We had a strange little incident this morning that I thought I’d post about here. Kali was sound asleep at the foot of the bed near my legs, and she woke up suddenly with a brief burst of mewing loudly – it was enough to rouse my husband from his sound sleep in a panic (I was just sort of dozing). This lasted just a few moments, and we talked to her and she came up to lay between us and get petted, and she was really just fine – not in any distress or anything, she was purring away and back to normal. It was almost as though she had had a nightmare that woke her and made her cry.

The really strange thing is that Dub did the exact same thing last week when he was asleep in the bedroom window (at 5 a.m., unfortunately). It passed quickly, and he was also perfectly fine.

Cats (and dogs) do dream – I’ve seen both of my cats twitching their whiskers and ears and moving their paws while sleeping – but I am really wondering if they can have nightmares as well. It seems like a logical explanation, right? Particularly since after these little outbursts they were otherwise perfectly fine – eating, sleeping, not having litterbox troubles, not sensitive to touch, just their normal selves.

Have any of you had this experience with your pets?

When Schmitty died I began reading a book my mother got for me when I was a mere lad. It’s called The Cat Who Came For Christmas. It’s written by Cleveland Amory, the founder of Fund for Animals. Anyway, it’s not the most incredibly well written book there is out there, but I found some comfort in it when I was thinking about how Schmitty lived and then died. There is one part from the book that you might find interesting. I’ll type it out here.

“During his (author’s cat) sleep he was obviously some of the time dreaming. In these dreams, he would twitch, often gently but at other times violently, both front and back paws moving – sometimes indeed so violently that he woke himself. At such times during these sudden wake-ups, he would be alert very quickly. Then, after a brief look around and a casing of all fronts, h e would do a definite double-take. Finally, after satisfying himself that the waking, not the dream, the present, not the pas, was the reality, he would blow out a little sigh – he never really heaved one – and immediately go back to sleep.”

“I have read a great deal about what animals dream, but none of it has ever really satisfied me. I believe they dream exactly what we dream, and everything in their lives – that they have good dreams and bad dreams in almost direct proportion, as we do, to whether their lives have been more good than bad. Unfortunately, because the majority of animals have it so much tougher than we do, I believe that they majority of their dreams, except in the most fortunate petdom, are bad.”

The author goes on to talk about cats’ memories and how he believes they are do not have shorter memories than we do as many have suggested. He thinks they remember things for a long time to come.

Our cats dream so often. Tucker, definitely dreams constanly. Pookum, sometimes. And Murray does this awesome thing with his mouth every time he sleeps. He nurses! It’s really cute. But sometimes it makes me sad and I want to pop a miniature bottle into his mouth. :]

Nightmares take place sometimes as well. But not often. I think these guys (since we adopted them fairly early in their lives and from reputable places) dream happy things for the most part. (I bet your guys can say the same.) But they do have the occasional nightmare and it’s clear as day that is what’s taking place. They just act differently. And when I catch them in the act, usually always stroke them awake because it bugs me that they are dreaming anything other than awesome. :]

So, yes, we do find this happens regularly. And I think cats (and dogs) are a lot smarter than folks may think.

Oh, and a love this quote from Mark Twain:

Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

That’s an awesome quote. :)

Yeah, it totally bugs me to think that they might be dreaming about bad things, but it does give us an opportunity to give them some extra lovin’, which is always good.