• Question: Do animals dream during hibernation?

    Asked by anon-189443 to Yousef, Rachel, Petrina, Jason, Emma, Michael on 14 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-189444, anon-194043.
    • Photo: Mike Ambler

      Mike Ambler answered on 14 Nov 2018:

      Hi Hannah!

      great question, thanks.

      It is interesting actually, when animals are deep in hibernation their brains are very cold and so probably they aren’t able to dream because cold brains don’t really work in the same way that warm ones do.

      In fact, animals that hibernate in very cold places (like arctic squirrels) will wake up from time to time from their hibernation and get warm and active for a short period. During this time they seem to go to sleep and they do REM sleep then, which means they are probably dreaming. This makes us wonder whether actually the animals that are hibernating are sleep-deprived and have to ‘wake up’ from hibernation in order to get warm enough to sleep and dream!

Comments