The Animal Alarm Clock

I want to apologize to readers of this blog for being offline so long.  The explanation is first, that I was having some general malaise and needed to take a break for that reason and second, I have a stress fracture in my foot and I need to keep it upright, which makes writing more of a challenge.  As it is this will be a very brief post.

Over the years I often find myself being awakened from sleep to the sound of the dog barking.  She wants to be let outside. This occurs, sometimes more than once, in a the middle of the night.  It also happens during the daytime, when I'm taking a nap.  It is such a common happening that I've gotten used to it and I do get up each time.

In the last few weeks something new has happened.  I hear the barking while I'm sleeping, but the sound is in my head only.  The dog is not wanting to be let out and she is probably asleep herself, elsewhere in the house.  Why this is happening I can't say.  It doesn't happen while I am awake.  My hearing is normally quite good then.

There probably is some psychological term for when an implied obligation produces a faux stimulus.  In this case it is very easy to confirm that it is faux.  All I have to do is look at the place where the dog is let outside.  If she's not there, then she didn't bark.   I started to wonder what would happen if there weren't such ready confirmation.  Is this the path to "hearing voices" or believing in "conspiracy theories?"