"...Two researchers studying memory have offered compelling evidence that the brains of sleeping animals are at work in a way irresistably suggestive of dreaming. And the animals in question -- four pink-eared, black-and-white laboratory rats -- appeared to be dreaming about something very specific: the maze they were learning to run..."

Full text of article available at www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/science/25DREA.html

Additional reading on animals and dreaming:

"If you take the idea of evolution of the species at all seriously -- if you think there is anything at all to the idea that species alter both behavior and physical structure to enhance their ability to survive in particular ecological/environmental circumstances -- then there must also be something about dreaming itself that is of primary and fundamental importance from a collective evolutionary survival point of view, because in spite of the multiple, serious, and dangerous drawbacks associated with dreaming, there is not a single relatively evolved species that has found it of increased survival value to abandon this seemingly... dangerous behavior."

Jeremy Taylor, from the book Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill

Available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446394629/newheavenneweart