Octopuses, Like People, Seem To Have Active Stages Of Sleep, May Dream | NPR

An octopus settles on the rocky bottom.

MBL cephalopod scientist Carrie Albertin appears in the National Public Radio story.

Octopuses have alternating periods of “quiet” and “active” sleep that make their rest similar to that of mammals, despite being separated by more than 500 million years of evolution.

During their active periods of sleep, octopuses’ skin color changes and their bodies twitch, according to a  in the journal iScience, and they might even have short dreams.

“If they are dreaming, they are dreaming for up to a minute,” says , a neuroscientist at the Brain Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil.

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