairly simple creatures in so many ways and that mostly they are just reliving running in the park or swimming in the sea or chasing seagulls. A lot of dogs bark when they are having fun and there’s no reason to think that the subdued barking that our dogs emit when asleep is nothing more than that. My two Leonbergers don’t have bad experiences and neither of them are rescues. Yet they dream a lot and they often bark in their sleep. But they do have fun swimming in the ocean and running full pelt on the beach.
em says
@Bren Axon, like you, I’ve never really worried that my dogs are having bad dreams, since they don’t whine or cry or startle awake frightened as a person having a nightmare might.
What boggled me was that at the time, Otis NEVER barked. Not at the mailman, not at other dogs, not during play with dogs or humans, not at the deer he loved to chase or the crows he liked to scatter or even the coyotes he showed every sign of actually intending to do injury to if he caught them. He didn’t bark territorially or playfully or fearfully in his waking life, but in sleep he did so often, more often than he does now that he actually does bark in his daily life (our gleeful barker Sandy has taught him the pleasure).
So it seems his dreams, if dreams they were, either involved imagining scenarios outside his normal experience or imagining himself behaving in ways unlike his waking self. Fascinating to think about!
Kat says
Ranger is a talker. He has a whole host of vocalizations that he uses to get what he wants–attention from people. When he dreams he’ll often run through those same vocalizations with his mouth closed so they’re muffled and distorted and sound really funny. We call it singing in his sleep and are entertained by it. However, twice in the nine years he’s lived with us he’s had what I can only describe as a nightmare. The vocalizations, while still made with his mouth closed, were clearly the ones he uses when distressed and his movements made me think of trying to escape. Instinctively I did the same thing I’d do if one of my children or husband was having a nightmare; I put my hand on him firmly so there was solid contact and when that didn’t seem to help I stroked his back. After a few seconds he stopped vocalizing and writhing and settled into a more restful sleep. If that had failed I would have woken him up. To the best of my knowledge the only ‘bad’ memories Ranger might have are of being sick and cared for by the vet staff. Finna, who likely has bad memories she could relive in her sleep has never had a nightmare that I’ve witnessed. Her dreams all seem to be of happily chasing things. When she first came to live with us the only time we really saw her relaxed was when she was dreaming. Even, just sleeping she was tightly wound and coiled for action but in her dreams she was happy and relaxed. I suspect that his much greater experience with the world gives Ranger more memories that can combine in complex ways in his head than Finna does and would speculate that his nightmares were combinations of things that were mildly unpleasant in reality combining to make something very frightening and unpleasant in the dreamworld. But, like I said, this was two nightmares in nine years so bad dreams aren’t really part of his life in any significant way.
I don’t really have funny pictures of Ranger and Finna sleeping but I’ll send a couple that I think are very sweet/moving. The first time Finna sprawled out on her back asleep I wanted to cry because finally she was relaxed and comfortable enough to confidently sleep in a vulnerable position. And the series of pictures where big Ranger has given up his dog bed to the senior cat who was in his declining years. When the cat was healthy and vigorous he never got to sleep on the dog bed but as he declined the dog bed was surrendered to him and Ranger slept near it on the floor.
Mireille says
@Em: funny you should mention that; I only heard Janouk bark once in his whole life (as a Siberian, he did “talk/whoooo/howl” but not bark), but he also barked quite a lot in his sleep (with mouth closed, such a funny sound).
The only time he really barked, was when he had cornered a deer (leash broke when he saw the deer, nightmare). The deer had moved his behind between to small trees and was shooing Janouk aside with his antlers and Janouk was barking/jumping to keep him in place “till the rest of the pack arrived”. When I finally arrived and did not help him (it was really scary, I didn’t dare move in close since I wanted to stay away form the antlers so all I could do was watch and yell at him to come), Janouk decided to give up the chase and came to me. The deer luckily was unharmed. Anyway, I think that his barking dreams might have been a result of him dreaming about chasing / hunting since his paws also moved quite a lot.
Rose says
“And here’s the fun question: What do dogs think of their dreams? That’s the cognitive part of the equation, and that’s where we differ most from the mind of a dog. I suspect the answer to that question is going to take us a long time to answer!”
This is something I wonder about in the context of nightmares! If my dog has a nightmare about a scary man, will she develop a real-life phobia of men? Or is she smart enough to realize that a nightmare isn’t real life? I tend to think the latter since I don’t know how any mammal could function if it developed real-life phobias from its dreams… So they must realize that a dream is a dream and not real?
Kelly Schlesinger says
I learned about dogs’ REM sleep when my BC Tag started having seizures at the age of 3. The neurologist explained that some dogs can have seizures as they go through the phases of sleep, going into and out of REM, and Tag sometimes does have seizures when is sleeping. With the description of the Great Dane’s leg movement, freezing, and eye and mouth movements, I wonder if she might be having seizures. When I am with Tag as he is coming out of a seizure, I like to put my hands in front of his nose so he can smell me as he is waking up. I also sometimes hold him and breathe slowly as he wakes up. Luckily he is always friendly and happy to see me when he comes out of it, so this might not work with other dogs waking up from bad dreams. Maybe putting a scent item near a dog having a bad dream might safely calm him down and possibly not even wake him up.
Diane says
“pencils sprout wings”…..memoir writing?????
Most dreams in my dogs life are left alone by us with smiles and speculation of the rabbits
or nemesis squirrels being chased.. But there have been a few occasions when we can’t help but wake him. He sounds so frightened. I can’t imagine what he may be dreaming, and I hope it is random or tied to a bizarre twist on the days events and not something we failed him on. I, and I’m sure others, have bizarre dreams from time to time …something we ate perhaps? Something he smelled? Something he “imagines” during waking hours that manifests when sleeping.
Monika & Sam says
Fascinating topic!
Your pale sweet yellow crocuses give me hope that Spring is indeed just around the corner. 🙂
Katja says
I had rescue/stray dogs most of my life and I noticed that the ones who were in particular bad condition when we took them in wouldn’t dream for a long time until they were much better (physically) and had settled in and felt secure. I was wondering if as strays they had to constantly on guard and therefor didn’t sleep deep enough to reach REM? Only one of them later developed nightmares for a while. He has a particular sad background as he was used as bait for dog fights. Happy to say, nightmares are gone and ‘happy dreams’ are the norm now.
Donna says
Both of my current golden boys (one of whom, Spencer is a rescue), as well as my first 2 goldens are ‘talkers’ while sleeping – from twitching of paws/legs or their noses & flews, along with yips, harumpfs and very sporadically some howls as well. Some nights it is much more interesting & gratifying to watch/listen to them sleeping than anything else I could be doing. Probably why my house is not as clean as it could be, I spend so much time in awe watching them! As as for odd sleeping poses, oh boy do I have those! I regularly send them to my friends & we all amaze that Spencer in particular could actually be asleep hanging off the couch, side of the chair, etc, etc. Selecting only one will be tough -can’t wait to see them once you post them Tricia!
Pam says
I have no doubt that my bassets dream. In the fall (for some reason only in that season), I’ve had hounds who would both move their legs as if they were running and howl what I called the “hounds of the Baskerville” bay. A sleeping hound’s bay echoes in a way it never does when it’s awake, so it is very eerie! I have always wondered what they were dreaming about.
Not every basset we’ve had has done this, but several have done it.
Anne Smith says
I absolutely think our dogs dream – and have nightmares. I don’t know if science will ever be able to give us a definitive answer, unfortunately.
Gabby The Tabby says
I imagine that animals do not know that dreams aren’t real. Based purely on the way my cat often acts when she wakes up. Or at least, it takes her a minute to figure out where she is and what’s going on.
Jo Schreiber says
Update – Cheatah, the rescue Great Dane is still, every few hours, experiencing night terrors. She is on Prozac for her anxiety/fear reactivity; recently extensive x-rays show a partial torn ACL, also a lot of arthritis-would pain affect sleep? Definitely.
Beth – you suggested using smelly food & place in front of her nose while dreaming. Loved that idea! I tried it with a peace of salmon treat – did not wake her up-shocked me!
Kathy – My friend knows of a Chinese veterinary medicine practitioner – will get back to you.
Kelly S – she doesn’t awake when I touch or call to her and she doesn’t really become “conscious” for lack of better words.
She has been with us a year now and at confirmed age of 5 yrs. I am certain Cheatah has more confidence and feels safe in our home environment. Attempting to post a video, specifically showing facial expression. She stops at about a minute in length but the frequency is often.
https://youtu.be/BrwfWiaReA0
Robin says
While googling about my dogs frequent dreams being normal or not, I again came across this blog entry of Trish’s, and since it made tears run down my face reading others experiences, I had to comment. Its funny sometimes even when i know someone will likely never read it, its so cathartic for me I write it anyway!
I dont know my dog’s early life, she came to me already very fearful of everything…sounds, doorways, wind, pretty much everything. She never had any interest in toys except to eat them, and something as simple as the refrigerator motor kicking on sent her flying to the bedroom.
She has ALWAYS dreamed, and I mean a lot! Everytime she goes to sleep, even her ‘naps’, will elicit lots of yipping, whining, limb movements, and all too frequently, howling and crying and whining in terror. She’s been with us now for 31/2 yrs, I had hoped some of her past had finally been forgotten. While she has come so far from where she was in her fears, she will likely never be one of those secure confident dogs who explore everything and seldom run to hide .
So anyway I was googling because her dreams are so intense, so frequent, and usually so frightening, probably to both of us really, I worried if there was something else I should do for her.
Reading other experiences, while some were quite sad, at least tells me she’s not necessarily abnormal .
Like others, I quietly wake her when her dreams seem to be violent or distressing for her.
I wonder if things she experiences even now when she’s awake that frighten her also influence her dreams. I don’t always know that she’s scared of something different, until I correlate her response to something that I had no clue would frighten her.
She doesn’t even enjoy walks unless I take her to the area where she can be safely off leash and not encounter other dogs.
Gosh where am I going with this? !
I guess I just felt the need to write in a place where we could both be understood! Thank you
Trisha says
Just know, Robin, that someone DID read it (I always read every comment), and consider your dog a lucky one indeed.