Does my gerbil dream??? By Deb Maria

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Ok, fine, you caught me.

I don’t really have a gerbil, but my son would looooove to have one,  —and name him  “Papi.”  Don’t ask me why, but my child (who is 6) digs gerbils, and I think I traumatized him the other day by telling him I once had a pet gerbil who met an awful demise when my sister didn’t notice our furry friend nuzzled deep inside her sneaker and….squish!  Yep, I still don’t know what I was thinking when I said that either, but let’s just file that under the “Silly Mommy File” and pretend it never happened.

 So what do you think?  Do gerbils dream?   I think they do. They have brains don’t they?? Tiny, pea-shaped brains -like the ones we find inside male heads- but brains nonetheless.  According to experts, mammals with brains who sleep, definitely dream.  That’s the criteria, and yes, I looked it up.  No need to get huffy about it. 

Anyhoo, I happen to dream often.  Sometimes in black and white, most often in color, and coming soon in H-D.        

Call me crazy, but I remember MOST of my dreams, and boy are they a riot when I’ve had a little too much wine with dinner.  Just the other day (after some particularly tasty Merlot) I had a dream that some nutty women were running this website for new authors and actually let me write my own blog!  Boy, what crazy thoughts lurk in our unconscious!

Now as far as nightmares are concerned, I had a recurring one for years.  It’s my wedding day, and someone lifts my veil to reveal….A GIANT SQUISHED GERBIL HEAD!!  Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.  Actually, the truth is I’ve never had a recurring nightmare…just your average ones where you’re suddenly naked in front of a crowd, being chased is a popular one, and finally my favorite—jumping out of a plane without a parachute.  Why?  Well, if I had all the answers, my name would be Yoda right?

All I can say is that my good buddy Sigmund Freud said dreams are the “royal road” to our repressed sexual desires, and if that’s the case, boy am I in big trouble.

8 Replies to “Does my gerbil dream??? By Deb Maria”

  1. We had a gerbil escape its cage and our cat picked it up in his toothy mouth and my brother picked the cat up by the tail to make him let the gerbil go. Drama!

    Rodents are fun pets at first, but I get really bored of something that doesn’t cuddle and purr. Even if it does dream 🙂

    Unless I had a fully pimped habitrail. That would rock!

  2. I think dreaming in color means you’re really creative, right? So, that can counteract the gerbil/jumping out of airplane/naked ones! I know I’m sleep-deprived when I don’t remember any of my dreams (like now; my baby is teething).

  3. Yeah, I’ve banned rodent pets in our house. We have a small terrier whose evolutionary job description is to hunt down and destroy such critters. No thanks.

    Plus, my sister’s pet hamster died on Christmas Eve when we were kids. I don’t want to reply that, this time as the Mom.

    Hmmm, repressed sexual desires. So does Samantha from Sex and the City not dream at all, then?

  4. I’m convinced that our dog dreams, so I feel sure gerbils do too. I keep hearing about authors who get their story ideas from dreams and I wonder why I can’t have dreams like that.

  6. Wait, what mammals don’t sleep?

    Kristina, definitely keep the terriers away from the rodents! Have you ever been to a terrier earth trial? OMG.

    My dog definitely dreams. What else is she doing when she woofs and growls and “runs” in her sleep?

    I agree with the distaste for rodent pets. I mean…it’s…a…rodent!

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