A marine biologist films this octopus changing colors while dreaming and it’s spectacular
Dreaming octopus
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Dreaming octopus
https://twitter.com/CaliaDomenico/statu ... 83456?s=09
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Re: Dreaming octopus
I thought "A sleeping octopus changes colour as she dreams" sounded like the title of something by Harold Budd.
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Re: Dreaming octopus
Or captain beefheart, in one of his straighter momentsbasementer wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 7:32 pmI thought "A sleeping octopus changes colour as she dreams" sounded like the title of something by Harold Budd.
Re: Dreaming octopus
I thought the extremely mundane explanation from the marine biologist added to the charm...she is dreaming of catching a crab.
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Re: Dreaming octopus
I'm interested to know how they can tell that it's dreaming.
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Re: Dreaming octopus
I guess it’s possible to tell if an octopus is asleep, in which case how else would you explain all the colour changes etc?Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:42 amI'm interested to know how they can tell that it's dreaming.
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Re: Dreaming octopus
The concept of "asleep" is a bit complicated (even in mammals), what with unihemispheric sleep in dolphins, birds, fish, etc.Grumble wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 1:05 pmI guess it’s possible to tell if an octopus is asleep, in which case how else would you explain all the colour changes etc?Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:42 amI'm interested to know how they can tell that it's dreaming.
But it appears that octopuses may have REM sleep, as measured by brainwave activity. Cuttlefish do have REM sleep including the eye movements.
Edit to add: second link, which is a nice article.
Last edited by dyqik on Tue Nov 26, 2019 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dreaming octopus
I'm just not convinced that "hallucinating catching a crab" is necessarily the most parsimonious explanation.Grumble wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 1:05 pmI guess it’s possible to tell if an octopus is asleep, in which case how else would you explain all the colour changes etc?Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:42 amI'm interested to know how they can tell that it's dreaming.
In humans, the only animal whose dreaming behaviour we can easily study, most (and the most vivid) dreaming occurs during REM sleep when the body is necessarily paralysed. Excessive movements during dreams are characteristic of sleep disorders.
So for example when people see their dog kicking around in it's sleep they like to think it's dreaming about chasing rabbits or whatever, when in reality it probably isn't dreaming at all, but there's no way of telling.
I would assume that octopus skin colour can change due to some hormonal process without needing direct cognitive control, and there's no reason hormone levels can't change during sleep without accompanying hallucinations.
But I'm not an octopusologist, sleep scientist or anything else relevant.
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Re: Dreaming octopus
When you get to mammals, is there any reason to think humans, or even primates would be unique, given how ancient sleep itself is? Obviously that's different from assuming that's the explanation, but I'd have thought it was a parsimonious explanation.Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 1:40 pmI'm just not convinced that "hallucinating catching a crab" is necessarily the most parsimonious explanation.Grumble wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 1:05 pmI guess it’s possible to tell if an octopus is asleep, in which case how else would you explain all the colour changes etc?Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:42 amI'm interested to know how they can tell that it's dreaming.
In humans, the only animal whose dreaming behaviour we can easily study, most (and the most vivid) dreaming occurs during REM sleep when the body is necessarily paralysed. Excessive movements during dreams are characteristic of sleep disorders.
So for example when people see their dog kicking around in it's sleep they like to think it's dreaming about chasing rabbits or whatever, when in reality it probably isn't dreaming at all, but there's no way of telling.
But then I'm not even a biologist.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation