The octopuses They are some of the smartest animals on the planet.. This has made us wonder about the limits of their consciousness, because although they do not have a brain – which means that they do not have a cerebral cortex where they can “house” it – they have behaviors and abilities that we have not even fully understood.
Furthermore, we know that the intelligence of many animals, such as the octopus, does not depend on a brain. In fact, works from the same premise that our intelligence, that is, through neural networks. It’s just that the octopus’s neural network spans its entire body. And what if this one has not shown to be surprising, like the skin that covers it, same that works as his eyes. The skin of these invertebrates is reactive to light thanks to chromatophores, specialized cells that are in deep connection with their peculiar nervous system.
It is these cells that cause the color change in octopuses. But not only when awake, but also when they sleep.
Does this mean that octopuses dream?
Apparently yes, well Octopuses have been filmed changing color while sleepingas in this video, recorded in 2017 at an invertebrate museum in Colorado by scientist Rebecca Otey:
How octopuses activate this camouflage mechanism remains a mystery. But it is known that it has to do with how the conditions around you change. However, why do they do it while they sleep? Are they dreaming of a threat, or of moving from one part of the sea to another?
Or even, could they be dreaming of something deeper?
All this is probable, since there is also the hypothesis that some species of octopus have a sleep cycle similar to ours and that would include the REM phase in which they dream. This hypothesis, although risky, could be very accurate, and would suggest that octopuses are even more conscious than we might think.
And it is that dreams really have an evolutionary function. In our case, they have become a whole language that, when we can understandIt is a door to the unconscious. So the fact that octopuses dream – if they do – would even make them subject to psychoanalysis.
Anyway, this is a sign that we are not more special than animals, although our anthropocentrism is reluctant to admit it. For this and more, they deserve all our respect – although without a doubt, they already own our astonishment.
* Images: 1) PETA; 2) Psymposia
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