Decode the dream of a dog

Fido (a dog) is sleeping and his legs are convulsing, is it really dreaming about chasing a rabbit?

Researchers think this is possible. Rabbit is only a part. Many scientific evidence confirms that at times, dogs are not only dreaming about rabbits, but they are able to dream about everyday activities like humans.

Stanley Coren, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and also the author of " Dream Dogs? Nearly Everything Your Dog Wants ?" like everything your dog wants you to know) affirms: The dog also has a dream!

Talking to Live Science, Professor Coren shared that dogs sleep more than humans and that they tend to take naps. However, their sleep mechanism is relatively similar to humans. The dog's sleep cycle also goes through periods of alertness (Wakefulness), REM (Rapid-eye-movement) and NREM (Non Rapid-eye-movement). In the Journal of Physiological Behavior Journal published in 1977, scientists also provided reports of EEGs of 6 pointhounds within 24 hours and found that 44% in the beginning they are still awake, 21% of the time falls asleep and 12% is in REM sleep. In particular, the deepest sleep period in the NREM period is 23%, called slow-wave sleep (slow-wave sleep).

Dogs also experience REM and NREM sleep like humans

People dream in both REM and NREM but dreams that most of us remember after waking up belong to REM. During this period, dreams are meaningful and often have a bit of "monstrous". In addition, we are more likely to wake up immediately after REM sleep than after the NREM period. This is the evidence given by Matthew Wilson, cognitive scientist who specializes in the study of expressions and memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also emphasized, " With that comparison, the dreams that appear in the NREM period are often nothing interesting."

Dream of the mouse

In 2001, Professor Wilson and his colleagues discovered for the first time that mice also had dreams; or, at the very least, their brains also do the same thing as the human brain while dreaming, while creating the same result. First, the researchers recorded the activity of some neuron neurons in the rat brain when they were in a coma and repeatedly doing some things over and over. Later, they also did this when the mouse was in REM sleep.

In 44% of the time during REM sleeps, the researchers found that brainwave models matched what the mouse did when in a coma. These models last for a few minutes at a time and resemble what is recorded when the mouse is awake. In other words, animals seem to have "revived" the activities done when awake during REM sleep and this has also been reported in the Neuron Science Journal in 2001.

Studying a mouse's dream is a premise to decipher a dog's dream

A year later, Wilson's team continued to provide evidence of "visualizing" the daily life of mice in NREM sleep. But at this stage, the brain wave model is shorter and faster than "imitating" the same pattern as when the mouse is awake. In addition, they only appear during naps after the mouse performs an activity.

However, there is evidence that the pulses that appear in the NREM are very ambiguous for mice and this is similar to humans. Professor Wilson and colleagues discovered that when nerve cells are made in the brain region of Hippocampus (hippocampus - the area containing the brain's wrinkles in the skull that is related to memory and understanding) Visual cortex neurons are also formed.

"They" see "what the Hippocampus brain region is" thinking "of , " said Professor Wilson.

Dream of dogs

According to Professor Wilson, mouse dream studies are a good sign that dreams are very common in mammals. In fact, NREM sleep occurs on all vertebrates and even, can occur with some invertebrate species such as fruit flies. Therefore, even flies can dream in some way.

The reason why dream brain wave models at two REM sleep stages and popular NREMs seem to be related to their role in understanding and memory. Sleep promotes memory formation and a disorder will cause memory loss.

Professor Wilson added that sleep adds "something" to the cognitive and memory processes. Brain wave models in the NREM stage seem to show a classification of activities performed during the day. In contrast, REM sleep is probably the time when the brain begins to "explode" in a more free environment without caring about the results.

Dogs also dream when sleeping like humans

"The idea is, in sleep, the brain is trying to find shortcuts or connections between things that have gone through but you haven't linked them together , " Wilson said. Other peculiar images that appear in REM dreams may be an expression of this deeper process.

Return to Saint Bernard and Scottish terriers. They switch from REM sleep (about 20 minutes) to a short sleep and can remain in this state for about 2 or 3 minutes. A knowledgeable owner can see that his pet breath becomes erratic, Professor Coren said. For puppies and old dogs, muscles may twitch. In both humans and dogs, brain bridge is a major cause of paralysis of the muscles during sleep, causing both humans and dogs to show unusual behaviors such as continuous pedaling. Bad brain development in puppies and not functioning properly in old dogs. This explains why dogs are more likely to have seizures during adulthood (this is also true for humans).

Studies show that a part of paralyzed muscles of temporarily disabled brain bridges is the only way to explain strange dreams. Once the "offline" brain bridge, dogs will begin to behave abnormally when they are dreaming (In this person, this phenomenon is called REM Sleep Behavior Disorder).

Professor Coren emphasized, "What we basically discovered was that dogs dreamed of monstrous things. So, hounds will hunt dream birds and dogs Dobermans will chase the names. when they are delirious, the dog's dream model seems to be very similar to the human dream model. "

Dog dreams are often very different and are related to their daily activities

The size of the dog has the ability to decide the duration of the dream, although this is not clearly explained. Small dogs tend to have short dreams, Cohen said, while large dogs have fewer dreams but they often last longer.

In some respects, sleep of dogs is similar to humans.Dogs also have nightmares . They may have symptoms of narcolepsy (a narcolepsy) , a type of disorder that causes drowsy drowsiness, or in other words, is so sleepy that it can't stop sleeping. In fact, research on the phenomenon of dogs suffering from this symptom has been done at Stanford University and some biochemical evidence has also been discovered.

However, the biggest difference is that dogs do not occur Sleep paralysis . When you are under pressure, your consciousness is fully awake but you have a feeling of numbness and cannot move. The shadow phenomenon is often due in part to lack of sleep, which dogs rarely appear, Coren said.

Let the dog lie down and it will start to close your eyes. Now look at it and see if there's anything unusual.