• Question: Do dolphins have dreams? also how do they sleep, do they lie down on the sea/tank floor or do they float in the water?

    Asked by rebeccas to Valeria on 12 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by gabic, oona12, emilyo97, hollymapana20.
    • Photo: Valeria Senigaglia

      Valeria Senigaglia answered on 12 Jun 2012:

      This is a very good question! Dolphins have to breath air so they have to come at the surface. Thus they cannot sleep like we do or they would drown. Instead they float at the surface in a behaviour we called logging and they shut down only one half of their brain. In this way they can sleep with half brain while the other half maintains functions as breathing and it’s vigilant against predators.
      I am not aware if they dream or not. Some researches showed evidence of brain activity similar to the one we have while we dream but this kind of experiment need the dolphins to be monitored with a machine while sleeping and it’s very difficult to do in the water and impossible in the wild.

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