The Function of Dreams

Interesting article. I see my dog dream all the time. The shallow, fast breathing, snout twitching, sequential movement of paws and shoulder muscle twitches, sometimes, a muffled sub-vocalization. And the REM. If it smells like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, it might just be a duck. I.E., dogs dream (I am reminded of the science fiction title "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?" upon which the movie "Blade Runner" was loosely based.)

I can't answer your question about whether my dogs dream more intensely after a busy day of training or working because my current dogs are all couch potatos. :) When I trained retrievers I never noticed any connection but I wasn't looking for one, so that's a mystery. lol 

 I will say that my five month old pup is a very vivid dreamer.  She has howled, growled and whimpered in her dreams. Not all in the same sleep session.  Perhaps her vivid dreams reflect her exposure to new sounds and experiences, which would be somewhat similar to an adult dog who had an exciting day. 

I do find dreaming fascinating. I studied engineering in college which of course has a lot of math, physics and dynamics problem solving. There were times when I would get stumped on a particular proof or problem then go to bed and actually dream the solution. I'm still amazed and fascinated by this to this day. To me, it is obvious that I let go of those mental blocks when I was asleep which allowed me to solve the problem.

If we do this, maybe it is possible that dogs do this too. So if we are working on a particular behavior that the dog is stumbling on, quality sleep probably makes a bigger impact than we think on how the dog improves on that behavior.

 Literature going back to Biblical texts speaks of insights arrived at thru dreams.  It does appear that the validity of dreams came under severe doubt some 35 years ago, but science seems to have swung back to its more traditional skeptical stance of 'we'll know when we know.'

When I was a freshman and first exposed to integral calculus, I dreamed all night that I was integrating my name, but it was a Saturday night, so the contents of the fluids I had consumed may explain that one

 Seriously, intuition is a key component of novelty - it is THE stuff of scientific hypotheses.  Two often mentioned examples come to mind:

1) In a dream, Rene Descartes saw the connection between algebra and geometry, and he then created the Cartesian coordinate system (x axis, y axis graph) to graphically display lines, ellipses, hyperbolas, etc. as solutions to algebraic functions

2) Kekule, a chemist, was stumped on the molecular structure of benzine, until in a dream when he saw a snake form a circle by biting its tail, and this led him to recognized the benzine ring

 I'm not so sure our smartest dogs are quite up to this level of dream activity, but I wonder if a day spent trying to escape an outdoor enclosure hadn't proven to be the stubborn facts that were synthesized overnite during sleep, and upon awakening, gave way to a creative opening for a  successful escape.

Literature going back to Biblical texts speaks of insights arrived at thru dreams.

Indigenous people's oral history speaks of the same things, and those experiences likely predate the Bible or any other written text, so there must be something to the dream process that is useful for our conscious thought process.

At some point I was told or read that things basically get "written" into your brain when you are in a deep sleep, so throughout college my strategy when studying for exams was to NEVER pull an all-nighter but ALWAYS quit when it was time to go to bed for a good sleep.  I never really struggled with school and made good grades.  It didn't matter how many times I did a math problem or studied a concept, if I got a good night's sleep it would just sort of be there in my head.  I guess this doesn't directly pertain to dreams except for you dream when you are actually in a good sleep, so if you are dreaming, it seems like you are more likely to be getting a good, restful sleep and having the "information" saved more permanently into your brain.

Cleo's dreams were extremely animated...for days after our two Beagle bitches were taken by Coyotes. I would say that it is pretty normal to have nightmares when scary things or things outside of your control occur that alter your life. She and the pup also tend to dream more animatedly when exciting things like a possum out back or near miss with a squirrel or visitors, occur during that day.

Liesje

At some point I was told or read that things basically get "written" into your brain when you are in a deep sleep, so throughout college my strategy when studying for exams was to NEVER pull an all-nighter but ALWAYS quit when it was time to go to bed for a good sleep.  I never really struggled with school and made good grades.  It didn't matter how many times I did a math problem or studied a concept, if I got a good night's sleep it would just sort of be there in my head.  I guess this doesn't directly pertain to dreams except for you dream when you are actually in a good sleep, so if you are dreaming, it seems like you are more likely to be getting a good, restful sleep and having the "information" saved more permanently into your brain.

Along with storing info, there is probably a lot of re-associating  the day's memories with those present from previous days from which new syntheses are developed - in conscious wakefulness, this such sub-conscious workings give rise to an intuition that leads to an a-ha moment.  But in subconscious sleep, such synthesis produces floods of images and emotions and associated memories - dreams - which may yield fresh insights upon awakening to consciousness.  

If this is how it works for us, so too for poochie. 

She and the pup also tend to dream more animatedly when exciting things like a possum out back or near miss with a squirrel or visitors, occur during that day.

 I think this is true...after walks in the woods, our 1st dog, Happy, would howl out loud like a wolf (see my profile and note he is no wolf-like dog), which he otherwise never did.  Very primitive. 

 I guess it is also possible that a busy day outdoors can sometimes tire them out to the point that sleep is so deep that dreams are not presented.  

I suppose it involves what a dog would see as a "busy day." Dogs dream, whether the day was full of agility, tracking, whatever, or not. It could be dreams of the squirrels and mice they tracked. Or remembrance of the foot traffic down a nearby street. It could be dreams of things past, not even occuring that day. I think it also raises them above the level of automaton. Unless we're all automatons, another possibility. Are we not also robots, dreaming of electric sheep? Rutger Hauer's character in Blade Runner asks his creator, the inventor of that series of android, "how much longer do I have to live?" Something we ask ourselves and our creator all the time? Is that what it means to be human? Or, more appropriately, is that what it means to be sapient or sentient?

Popularly, it is said that dogs "live in the moment." That they do not contemplate their own death. Really? And we now this, how? My dog has not walked up to me and said, "To be, or not to be? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ... oh, what the heck, just give me a bone ..."

Dreams involve something that happened in the past. And may involve a forecast of the future, mainly through extrapolation of previous events. This involves time frames other than the current moment.

Dreams involve something that happened in the past. And may involve a forecast of the future, mainly through extrapolation of previous events. This involves time frames other than the current moment.

Yep, yep, yep.  Good point that the day's events are not the only memories being relived and synthesized...

If dogs dream and all we have to go on is our understanding of dreams and we fancy ourselves as sentient, what does that make dogs? What is good for the goose is good for the gander, nicht wahr?

 I spend a lot of time on the web looking into where neuroscience is going, as well as looking at the works of philosophers.  I have spent time on philosophy blog sites and, incredulously, encountered many bright people who nevertheless believe Descartes was right, and that animals are non-conscious, non-sentient organisms, like a plant,

 Of course a dog has a complex central nervous system quite similar to ours,  perhaps lacking in the neo-cortical area.  A plant has no CNS, so likely cannot feel pain.  But on numerous occasions I have had to challenge someone's saying animal suffering is an anthropomorphic illusion, and only human suffering is real.  I merely reply "go talk to a veterinarian, you moron." (Philosophy sites are generally not very politically correct!)

 Or, a surprising number will say, echoing Aquinas, "beating and torturing animals is only wrong in so far as it negatively affects the love-ability of the soul of the torturer."  It is my bond with and admiration of our pet dogs that convicts me that whatever you say about human spirit, must be similarly predicated of dogs, just as is the case for our common mental and other CNS functions.

 Not trying to go God on anyone here, but all of the above issues compel me to seek out philosophical and theological support of my 'ultimate concern.'  (Tillich fans will recognize the term).  I have often discussed Whitehead and Hume as philosophers who see humans and dogs as on a continuum and not naturally very different.  It is much harder to find theological support, though vegan-oriented sites tend to direct their members to thinkers whose veganism is spiritually motivated.  (For those interested, check out theologian Stephen H Webb's On God and Dogs, probably one of the few profound, but quite readable, works of theology asserting animal afterlife for all creatures).   

Even amongst dog knowers, I have been argumentative when some will assert that dogs do not think (do not have reason).  I pull out the 'moron' word in such cases whenever possible, and argue that our CNS and reasoning ability evolved to allow for better adaptability to the universe.  As we have said here, if dreams do serve to clarify and store mental events, then it also proves that dogs reason like we do too. 

And following the least hypothesis rule, if we dream and can reason, it would seem likely that dogs can also reason, partially evidenced by their ability to dream. I could get general and say that creatures that dream also can reason though it is not necessarily a proven statement. It is based on assumption but seems to work until something better comes along.

And to give some credence to computational theory, it is not the size of the brain but the complexity of connection that might give rise to sentience. Heinlein dealt with this in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." A supercomputer eventually reached a level of complexity in connections, memory size, and complicated algorithms and "woke up." Became self-aware. There were philosophical arguments. What is self-aware? Are we self-aware? Are there levels of self-awareness? Manny, the tech in charge of maintaining the computer worked on the assumption that the computer was sentient, an unproven statement, but it was a working theory that reflected reality well enough to accomplish this or that thing in the plot. Granted, that was fiction, but it speaks to real concepts and questions.

I think there is room for computational theory and I, unlike Gallistel, don't think it is diametrically opposed to behaviorism or OC. I think they complement each other.