My dog dreams too

My dog has a lot of dreams. He seems to enter REM very quiclky after he falls asleep, and he often moves his legs as if he is running. He makes some whimpering sounds sometimes, or emits a little bark like noise. When he whimpers I wake him up becsuse I figure he might be having a nightmare. He snores, too which is annoying, I wake him up then too… I wonder what animals dream about. I aslo wonder how he feels when I wake him from a dream, like does he know that it was a dream or is he like WTF, how did I just get from there to here? Finaly, I wonder if animals can dream lucidly… I would not rule it out! This is a subject that not many people think about, but I hang out with my dog a lot and try to get into his psyche for many reasons… training, love, etc. I have come to believe that he has a soul like mine, and may even be able to think on a higher level than aminals are usualy given credit for. Sheesh, wouldn’t it be cool to know what your dog (or cat or horse or whatever) is dreaming about?

:cool_laugh: holy shit, i never really though of that. sounds really amazing… mabye you should get your dog a nove dreamer :smile:
sounds really interesting, i don’t have any pets so i wouldn’t really know… but i always imagine animals to have the same capabilities as us -they just don’t wanna talk to us :=)

well, keep me posted if u figure anything out----

merry xmas and happy new year man

I think only the dolphin could (maybe) be lucid dreaming because always one of his brain hemispheres is sleeping and one is awake, so that could be a base for lucid dreaming. They are also really intelligent…but most animals can not dream lucid i think…
But u could test it… not perfectly though lol but a raw test…because if so animals should on a eeg in rem suddenly have more beta waves…But i think only the dolphin comes here into the picture if it could be possible 4 animals…IF!
But it would be interesting to test dolphins for this…Never say no till u have proof 4 it one way or the other…lol!

:smile: I want a dreamlab to test it and many things more lol!

i think you’re right there jeff… as far as i know its just the dolphin that can lucid dream…

but animals make great guides in the lucid dream world… if you ever see your cat/dog in a lucid dream, focus your attention on them, and let you take you on a journey… i posted some experiences of this in dream diary under power animals…

Explora…I dont have any pets…no cats or dogs…
I have only a house robot…called Tommy the karate robot…lol from my youth!
But i promise to pay attention when i c him in my dreams…lol…

But if i would have a pet, yes Explora i would like it to be one of my dream guides…

:happy:

as far as most scientest thought a little while ago, not even humans could Lucid Dream. Those who claimed they did, was called crazy.

I think some animals atleast, might be able to LD.

If an animal could LD, I would think it would need to be very intelligent, very aware, able to think smilarly to the way we think (I guess) and know what a dream is. I think it would be limited to very intelligent animals like everyone else said.

Its impossible for an animal to be lucid, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the original purpose for dreams is basically to recycle and throw away the day’s things, or kind of ideas. We are not intended to remember our dreams, though we do because we are far more intellegent. So firstly, animals dont remember their drems. Secondly, animals have no understanding of what a dream is. They simply dont understand and dont have the capability to comprehend it. They dont know what “real life” is, or what “dream” is. And thirdly, there is almost zero evidence to show that animals have conciousness, that is self awareness, or being aware of your own exsistence. This is something that seperates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom (along with other things.) We don’t know how an animal thinks. Personally, i dont believe animals have a conciousness, but only a subconcious mind that controls everything it does.

There are many ideas abuot our subconcious mind and concious mind, and one is very intruiging. It says that our entire behavior and all our actions are governed by our subconcious mind, that our concious mind is merely an illusion. I mean think about it, when you make a decision with yoour concious mind. Its amazingly difficult to see how you made that desicion, or how you thought. I guess its kind of like the theory of mind, what exactly it is and how it works. I dont think we will ever truely be able to understand how we think, or how we are aware of our exsistance.

Almost no evidence of concioussness!!! Are you nuts? How do you explain the ability of apes to learn sign language or the names of colours, or a dog to learn tricks, or why Elephants appear to cry when a member of the heard dies?
Maybe animals cant LD, but I dont doubt for one second that some animal species do possess self awareness.

Hmm, I’m pretty sure my dogs all dream too!
Why wouldn’t they also lucid dream?
I think most human children lucid dream when they are very young, before they are even aware of what they are doing. It isn’t something they set out to do, some people are natural lucid dreamers. As adults they lose the ability due to external life stresses and environmental factors. Dreaming is natural also, I think every human being dreams whether they remember them or not.

So, why shouldn’t dogs dream also?
Why does my dog kick its legs as if it were running?
Why does it ‘talk’ in its sleep?
Why do my dogs accompany me in my dreams when they are asleep in the same room as I?
(Wait, thats another subject all together…lol)

I think it’s fairly dismissive to say outright that dogs do not have the ability to dream…just because they cannot communicate the fact to us does not mean they can or can’t dream.
Dogs are very different to humans on many levels…but I personally think they are capable of dreaming, even lucidly. We are natural dreamers, it’s not something we had to learn to do. I think it’s the same for our friends in the animal kingdom too.
We are all spiritual beings after all.

:mmm:

No one said they couldn’t dream.
Here’s the problem; to lucid dream you have to know when your dreaming, to know when your dreaming you need to know what a dream is. Does a dog or baby know what a dream is? Can you really answer that? And finally, do animals even remember dreams, like ben7 said. I think if an animal became lucid (Which I’m not so sure is possible) it would be like, “Wow, I’m in this weird place I’ve never been, and I can do impossible things. This is just a different place than back with my master at his house.” I guess what I’m saying is, they may occasionally obtain concious controll over their actions in the dream, but they wouldn’t know that they were dreaming.

damn double post

Just like Astral Traveler I notice often my dog is dreaming

this is the part I recognize and I completely agree with Astral Traveler.
I also would like to know what my dog is dreaming, I also wake him somethimes because I think he’s having a bad dream…
But I don’t think dogs can have lucid dream, when it comes to the discussion about lucidity I agree with ben7.

Even flies can learn tricks. I saw a documentary on television where flies wich took a green tunnel got little electical shots and to the ones that took the red tunnel something good happened. After a while most of the flies took the red tunnel.
Later, the same experiment, but colors reversed. The majority took the green tunnel now.
Some animals can learn some things when the have a profit from it (give your dogs cookies), but I think they are not aware of what they are doing. I think they just learn to react without thinking.
[/quote]

How can you possible know all this?? Have you been a animal in previous life or something?

OMG, some of you people are really ridiculous. Sure, it would be wonderful to believe animals were as intellegent as us, but they arent. You say “then how do they learn tricks?” “how does an ape learn sign language?”. Well, a dog DOESNT learn tricks, and an ape DOESNT learn sign langauge. It is simply an illusion of them learning something. When a dog learns a trick, he doesnt really learn it. He simply understands “if I do this, then I get a treat.” When an ape “learns” sign langauge, he doesnt understand the representation, that a sign represents this. He doesnt make a connection that way, but he does make a connection that… geeeeezzz, this is hard to explain, the ape doesnt make that connection the way humans do, it only apears that way. Its like it doesnt “click” for them. They dont truley understand that its a representation of whatever it represents. Thats not how they understand it. And i never said animals dont dream. They do dream, they just dont dream lucid.

its you who are ridiculous here… No one here said they where more intelligent than humans, but you are saying they dont think at all, they just zombies of some kind… lol.

I guess your one of those who thinks humans are the most superb species in the whole universe…

Just because YOU cant communicate with them, dosent make mindless zombies.

Im sorry for my rude comments. I did not say they are zombies, I just said they cant lucid dream and arent as intelligent as we are. I must admit that I do talk to my 2 cats and 1 dog, and often I feel as if they understand me. I am simply saying the way in which they understand me is different then how we understand eachother. Its like because they are lesser, its very hard for us to comprehend how they understand. Again, I apologize.

I personally believe that most animals think differently than other animals. It’s hard to explain. I think that each animals “thought processes” are unique. I think that we make a mistake by assigning human attributes to an animal. We often can never accuratly speak for someone else, so why should we think that we can honestly speak for a different species. It’s impossible to see life from their perspective.

If you agree that we don’t know how an animal thinks, then why do you speak like you know.

:happy: … So. The dog learns “if I do this, then I get a treat.” To understand is to learn. :wink:

I happen to think that dogs and cats dream, and possibly lucid dream. Every dream a cat has might be lucid. We don’t know and can never honestly say. It seems each animal has a superhuman ability. Birds fly, a hawk’s eye can focus on a mouse a mile away, or a cat can focus it’s consciousness on only it’s prey/toy. A cat’s focus is amazing and can be pinpointed and “locked on.” We can’t start to comprehend how a cat uses it’s senses to view the world. It’s brain is wired differently.

A dog may view the world with it’s nose more than with it’s eyes, it’s dreams may be more scents than visuals. When you hear him wimper he may be smelling fear or danger, instead of “seeing” and bad guy. So, for scientist or ben7 or whoever to say that a dog’s brain is not developed for dreaming may make the mistake of thinking that dogs dream human dreams … along with all the color visuals and sounds. A dog’s waking life perspective could be much different, and then it’s brain is perferctly capable of mirroring that perspective through dreams.

A healthy dog’s brain is perfectly capable of molding a perspective through it’s senses. That same feature of the brain is probably still at work while the dog is asleep, minus the sensory input. That would be a doggie dream.

A cow or horse may be fully conscious through all of their phases of body consciousness. How can they sleep while standing up and not have their dreams affect them?

I wonder if only mammals dream? Or just warm-blooded creatures? I wonder if reptiles or cold-blooded creatures dream? Or insects? I would assume only warm-blooded creatures but I wonder why?

If it were just mammals, it must be a part of the brain that another animal
(reptile, perhaps) lacks or has “wired” differently, as you say. It would be cool to see if we can observe REM in an Iguana or something. Anyone here got a lizard that dreams?

I say we dont understand how dogs think, but we do understand that they dont think like us. And I never said they dont dream. I know that they do dream. I was reading up at a site and it said that if your cat is opening and closing his (is anyone offended that I dont say his/her) mouth, that he caught some food but it got away. lol. heres the link:

messybeast.com/catdream.htm

rapid paw movement…lol