FYI: Do Animals Dream?

both my dogs and both my cats dream a lot. but my cats are more active in their sleep. they often turn and move rapidly during sleep. i wish i could see his dreams. maybe in the future we will have the tech to view our dreams via the TV

"religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom"

-Killah Priest

JediMindset,
Do the annunaki envy us humans for our ability to dream? Do aliens dream?

As a baby\child I had 1000s of dreams of falling off a cliff and yes hitting the ground waking up. I did not die from this dream. I only was wakening up. Eventually those falling dreams did stop. It was a weird childhood....

I am better now, a I think.

As an adult I am naturally optimistic and find my self day dreaming always. Is day dreaming the same as night dreaming?

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

@Robot
that's a fascinating dream you got there........but no they dont envy us. that gave that gift to us through genetic engineering. i often dream of aliens arriving in their motherships and destroying most of he earth. and yes daydreaming is similar to regular dreaming. i head that its good for you to day dream. your mind produces a drug/chemical when you dream giving you a natural high.

"religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom"

-Killah Priest

my best friend's step-aunt makes $68/hr on the internet. She has been out of a job for 10 months but last month her income was $8959 just working on the internet for a few hours. Go to this web site and read more...urlgator.com/ZChyB

JediMindset,
Part of the task I do in my job is to climb several hundred feet tall towers to work on electronics. Curiously, I have an unnatural non-fear of heights, nada, nothing.

I really cannot see any practical sense for aliens to destroy earth. Really why destroy it and not make good use of earth's recourses. More likely they would make use again as before us humans, making slaves of us.

Perhaps night dreaming is just the chemical settling of our day thoughts and making good solid associations for tomorrow. And as night dreams can be odd and crazy at times; perhaps this is where our genius comes to see a good idea tomorrow, from a problem we had yesterday?

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

Only someone who has never owned a dog could ask that question. I don't recall ever seeing visible signs that my cat was dreaming but my dog has gotten so animated in his sleep, chuffing and whining and running in place that I've actually fallen off my sofa laughing. Of course they dream.

mordrud,
My daughter when she was a tiny child had a lot of problems with her tonsils and because of the smaller air way, she did a lot of sleep walking... She did get her tonsils removed and her sleep walking stopped too.

My point being, you may want to have your dog checked for worms or other health problems. Worms and parasites can do a lot of damage for a long time. In the world it is said 80% of humans have parasites and do not know it. The same parasites cause bacteria and other health problems. They can live in your body and never know it too. I would not like to see you dog being sick and I do wish you dog happy dreams!!!

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

Jedi, I definitely concur; I think there's lots of good reasons to think daydreaming is a highly useful tool, and very likely does have a rather meditative effect.

One topic that's interested me for a long time is why dreaming itself is a necessary component of life. Stay awake long enough, and your body simply shuts down. To date, I don't believe any serious research has provided a comprehensive solution to this problem.

Regarding aliens, I subscribe to the view of Michio Kaku, that should FTL-travelling, advanced and intelligent alien life exist out there, they would view us similarly to a lone ant on a sidewalk.

They'd likely never give us a second thought. And if they did, it would probably be instantaneously catastrophic to the ant; so fast, the ant wouldn't know what hit it (splat!)

And I see no reason to suspect the Earth is any form of unique, such that human labour nor our mineral resources would be of any particular value to them.

By this point, they'd be harnessing the entire energy output of one or more suns, being an advanced Tier 2 or even tier 3 civilization, according to Kaku, and every mineral that exists on Earth basically exists outside Earth as well. And even if not, it wouldn't likely be difficult to fashion needed resources.

So, just as I wouldn't bother stealing resources from an ant mound or try to enslave an ant, I don't believe aliens would give us much more thought than that, either. At least not until such time as we might pose a particular benefit.. or threat.

@Robot,

i said i have dreams of them attacking, not that i believe it. i personally believe aliens are a peaceful people that were once like us but they learned the hard way to change theyre ways. you are right that dreams in a sense prepare us for the next day and ultimately prepare us for death. yeah they help us resolve problems that we had the day prior. in a sense to make sure we never make the same mistake twice. but we easily forget our dreams, thats why its go to write them down after waking up.

@Canadian_Skeptic

maybe dreams are with us all the time to prevent us from going insane. before we had books and movies humans told each other stories and maybe dreams helped them cope with life and prepared them with what was in store. imagination is a strong force. i too agree with the views of the great Michio Kaku. a type 5 civilization is a "god". does what they want when they want. drain all the power from entire galaxies and travel through black holes and worm holes with ease.

"religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom"

-Killah Priest

A dogie dream:

" Oh yea, uuuuu, scratch me their, yea yea that is good, nice, a little lower! Oh yea! Scratch the ears, love the ears! Oh my god! Your scratching my belling! OH OH OH OH! Oh that was good, nice thanks. I am gonna lay here a moment!.............. sniff, SNIFF, do I smell dinner! DINNER, LOVE DINNER YEA DINNER! WOW! DINNER! Wow, you are such a great cook, oh yea, my blue bowl, love the bowl. CHOMP, CHOMP! OH this is good CHOMP! MMMM, so good! Oh, bowl empty, can I have more please....... no... ok...
Find sofa, aaaaaa pillow rest, .......zzzzz " Yes, he is dreaming inside a dream now too!

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

A alien gotta eat and as humans gotta eat, we eat the lesser things of life. So goes the aliens of as lesser things. Do the aliens see Earth as a lesser thing?

Now I see in my dream a gigantic space Mrs. PAC MAN showing up and just CHOMPING on planet Earth!

As we humans observe the COSMSO, we are finding some extremely large planets out there. So goes an alien life form might really end up being big; like really really big!

Oh, what dreams may come or nightmares too!

Say, what is the purpose of a nightmare?
Do nightmares help us humans?

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

Well, as far as REM sleep dreaming, one of the explanations I've been given at least for infants dreaming (who spend more time in REM sleep than adults), is to create and strengthen neural pathways during cognitive development.

Also, some animals dream, some don't. So dreaming is ultimately a biological process that we evolved (or at least was passed down to us).

----------------
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

I am seriously asking why we human have nightmares, bad dreams?

Think about it. Who is the author or creator of the bad dream? We, our human brains are responsible for this bad dream that makes us suffer in our dream.

So why abuse ourselves? How do we benefit by the invention of self abusing bad dreams?

Oh, do dogs, cats or other animals have bad dreams too?

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense.
Religion sees beyond the senses.

It's probably safe to assume bad dreams aren't unique to humans, either.

And not everything that evolved in humans or life generally is good or has a directly positive effect. It's likely bad dreams developed in tandem with actual dreams, and are an unfortunate by-product.

Or, it's entirely possible there was some evolutionary value to them once upon a time when the fear response was a daily necessity, given how vulnerable to the elements and wildlife humans once were.

----------------
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

My dog definitely dreams about eating and running as you can see his legs move and his jaw move as if he's eating. Interesting talk about people's kids having bad dreams. Several coworkers of mine and I suspect my son also seem to have bad dreams. I almost wonder if that's common among children. Maybe it's to help them create an understanding of fear. As for animals seeming to be able to got into REM sleep faster than people, its most likely for survival. A smaller animal such as a small dog would be easier prey to a larger animal so they aren't going to get a "full night sleep" like people or modern domesticated animals so its important for them to be able to get into shorter deep sleeps for whatever biological process is necessay.

@Canadian Skeptic, I once stayed up for about 56 hours straight, I can honestly tell you by the end of that stint, I was seriously halucinating. I'd see trees or mailboxes and be convinced it was a person.

Science always asks "can we," but doesn't seem to ask "should we."

I don't doubt it for a second, cold.

Technically, though, REM sleep isn't the part of sleep that gives you the most rest. Once you hit REM, you actually go on to several other stages, which are what makes you feel rested.

----------------
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

I really think the amimal dreaming about chasing a cat or something is crazy like they like chasing those things in reality but in dreams i think its something else!

While us humans sometime envy a dogs life. They own the house and sofa. We feed them. They play and lay about. They have no bills.

Perhaps when a dog dreams, it dreams to be human?
The bones are always better on the other side of the fence.
The dogs may envy us and so they dream of being human!

..........................................
See life in all its beautiful colors, and
from different perspectives too!

Womp Womp Womp i know that even if you dont remember dreaming you could have dreamed but i really get bad sleep witch is why i feel like crap allot i would like to touch on what exactly sleep is for k.. Sleep is meant to do the same for any creature kk so it is universal across all species sleep is a way for the body to repair damaged cells and tissues kk think of sleeping as a oil change if you dont do it regularly you break down and dont perform at your best and vice verses if you you replace your oil and use good oil you run longer and dont break down as much that's the basic principal now dreaming is also a tool of recapping experience you may recall that your dreams have either direct or loose relations to things you do or see or hear through out the day you mind uses dreaming as a way to recap and more closely focus on those events imagination is key to developing boundaries and limitation mentally think of it like this you are walking down a street you fall over off a curb a car swerves and misses you mind has just recorded all that happening down to the car swerving past you to you falling to the fear you get when you saw the car about to hit you well when you sleep most likely you are going to have a dream based off that its a way to remember and organize the junk from the important stuff you dream it you sift through it and if you like that dream or part of it you retain it in long term memory and forget the rest its a way to learn from mistakes also to provide stimulation while your body repairs itself other wise you have no reward for sleeping your body will want to repare itself but the mind wouldn't want to shut down that's why people who dont get rem sleep suffer allot more than people who have healthy sleep pasterns

The seeker of knowledge who seeks to reach beyond the stars to go where no mans gone before to see things no man has seen and bring these experiences back for the whole world to hear and see.

@ Robot

I too have had those falling off a cliff dreams, but what was weird was when i hit the ground, i woke up very very dizzy.. but i never once fell off the bed so idk why i was dizzy.

-Live life to the fullest, or don't live at all-

if we could record our dreams we could catch all the "fuzzy" details and sometime relive our dreams via 3D projecter and articulated arms which move our body precisely to our past actions and surround sound systems

seems we have to examine neural pathways and translate the electrical impulses sent throughout the brain.

-_-