Animals that sleep standing up dream only while lying down. Why is this happening?

When you look at your puppy or cat and see him waving his paws when he's sleeping or suddenly perking up his ears when he's not awake, you know your adorable four-legged friend is sleeping.

The animal mind seems to work like the human mind. At least in some respects. The US-based Sleep Foundation argues that we dream during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and that our limbs are inert then, so we don't do exactly what we do in our sleep. How about running around the bed or gesticulating as if we are defending ourselves from an attacking monster?!

What about animals? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied the dreams of laboratory mice and came to some revealing conclusions. “We know that they dream too, and that their dreams are connected to real experiences in their lives,” said ITM's Matthew Wilson. This experiment consisted of observing mice as they walked along a specific route and analyzing them during REM sleep.

Some animals' brains functioned exactly the same as when they traveled this route in real life. While sleeping, the mice seemed to be remembering or reliving an action they had experienced while awake. The same thing happens to us humans when we dream of people we met in reality, or actions that happened to us.

Some animals, such as elephants, sleep standing up, says BBC Science Focus. But to achieve such “performance” you need a certain anatomy. For example, the legs of horses (which can do the same thing - sleep standing up) have tendons and ligaments that allow them to remain upright with minimal muscle effort.

But you can't dream when you sleep standing up, says Oakhurst Dairy, which believes cows find nesting on the floor comfortable when they want a good night's sleep and are dreaming about something wonderful.

A 2020 study by Paul R. Munger for the National Library of Medicine entitled “Do All Mammals Dream?” he used the example of elephants in Africa. Apparently, in their case, they slept standing most of the time, and the elephants only went to bed once every 3-4 days. The conclusion drawn after the analysis is that when you sleep standing up, you cannot achieve REM sleep. So you don't have to dream.

Much remains unclear when it comes to dreams and the sleep of animals, but one thing is clear - humans are not able to sleep standing up. And, in the end, who needs this when you can no longer dream of flying or winning the lottery, for example?!

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