An interesting thing about sleep paralysis in dogs...

My family recently decided to get a puppy. The other day, she was sleeping on the floor, obviously dreaming. (Feet twitching, quiet grunting noises, etc.) I had an idea. As she slept, I rubbed one of the spots on her belly that gets her leg scratching. She didn’t wake up, but her leg did make some vain attempts to scratch. Sleep paralysis prevented her leg from moving too much, but that system of the brain that associates a scratching feeling with the movement of the leg was obviously still on.

That makes me wonder if it’s possible for certain human reflexes to be activated while we’re in the grip of sleep paralysis. And, if so, to what degree are those reflexes choked up by the sleep paralysis? Any thoughts?

makes ya wonder if dogs can have lucid dreams, doesn’t it?

I know the reflex of breathing continues through sleep paralysis, obviously lol. I’m not very knowledgeable on the reflexes of the body though so I can’t compare many others.

LOL i was watching my dog dream today and thought the exact same thing

lol hmmm I doubt it … for that they would need to know they were dreaming and maybe that requires a conscience… intresting thought though :smile:

my friends dog lets out some really quiet barks while it is sleeping, it’s hilarious!

yeah i don’t know much about sleep paralysis, but if a dog’s sleep is like ours then i’m sure some reactions would happen. when i see dogs sleeping though i wonder if their sleep paralysis isn’t as strong as ours, i dunno.

who are you to say that dog’s don’t have conscience? they may be more aware of their existance than we are. maybe they have lucid dreams every night! maybe i’m full of it (most likely :smile:)

most of the time like most people who have LD’s they get sleep paralysis but on the odd time I had a LD where I was having a boxing match with another boxer in a ring and he hit me and I felt it, not only moving in my bed but also I tried to punch him back and ended up in real life punching him whilst asleep and ended punching the wall, thus waking myself up. But also I have the ability sometimes to hear things outside of my LD whilst I am asleep. I can also wake myself out of a dream, like controlled waking. Like if I am not enjoying the dream I can wake myself up from it. I am not sure how far things mentioned above what other people can do, but I just thought I would share some of my experiences

i’ve also had experiences where i make excessive motion. i think its because when we’re lucid or extremely involved, we gain a degree of conciousness that would otherwise be restrained by paralasys during times of not using the degree of conciousness required to move.

obviously dogs can lucid dream thats why their always sleeping ! lol