The Acropolis of Atlantis

The sunken city of Atlantis has always been a wonderous tale, grasping our imagination. The idea of a wonderous kingdom somewhere deep beneath the sea. The mystery and allure of such a thing brings out the child in us. As we close our eyes at night, we may dream of swimming through such a wonderful place.

It leads to an interesting question, do cetaceans also dream? ECG sleep patterns of cetaceans have been studied, and led to some interesting findings, in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) for example it was first discovered that they sleep for 2 hours, with only half their brain, closing only one (opposing) eye they stay half awake to keep aware of threats and come back to the surface and then they switch brain halves.. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, the phase in which we dream, is hard to define in Cetaceans, but was thought to be observed in a pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) this would mean they dream as well. Perhaps then, in a whale dream, they walk through our city’s and are amazed by our world, I’m sure they would like to visit an all you can eat sushi place!

For larger whales it gets more complex, mostly in finding an ECG large enough to find out, furthermore they sleep much shorter, often near or just under the surface. Particularly noteworthy are the sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) when they nap, they do so vertically and in a group. Under water this spectacle looks like many long massive columns standing in the water, they remind us of the ancient Greek temple columns we imagine Atlantis to have. But if there is anyone that knows about the secrets of the deep, it’s the sperm whales, they go down so far, and what they find there, we may never know.

By Scott Dorssers