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4 — Wednesday, July 3, 1991 - North Shore News

Dolphins dazzle researchers with abilities

LOS ANGELES — Rather than going away, the literature on all things extrasensory, including telepathy, has been piling up over the last couple of decades.

But nobody has made much ef- fort to report on the furthest-out aspects of the research on dolphins which has been pro- ceeding since Dr. John C. Lilly made his breakthrough studies of dolphin brains in the early 60s.

Environmental activists quite correctly don’t want to breathe a word about the subject in public, for fear of losing all credibility in their struggle to save the dolphins from near-extinction.

In this context, whether the dolphins are brilliant or stupid is entirely beside the point.

Stull, after a week in L.A., in- terviewing people who have swum with dolphins, rode them, lived in special seaside accommodation with them, dissected their brains, done drugs with them, and carried out endless non-invasive experi- ments on them, it is impossible to ignore a common thread that emerges: the dolphins pick up, somehow, on what humans are thinking and feeling.

Anybody with a dog or cat will say: So what? So does Fido.

The difference, if there really is

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one, is that the dolphins seem to be capable of communicating back in ways that have nothing to do with purring or wagging tails.

One woman I talked to describ- ed the experience, after a week of swimming with a friendly pod of

do!phins, of arriving at dockside for a final swim. The dolphins appeared, and as she walked along the dock toward them, a crystal- clear image lept into her mind.

It was a picture of herself walk- ing along the dock, with bright sunlight in the background, seen from the point of view of the dolphins.

The mental image of herself, as seen by the dolphins, was so vivid that even though it happened years ago, her eyes still shine when she talks about it.

There is the story, cited fre- quently, of the woman who got in the water with a dolphin, only to have the dolphin charge toward her and butt her so hard with its beak that she had to be rushed to hospital. By the time she got there, a bruise had formed.

When doctors examined her, they discovered a cancerous tumor exactly where the dolphin had struck. She was operated on im- mediately and her life was saved.

Dr. Lilly himself tells the story of deciding, after several years of experimenting with five captive dolphins, that it was time to set them free. But what he actually

thought, as he stood by the dolphin tank, was: “‘I’ll have to get rid of them.”’

Three days later, all five dolphins were dead. They simply

shut down their breathing systems

and committed suicide.

Cases of dolphins committing suicide after forming a bond with a human being which is broken when the human, after an extend- ed period of time, decides to leave, are legion.

Dolphins in the water with pregnant women immediately become solicitous, protective and especially friendly.

It is in the area of work with autistic children that the special abilities of dolphins show in the most measurable way. There are several locations in the U.S. now where such children are taken and placed in the water with dolphins. The literature on the subject is far from airy-fairy.

The children are profoundly af- fected by the dolphins, so much so that many of them emerge from the shell they have withdrawn into, and the peopie who carry out this work insist that the dolphins somehow have the power to probe inside, to lift the veil, and to heal.

I haven't seen the video footage yet, but I was told repeatedly about the tapes an underwater cameraman got in Florida last spr-

ing, when he was diving with another chap and they decided to ask a group of dolphins (telepath- ically, of course) if there was any message they had for humans on the eve of Earth Day.

One af the dolphins disap- peared, then reappeared, with a sunken plastic bag full of garbage snagged around its dorsal. After swimming back and forth in front of the camera with the bag, the dolphin reportedly chucked it di- rectly at the lens. (When I actually see the footage, I'll get back to you.)

In the meartime, people like John Lilly, and others who have svorked for years trying to teach dolphins to talk and push buttons to communicate through com- puters, say that they have given up on this approach.

The trick, they insist, is to start learning how to communicate the way the dolphins do — mind to mind, projecting holographic im- ages of what they are sceing.

I haven’t had this experience, alas. So all I can report is v-hat I’m told. There’s no empirical proof one way or another. But the

. possibilities, you have to admit,

are fabulous. Aid about as 2x- citing as it gets. ec 02

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