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Despite viral posts claiming your furry best friend dreams of you while snoozing, that's really a theory based on other research.
WASHINGTON — When they cuddle up, learn a new trick, or even just fall asleep, there’s just something about our dogs that we can’t stop paying attention to, but do they think of us as much as we think of them?
THE QUESTION:
Do dogs dream of their owners when they sleep, as claimed in some viral posts?
THE SOURCES:
- Dr. Stanley Coren, author and psychology professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia
- “What Is Your Cat or Dog Dreaming About? A Harvard Expert Has Some Answers” in People Magazine online
- “Rats dream about their tasks during slow wave sleep,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- “Baseline sleep-wake patterns in the pointer dog,” E A Lucas, E W Powell, O D Murphree
THE ANSWER:
While we can’t verify that your dogs are dreaming about you like the posts claim, since there’s no data to back that up, we also can’t verify they’re not dreaming about you, either.
WHAT WE FOUND:
“Dogs often dream about their owners:” That’s the claim in viral posts on Instagram, touting “new research” that supposedly proves it.
Many of the claims cite an interview of Dr. Deirdre Barrett, Harvard Medical School psychologist, in People Magazine online in 2016. She says in part:
“Humans dream about the same things they’re interested in by day…there’s no reason to think animals are any different. Since dogs are generally extremely attached to their human owners, it’s likely your dog is dreaming of your face, your smell and of pleasing or annoying you.”
However, that amounts to an extrapolation–an educated guess making a conclusion based on other research, not experiments specific to dogs. VERIFY was not able to get ahold of Dr. Barrett for this story, but we spoke with Dr. Stanley Coren, who’s written books on the topic and generally agrees with Dr. Barrett’s conclusions.
“There is research which shows that just like human beings, animals will sort of replay the events of the day as part of their dreams,” he said.
Research on rats is what determined that animals replay the events of their day in their dreams and Dr. Coren says researchers agree this likely applies to dogs as well. He cites additional experiments that conclude dogs dream of very specific activities from their waking hours—pointing, digging, retrieving, for example.
“You're not going to find any research study which says that you know your dog is dreaming about Abby,” he tells reporter Abby Llorico. But if you take the fact that dogs likely dream about elements of their day, and that many dogs are very attached to their owners, “then, in fact, Abby’s dogs could dreaming about Abby, but it's a leap of faith.”
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