Platypus: The Ultimate Dreamer

If you had to guess which animal dreams the most, you probably wouldn’t pick the platypus.

But the data says otherwise. The platypus actually has the highest amount of REM sleep—the

stage we associate with dreaming—of any animal studied so far. What’s truly fascinating

is that its sleep is a hybrid state. While its brainstem is in a highly active REM state,

driving intense twitches and eye movements, its forebrain shows the quiet,

slow waves of deep sleep. This suggests that the "active" dreaming part of our sleep

likely evolved in the brainstem of our earliest ancestors. The platypus is a living link that

shows us how our own complex sleep cycles might have started. We’re journeying