Animal Training and Interspecies Communication

Sir Arthur Grimble, who served as the British resident Commissioner for the Gilbert and Ellis Islands in the South Pacific, reports witnessi`g a scene in which a native shaman entered a dream state in order to "call porpoises." After a period of time he awoke from his sleep and announced to the tribe that the porpoises were coming. The village of about 1000 individuals rushed down to the beach eagerly expecting a rare feast, and Grimble documents that he observed an entire flotilla of porpoises swim onto the beach, passively offering themselves to the natives: 

They were moving toward us in extended order with spaces of two or three yards between them, as far as the eye could reach. So slowly they came they seemed to be hung in a trance. It was as if their single wish was to get to the beach.

During these experiences, after a lengthy hypnotic induction, we engaged in a form of what might be called group fantasy -- or if more than fantasy were involved, perhaps group astral projection, or, if any of this could be objectively verified, group travelling clairvoyance. Typically, we would "fly" to the top of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. After, checking to make sure we were all "there," we would "fly" off on further adventures-- each of us describing our experiences verbally to the others.

On one such occasion, we decided to visit Marine World, a Bay Area wildlife amusement park, to see whether we could communicate with a dolphin. As the conversation progressed, the following points emerged:

1) We were with a female dolphin.
2) She was sick and cantankerous.
4) Her name was "Dee" or began with "D."
5) She was in a separate tank without a mate.
6) She did not wish to cooperate with the trainers. 
7) She wanted us to help her escape.
8) She wanted to travel with us astrally.

This particular session had a remarkable quality in terms of both its vividness and the group coherence. Immediately after awakening from the group hypnotic experience, we phoned Marine World to see if they had a dolphin that resembled "Dee." We were, fortunately, put through to one of the dolphin trainers who told us that there was a female dolphin who matched our description. Her name was "Dondi." Intrigued by our story, he invited us to Marine World for a private visit, to meet Dondi and for some informal testing of our possible communication with her.

During our first session at Marine World, the trainers had placed Dondi in a tank with five five other dolphins. We were asked simply to see if we could identify which of these she was. Five of the six of our group succeeded in this -- although there was some discussion among us and these could not be thought of as independent observations (which would be of relevance for statistical analysis).

The dolphin trainers also told us that, from their own experiences with these very intelligent animals, they had little doubt of the possibility of telepathic communication between cetaceans and humans. In fact, a recent issue of the dolphin trainer's professional newsletter had just featured an article about one of the most honored of their profession, Frank Robson. A New Zealander, Robson was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for the remarkable work described in his book Thinking Dolphins -- Talking Whales. He had achieved heroic status by saving a pod of whales that had become stranded on a sandbar in the South Pacific. Robson described this success, and many other experiences as resulting from a type of telepathy. Thus the dolphin trainers at Marine World were most willing to work with the New Frontier Institute group to explore further the possibility of human-dolphin telepathy.

Over a period of months, members of the group frequented the dolphin tanks at Marine World, paying particular attention to Dondi. Her condition improved markedly -- to the point where instead of being sick, contankerous and uncooperative, she had become the star performer in Marine World's dolphin show.

In May of 1977, a pilot attempt was made to assess the effectiveness of the New Frontiers Institute work with dolphins. The entire experiment was videotaped. In addition, detailed audiotaped records of Dondi's behavior were made by several independent observers (including myself, on this occasion) and were later transcribed. The final results were suggestive of the possibility that Dondi was responsive, over 50% of the time, to telepathic instructions.

Another interspecies explorer, and international organizer of the movement, is Wade Doak of Whangerei, New Zealand, author of ten books on natural history and wildlife, including Dolphin Dolphin and Encounters With Whales and Dolphins.

Doak maintains that his exploration of interspecies communication began with a simple incident that took place on his catamaran in the waters off of New Zealand. An American visitor sitting on the deck suddenly and unexpectedly experienced an altered state of consciousness which he described as being like "a pinball machine in my head." Moments later, a dolphin jumped out of the water within a few feet of the American and looked at him right in the eye.

That evening, the American reported a strange dream. In the dream, Wade Doak was in the water surrounded by dolphins who were swimming about him in a figure-eight pattern. The dolphins were making a strange noise that sounded like "tepuhi."

Doak was a naturalist and filmmaker by training who had extensively studied communication patterns among the species inhabiting South Pacific coral reefs. In his explorations, he had encountered many exotic forms of communication among the various species -- including the native, micronesian tribes. He suspected that his friend's dream might represent a form of "biological communication" between humans and dolphins.

In order to explore this hypothesis further, he visited a shaman of the New Zealand Maori people. The Maoris call themselves the "people of the dolphin" and legend has it that their tribes was originally guided to the New Zealand islands in past ages by the dolphins themselves. The shaman believed that this dream was not a mere fantasy. He pointed out that "tepuhi" is the Maori word for the sound that dolphins make when they blow water from their blowholes.

Pressing matters further, Doak launched an expedition to contact dolphins in the open waters off New Zealand. He equipped his catamaran with film equipment. However, no dolphins were sighted for several weeks. Finally, on one occasion, some dolphins were sighted in the distance.

Doak jumped into the water and, while underwater, made the sound "tepuhi." At that moment, his film crew was fortunate enough to capture an extraordinary event. Circling the boat, dozens of dolphins simultaneously jumped into the air. Then they swam around Doak in a figure eight pattern -- a confirmation of the dream communication. Doak has since spent the intervening years continuing his efforts to communicate with and even live with dolphins in the open waters. He is also the founder of Project Interlock, an informal, international network of individuals who are engaging in similar experiences.