My cat doesn’t start dreaming until I’m asleep.
Don’t ask me how I know.
It’s probably a lot harder to tell the difference between a dog or cat sleepwalking and regular movement, so they might be sleepwalking without our knowledge.
As to why humans don’t seem to twitch as much (even though we do), I wonder if that is because our ancestors were more arboreal than cats and dogs, and if we did twitch we would tend to fall out of the tree.
I was watching one of my cats dreaming just yesterday. I wondered what she was dreaming about; she was making little squeaking noises and flapping one paw.
The late Miss Austen, my cat who had lymphoma, used to take chemo pills. Since they were tricky things I couldn’t touch with my bare hands, I used a pill-shooter and would put her in a grooming bag to keep her still while giving her pills. I think she used to have dreams about being restrained in the grooming bag; when she was asleep, she would suddenly start to twist and struggle, forepaws pushing as if she were trying to get free of restraint.
Dogs dream about chasing rabbits. Cats dream about sleeping.
My cat occasionally sounds like she’s having a kitty nightmare of some kind, making little distressed sounds and twitching. I’ll pet her gently to wake her up after a moment of this, and she’ll often look very confused for a moment. I tell her quietly that it was just a bad dream, and she usually conks right back out.
Awww… that’s sweet. 
Cats don’t dream. They plot.
This is perhaps the most disturbing thought in the thread. :eek:
My cat is 16 so he sleeps 18 hours a day, usually right next to me. He starts to snore and then his front paws ‘bat’ at something, his back legs twitch, and his ears and whiskers. Sometimes I think he catches that dream mouse and is eating it, he smacks his lips.
I’ve gently awakened dogs that seemed to be having nightmares, and they seemed to adjust to a waking state very rapidly without looking confused.
If it was a really bad dream, you might expect growling or lunging before they realized they were safe, but I’ve never experienced that.
It’s my understanding that cats appear to mostly dream about stalking, pouncing and fighting. There have been experiments involving destroying the area of the brain in cats and other animals that keeps them from acting out their dreams, and that’s how they acted. Later less intrusive experiments with brain scans indicate the same thing.
“I have to be home and in bed by midnight, because my dreams start then whether or not I’m asleep.” - Steven Wright
I twitch in my sleep occasionally, and yet I’ve been told I do t have a sleep disorder. Both I and my mom will also make vocal noises when we just have fallen asleep, especially if we’ve been having a hard time getting to sleep, or are otherwise really tired.
With that last part, I jus always assumed dogs probably don’t really sleep while I heir human pack is awake until they are really tired. Hence I hear the noises a nap ti, but never at night.
Twitching? Is that all?
How about full-on running?
It IS possible to see that a cat is dreaming. Just like humans, their eyes roll around, their paws twitch, and they sometimes growl/meow.
sweet
No way. We have six of them, and I don’t think a single one does it more than 20 or so hours a day.