Does Your Dog Have Nightmares? Enter the Dog Dream Revelation

photo: Anthony Willett, Flicker

How many times have you noticed that when your dog is sleeping that you see a quiver, kick of the paws, or twitch of the whiskers suggesting that a dream is in progress? Stanley Coren, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia and author of the book The Intelligence of Dogs, says that dogs go through the same sleep stages as we do, only faster. After about 20 minutes, a dog enters REM sleep, the stage in which most vivid dreams occur. Big dogs dream longer, Coren says, and little dogs dream quickly and frequently.

Big dogs dream longer....Little dogs dream quickly and frequently.~ professor Stanley Coren, University of British Columbia, Popsci.com

Coren says that “It is really quite easy to determine when your dog is dreaming without resorting to brain surgery or electrical recordings. All that you have to do is to watch him from the time he starts to doze off. As the dog's sleep becomes deeper his breathing will become more regular. After a period of about 20 minutes for an average-sized dog his first dream should start. You will recognize the change because his breathing will become shallow and irregular. There may be odd muscle twitches, and you can even see the dog's eyes moving behind its closed lids if you look closely enough. The eyes are moving because the dog is actually looking at the dream images as if they were real images of the world. These eye movements are most characteristic of dreaming sleep.”

Stanley Coren is the author of many books including: The Modern Dog, Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? The Pawprints of History, How Dogs Think, How To Speak Dog, Why We Love the Dogs We Do, What Do Dogs Know? The Intelligence of Dogs, Why Does My Dog Act That Way? Understanding Dogs for Dummies, Sleep Thieves, The Left-hander Syndrome

Watch three captivating videos of pooches in what appears to be deep dream states as they act out the states of play during sleep:

Source - Popsci | Psychology Today