We went back to Poet’s Walk yesterday for the first time since Evie’s arrival, taking advantage of this short time I have off of work and trying to get at least a little bit of time outdoors before today’s snowstorm.

Evie came along in a sling zipped inside my jacket, snoozing peacefully for the entire ride. I’m almost certain I saw her eyes in REM action at one point yesterday, which surprised me, as a psychologist friend once told me that newborns lack the visual language to dream.

Not being sure of this, I looked it up online (where if it’s written, it has to be true), and found this article, that mentions a 1966 study finding that newborns, do in fact dream:

The startling discovery was, not only do newborns dream — even on the first day of life — they actually dream more than the college students in the original studies (Science, 1966; 152:604).

This study has been repeated several times, confirming and expanding our knowledge. We dream more in the first 2 weeks of life than at any other time. The visual part of the brain is more active during newborn REM sleep than during adult sleep. They seem to have more vivid visual dreams.

Emma and I have both had stress dreams in these first few days—dreams about leaving Evie somewhere accidentally, forgetting to feed her, or in some other way failing to meet our new parental responsibilities. But there’s little time for good or bad dreams in our 90-120 minute sleep segments. Upon waking to her cries, something clicks into place, and we drowsily remember what to do.