Was Heidi the Octopus Really Dreaming?

Octopus is delicious but between this and the inky escape story from New Zealand I don’t think I can eat it anymore.

Sad that people choose to eat these intelligence beings.

Poor Heidi! It's more likely she is having nightmares, trapped in her small cage. We humans are unmatched in our arrogant hubris, constantly using animals as experiments without their consent.

This seems like a case of squid pro quo.

Anyone who's seen their pet dog sleeping would know they dream. Their legs move like they're running; they Yelp and growl. I'm sure dog owners can eloborate.

Wittgenstein said "Even if the lion could speak, we couldn't understand him."

While we have to be cautious about attributing something like dreaming to an Octopus, we also have to be very, very careful of the opposite, the assumption that it couldn't be dreaming, that octopii are "lower order creatures", that is reserved for 'high order creatures', and a lot of that is nothing more than human arrogance, upset that something we thought of as "ours" is not unique to humans. When people started researching birds, the idea they had intelligence was dismissed, because 'their brains lacked the structure required for intelligence"..well guess what, the bird's brains work differently than ours, but have analagous structures to our higher intelligence centers. Noam Chomsky when it became apparent that Parrots and other birds were not just mimicking speech, but using it, and in complex ways, he said a bird could never understand phonetics, yet Alex the African Gray blew that one out the door in a spectacular fashion. It is true it is easy to anthropomorphize animal behavior, but it is also very, very easy to dismiss it, thanks to human smugness and especially the religious based drivel that proclaimed man to be lord over the species, unique in their being the image of God, etc. Not to mention evangelicals must hate this, because it shows how evolution works, that intelligence developed on parallel paths, that intelligence is an evolutionary advantage that natural selection would pick out for reproduction, and not some mystical force given by God to man alone

Why wouldn't an octopus dream? There is so much arrogance in comparative psychology it baffles me. Once they said humans are special because we have language; then they discovered tons of vocal animals with languages (and some non-vocal languages, too). Then they said humans are special because we have long memories; turns out lots of animals have longer memories than we do. They said humans are special because we have more synapses; then they found whales with way more synapses than we have. They said humans are special because we can use tools; then they found chimpanzee tribes passing toolmaking techniques on to their offspring. They said humans are special because we have emotions; that one's just straight up dumb. Octopi dream because OF COURSE they dream. We don't have to scientifically prove that cats are conscious, for instance, because we know that they are (and because consciousness itself isn't well understood). Animals are smart. They communicate with each other and they try to communicate with us. They have complex societies, etiquette, and even something like cultures. They experience emotions, they have their own thoughts, they have their own personalities, they're susceptible to psychological disorders, and they're capable of things like existential angst, remorse, joy, and even quasi-religious experiences. Comparative psychology often works from a Christian textbook, stipulating that animals are objects inferior to humans until proven otherwise.

I’m so glad to see Heidi again! I just happened to see the Nature doc when it first aired, and was bowled over by the whole thing: Prof, daughter, and Heidi right there in the living room. They told a fascinating evolutionary story too. Thanks for the extra visit.

An octopus I observed at a Washington aquarium was given complex tasks daily (like getting food from a closed jar) because she bored easily. That gave me an increased appreciation of the species' mental capabilities. Getting bored is a sign of brain activity that needs engagement.

Only an octopus really knows if it dreams or not. With further scientific research then perhaps one day we'll know for certain.

Fascinating, intelligent octopuses. I feel sick when I see them on a menu.

I read all of the prior articles, watched all of the embedded videos, and how I’m completely hooked. As soon as my local library opens, I’m going to start reading up! Good job, Ms. Preston.