I love watching Napoleon sleep. Sometimes his legs shake a little bit, when he dreams hes running, and his whiskers flutter a bit, when he dreams hes barking. But what could he be dreaming about?
Does he have nightmares? Whats a dog nightmare consist of? Is there a plump, juicy looking bird that is just constantly out of reach (this is actually more like real life for him)?
Does he maybe do the stumble-run ... where you dream you're running, either away from or to something very important, and you have to run fast, but your legs keep stumbling underneath you?
Or maybe theres the recurring nightmare where the laser pointer is on a counter that is just out of reach, and he has to just jump, and keep jumping, and he never gets it (this is real life too).
Whats a good dream consist of? Does he catch his birdie? He would have no real life experience to base this on. Maybe he humps barry in some of his dreams (also real life). Does he dream about Evan, when Evan is gone?
I wonder if dogs that have saved their owners have nightmares that their owners are drowning or suffering again, and they can't do anything to save them. I bet that happens.
But the thing I am most confused about, is how dogs distinguish reality from their dreams. When Napoleon wakes up, after a particularly awesome dream where he is allowed to eat five rare steaks without having to sit or do any tricks for any of them, does he think that experience actually happened? Does it affect the way he perceives the world when hes awake (i.e., thinking he doesn't have to sit for treats)? Or are their dream memories so fuzzy and vague that it can't affect anything when they're awake?
I wonder if the ability to recall dreams is uniquely human. Why do we dream anyway? whats the point? If we sleep without dreams, are we missing out on some crucial bodily function? or...maybe dreams are the necessary ingredient, and not sleep -- perhaps if it were possible to dream without sleeping, then we would fulfill the necessary requirement that we currently attribute to sleep (these would be memory consolidation, categorization, recharge, rest, etc). Not that this is possible. and if it were, nobody would think to separate the two, or even be able to separate the two, for a very long time.
