Lion roars while sleeping

January 15, 2015 • 4:15 pm

Hercules, a rescue lion, makes some pretty fearsome noises while napping. I wonder what he’s dreaming of?

The YouTube info, which is a bit biologically confusing:

Watch a full-grown African Lion Roaring in his sleep. “Hercules” is a rescued Lion that lives at the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado, and like other lions there, he sometimes dreams of roaring while he is sleeping. Much like dogs do (where they dream of barking or running in their sleep), lions also have vivid dreams, and Hercules is having one heck of a wild dream!

36 thoughts on “Lion roars while sleeping”

  1. Kitty used to have dreams; his paws and whiskers would twitch and he would make little sounds. Once he woke up hissing! I guess he was having a bad dream.

    1. Our large & clueless gray tiger often seems to have bad dreams. He’ll wake up with a huge start, and what seems to be a growl, then stare around fearfully. It can take several seconds for him to get his bearings again.

  4. My bet is some kind of a turf-battle dream, much like the kind of dream we have when we think everything’s idyllic, but then some bothersome crap screws it all up, and we spend the rest of the dream trying to make it all better again (in vain). I know there’s a word for this I’m forgetting.

    My bet is based on reference to Butter’s (pic in Avatar) daily sleep-protestations, which sound like slurred versions of the noises emitted towards rival cats impinging on his turf (and indirectly, his servant, who happens to occupy said turf).

  6. I dare someone to run up & give him a big smooch on the face while he’s dreaming. 😈

  9. We once adopted an aged stray d*g that would never vocalize. We started to wonder if she could not. Then one day in her sleep she gave a single full-throated bark and woke herself up with a start. She lay there looking around frantically as if to ask “What the hell was that?” and then settled back to sleep. That was the only time we ever heard her bark.

    3. Hahaha… too funny!

      Once our d*g farted and looked startled, looking back at her butt. Another d*g used to growl in her sleep too, and her paws would waggle in the air, like she was running. Of course, we’d have to stifle our giggles, so as not to wake her and cause the show to end.

        1. How do you pronounce that name?! (Bozo? :))

          I wonder if d*gs ever pretend it’s their hooman that made the stinky? Nah, we’re the devious ones, eh.

        2. When I was 10, I had a black lab I was training at the local dog training facility. She was a high stim dog so when she was in a long sit-stay, she suddenly jumped in the air and sniffed behind her. She farted. I think it tickled her bum so she figured something was poking her.

  11. When my Siamese dreams I sometimes make ‘squeak squeak’ noises softly into his ear. It really seems like he is chasing moussies with his little feet going and his mouth munching away.

  12. On another note, I am currently in Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand and they have a tiger kingdom place where you can pat Tigers of different ages. I am of two minds in going in that I don’t like the idea of them being locked up just for the pleasure of people. I have done some research and at least it appears they do not sedate them with the main evidence for this being that the oldest you can pat is 30 months as any older and they are too dangerous. Other places sedate the older ones so they are not dangerous.
    Anyway, some feedback from all would be appreciated before I make my decision.

  13. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that it can be no more than an assumption that a lion, dog, cat, or any other non-human animal dreams. It certainly seems reasonable, but at present there’s really no way for us to know.

    1. I really have no evidence at all that any other human but me has dreams. Yes, other humans talk about having dreams, but this could just some weird social performance not based on any subjective experience whatsoever, unlike my own accounts of dreams, which are based on my subjective experiences I have while I am asleep.

      And don’t get me started on EEG’s and sleep researchers. It’s a vast conspiracy. They do not provide reliable evidence that anyone else has dreams.

      1. I have dreams.
        There, I said it (and now you’ve read it) on the Internet, so it must be true. :p

  16. I hate to say this but it sounds almost as much like a d*g howling than a lion.

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