Impossible Science

So the last week or so I've been trying - and failing - to scientifically determine the answer to a new domestic curiosity in my life.

Here's the conundrum.

Smelly Ellie, my beloved beagle, loves to curl up under blankets. She absolutely loves it. She likes to get all the way underneath one and then twist it around her like we twist spaghetti around a fork. And then she passes out. For HOURS. This is what she does the entire time I'm at work when, you know, I actually have to go to work.

Every night, Smells goes to bed around 10 and when I wander my way over there, I usually have to untangle her from the blankets, move her to one side of the bed, and get in myself. At which point she uses all the blankets available to twist around her again.

Usually she gets a little irritated that I've made her wake up and that she has to do all this blanket-weaving all over again. Lots of grunts and what I interpret as dirty looks.

Anyway, a week or so ago I doubled up the blankets on my bed. She still likes to go under there, but each morning when I wake up, she's laying on top of the blankets, staring at me. This is a new thing.

I have two hypotheses, one a bit more fleshed out than the other.

First, this might be caused by the double blanket factor, and that the blankets together are either too warm or too heavy for her comfort.

Second, perhaps I am doing something in my sleep, tossing and turning in a way that makes her crawl out from under the blanket.

Since I noticed this a few days ago, I've been trying to figure out the cause of this new behavior.

OK, I haven't tried super hard, but I've wondered about it. Thing is, short of a video camera set-up, which I'm not about to use, the central problem with figuring out this answer is that I'm sleeping during the actual phenomenon. The problematic black box occurs while I'm unconscious.

Believe it or not, I've spent a good chunk of today half-thinking about this, bumbling for an investigative strategy.

And I've failed.

I'm not really looking for help, just typing it up because it is weird to me, both the phenomenon and the fact that I have spent so much time thinking (and typing) about it.

There you go. Sorry, but you don't get the 2 minutes of your life you spent reading this back.