Cat Dreams

I know this is going to sound weird, but Sophie had a bad night last night; I'm sure she had a nightmare, she was crying, whimpering and shaking so much in her sleep that I had to wake her up and reassure her then she was fine.

Has any body else noticed this in their cats? Do cats dream?

i have seen my lil blue do this too, Shawna, it scared me (and still does a bit) when i saw her twitching,
and looking like she was under quite the duress !

i always gently wake her up and cuddle with her until she falls back asleep in my arms or on my lap,
and then i put her back to bed.

i think they definitley dream

I'm sure they dream.

I've seen my cats twitch and wiggle in their sleep, as if running or playing. Sparky sometimes makes noises like he's nursing. Blackie once began mewing in his sleep and eventually became so loud he woke himself up. He sat there looking kind of sheepish and embarassed, so I wonder what he was dreaming of. Perhaps it was just that we all were staring at him - it was rather noticeable!

I would imagine cats have nightmares. Dreams are from information in the brain, and cats know about bad things too. Did Sophie have a trauma in the past? She might have been dreaming about that. Even something as common as falling could be scary in a dream state.

Sophie was a shelter kitty; all the SPCA told me was that she was a stray who'd been hit by a car and because she'd had broken leg which had to be set and splinted and a respiratory infection, she had been in their system for a while waiting to get well enough to be adopted out. She'd even been in animal foster care for a while. Thing is when I got her, she'd already been socialized because she had no trouble using her litter-box or exploring my place. I'm wondering if she hadn't been one of an unwanted litter dumped by the highway as horrible people sometimes do, or even had been a kitten near a busy street and got out and gotten lost or something. Anyway, she hardly meows which I've been told is a sign of trauma in a kitty, and she's very protective of me--doesn't like me to be out of her sight for very long--so I'm sure she must have been having a bad dream the other night.

Shawna - you did a great thing by giving her such a loving home and yes, my Loki does the twitching, wimpering thing too but it never lasts long. He is probably chasing a mouse or something like that in the dream.

Poor little Sophie! How lucky she is to have you to love her.

Snowball does this too. He twitches and shakes in his sleep, and sometimes his legs move like he is running or chasing something. He also sometimes makes a sucking sound which gets so loud that it wakes him up. These things never happen while he is in a catnap type of light sleep so I'm sure that he does dream.

:LOL: I must say in giving Sophie a loving home I spoil her rotten and she's runs my life, but she spoils me too with affection so it's a healthy cat-human relationship I'd say.

In case anyone's interested, I found a whole article on cats and dreaming, it's a little veterinary scientific, but still interesting to read.

http://www.petplace.com/Articles/artShow.asp?artID=3830

I think Jake has dreams all the time about chasing things - he twitches in his sleep then he wakes up and tears about the flat like he is after something - then it is back to bed a few minutes later - rather amusing really