--- title: Do animals dream? Twitching dogs, replaying rats and colour-changing octopuses — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Do animals dream? Twitching dogs, replaying rats and colour-changing octopuses», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Your dog is fast asleep on the rug, but its paws are paddling, its lips twitch and it gives --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Do animals dream? Twitching dogs, repl… # Do animals dream? Twitching dogs, replaying rats and colour-changing octopuses Lesson 391 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/0/) — Your dog is fast asleep on the rug, but its paws are paddling, its lips twitch and it gives tiny muffled woofs. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/1/) — It looks as if it is running somewhere in its sleep. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/2/) — People and many animals sleep in stages. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/3/) — In one stage the brain is very busy, the eyes flick about under the lids and the body twitches. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/4/) — In people this is the stage when most vivid dreams happen. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/5/) — Dogs, cats, rats and birds have this busy stage too, and scientists have even watched sleeping rats replay a maze in their brains. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/6/) — But we cannot ask an animal what it saw, so whether animals dream like us is a careful guess, not a fact. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/7/) — Scientists look for clues instead: brain patterns, moving eyes, twitching legs and changing colours. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/9/) — Dogs and cats have the same sleep stages as people, including the busy stage linked to dreaming, when the brain is active and the eyes move under the lids. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/10/) — During this busy sleep a part of the brain stops the body acting out the dream, so a sleeping dog or cat only twitches, paddles or makes small sounds. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/11/) — Kittens and puppies spend even more time in this busy sleep than grown-up cats and dogs. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/12/) — Scientists recorded rats' brains while they ran a maze and saw the same patterns again while the rats slept; this replay may help the brain store what was learned, but whether the rat experiences it as a dream is still argued. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/14/) — Octopuses have a quiet sleep and a short active sleep, when their colours flash and their arms twitch; some scientists think this might be a bit like dreaming, but it is still argued. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/15/) — In 2022 scientists reported that baby jumping spiders resting at night move the eye tubes inside their heads and twitch their legs, a bit like the dreaming stage in mammals; whether spiders dream is an open question. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/16/) — Scientists reported that bearded dragons switch between two sleep stages again and again through the night, which may mean these stages are very old, though some scientists think reptile sleep works differently. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/17/) — The platypus, an odd old mammal, was reported to have a large amount of the sleep stage linked to dreaming, but its version looks a bit different from ours and scientists still argue about it. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/18/) — People go through sleep cycles of about an hour and a half, about four or five a night, each ending in dreaming sleep, which gets longer towards morning. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/19/) — Most people dream every night even if they forget their dreams, and you remember a dream best if you wake in the middle of it. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/391-do-animals-dream-twitching-dogs-replaying-rats-and-colour-changing-octopuses/20/) — People also learn new skills better after a good night's sleep. - ← previous: [How animals sleep: half-asleep dolphins, standing horses, short-sleeping giraffes and birds that nap in the air](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/390-how-animals-sleep-half-asleep-dolphins-standing-horses-short-sleeping-giraffes-and-birds-that-nap-in-the-air/) - next →: [Poisonous plants to stay away from: berries, foxglove, yew and nightshade](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/392-poisonous-plants-to-stay-away-from-berries-foxglove-yew-and-nightshade/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)