Freud: Do animals dream?

Do animal dream ? Everyone who has got a pet animal at home and has the chance to watch them sleeping is likely to answer in the affirmative But is there any scientific justification of the phenomenon with animals ? In the current essay I am going to refer to some research on dreams , primarily to Freud 's Interpretation of Dreams to find out whether the assumptions have any ground and if so , which function dream can perform in an animal 's psychic life and what the possible content of it is

We found

a good reason to deny animals of being able to think like we do : human thinking is based chiefly on the verbal factor . In case of dreams , however , human language loses its domination and is taken over by another form of expression , which involves the senses and combines them into intricate visions . Biologically , dreams are connected to the so-called REM - rapid eye movement state , in which most dreaming occurs Another name for the phase is D-sleep (dreaming , or desynchronized sleep .Numerous studies have shown that the phenomenon of REM is characteristic of animals as well . Ernest Hartmann claims that the bulk of research shows that for both animals and humans REM sleep performs the same functions , either biological or cognitive . When rats were deprived of the phase , the biological functions of their organisms deteriorated tremendously first of all it concerns thermoregulation Also , it was confirmed that REM sleep was essential in assimilating knowledge and memorizing because tests have proved that after intense learning the rats ' phase of REM was profoundly longer . Hence , an assumption can be made that dreaming serves as an organism 's natural method to combine new information in a suitable way

The classical work The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud has another hypothesis underlying . Although it is devoted to human dreaming some ideas can be applicable to animals as well . When Freud said that geese dream about maize , it was first of all a beautiful metaphor to formulate his thesis that every dream when truly understood represents the fulfillment of a wish . It is a perfectly valid psychic phenomenon actually a wish-fulfilment it may be enrolled in the continuity of the intelligible psychic activities of the waking state it is built up by a highly complicated intellectual activity ( Freud , Chapter III But the very fact that he turned to such a metaphor proves his serious attitude towards the possibility of animals dreaming . Like humans animals are as a rule still when they are dreaming , that 's why in most cases it is impossible to find any persuasive evidence of the phenomenon . Yes , we know that REM sleep is typical for animals , that it performs some vital biological functions but does this prove that they see dreams during REM phase ? Luckily , both professional researcher and private pet-owners can observe an interesting phenomenon , which sometimes takes place during animals sleeping . What I mean is motion and switching on senses which are usually disabled when sleeping . Thus...