New research suggests that octopuses experience ‘quiet’ and ‘active’ sleep states like humans, even undergoing brief dreaming periods. While there’s no evidence to conclude that they dream the way people do, they do light up in different colors when they snooze.
That’s according to a marine biologist who captured this octopus snoozing away in a fish tank.
The neuroprocessing abilities of cephalopods (i.e., brain with tentacles attached) like the octopus activate their color-changing cells in response to their environments.
What does an octopus dream about?
While we don’t know exactly what the octopus dreams about, the shift to a darker color represents the octopuses movement off the seafloor. Meanwhile, the camouflage sequence mimics the change that happens when octopuses hide from prey.
Watch the snippet below and the entire clip on PBS.
