Dreams are a very important part of people's lives. They can excite or, on the contrary, delight. They are told to psychoanalysts and try to interpret with the help of dream books. A person worries about the question of what pets - cats and dogs - dream about.
Owners of cats and dogs who pay enough attention to their pets often claim that their pets have dreams. One has only to observe the animals a little to be sure of this. Under the eyelids, quick eye movements can be noticeable, cats are able to touch their paws, as if chasing someone, dogs - whine and even bark. For a long time, scientists considered this only an empty desire of the owners to endow their pets with human features, but then they conducted several experiments and found out that cats and dogs can really dream.
Sleep mechanism
During slow wave sleep, breathing and pulse slows down, muscle tone decreases. Neither an animal nor a person in such a state sees any dreams. Like people, animals observe dreams only in the phase of rapid, or, as it is also called, paradoxical sleep. At this time, the tone returns to normal, the eyes begin to move under the eyelids. It is then that various things can be dreamed of.
As in humans, in cats and dogs, REM sleep takes about 20-25% of the total rest time. However, this is not the case for puppies and kittens. For example, REM sleep in young puppies takes 90% of the time.
Experiments with the blue spot
Scientists have found that cats and dogs dream, but they were still bothered by the question of what exactly animals dream about, why they get angry, whine in fear, sniff something or move their paws in a dream. A not very humane experiment helped to clarify the situation. There is a tiny area in the brain called the blue spot. It is the blue spot that prevents sleeping people from performing all the actions that they do in a dream. First, scientists conducted an experiment on a cat, destroying the blue spot. During the day, the animal behaved as usual - it ate, washed, purred and hunted for a bow on a string, like ordinary cats. Having plunged into the phase of slow sleep, the cat also did not differ in any way from a healthy member of the feline family. However, during REM sleep, the animal walked around the room, chasing its own tail, or washing itself.
A similar experiment was soon performed on dogs. Man's four-legged friends were doing the same thing as usual: guard dogs barked loudly, driving away uninvited guests, hunting dogs - catching up with their prey.
Studies have shown that miniature dogs have more dreams than large dogs.
During the experiments, it turned out that during the rest, the animals mainly dream about what they did during the day - whether they were tracking a chicken, fighting a neighbor's cat, or chasing passing cars. In this, dogs and cats are not very different from humans.
