The following chapter may contain spoilers for the main four Warriors series. 
A Vision of Shadows is too sinful to be read by this chapter's author, okay?

A common theme throughout the Warriors series is visions given from StarClan, dreams in StarClan, prophecies, etc. Spirituality is very important to the plot and to the characters. But, with the knowledge of human dreaming that we have in today's world, would some of these visions, dreams, and prophecies be accurate? Are there any real-world comparisons to some events that happen in the Warriors?

Well, let's find out.

First of all, all of us who own furry friends know that cats sleep. A lot. That brings up the first question - do cats even dream?

That's certainly a yes. Some more observant feline owners may have noticed twitching paws, shivering, or quivering whiskers, but in fact, it's known that cats are very still when they dream. This contradicts some scenes in the Warriors, where a cat is dreaming about catching a mouse and is moving around in their sleep, but we'll give the Erins a bit of lenience. We have to do that a lot when bringing science into fiction.

There was an experiment done in the 1950s where a scientist cut out a certain part of a cat's brain. It was considered acceptable at the time, for the record. I have no idea if he's alive... but I'm up for a manhunt.

*ahem*

When this experiment took place, the cats that were operated on began acting out their dreams. They would act as if they were stalking prey and move around. Some would play with toys that weren't even there. Then, they'd return to sleeping normally. [1] However, the Warriors don't exactly get parts of their brains cut out, so we can probably rule that out as a possibility...

Now, the Warriors are very personified with human actions (shrugging) that certainly aren't possible for cats, so let's look at that side of the story.

Humans have several stages of their sleep - you may have heard of these before, but for now, we'll be focusing on REM sleep. REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is the phase of sleep where vivid dreams occur, eyes move around randomly, and the muscles of the body are loose and floppy). Waking up during an REM sleep phase allows you to remember your dreams with much more ease, and 80% of people without sleep disorders can give a dream report in these circumstances. [2]

This is a bit closer to what sometimes happens in the Warriors. A cat who is in StarClan and is receiving a prophecy sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night after they leave StarClan. It's possible they were in a personified REM stage of sleep.

Since we're going to keep with the idea that the Warriors cats are having human-esque dream experiences, let's delve a bit deeper into just how these dreams work.

There's a specific type of dream called a lucid dream where the dreamer knows that their experience isn't real. [3] Most cats we see in the Warriors that visit StarClan or the Dark Forest seem to know that they're not experiencing a real event, so these visits could be considered lucid dreams. 

However, only fifty percent of humans will experience a lucid dream in their lifetime. [4] And, lucid dreaming isn't quite as easy to achieve as one might think if they used the Warriors as a reference text.

Another part about dreams is that they sometimes seem to be unrealistic. [5] Visuals can 'bleed' into each other, negative emotions are much more common, and some people even dream in black-and-white.

An error the Erins made was with Jayfeather. People who are blind since birth do not dream with vision - their brains don't have the capability to comprehend a visual input and therefore do not dream with one. Instead, blind people typically dream with audio, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations. [5]

But, as always, we'll give the Erins a break and congratulate them for getting some things right. They did, after all, write a fiction story.

[1] http://www.petful.com/behaviors/what-do-cats-dream-about/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream
[4] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/lucid-dreaming-could-the-ability-to-control-our-dreams-unlock-the-secrets-of-the-mind-a6802536.html
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream#Content

- rio