{"id":15384,"date":"2022-08-30T19:54:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T17:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/?p=15384"},"modified":"2022-09-01T15:38:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T13:38:46","slug":"do-spiders-dream-of-silk-sheep-this-researcher-says-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/do-spiders-dream-of-silk-sheep-this-researcher-says-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Spiders Dream of Silk Sheep? A Researcher Says &#8220;Maybe&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although not the most dreamy of creatures, <\/span><b>spiders have dreams just like we do<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, new study finds. How do we know this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daniela C. R\u00f6\u00dfler, a behavioral ecologist, noticed some strange body movements from local jumping spiders on her porch. Namely, they were sound asleep!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While suspended they twitched their tiny legs (all eight of them) and made peculiar eye movements <\/span><b>reminiscent of REM sleep<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Rapid Eye Movement) in humans \u2014 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/stages-of-sleep\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the most restorative stage<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in our sleep cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During REM sleep, our brain analyzes the most recent information, decides which memories to keep, and makes us dream. Moreover, the <\/span><b>lack of REM sleep is detrimental to our health<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2022-08-spiders-snooze-humans.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">capturing this unusual movement on a video<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, R\u00f6\u00dfler and her \u201cdream team\u201d set out to uncover whether this leg twitching is, in fact, a sign of slumber or something else. The data was published in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and according to the results, <\/span><b>spiders could very well be dreaming something<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For quite some time now, scientists have known that some animals, like birds and fish, undergo REM sleep during their slumber. Yet, nobody suspected such a <\/span><b>distant animal family<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as the arachnids to do the same. After all, the spider\u2019s nervous system is a lot more rudimentary than our own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That makes this finding all the more fascinating! Yet, more research is needed to determine the validity of this discovery. Not to mention the repercussions this could have on <\/span><b>our understanding of sleep in general<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Consequently, researchers are hopeful this finding could help us improve our own snooze time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although not the most dreamy of creatures, spiders have dreams just like we do, new study finds. How do we know this? Daniela C. R\u00f6\u00dfler, a behavioral ecologist, noticed some strange body movements from local jumping spiders on her porch. Namely, they were sound asleep! While suspended they twitched their tiny legs (all eight of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":15383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15384"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15415,"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15384\/revisions\/15415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disturbmenot.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}