I'm sure there are boatloads of fine examples of poems and stories discussing the world of dreams, I would like to state some interesting facts. I learned this in my Zoology & Botany class.
We, as humans, are capable of very complex, intricate dreams. Sometimes, our dreams reflect past events in the day, month, year -- whatever. We pull in personal experiences as well as family and friends to star in our dreams. Or, we can dream about completely abstract, impossible things, in fantastic landscapes. This is thanks to our highly evolved, complicated brain structure.
But do animals other than ourselves dream? And if yes, then what do they dream about?
In a study by MIT, it has been found that other animals do, indeed, dream. It has also been shown that there is a direct correlation between the evolved state of the animals brain and the complexity of the dreams they dream.
Dogs are able to dream about any past event they have experienced in their lives, most often about running or chasing something; if you've ever seen your dog twitching their legs in their sleep, that's why! They're replaying the moment, and feel it as if they're there again, reliving it.
Rats and mice are even simpler minded, and consequentially have very limited dream ability. Rats and mice are able to dream only about that past day's events. This was discovered by MIT through a simple test: they put a rat through a maze and measured its brainwaves all the while. Then, when the rat fell asleep, they measured the brainwaves while it dreamed. The activity was exactly identical, meaning that the rat was replaying precisely what had happened that day.
Here's an article about the MIT research.
I just thought this was very interesting, as many people do not always think that other animals besides ourselves can dream! (Animal rights activist plug: homo sapiens aren't the end-all be-all kings of the world! We're not all that special, biologically speaking, aside from our disastrously gigantic brain! Just saying!)
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