Are you thinking about what your dog is dreaming about? Well, you have landed in the right place. As in this brief post, we are going to throw some light on whether dogs dream or not, and if they do, then what the hell it is about. It is true that dogs cannot communicate feelings or their dreams to human best friends, but scientists are still making efforts and studies to find out about the dreaming process of dogs in their sleep and clear out What do dogs dream about?
Do dogs really dream?
Well, we cannot say that animals dream like humans but scientists today believe that most vertebrates dream when they sleep. Dogs, just like humans, have sleep cycles. There are periods of wakefulness, and then there is REM sleep. REM sleep is also known as rapid eye movement. This sleep movement is the one that is responsible for memorable and vivid dreams. Scientists have made sincere efforts over the past few years and have used special equipment to track these dreams and sleep cycles.
One of the most popular dream experiments in the past involved rats. Lab rats were picked and were exhausted by running them into a maze. This activity was monitored by the scientists and was compared to their REM sleep patterns. They found out that the same areas of the brain lit up while they were sleeping. A conclusion was made that the rats were dreaming of running in the maze when they were sleeping.ย
This research/experiment showed that animals are capable and tend to dream just like humans. The national sleep foundation has also reported that dogs that have a sleep cycle of more than half days were more likely to dream.ย
What do dogs dream about?
Dogs live a far more interesting and happening life than a rat, so obviously, they won’t dream themselves running in the maze! Scientists and researchers have performed multiple tests on dogs by disabling their pons to find out what they dream about. Pons is actually the part of the brain stem which is responsible for controlling the sleep cycle of the body and preventing your large muscles from moving while you are asleep. Without pons, you might end up acting on everything that you dream about. This can have disastrous results!
You might have seen your puppies or dogs twitch in their sleep. This is major because of underdeveloped pons in their brain stem. Well, when researchers disabled pons of the dogs, they found out the results that we all expected. Dogs simply dream about doggy things!ย The dream patterns of dogs and humans are quite similar, according to multiple researchers.ย
Your dog can dream about running, fetching a ball, eating, and even boning their partner!ย
Does your dog have nightmares?
As humans, we don’t always dream about good things. Some dreams can scare the shit out of us, and we call them nightmares. Well, we can infer that our dogs and puppies can also have nightmares. And if you are seeing your dog acting weird or scared in their sleep, then we would suggest you not try and comfort them because they can act aggressively when they wake up!
So now that you know that your dog dreams, we would like you to leave it alone and let it take its goodnight’s sleep!
