The involuntary twitching of a sleeping dog's paw can make us suspect that
animals dream just like we do. Indeed, research monitoring the brain activity of rats
confirms that animals have complex dreams. The experiment's data indicated that
rats who learned to run a maze while awake dreamed about running the maze later.
These findings suggest that dreams may play an important role in learning and
memory, for both animals and humans.
Why does the author include the detail about watching a sleeping dog's paw?
to prove that animal dreams are as complex as human dreams
to help stimulate reader interest in the subject of animals' dreaming
to show how dreams play an important role in learning and memory