My little guy does this on an incredibly regular basis. He sleeps coiled in his hide during the day, but at sunset or so he will have his nose poking out of his hide while resting in a loose S shape. He stays that way until about midnight and then he is curled back up in his hide. It has been my understanding that he is "hunting". Since they are ambush hunters they will lie in wait until something walks by, I think he is convinced that he will find a rogue rat if he waits long enough. I guess in a way he is right, but is missing a big part of the equation.

I do sometimes notice that he will stare at things while being handled without any really explicable reason. Sometimes he will extend his body and stare people in the face for about 20 seconds, then go back to what he was doing as though nothing happened. The other day he happened to be staring at the TV while a movie trailer played. The moment it ended I glanced over at him and he looked right at me and flicked his tongue as if to offer an opinion on it. Of course, this is almost certainly coincidence and I don't think he had any interest in the trailer, but it definitely is fun to watch them and wonder what is going through their heads sometimes.