From:
        Jim Nibblett <[log in to unmask]>

Mon 5:19 PM


Chris,

        It's easy to fall into a pattern when it comes to thinking about
dreaming.  Hard to know what the most major contributor to this is, my
guess would be that it is the fact that the brain is an organ whose
primary job is to make order out of choas.   Berthoz (The Brain's Sense
of Movement) would argue that that this is an intermediate goal with the
end being to anticipate split seconds into the future.  Be that as it
may, there is the structure of the brain and how it comes to learn that
needs to be addressed.  Among these things is, as you rightly offer, the
tactile and the olfactory.  But to say that the ears not yet being open
equals 'deaf' is a bit of a stretch; hearing impared, certainly.  But
there are a very, very large number of relationships on the synaptic
level that are being worked out and much of it having to do with the ear,
or more properly the vestibular system.  While the conscious minds of
your puppies may well be 'out of the loop' while they are asleep,
proprioception and its relationship to tactility is fertile ground for
the development of relationships.  Proprioception, one of the five
vestibular functions, is the mind's unconscious knowledge of the body's
position in space.  Another vestibular function, balance, could well be
looked at in this context of neonatal experience as 'figuring out which
way is up.'

        Now we take the reconciliation of tactile feedback with vestibular
information as trivial when we think of it at all.  But from the
standpoint of your puppies, this is important work which will serve them
well throughout their lives.  As to what they might dream about, I would
imagine that suckling would be a prominent feature, as would 'fighting
for position' to suckle, being licked, pooping and so on.  It is our
sometimes blatant disregard for fundamental brain activities as well as
our predisposition toward the visual and auditory which leaves us, at
least much of the time, in a place of incomprehension.

Jim



On Mon, 29 Jan 2001 16:53:09 -0500 Norman Holland <[log in to unmask]>
writes:
> From:
>         "chris erb" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> 5:51 PM
>
>
> An interesting note about this is the behavior that is exhibited by
> pets
> when owners say they "dream" (twitching, barking, meowing, etc).  My
> Rottweiler recently had a litter of puppies (12 to be exact), and
> they
> exhibit the same twitching behavior in their sleep, even though
> their eyes
> do not open until about 10 days after they are born, their ears 17
> days.
>
> I am not really sure that this proves anything either way.  But it
> does beg
> the question, if they are dreaming in a classical sense, what on
> earth are
> blind and deaf three day olds dreaming about?  Odors? Physical
> contact
> perhaps?  And if this is what they are dreaming about, does this
> change our
> concept of the word in relation to the animals all together?  Or is
> the
> behavior of the dog really simply the firing of nerve endings in
> their
> bodies?
>
> regards,
>
> chris
>