Have you ever watched a spider sleep? That’s exactly what a scientist in Germany did during the Coronavirus lockdown in 2020. Daniela Rossler observed spiders in a patch of grass in her yard. She noticed that they twitched when they slept, just like dogs and cats do when they are dreaming. She wondered, could spiders dream?

Daniela built a nursery for baby spiders in her lab. She used a magnifying glass and night vision camera to record their sleep habits. She saw that their bodies jumped and their legs curled and uncurled.

Daniela also discovered that the spiders have rapid eye movements while they sleep. These eye movements, called REM sleep, occur in humans too. This was the first time that REM sleep had been observed in an animal without a backbone.

Research shows that REM sleep is important to humans’ development of memories and survival skills. Daniela wonders if spiders also develop memories and skills while sleeping. She has not answered these questions yet, but she plans to do more research.

Other spider scientists find Daniela’s research fascinating, too. Her observations have led to more questions about brain activity in spiders and how they respond to things they can see. One scientist in Massachusetts is using a thin wire to detect electrical activity in the spiders’ brains. His team plans to use the wire to monitor eye movements in spiders while they are watching tiny televisions.

Finding out that spiders dream makes them feel more like us. As one researcher put it, “it makes them less alien, but also more worthy of respect.” In the end, Daniela says, “you cannot smush a spider that dreams.”