OK, this one is a bit out there.... I'm working on desensitising my two to noises in our apartment block, because they still bark at them on occasion. Additionally, as per my training log, I'm working on preventing Willow barking at people in certain situations. One of the issues with barking is that it can be self rewarding, so the act of barking itself actually makes the dog feel good, and promotes further barking. Both my pups often "bark" in their sleep. It's a quiet noise, but definitely a bark. So, I was wondering whether dreaming about barking is as self-rewarding as doing it for real, and if it encourages them to bark more when awake? Clearly there's nothing I can do to control their dreams, it was just something that struck me. We can extend the question into whatever else it is they're dreaming of. If a dog dreams of the time they found a delicious roast chicken on the counter, can it reinforce the counter-surfing behaviour? Conversely, if they were to dream of me giving them lots of tasty treats, would that enforce them wanting to spend time with me? Thoughts?
Re: Reinforcing behaviours in dreams?! Do androids dream of electric sheep? I would have to say no.....but I'm basing that on my dreams. My dreams don't form memories for me, I very rarely remember a dream after a few minutes of waking up. I've always thought of dreams as the way my brain empties itself out to make space and the weird interconnectedness of everything in dreams is because of the differing things I've done or thought about through the day but in themselves they aren't memories which would allow a pattern of behaviour to form.
Re: Reinforcing behaviours in dreams?! I never remember my dreams. Which makes me wonder, how do we know whether or not our dogs remember their dreams? Loosely related - can we desensitise our dogs to certain noises by playing them (if you have them on a CD for example) while the dogs are asleep?
Re: Reinforcing behaviours in dreams?! [quote author=UncleBob link=topic=10784.msg160460#msg160460 date=1430488631] Loosely related - can we desensitise our dogs to certain noises by playing them (if you have them on a CD for example) while the dogs are asleep? [/quote] I think the dog already has to be desensitised in order to stay asleep during the noise - that's what I found with Charlie, anyway. He started off finding the noise CD exciting, he'd run around looking for whatever exciting game was generating the bangs. Eventually, he wouldn't bother and would stay snoozing.
Re: Reinforcing behaviours in dreams?! Interesting. I have very vivid and very memorable dreams. But, more than that, the feelings from my dreams stay with me for a long time. Once I dreamt that a work colleague had screwed me over and I woke up livid with her. I couldn't talk to her for a couple of days! I told her why it was that morning, and we laughed together, but I still held those feelings of resentment for a while.
Re: Reinforcing behaviours in dreams?! [quote author=snowbunny link=topic=10784.msg160464#msg160464 date=1430489086] Interesting. I have very vivid and very memorable dreams. But, more than that, the feelings from my dreams stay with me for a long time. Once I dreamt that a work colleague had screwed me over and I woke up livid with her. I couldn't talk to her for a couple of days! I told her why it was that morning, and we laughed together, but I still held those feelings of resentment for a while. [/quote] I don't know whether to be thankful or jealous. The former I think
Re: Reinforcing behaviours in dreams?! I know I'm going off at a tangent here but.... I've often wondered what dogs think dreams are. We are told by our parents that dreams aren't 'real', so not to worry about them (etc etc). But to a dog, surely they seem pretty real? Does a dog understand that dream world is not real world?
Re: Reinforcing behaviours in dreams?! I was having this same discussion this morning. Well.....what does a newborn baby dream of? They clearly do "dream". What experiences have they had. Are they intra-uterine memories/experiences? If the dreams aren't experiences, then are they just random firing of neurons in patterns? Ah. Probably. Wish I knew more about dreams. 8)
Re: Reinforcing behaviours in dreams?! It's a fascinating area. Just because you don't consciously remember dreams doesn't mean they're not stored in your brain somewhere. There are three things that happen with memories: - encoding (getting the memory in there) - storage (holding it in there) - retrieval (getting it out of there) To be able to consciously 'remember' something you have to do all three. Unless we remember the actual 'encoding event' I don't think brains are actually that good at distinguishing between things that got into our memory due to an actual experience versus one that was simply visualised (whether deliberately visualised or dreamed).
