Where Do Pets Go When They Dream?
June 26th 2010 20:50
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From: Bloomberg Business Week
Lab research indicates that they often replay past experiences
HealthDay Reporter
How many pet owners have gotten a chuckle out of watching their dog sleep while its paws race frenetically in place?
Many figured that Rover was romping somewhere in dreamland, and scientists say they were right: Pets do dream while sleeping.
As dogs and cats doze, images of past events replay in their minds much the same way humans recall experiences while dreaming, said Matthew Wilson of MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory in Cambridge, Mass. That's because the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory, is basically wired the same way in virtually all vertebrates and mammals, he said.
"If you compared a hippocampus in a rat to a dog; in a cat to a human, they contain all of the same pieces," said Wilson, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences.
Like people, pets go through multiple stages of sleep, from periods of slow wave sleep to REM (rapid eye movement), where most dreaming occurs.
"From the minute your head hits the pillow and you're out, the dreaming process begins," he said.
Non-REM dreams consist of quick snapshots of things usually done that day. During the deeper sleep state of REM, dreams last much longer and tap into a vast pool of past experiences drawn from weeks, months, even years in the past.
REM occurs approximately every 90 minutes in people, and every 25 minutes in cats.
In dogs, research shows the frequency and length of dreams is linked to their physical size, said psychologist Stanley Coren, author of several books including How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind.
For example, he said, mastiffs and Great Danes might dream every 45 minutes for about five minutes, compared to their smaller canine cousins that enter a dream state every 10 minutes with episodes lasting less than 60 seconds.
Owners can tell if their dozing dog or feline is dreaming by looking for these clues: whisker twitching, paw tremors, irregular breathing and -- in dogs -- occasional high-pitched yips.
But what do our pets dream about? Researchers believe they know the answer. Older studies, done decades ago in cats, involved temporarily releasing the suppression of motor activity that happens during REM sleep so they'd act out their dreams.
What researchers witnessed is sleepwalking cats doing things they'd normally do while awake -- walking, swatting their forepaws, even pouncing on imaginary prey.
Similar research showed the same held true for dogs.
"Pointers point at dream birds, and Dobermans growl at dream burglers," Coren said.
Those experiments were not a demonstration of actual dreaming, said MIT's Wilson, but do suggest that in REM sleep the brain is functioning the same way it behaves during normal wakefulness. As early as 2001, he decided to find out if animals did in fact dream by eavesdropping on the sleeping brain.
Wilson used electrodes to record the brain activity of rats as they ran a circular track and later as they slept. He discovered, by examining more than 40 REM episodes recorded while the rats slept, that the sleeping rodents often appeared to replay images of navigating the track in real time. About 50 percent of the episodes repeated the unique signature of brain activity created as the animal ran. In fact, because records of the neural signals in both the sleep and waking states were so similar, Wilson said he could reconstruct where the dreaming rats were on the track and whether they were standing still or running.
This human-like ability to dream about actual experiences almost certainly applies to pets, he said.
"My guess is -- unless there is something special about rats and humans -- that cats and dogs are doing exactly the same thing," he said.
In the scientific community, animals are often thought of as reflex machines, operating by instinct alone. But this view is slowly starting to change, noted Wilson, as new information about dreaming in animals is unearthed.
Coren, the psychologist, agreed. He said that one of his heroes, Charles Darwin, "basically claimed if you can prove that an animal dreams, then, in effect, you can prove that's consciousness. Because after all, what is a dream other than a conscious image?"
Wilson's current work goes beyond analyzing dream content and relates to what's going on inside the brain during wakefulness. Using lab-built devices with an array of electrodes, he's found that rats appear to replay memories while doing normal, everyday activities like nibbling on food or sitting quietly. In other words, he said, they're thinking about the past, and possibly contemplating the future.
"The idea that rats may actually be thinking -- just as humans think when they're sitting, appearing not to be doing anything -- suggests the full range of cognitive abilities that we have," he said.
Wilson believes his work extends beyond using animal models to explore human memory and cognition. "It really is using animal models to study animal cognition," he said. "Understanding the differences will give us a better understanding of where we stand in the hierarchy of organisms on the planet."
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Comment by Quintin J Watt
This thread absolutely FASCINATES me!! Why? Because dream anaylsis is one very important part of the work I do as a mental and spiritual healer. I am, in fact, in process of working on a package of my own - which will be downloadable for my international clients (if they become members) on my pro website (still under construction, but watch out for it!) - and this particular one is all about sleep and dreams.
I know quite a bit about the science of sleep and dreaming in humans (oh yes, there's a whole science about this subject) - and sharing this with clients (as well as giving my own advice and therapies) can actually help a lot - both for those with sleep problems and who are troubled, disturbed or puzzled by their dreams, as well, perhaps, as for those concerned by such phenomena as sleeptalking, sleepwalking, night terrors, nightmares or persistent 'bad' dreams and even bed wetting and bed soiling and vomiting - especially if this is an ongoing problem for them or their children, loved ones or partners.
Now, the subject of REM sleep (rapid eye movement sleep) during which we dream what most of us would call our dreams is now quite well established (but still being researched further) as are the 'cycles' during sleep to which this research alludes. A single long period of sleep is by NO means uniform in terms of depth of sleep (as was once thought - be we self-proclaimed 'light' or 'heavy' sleepers or no), and there is NO time of total mental, or even physical, shut-down (another myth). We do not simply fall alseep and dream alll night (as, again, was once thought) and it is now also becoming abundantly clear that there are other kinds of dreaming too, during non-REM sleep or NREM sleep, as sleep scientists call it, and that these are very different from the dreams of REM sleep, less readily recalled on normal waking (usually) and may indeed serve a different psychological function (if, indeed, like me, you accept that dreams DO have an important psychological funtion).
Whisker twitching, paw wobbling, very slight tail twitching (you didn't mention that one!?) - these, it would seem, then, can be the indicators that a cat or dog or rat is dreaming and, it would seem from the research which you quote, that these are the equivalent of human rapid eye movements (have I understood this aright?). And, it would seem also that, as for us humans, during REM sleep, major and voluntary nerve impulses (i.e. those which would normally make us move about) are inhibited. Sounds logical; the reason being, of course, that as in dreaming humans, these animals are prevented (unless of course you organicallly interefere with this safety device - as one of the researchers, you say, did simply to see what would happen) from - dangerously - acting out their dreams.
What this shows, too, which is interesting, is that there is nothing especially odd at all about dreaming. We all (humans) do it - even if some people (who cannot recall their dreams at all) insist that they 'never dream'.
Like snoring (which, yes we ALL do - whether we care to admit to it or not) and like moving about in bed quite a lot (again, ditto) it is, in fact, so normal that, as we see, animals do it too (yes, animals, by the way - mammals anyway - snore as well like all of us!).
Couple of questions and IMPORTANT points here:
1) Sleepwalking - and sleeptalking too - neither of which is, again, especially abnormal and should not cause undue concern, does NOT, in fact, happen for humans during REM sleep. It is a deep sleep phenomenon and that is MOST important: the sleepwalker (and the sleeptalker too) is deeply asleep and one should NEVER try to wake them - especially not by a shock, a slap or physical force, by shining a light in their eyes etc. - these are unspeakably stupid and dangerous things to do. Usually, in any case, the sleepwalker CANNOT be awakened and their eyes and other senses will NOT respond (to you or to anything much else) as they would when awake. So don't expect them to.
Sleepwalkers are NOT dreaming! ...the ambulant sleep behaviour of the animals organically tampered with by the researcher whose work you mention notwithstanding.
Left alone, in fact, the vast majority of sleepwalkers will simply return to their bed, completely unharmed, and continue sleeping - with NO recollection whatever of anything they may have said or done whilst sleepwalking.
2) The function of dreams is NOT mere replaying of the day's (or recent) waking events - again nothwithstanding some of the research findings which you seem to be quoting (and again, if I have understood this aright). Despite such a view or similar being held by a small minority of sleep researchers (eg. Hobson) most, and most psychologists too, would agree with me that dreams have a far far greater and more significant mental function than that!
The fact that dreams may USE such material (but in ways which, to our waking rational mind, may well seem strange, surreal, even slightly crazy), but with liberal use of symbols, puns, metaphors (verbal, visual and of other kinds), figures of speech and so on, as well as other emotional content only shows, in my view, that these emamante from a deeper, less rationally analytical and more intuitive part of our minds - a part which is, in fact, always there and functioning even while we're awake, but which becomes more graphic and active while we sleep - simply because then (in true sleep) our more rational and analytical (waking) mind is, largely, but not completely, put 'on hold' and resting.
Very interesting in this context that you quote research which seems to show (as I always suspected) that animals too, mammals anyway, also have this analytical mind (albeit less higlhy developed than ours) and that, as for us humans, this is largely (but not completely) shut down too, during sleep.
3) Are we to take it, then, from the research to which you refer, that other mammals (such as cats, dogs, rats) do not have 'rapid eye movements' during dreaming (REM) sleep - but other similar agitations - of whiskers, paws, (tails?) instead? If so, then this would seem to put paid, I suggest, to the rather bizarre scientific (but not very widely supported) hypothesis put forward by some (I'm afraid I don't know names and sources, off hand) that the eye movements only occur in order to restore fluent circulation to the eyeylids - these theorists, incidentally, are in the same small group of scientists (who do not have much support, even amongst fellow scientists, it has to be said) who maintain that dreams only occur because certain neurones (i.e. nerve cells) fire completely randomndly while we're asleep. Well, enough said .....
4) One final point here - and this is important too : we do NOT (despite what some screwy parascientists and some so-called 'spiritaulists' have tried to suggest) actually go ANYWHERE AT ALL when we sleep (or when we dream either) - not as a soul or spirit or physically (although a small number of sleepwalkers do get out of bed, move around and even do things in their sleep, as we've said, but NOT during dreaming sleep periods). We do not, as souls or spirits (and, oh yes I DO believe in the human soul) leave our bodies and go a-wandering or onto some kind of 'astral plane'. Our dreams are created entirely by our mind (even if we may DREAM that we leave our body, go 'astral flying' etc.) and we don't need to go anywhere to dream them (neither do animals!)
If your little one believes that he or she goes to fairyland or to some magical place, okay - no need to try and and disprove it to them.
But dreams are not some strange or supernatural happening. They do NOT foretell the future (not directly, or very very rarely so) or indicate some special psychic ability (how could they, since we ALLL dream them, and actually several every night, in fact). Neither is it useful or helpful to think of them as divine messages (the many biblical references to dreams notwithstanding - and I say that as a practising Christian).They are not simple wish fulfillment either (or, again, very rarely dierctly and literally so) and neither are they the product of indigestion!
They ARE from a part of your mind (and hence come from YOU, created by YOU) which is more intuitive and less rationally analytical, bringing to the surface (and thus TO your analytical mind's attention) certain concerns which, once we have understood this, and have understood these, can actually help us and, other things being equal (as they say) the dream will then trouble us no longer (but may still mildly amuse us!). Even Freud's theory (no longer widely accepted in its entirety, in any case) that all our dreams express deep-seated ('repressed' as he called them) desires is not really quite the right story either - and no, they are NOT all about sex! (Alleged readers of so-called 'Freudian' symbols or no!).
Jeff Watt, Mental and Spritual Healer
Comment by katyzzz
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Your response was superb and I can well understand your passion, I take it you are trying to help people in this way and I wish you well in your undertaking, you are obviously very well infomred. Well done.
Comment by Tracy
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Comment by katyzzz
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Good to see you re-emerging Tracy
Comment by Quintin J Watt
Jeff Watt
Comment by Tracy
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I know...some days I feel so guilty...
Comment by katyzzz
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I do hope that little fella ( the dog) is enjoying most of his dreams, I'm sure they are just as you suggest.
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I know my cat dreams. I just wish I knew what she dreams about. I do hope she doesn't sleep walk, it would scare the living day light out of me during my mid-night bathroom breaks.
Comment by katyzzz
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I've never met a sleep walker, I think it must be a terrible burden for some, never knowing where they are likely to end up, and maybe that is the reason for some little ones found wandering in the streets unattended.
Comment by Quintin J Watt
Let me set your minds at rest a little (and those of anyone else who may be following this thread and is concerned), on these couple of points, if I may - and I don't intend to sound in any way patronising, I promise you:
1) I have never in my life encountered or heard of any ANIMAL sleepwalking (although I do admit; I'm not a vet and not familiar with the resarch about animal sleeping which katyzzz cited - which began this thread). The principle is clear, however: animal (or at least mammal) sleep behaviour is very like our own - only the length and the ratios of the different sleep phases is different, as the research shows.
In point of fact, sleep scientists have detected some FIVE different phases of sleep (only one of which is REM sleep) yet each involves some mental activity and image-making : you can call all this 'intuitive thought' if you wish, as it is quite distinct from the 'rational thought' of our normal (waking) lives. When awake, as we've said, our (usual) analytical mind is fully functioning and, most of the time, fully in contol. Not so, of course, when we sleep and when we dream, as I've explained in my previous post.
Now, the ratios of these different kinds, and depths, of sleep - each with its own kind of mental activity/creation/imagery or 'dreaming' - gradually changes for humans throughout the course of a normal life:
Babies, for example, do a lot of REM dreaming; old people, by contrast, spend much of their sleep time in less highly (mentally) creative phases. In short, they dream less. Myself, I find this unsurprising, You probably do, also.
Now each of these five phases, we could say, involves a KIND of dreaming - this NON-REM or NREM dreaming being much more static and fragmentary, in the main, and much more abstract, far less graphic than our REM (or what we usually call, and recall as, our sleeping) dreams. These latter, by contrast, can, as we know, be highly narrative and fascinating (or sometimes puzzling or even, on occasion, downright troubling). I have already discussed, in my previous post, though, why these dreams do not have to remain troubling.
We do not actually know for sure, but human sleepwalkers (and sleeptalkers, too - and this is rather more common, in fact, than sleepwalking) may, perhaps, be in these other kinds of NREM dreaming phases. Interestingly, in this connection, the faint brief yelps and squeaks alluded to in the research may well be the animal equivalent of sleeptalking. As to what they are 'saying'? Well, I don't speak cat or dog or mouse talk, myself .... do you?
What might they dream about? I could make an educated guess (but don't quote me as an authorty, not on this!) : most probably they dream about such things as are important to THEM in THEIR world. I don't have the mind of a cat or a dog or a rat (at least, I hope I don't!), so who am I to say what great issues trouble the mind or soul or psyche of one our mammalian friends? We humans think we're so smart don't we? We know EVERYTHING? Well, none of us, not even the scientists, REALLY know what it is like to be a dog or a cat etc ... how could they?
You can be sure, though, that the world of a cat or dog is a much more 'smelly' world than ours and that it will contain sounds and nuances of sounds which are simply beyond our senses. It will also be a monochrome world (shades of black and white and grey) but, again, nuances of black and white and light intensities which are beyond our discrmimiation willl figure large in their world. So will bodliy sensations (cats and dogs have a far better sense of balance and, for many purposes, better tactile senses too than we do). Also the sound they hear will be much more DIRECTION specific than our more devolved ears could ever be capable of detecting. Cats and dogs too, are much more responsive to body language, TONE of voice and gesture (even intuitive gesture) than humans are - we depend so much on WORDS and their significance, don't we?
Much of this, of course, is familiar to every observant pet owner. You must remember: our minds are only capabale of creating images of things we have ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED. All imagination is, in fact, recombination of images which we have already, stored as memories, in fact, in what I call the 'data banks' or 'memory banks' of our minds. It's very like the way a computer works. You may think there are things you've 'forgotten', lost from your memory images or too unimportant ever to have been registered .. WRONG! It's all in there somewhere, all recoverable. And it's not just visual memory images either , it's ALL the senses (and there are actually a lot more than five of these!). And every 'thunk' or conclusion we've ever 'thunk' or concluded; it's all in there somewhere. You can't erase any of it (and you shouldn't ty to).
Dreams, as we saw, do this 're-arranging' and 'reconstructing' big time and in what seems to our waking minds the oddest of ways: but from our MINDS (and not from some strange supernatural world, as I have tried to show in my previous post) do our dreams come. There is nowhere else. There's nothing scary about it; it doesn't erase, deform or in any way alter the content of our (waking) thoughts and memory. I have already discussed why, in the view of most of us who work in this field anyway, dreams would do this work.
So it will be also, of course, with cats, dogs, hamsters, rabbits, mice (I wouldn't like to say about birds, reptiles, fishes, insects). And for them, other mammals, as for us, dreams will not only contain visual images. As the research which katyzzz has pointed up seems to show (and with which I agree, as I have said), animals do, of course, have thoughts, feelings, emotions, cares, concerns and worries - just as we do (even if their priorities and their ways of dealing with such things will, naturally, be very different to ours).
Oh, and by the way, can I emphasise again, that the animals that got up in their sleep to do weird and wonderful things (in the research which katyzzz cited) HAD HAD THE NERVE CONNECTIONS IN THEIR BRAINS INTERFERED WITH (such as one could, rightly, never be allowed to do to human beings, even in the name of scientific research). They were NOT, in fact, with all due resepct to katyzzz' presentation of the research, actually 'sleepwalking' at all; not in any normal sense, and certainly not as a small (but not that rare) number of humans do. Again I say: I myself have never ever heard of any domestic pet sleepwalking (but I'll concede if anyone can present to me a provable and documented case of this!)
2) As to your worry, katyzzz, that some little ones may wander out on the streets and get completely lost whilst sleepwalking; again, I have never ever heard of such a case.
Some sleepwalkers have been known to leave not only their bed and their room but to wander about the house, open drawers, cupboards etc., even fridges (ice boxes) and larder (pantry) doors and to consume food ... and yes, do all of this and STILL return completely unharmed to their beds, without waking, to then continue to sleep quite normally and to know and remember nothing whatever of any of this when they awake - even on finding, or being confronted with, the products or results of their night rambles. Often, in fact, it can be a source of some amusement to them and to everyone else. But not always; so don't make an issue of it!
If you have a sleepwalker in your family or household, this 'non issue' approach is far the best to take. To scare or worry them about it (especailly a child) is most IN-advisable.
There is NO evidence whatever that a sleepwalker would ever deliberately self-harm. If you ARE worried, and are awake when you find them sleepwalking, it is far, far the best to simply follow them, without touching or restraining or impeding them in any way and, just in the very faintest 'IN CASE' that they should ACTUALLY fall or trip (but not unless they actually do), be ready to gently, safely catch them. That's all.
Very very rarely (though it is not completely unknown) will a sleepwalker open an outside leading door, go into the garden or into the street.
SO ....
PRECAUTIONS: (All a bit obvious, really):
(i) Warn everbdoy ELSE in the household - including any childminders etc. if appropriate.
DON'T discuus it with the sleepwalker. Asking them to promise not to (either when they're awake - or, still more stupidly, while they're sleepwalking) is about as stupid and absurd as you can possibly get! Worrying the sleepwalker about it is both foolish and pointless. Don't do it. When you talk to outsiders, like childminders, to warn them; make sure they know and understand completely what TO do and what NOT to do, and make sure you've got a childminder that won't freak-out if it happens.
(ii) LOCK at night - i.e. rooms you don't want them to wander into. Cupboards, drawers etc. ditto (especially if these contain sharp knives, blades, breakable glass or ornaments etc.). They won't deliberately self-harm, no, but - obvious precaution, isn't it?
SHUT - and also LOCK if necessary - all windows and draw all curtains. The best way to prevent a sleepwalker from wandering outside is, again common sense really, lock all outside leading doors ... wouldn't you do that anyway, for security? Duh!
(iii) Make sure you don't leave any objects lying around on floors, stairs, halls, landings etc. over which they might trip.
If you have a really serious potential problem about a sleepwalker maybe tripping on stairs, well, again obvious - could they sleep in a downstairs room? And obviously too, you'd have to then make sure you shut, lock downstairs windows, draw curtains and, of course, lock alll outside leading doors. If you've a little one, a toddler who's starting to sleepwalk, have a stairgate.
None of this is really rocket science is it?
Oh, just one other thing:
It has (occasionally) been known for a sleepwalker to wake, ALL BY THEMSELVES I stress, with no outside interference. If that happens, sometimes it can be disorientating, embarassing, worrying, even frightening for them (especially if it's a child). If you're there when it happens you mustn't be ANY of these things, INSTEAD YOU MUST: GUIDE, REASSURE, COMFORT (if necessary) and help them gently and safely back to bed.
If they wake in the night ambulant like this and call you, you, of course, must do exactly the same as above - and NOTHING else.
They may be afraid that they are losing their mind or going crazy. NO! Again, you yourself must not be anxious that this is so (because it isn't!), and must so reassure them. Some alleged experts believe that sleepwalking is a sign of an emotionally or menatlly disturbed person. A very old-fashioned idea - and, usually, complete rubbish! If a sleepwalker is worried and anxious about something(s) then there will almost certainly be other indicators. If you are supportive and neither condmenatory nor judgemental, often you can get them to 'open up' and talk about these concerns anyway - but not, I would suggest, in the middle of the night, during or immediatley after awaking from, a sleepwalk. Again, just common sense really!
OH, and by the way; two more things about sleepwalking:
a) Their eyes will usually NOT be closed (but NB: they're still in deep sleep), they will not appear to see you (or much else either) and may seem to stare and 'look right through' you. They won't respond to your voice or even your touch often (don't touch them). Their eyes may look odd - pupils larger or smaller than usual and they may even be uneven. Don't let any of this freak you out, will you?
b) BIG MYTH: They do NOT walk with their arms stretched out in front of them! They walk exactly the same as they do when awake. We all do so all the time unconsciously, without even thinking about it. So do they. Familiar spaces and layout present no hazards to them, usually. PROVIDED you have taken the above precautions!
Like bedwetting (about which one should also, incidentaly, be non-judgemental and not condemnatory but supportive) often (though I'm not saying I PROMISE it!) this ethos alone can help sufficiently for the problem to clear itself up - if there is a waking life worry or a concern..
Again I'll say it, though; sleepwalking is not an illness, it's not especially abnormal and there may actually be nothing wrong at all. So - if that is so, then you'll all just have to live with it and try to 'work around' the inconvenience, I'm afraid. It MAY pass (but again; don't say I promised you it would!)
Good luck!
Jeff Watt, Mental and Spiritual Healer
Comment by katyzzz
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You will always get fair hearing on any of my posts, you are so committed but do take time out sometimes for a little fun.
Comment by AmyHuang
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Yes I did also have fun with my cousin who is a bit of a sleep-walker/talker. When we were little I shared a room with her (I grew up in my aunt's family) and once, I remember vividly, she sat up, looked directly in my eyes (now that I know, THROUGH my eyes was probably more like it) and asked "have you seen my calculator?" then proceed to get out of bed to rumble through her school bag. The first 5 mins I had a good conversation with her about where her calculator might be, and then realised that I was talking to no one and left her be
But Jeff - are you SURE you are not some sort of expert in disguise???
Comment by Quintin J Watt
Glad my posts were of some value. Thank you for your replies. No wish to spoil your little private joke!
To answer your question directly, Amy: I am not a medical doctor, although I do have professional scientific qualifications and also a degree, and I am working, under my own steam (is that another quaint English expression?) on a PhD in philosophy of the human mind, developing, in my thesis, a number of quite new and pioneering hypotheses and a comprehensive (rather radical, new) model of the human mind.
Once this is published academically, it is my hope to get it published in book form for general (commercial) and worldwide circulation. Watch out for (if you're interested) "Dionysus, Apollo and The Psychic Swan" - which may also be purchasable to download on my pro website (when I have this up and running) - so; keep watching (again, if you're interested) for jeffwattperhapsmiracles.com ...
To explain the enigmatic words, by the way: my business slogan is:-
"The impossibe we do overnight; miracles take a bit longer."
This will appear on my site in many unusual and little known language translations (including one or two of my own invention) - yeah, just for fun! (katyzzz!): I'm also a keen amateur philologist.
Why "Dionysus, Apolllo and The Psychic Swan"? Well, you'll have to read my book, when it comes out, won't you? LOL.
I have also a good deal of training and am a registered hypnotherapist (but not a psychiatrist or psychologist). I do NOT, I stress, ever use hypnosis as a form of public entertainment. As I so often say to my clients; I prefer to use my skills to help people - rather than watch them make fools of themselves!
As you know, I work (from my own home) as a mental and spiritual healer and I use a whole raft of techniques (not just hypnosis), as appropriate, some of these researched and pioneered by myself, to help my clients with many life problem areas. More 'packages' , created by me, to help with many of these common life problem areas will, I hope, be available (again downloadable to members, for a price of course) on my (forthcoming) website.
Sleeptalking, in fact, often accompanies sleepwalking, though it can also, of course, occur without the latter. My own view is that it is IN-advisable to attempt any kind of dialogue with a person who is either sleeptalking or sleepwalking - as we have said, they are in deep sleep and that part of the mind which is capable of any kind or rational or sophisticated (i.e. waking) reasoning is, as we have said, largely shut down.
Definitely do NOT argue with them or attempt to - not even if they seem to be trying to draw you into a species of dialogue or debate. There is a part of the mind which IS stil functioning during this deep sleep and it, unfortunately, is apt to interpret any word input completely literally and in a very assanine way.
Unfortunately, too, this input can have an effect on the person during their normal waking life for, as we have also said, the sleeping/dreaming part of the mind is still capable of functioning then, also and this can, given certain triggers, even momentarily 'override' the rational, wakeful analytical mind - and not just once but again and again at any time, if triggered by certain randomn words or combinations of other factors; rather like a 'posthypnotic suggestion'. This can result in strange inexplicable or even harmful behaviour (to self and others) - about which the (now) waking person may be very puzzeld and will seek to (rationally) justify this in some of the most unbelievably bizarre ways known to humankind. If you want to know more of my theories about such things, read (yes, you guessed it!) "Dionysus, Apollo and The Psychic Swan" ...
... It is for this same reason that one should avoid talking or whispering around a sick or semi-conscious or anaesthetised person, wherever possible. Unfortunately, medical doctors, surgeons, and even some nurses, do this all the time. Silly people!
It is stupidity itself (as some people think they should do) to either try to persaude the sleepwalker or sleeptalker, whilst doing this and in deep sleep, to stop it - and equally stupid to attempt to extract any promise while they're awake (or attempt to remind them of one allegedly made while in deep sleep) that they'll stop. Attempting to muzzle them or physcially silence them while sleeptalking is, of course, just stupidity beyond belief.
As you have observed, often they will seem to be talking nonsense anyway (for reaons which we have discussed). Having a laugh with them hours later when fully awake (e.g. over breakfast) - GREAT!! Clearly, in this case, your sister had no issues about this and neither did you, so you kept it 'light'! Well done! You will probably have discovered, much to your mutual amusement, that she had NO recollection whatever of any of this or of what she allegedly said or did. True?
Katyzzz - nice to know I will always get a fair 'hearing' on any of your threads. Not everyone will agree with me, of course, or with everything I say in my posts. Fair enough! FUN - oh yes, I'm all for it! A great believer! Life, I very strongly believe, is a game (I am also, as you may know, from what I have said above, a practising philosopher) - a complex, sophisticated, sometimes very high stakes game is life, for sure; but a game, nevertheless:-
"The only way you can lose, is if you give up" (Musician Don Maclean, speaking on a television interview in the early 1980's).
This is just one of many edifying quotes which you will see, posted periodically, in my consultation room and waiting area for my clients. I'm very big on edifying quotations (if they're useful ones, of course) and, yes, I DO always take my own advice!
Best wishes all
Jeff Watt, Mental and Spiritual Healer
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
Comment by Quintin J. Watt
Villmols merci.
Misaotra.
Upakaram.
O.se
Gura mie mooar eu.
A gradisiyki.
(Thank you so much/thank you very much in):-
Icelandic.
Luxembourgesch.
Malagasy.
Malayalam.
Yoruba.
Manx.
Quechua.
(That's a few to be going on with ...!!
You could see them all on the (exit) doormat of my consultation rooom!)
Again (in English, this time lol):
Thank you so much.
Jeff Watt.
(PS: spread the word - about my book etc., if you wish, won't you!)
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
Will do,
bien sur,
that's it, I could probably do it in Latin, German and Italian at a push but I was born lazy.
I'll even look out for your book myself.
Comment by Mountain Fog
Also, anyone who has owned and loved a cat or dog knows they dream just like us. In fact, when I was a kid they taught usthat the difference between us and animals was, we used tools, then Life magazine blew the animal's cover, when they published photos of animals using tools....
Anyhoo,
cheers
fog
Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
Knowledge does keep changing and I guess that means we have no knowledge at all just a functional operating program.
My cat could read my mind and understand me much more than I could hers or her.
Funny, that!
Comment by Quintin J. Watt
Please read my original post carefully. I quote: 'They [meaning dreams] do NOT fortell the future (or very very rarely directly so)'. - note the parentheses. I did NOT say 'never'! Neither did I suggest in any way that animals do not dream. Perhaps you were not suggesting that I said that ? - on the exact contrary!
Interesting point about whether animals use tools. They do; no question about it. It has long been known that the great apes, for example, will use a stick or a stone to break open some tasty fruit or prize out some desirable potential meal. Gorillas, it has long been known, will use tree stumps and random pieces of hollow wood, or bone or even rocks which they may find, as drums. Other mammals may do such things too.
What they do NOT do [yes, 'emphatic' statement here!] is MAKE tools - although there is some evidence that, for example, chimpanzees may be TAUGHT by humans, to a very limited extent, to adapt such readymade 'tools' as described above. Chimps in the wild have been observed to crudely sharpen sticks e.g. as a means of enticing termites out of their nests. Would you call this making tools?
MAKING tools, as most anthroplogists would understand that - of stone originally, by flaking pieces of flint ... which, incidentally, is a lot harder than most people think and requires a great deal of practice, patience and experience - appears to have begun in its simplest form some one and a half to two million years ago in Africa with the Australopithecines. Call them the first 'ape men', if you like.
Now, the Australopithecines had, in fact, a brain about the size of the modern gorilla - so [rhetorical question open for discussion ...] why did gorillas never learn to, or pehaps never feel the need to, do the same as the Australopithecines i.e. make flint tools? Hmmmm. Had they done so, perhaps the enitre course of human history might have been very very different!
The standard theory is that ancestral hominids like the Australopithecines were, by contrast, small vulnerable creatures - they were - and lived in small numbers, forced, if they were to survive at all in their habitat, to 'use their wits'; to coin a cliche. A goriila, by contrast, as the celebrated David Attenborough once rightly pointed out in his famous television series 'Life on Earth', is a very powerful creature, normally peaceful in fact, and rather shy and retiring unless actually attacked - totally contrary to popular myth - and 'need fear nothing - except a man with a gun'.
Now, if you can show me incontravertible evidence of any animal actually doing something like those ancestral hominids did; such as patiently fashioning pieces of flint for a specific purpose or something comparable - well, that really WOULD revolutionise current anthropological thinking for sure! We would then have to concede that animals do indeed also MAKE tools and the arrogant supremacy on which rather too much human history has been built would come crashing down!
Jeff Watt, Mental and Spiritual Healer and Cultural Historian