Coltan Scrivner

Because dreaming seems to be very evolutionarily old.

We have evidence that cats and rats dream and we're separated by, I cite it in the book, I forget what it is, you know, 50 million or 100 million years or more from them.

Octopuses, who we are hundreds of millions of years separated from.

In fact, they have entirely different nervous systems, but so far back.

So it's not conserved from octopuses, but it developed twice.

Octopuses dream.

So it was so important that our line developed dreaming, but then the octopus line also developed some kind of machinery for dreaming.

So that suggests probably there's some selection pressure for that.

And octopuses, when they dream, they tend to act out some of those dreams through their color changing.

So they'll change colors and do defensive maneuvers.

They'll shoot ink sometimes.

So they'll do things that are defensive in their dreams.

Or just doing anything spooky, yeah.

That's one of the most common questions I get is, should I let my kid watch scary movies?

Or is there something wrong with them?

That comes from a good place.

You don't want to let your kid feel afraid.

You don't want to see your kid feel anxious.

But if you don't let them do that in a playful way when they're young, it's going to be difficult for them to learn how to regulate those feelings later on when they're adults.

So when you're a kid, you're a sponge.