Do octopuses dream?

nevergirl86

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I recently visited a new Giant Pacific Octopus at the Akron Zoo in Ohio. Weighing in at approx. 18 lbs, the male or female (not known but I'll say 'he') was sleeping in his exhibit, up against the back wall but on full display.
It was late afternoon and he was a moderate pink color. I was watching him for about five minutes when all of a sudden he started to twitch and turned a deep red. He twitched for a few more moments and then stopped and his color lightened and eventually ended with a marbled pattern.

Certainly octopuses have the intelligence to dream, correct? But I don't recall ever reading anything about that topic. Any thoughts?
 
Great topic nevergirl! I should share the thread below, which sports a great quote by the late, great Monty:

the funnest discussions are when there are unanswered questions that might be answerable with the right cleverness and perhaps some investigation....

:monty: To sleep, perchance to dream....?

Some of the debate in here is whether, or how much,, cephs even sleep, let alone dream. One poster claims to have observed his/her octopus "twitching" while sleeping, akin to what you're describing. Personally, I'm inclined to think yes, they dream.
 
nevergirl86;n339228 said:
I recently visited a new Giant Pacific Octopus at the Akron Zoo in Ohio. Weighing in at approx. 18 lbs, the male or female (not known but I'll say 'he') was sleeping in his exhibit, up against the back wall but on full display.
It was late afternoon and he was a moderate pink color. I was watching him for about five minutes when all of a sudden he started to twitch and turned a deep red. He twitched for a few more moments and then stopped and his color lightened and eventually ended with a marbled pattern.

Certainly octopuses have the intelligence to dream, correct? But I don't recall ever reading anything about that topic. Any thoughts?

The obvious (though not helpful) answer here is this: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

In his house at R'lyeh, Cthulhu lies dreaming.

:smile:

On a more serious note, I would think they dream as much as a dog or a cat. Lovecraftian cephalopod dreams of world domination and such...
 
I had a Bimac Ollie some years ago. She often slept (or appeared to sleep) at the mouth of her den, which was near the front of the tank. Her eyes were closed, and at times I observed twitching movements of her arms and, more often, her closed eyes. It was similar to the twitching movements my dog made while asleep. Nancy
 

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