If you ’ve ever seen a big cat wiggling around in its sleep , or come across three dissimilar - sized beds after eating porridge in a bear family ’s inexplicably furnished home , you ’ve probably inquire if animals are open of dreaming . Theirs might not involve Beyonce , your third tier schoolroom , and a radiator that turns into a serpent for some rationality like yours do , but some animals do have dreams .

Most land mammal experience the Rapid Eye Movement ( REM ) eternal sleep where dreams mainly come about , but since they do n’t keep dream diary — at least not where we can find them — scientists   prove blackleg to see what was pop off on in their brains when they sleep . According to a 2001 reputation , MIT researchers Daniel Bedore and Matt Wilson placed civilize rats on a track and monitored their brain bodily function while they prompt towards their edible reward . They then monitored the scab ’ mastermind bodily function while they were in a REM sleep cycle . After examining the data point , they saw that some activeness in a sleeping rotter ’s mastermind matched some of its waking activity . The identical pattern go the scientists to believe that not only were the scab dreaming , they were dreaming about running on the running .

Dr. Stanley Coren , a psychological science professor and neuropsychological researcher , writes in his bookHow Dogs Think : Understanding the Canine Mind , that blackguard also dream . Like stinkpot , pooch out dream about coarse scenes they have experience in their waking life . Dr. Coren also notes that the smaller a pawl is , the more it will daydream :

ThinkStock/Erin McCarthy

Mammals are n’t the only critters that dream , though . Neuroscientists Amish S. Dave and Daniel Margoliash of the University of Chicago have launch that the sleeping Einstein activity of elderly male zebra finches can devolve into patterns that are identical to those observed when the birdie are singing . And since the manlike zebra finch habituate its song to attract a mate , they win our completely made up award for most interesting animal dreams .