Dolphins, Therapy & Autism


by


Michael T. Hyson, Ph.D.
Research Director, Sirius Institute

www.planetpuna.com


Acknowledgements

I acknowledge all who led me to this knowledge and experience. To Star Newland, friend, colleague, founder of the Sirius Institute, for her inspiration, knowledge, encouragement, and collaboration at all levels; for her language sculpting to make these words sing. To all the dolphins who taught me to pay attention, offered so much and been my friends, especially Pete, Mitzi, Hugo, Liberty, Florida and Dreamer. To my Mom & Dad who encouraged my adventures; to John Lilly who inspired much of my life; to my mentors - Thorne, Hank, Howard, Derek, Buzz and many others; to Tiger and the rest of our extended pod; Jeremy Broner who patiently re-explained current biology; Dr. Stephen Birch whose work is so well done I wish I had written it; Len Horowitz for inviting me to write this as a chapter and Andrew Lehman for graciously supporting the research & writing and to many others too numerous to list… Mahalo nui loa!

_________________________________________

~ Dedicated to Dreamer Dolphin ~
_________________________________________



I have met with a story, which, although authenticated by reliable evidence, looks very like a fable...- Pliny the Younger (A.D. 62?–c.A.D. 113)

Dolphins may well be carrying information as well as functions critical to the regeneration of life upon our planet. - Buckminster Fuller

Dolphins have new understandings that seem to lie just beyond our present knowledge. There may be a common thread of consciousness between man and dolphin. - Joan McIntyre



Most of us are aware of dolphins as loveable, playful animals that appear in oceanarium shows, on television and in movies. They are subjects of naval and other research to find out how they use sound to communicate, navigate in their environment, use Sonar and stun fish.1 They are among the most intelligent of all creatures. Throughout history the dolphins have helped people, taking children to school in ancient Greece, fishing with us, guiding ships, saving people from drowning, and recently, escorting Elian Gonzales when he was at sea on an inner-tube drifting from Cuba to the United States.



Dolphin Self Awareness & Language

The voice of the dolphin in air is like that of the human, in that they can pronounce vowels, and combinations of vowels - Aristotle

Dr. Ken Marten at Sea Life Park in Hawai’i recently demonstrated that dolphins recognize themselves in mirrors, which shows dolphins are self-aware, a trait shared with only humans and great apes. Dolphins were also taught to recognize some 40 spoken Hawaiian words by Dr. Wayne Batteau, and were taught to imitate English by Dr. John C. Lilly, M.D. Dolphins currently working with Dr. Louis Herman in Hawai’i can recognize some 300 hand signs in some 2000 combinations.2 Dolphins have done better at language tasks than any other creature. Research in Russia by Markov and Ostrovskaya concludes that dolphins have their own language with up to a trillion “words” possible.3

Dolphins, along with other Cetacea (dolphins and whales), have acute senses, which are faster and have a broader bandwidth than our senses. They have large brains, like the Sperm whale with the largest brain - 9600 grams vs. our 1400 grams. The Cetacean brain is comparable to ours in complexity and processing capability. With larger brains, they have more processing capacity – just as a large computer has greater capability than a small one. The Cetacean brain has expanded most in the cerebral cortex, where thinking, reasoning, and other “higher” processes are felt to occur.

The brain of a dolphin, for example, is larger than the human’s (at a weight of some 1700 grams) and has about 40% more association cortex (where we feel thinking occurs) than a human. In addition, humans use a large part of their available processing capacity just to deal with gravity and balance. The Cetacea live in a buoyant environment where gravity is much less a factor. This leaves large amounts of their brains free for other tasks. So the Cetacea have greater available brain capacity than humans.

I conclude that the Cetacea (dolphins and whales) are self-aware, fully conscious, sentient, and have their own complex language. Because they have larger brains, more available cortex, and more processing power available (because of their lives in water) the Cetacea, including the dolphins, are more intelligent than we are. The Sperm whale has the largest brain (much of it association cortex) and likely has proportionately greater processing capacity - making it in all probability - the most intelligent creature on Earth.

Therefore, when considering dolphin abilities, we are dealing with an intelligent creature that has capabilities equal to or exceeding our own.



Dolphins Can Help Restore Us

To speak of lower animals is both arrogant and blasphemous. All traditional peoples have viewed animals as messengers and mediators of the divine which is a lesson we need to relearn … that consciousness takes many forms beyond human. - Larry Dossey, M.D. Healing Beyond the Body

There are now dolphin assisted therapy (DAT) programs operating in Florida and elsewhere. Generally a client swims with dolphins and has on-land lessons. Details vary with the condition being treated. The swims can occur over days to weeks. Dolphin therapy is still at an early stage of development and controlled experiments (where one strives to test single variables while holding all other factors constant) are rare and our understanding still rudimentary. Some results are based on anecdotal evidence. Many factors remain to be sorted out. For example, similar therapy using horses or dogs shows positive results, so what part of the result is unique to the dolphins? There may be placebo effects, where expectations determine results. Understanding all this requires on-going research.




A Dolphin-Assisted Therapy session, Island Dolphin Care, Inc., Key Largo, Florida

Deena Hoagland, LCSW; Katrina, 13 year old autistic patient; and Squirt, Therapist



Parents with an autistic child may be looking for, and willing to try, almost anything to improve their child’s life. While positive and sometimes remarkable results have been reported, it is beyond our ability to guarantee results from dolphin therapy. Therefore, evaluate this and other sources carefully to find if this approach is right for you.

The reports included here seem valid to me. I am personally convinced that these results justify greater effort to find out how dolphins do what they do. In the future, we will be able to apply what we learn, duplicating dolphin methods to make them widely available.

The Beginning of Dolphin Assisted Therapy



Dolphin assisted therapy began in 1973 when Dr. Hank Truby, a linguist and acoustic phonetician who worked with Dr. Lilly and the dolphins for 17 years while they were teaching them English, first took autistic children to meet the dolphins at the Miami Seaquarium in Miami, Florida.

In this first encounter, two autistic boys who usually had about five minute attention spans, began to play with the dolphins. There was a close rapport between the children and the dolphins. While these children ordinarily showed little interest in external things, they showed great interest in the dolphins. The children and dolphins played games for an hour and a half with the children playing the entire time. By the end of the session, the children were cooperating with each other and the dolphins, to fill buckets with water to dump over the dolphins and feed the dolphins fish.

To the parents it was astounding the children maintained interest for over an hour and cooperated; this was unique. Dr. Truby reported these results at conferences for some two years and received little interest. Finally, intrigued by Dr. Truby's results, Dr. Betsy Smith performed similar studies with positive results and began therapy programs at Dolphins Plus on Key Largo and Dolphin Research Center at Grassy Key in Florida.

Currently, Dr. David Nathanson has programs at Dolphin Research Center, and similar work continues at Dolphins Plus. Nathanson reports that their program has treated some 450 autistic people, many children with generally positive results. Nathanson reports that while there is often improvement with dolphin therapy, dramatic improvement is rare. (See Nathanson references) Several other facilities are operating in Florida, the Bahamas and elsewhere. With the interest in dolphins and the positive results of DAT, more centers are opening. (See Appendix III.)

My involvement with dolphins began when I read John Lilly’s works as a child and was privileged to be with dolphins in Texas for a summer when I was 14. They have been part of my life ever since. Later, at the University of Miami, pursuing degrees in neuroscience, I met and worked with Dr. Truby for some 12 years, especially with the Dolphin Project of the World Dolphin Foundation which Dr. Truby and our team created.

I have learned a great deal from the dolphins and they are always fascinating. My experiences led me to later join the Sirius Institute, now based in Hawai’i, as its research director. With our founder, Paradise Newland and others, we are establishing a human-dolphin habitat where we will live closely with the dolphins; learn from each other; communicate objectively; birth children underwater with them; and investigate the nature of the “dolphin effect” on autism, brain trauma, and other conditions.4 Since Dr. Truby’s first studies, the field has expanded. Among other conditions, DAT has improved the following:



Autism (Hank Truby, Betsy Smith, Robert Nathanson)
Joint problems (various reports)
Down's syndrome (Nathanson)
Depression (Horace Dobbs, Operation Sunflower)
Cerebral palsy (Nathanson, Dolphin Research Center)
Improved learning - Children can learn 2-10 times faster around dolphins (Nathanson);
Angina (Roxanne Kremer)
Acoustic "zap” of a tumor (personal comm.),
Microcephaly [See below]
Dreamer dolphin fixes a neck [see below]
Restoration of partial vision loss [see below]

Some of these reports are expanded below.5


A Case of Microcephaly



Scott Taylor of the Cetacean Studies6, while at the 2nd International Conference on Dolphin Assisted Therapy in Cancun, Mexico, reported about dolphin therapy with a baby that had microcephaly, a rare disorder where the skull is too small to contain the brain. We have yet to develop effective ways to correct the condition.



Figure 3. A Child & Dolphin -
Dolphin is sonaring at point blank range (from S. Birch)


The baby was floated in water and attended by 4 dolphins. One dolphin put its rostrum at the medulla (base of the skull), two others came to both sides of the neck, with the forth at the base of the spine. The dolphins made produced sounds or "ensonified" the child for about 20 minutes at a time, a few times per day for about a week. At the end of this period the skull plates were developing normally.


Mr. Taylor heard in the oral presentation that medical records confirmed the above results. I recently reconfirmed with Mr. Taylor that this account is accurate. We expected a full report in the written proceedings. However, the paper is more cautious and waffled on the change in the skull growth and its medical confirmation. Mr. Taylor said after the dolphin therapy conferences "This will change the face of medicine."


Dreamer Dolphin Heals My Neck


I have a personal experience of Dreamer dolphin improving the state of my neck. I had injured my neck at age 12 and compressed 6th and 7th cervical vertebrae. There was always a noticeable "grinding" sound when I turned my neck. I was swimming with Dreamer at age 42. We were both underwater, Dreamer was about 3.5 feet from me, when I felt and heard some 20 very loud, short, sound pulses distributed rapidly, over my head and neck within perhaps a second. The sounds were louder than anything I have ever heard from a dolphin. At the time, I thought she was probably sonaring a fish far away.


I had been with dolphins many times before, and had swum with Dreamer the year before; yet this time, the sounds were different than any other dolphin sound I had ever heard or felt. They felt precisely targeted, powerful, tightly focused. Each pulse felt like a tiny "explosion" that I could feel were localized in spherical areas about 1/4 cm diameter or less.


About an hour after our swim, the muscles of the left side of my neck (the most injured side) suddenly relaxed. Right after that, my back got warm in some 5 new places, apparently because the blood distribution had changed. Next, I felt and heard at least 3 vertebrae click into new positions. I then turned my neck back and forth, and the "grinding" sound was gone! It felt like my neck had been "oiled" and it moved more smoothly than at any time in 30 years. The improvement has persisted for 14 years thus far.


Dreamer Dolphin & Pod Relieve Angina

Roxanne Kremer, a dolphin researcher working in the Amazon with the fresh water dolphins, reports the following. Her mother had had severe angina (severe pain in the chest) and had two angioplasty procedures to expand the coronary vessels. Generally, the procedure relieves the angina. In her case, the angina remained. Roxanne took her mother to Dolphins Plus where she swam with Dreamer and 3 other female dolphins. At one point in the swim, Dreamer and the other dolphins put their beaks on her chest. With that action, the angina was gone, and at last report, this had persisted for at least 2 years.7



Dreamer Dolphin "Zaps" a Tumor

I have learned that a woman swimming with Dreamer thought she had been rammed. The woman was taken to hospital for examination. The woman had a large bruise. X-ray revealed that under the ribs, near the center of the bruised area, there was a small tumor. It is my feeling that Dreamer likely "zapped" the tumor with a powerful sound pulse, perhaps to heal it, and the high intensity sound left bruising from hydrostatic shock. At the least, the bruising called medical attention to the tumor.8

Restoration of Vision



NBC's "The Other Side" aired a segment in February, 1998 on dolphin therapy. They interviewed a man who had had a head injury. The injury had given him tunnel vision. Months later, he was swimming with the free Spinner dolphins off Kauai. He felt and heard the dolphins sonaring him, and while in the water, his peripheral vision returned, and he was then able to see some 30 dolphins all around him. How this was done is a mystery. At minimum, the dolphins may have corrected an ischemic blood flow reduction (this is speculation).9


Improvement of Mental Age in Cerebral Palsy


On the same program was a child of 8 with cerebral palsy. Melissa was from my hometown of Winnebago, Illinois. She had been with the dolphins and Dr. Nathanson at Dolphin Research Center, in Florida. I arranged for her to be on the NBC "The Other Side" show10 that was filmed in Hawai'i. The parents told me the functional mental age level of their daughter had improved from 3.5 months to about 3.5 years after about a week around the dolphins.11




Figure 4.
Melissa gets a “kiss” during a therapy session

It is important to confirm such results with better studies and research. It appears dolphins can do remarkable things, and we would be wise to learn more.



Autism – Description & Causes


Autism is a neurological disorder characterized by impairments in language, cognitive and social development, usually manifesting in the first two years of life. Once considered rare with an incidence of 1-3 per 10,000 births, autism is now reaching 20-40 per 10,000 births with “clusters” of 1 per 150 reported. Autism now ranks third among childhood developmental disorders, more common than Down’s Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy or Cystic Fibrosis.12

Immune, gastrointestinal and neurological abnormalities, as well as heavy metal toxicity, (especially mercury) have been documented in autistic children. One source of mercury is immunizations. June 1999, the FDA announced “Infants who receive thimerosal containing vaccine at several visits may be exposed to more mercury than recommended by Federal guidelines for total mercury exposure.” Mercury is the third most toxic substance known and is the most toxic non-radioactive metal and is known to be neurotoxic, especially in brains of small infants. Mercury disrupts cell physiology by binding to sulfur with resulting dysfunction of enzymes, membranes, and structural proteins.

Symptoms of mercury toxicity in young children mirror those of autism. Thimerosal, a preservative used in some vaccines, is 49.6% mercury by weight. Infants vaccinated with multi-dose vials can receive 62.5 micrograms of mercury per visit, about 100 times the 0.1 micrograms per kilogram of daily exposure considered safe by the EPA. The increased number of children with autism correlates with the hepatitis B and HIB vaccine given to infants in the early 1990s. For more on this see Appendix I. where Dr. Bernard Rimland, (consultant for the film The Rain Man), discusses mercury as a primary cause of increasing autism. As of 2003 mercury is still being included in the manufacture of several vaccines: DPT, hepatitis B, influenza, H. influenzae.13

Susan J. Crockford shows that global changes in body structure (expressed phenotype) can result from changing just a few genes that control thyroid hormones, especially the patterns of its timed, pusatile, release. Geographic or breeding isolation of pioneer groups, say, to a colder climate, change thyroid patterns, and with genetic drift, the patterns of thyroid timing soon differ from the general population. This leads to behavioral and physiological changes that become fixed through further selection. A similar mechanism explains sexual dimorphism.14

Simon Baron-Cohen presents a view of autism based on the observation of behavior types ranging from empathizing (common in females) and systemizing (common in males). Extreme autistic and Asperger’s syndrome people, male or female, have extreme “systemizing” behavior. This leads to the kind of obsessive focus on detail, mechanical and other systems often seen in autistics. He theorizes, following the work of Norman Geshwind, that the differences in the brain seen here may result from variations in the amount of testosterone encountered by the developing fetus. Increased testosterone causes increased growth of the right hemisphere of the brain, and results in a more “systemizing” brain, generally lacking in empathy.15

Crockford points out that the release of pituitary hormones, and the cascade of effects from them, including testosterone release, is controlled by the thyroid hormones. So we now have a general model that can help to explain speciation, sexual dimorphism, phenotypic variations, and autism spectrum disorders. Crockford presents a consistent model of sexual dimorphism and brain-gender-behavioral complexes that lie at the core of why we have male (systemizing) and female (empathizing) behavior patterns. Testosterone is controlled by thyroid hormones that can be changed by genetic, biological, and environmental factors (such as metal toxicity). Should any of these factors increase fetal testosterone, it will tend to produce a person in the autistic and Asperger syndrome spectrum of behavior.

Relevant to vaccines and autism, mercury is some 100 times more toxic in the presence of testosterone. This may explain why males are more often affected by autism. Mercury clearance rates were found to often be less in males, so a given dose of mercury could affect males more severely. Mercury can poison many systems and this could, in turn, change thyroid pulse patterns, etc. along the lines suggested by Crockford.

Careful evaluation of these matters should make the mechanisms clear. For the moment, we know that mercury can be cleared from the body using chelating agents and clathrates.

A remarkable story of success treating autism using diet and other alternative measures is included as Appendix II. Their experience offers methods to explore what anyone could do.

We also know dolphins often improve these conditions. Let’s investigate how they accomplish their feats.

Models for Dolphin Assisted Therapy



I'm a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. The reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see. See first, think later, then test. Always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that. ... the other reason I call myself Wonko the Sane is so that people will think I am a fool. That allows me to say what I see when I see it. You can only be a scientist if you stop minding that people think you're a fool. - Douglas Adams in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish


Now we come to the crux of the matter of dolphin assisted therapy. Most reports show at least some improvement of autistics. Some hug their parents for the first time; some say their first words soon after dolphin contact. These cases and others show that dolphins are capable of profoundly benefiting even severe conditions for which we have little to offer from extant medical systems. Dolphins are complex creatures and our knowledge of them far from complete.


The mystery is - What are the dolphins doing to effect these changes? In what follows, I offer models of how dolphins affect our wellbeing and who the Cetacea, the dolphins and whales, are on our planet.


Most people like dolphins. Most dolphins like people. Many people experience great love from them. As a boy of 14, I found the dolphins accepted me as I was, with all my warts, yet loved me and were very friendly. They knew and sensed many things about me instantly. They knew my level of courage, my breath holding time, and my endurance levels. We swam together and touched a lot. My main impression was one of love, play, happiness and joy. The dolphins were the first sane beings I had ever met. The summer I lived with them was a joyous time for me. We became great friends.


At a fundamental level, please recognize the extreme gentleness and restraint the dolphins use in their approach to us. They have always, in my experience, been supremely gentle with children. Lilly concluded that the single most important conclusion from his work with the dolphins was that they had clear and consistent ethical behavior toward humans. Humans were always helped and treated with respect. I have found this to be true with (only 1-3 exceptions out of many reports for the last 2500 years or so).


Over time with the dolphins, and later the whales, I came to feel they are beings from a race far older and wiser than ours. Here is my personal summary regarding the dolphins and the other Cetacea.


The sperm whale has the largest brain we know of, some 9600 grams vs. our 1350 or so. They hunt giant squids in abyssal depths of at least 9,000 perhaps 12,000 feet for about an hour’s dive. The dolphins are their human-scale relatives, with brain sizes of 1600 grams or so, with 40% more association (thinking) areas than in our brain. They have larger short-term memories than we do.16


The Cetacea are always awake. They are conscious breathers – this means that every breath is a conscious act. Should a dolphin be knocked out, they will stop breathing and must be artificially respirated. We, on the other hand, can be knocked out and breathe under autonomic control. So the dolphins are always awake, either with one hemisphere of the brain, while the other naps, or with both hemispheres. The dolphins, as determined by Lilly and associates, have far more of their behaviors under conscious control than do we.


Dolphins can dive to 1000 feet, jump 25 feet out of the water, and precisely take a fish from your mouth, stay down 20 minutes on one breath and swim 18 knots/hr sustained with a top speed of about 35 knots. They have a built in, high power, sophisticated sono-electric system that can do everything from stun food to perform the most delicate, focused, targeted, gentle resonant therapy.


If our fossil dating is correct, dolphins and whales have been here with complete sonar systems and brains equal to or larger than our own for at least 15 million years and perhaps as long as 30 million years. For this vast time, something like three times our evolutionary history as genus Homo (counting from genus Home, e.g. Homo habilis, estimated at 5 million years or so)


The Cetacea are a planet-spanning culture with multiple species, communicating across the globe, by acoustic and perhaps radio means, and communicating in an “open” linguistic system with a trillion symbols to choose from.


Further, their senses are, in a word, broader band than ours. For example, their sound interval discrimination ability is 10X better than a human. Their acoustic system brings in data at something like 40X our own rate at over 10X our frequency range (maximum frequency heard by humans, ~20,000 Hz; for the dolphin ~200,000 Hz or better).


So when I am in the water with a dolphin, I am faced with the humbling truth: compared to the dolphin, I am almost blind, almost deaf, can hardly swim, have a smaller brain, and a shorter evolutionary history!


I feel I have learned more about their nature than most people on this planet, since age 13 onward. I know many of the old Greek tales about dolphins are true because I have lived them. I am a proud inheritor of the Lilly/ Truby/ Morgane/ Bateson/ Munson et alia tradition of dolphin research.17 It is from this experience that I now write.


From a scientific point of view, consider this a “preliminary report” mainly presenting observations suggesting connections with known data, and directions for further study. I seek the truth, and I am always open to the truth, should anyone have better ideas or corrections.


The Cetacea are increasingly coming to contact us. Certainly more humans than ever before are aware of them and going to meet them and learn from them. Let us meet the dolphins and other Cetacea with our finest. I know we will be richly benefited by what we will learn, especially for our children. Call it their love that they share with us. It is their gift, and I know it would bode well for the humans to recognize the magnitude of this gift and respond in kind. Let us now consider some to the dolphin’s capabilities.



Empathy, Telepathy, Telempathy


Autistic people are “systemizing” and the dolphins show great empathy and care, especially with children. Perhaps being around the strongly empathic dolphins helps balance autistic patterns. We know that touch, affection and love can be deeply healing. Being with the dolphins can be a deeply spiritual experience. Many of us that have been with dolphins have experienced profound transformations.


In particular, many of us have experienced a strong connection and communication with the dolphins that is best described as telepathic or telempathic. We have yet to know how this works, yet it occurs with many of us. Patricia Saint-John met the dolphins and had deep telepathic experiences with them. She was moved to work with autistic children based on what she learned. She found that by being in the state of mind she had with the dolphins she was able to telepathically contact autistic children and had much success in improving their functioning and communication.18


It is important to evaluate these channels and consider them in any dolphin therapy, even if they are beyond our consensus science. There are signs that science is catching up with our experiences. Consistent physical models are possible for what might be otherwise classed as “paranormal” events.19


Dolphins also produce acoustic and electromagnetic fields capable of causing effects such as resonance and entrainment. We discuss these aspects below to develop models of dolphin therapy mechanisms and capabilities.


Resonance



All systems have natural frequencies at which they prefer to vibrate. An external energy of the proper frequency and with the proper timing or phase near a system’s natural frequency will cause the system to vibrate with or resonate with the external energy. A simple example is the common child's swing. To make a swing move in a larger arc, you must push it at just the right time (phase) and this corresponds to the swing’s natural frequency. Another example is two guitars. If a string on one guitar is plucked, the same string on the other guitar will vibrate, even if the guitars are many feet apart. Systems driven at resonance can absorb large amounts of energy. A soprano holding the resonant frequency of a crystal glass can transfer enough vibrational energy to the glass that it shatters.


I was once swimming with Liberty Dolphin in Florida. In the murky water I accidentally jammed my elbow into his blowhole area. I think it hurt him. He came around in front of me, and at about 2 1/2 feet from my chest, began to put out a high intensity, fairly low frequency sound, probably less than a thousand Hz. First, at low power, I could feel the water vibrate. Then his power increased and I felt the water in front of my chest get warmer. Then, Liberty increased power again and I felt my chest wall get warm. Then he changed frequency and soon, all my chest hairs were vibrating - even in the water, so strongly that my whole chest tickled with an intense buzz. Liberty stopped his sounds at this point. I had the distinct impression that he was just showing me part of what he could do, something like: "This is just a demonstration, I could do a lot more, I'm just warming up"


So dolphins are masters of resonance.


Entrainment


Entrainment can be defined as “ the tendency for two oscillating bodies to lock into phase so that they vibrate in harmony. It is also defined as a synchronization of two or more rhythmic cycles. The principle of entrainment is universal, appearing in chemistry, pharmacology, biology, medicine, psychology, sociology, astronomy, architecture and more” 20


When we are exposed to periodic signals, such as a sound, a light or electrical signals, our bodies tend to track and match the core frequency and phase of the applied signals. For example, if you look at a light blinking at about 4 Hz, your heart rate and EGG or "brain waves" (electroencephalogram) will tend to match the rate of the light and shift more of their energy toward 4 Hz. Entrainment causes systems to vibrate more in phase or move in synchrony. If the phase of two oscillations match, the most energy will transfer between them. Stephen Birch showed that entrainment of the human EEG occurred during and after swims with free dolphins. The EEG of the human subjects reduced in frequency and increased in power after swimming with free dolphins. 21

Dolphin Sounds



T
o better understand the sound capability of dolphins, it is useful to review a little of their anatomy and their means of sound production. The drawing below is a tracing of the midplane of a dolphin. Labeled areas: 1. Rostrum or “nose”; 2. External surface of the melon; 3. Blowhole. The skull and upper jaw are black. The airway passes through the bony nares (“nostrils”) anterior to the brain (B) in the skull. The food-way (F) starts in the mouth and passes on each side of the airway (A) at the larynx. (After J. C. Lilly) 22



The palatine bones in front of the skull (left of A, above) form a parabolic sound reflector behind the phonators. The naso-pharynges are located at the focus of this parabola. Therefore, sounds from the phonators, reflected from the palatines, go forward as collimated parallel beams. The sounds transit a structure called the melon, an oil-filled sack located at the front of the dolphin’s head. The melon is, in part, an acoustic lens that focuses out-going sounds. Four sound-producing naso-pharynges (also called “phonators”) are arranged in left and right pairs below the blowhole, roughly at point A in the diagram above.


How dolphins make sounds

The naso-pharynges are similar to vocal cords with air sacs above and below them. The dolphin apparently shuttles air between the top and bottom air sacs and past the naso-pharnyges to make sounds. The diagram below shows roughly how sounds are made by the dolphin: Inhaling - the blowhole is open and the air is sucked into the lungs (top drawing). Vocalizing - the blowhole closed and air from the lungs is forced into an air sac near the top to the head. As the air sac fills, the forehead swells (middle right drawings). Then the dolphin closes the lip of the air sac and releases air back toward the lungs (bottom drawing). The air sac lip (one of four naso-pharynges) then produces a sound (much like releasing air from a balloon).



























The sounds reflect off the palatine bones that form a parabolic reflector in front of the air tract which collimates them through the melon (dashed line region) which then focuses the sounds. The middle left drawing shows the deflated air sac. The dolphin may then open the blowhole and refill the lungs or refill the air sac to make more sounds. (After Joan Macintyre)23

Using their phonators, dolphins can produce high intensity sounds ranging in frequency from about 500 Hz to at least 280 kHz (or perhaps as high as 1 MHz). Russian work has measured the peak output power as some 235 dB, which means that dolphins are capable of sound pulses of about 1 kW of acoustic power. Roughly, 1 kW is equal to 1 horsepower!

The 4 phonators or “vocal cords” are under exquisite and separate control. One dolphin can make at least 4 simultaneous sounds that are all different, for example, 4 click tracks, 4 whistles, or any combination of clicks and whistles. This is illustrated in the figure below.


Operation of three sound generators:



A) All generators working in the tonal regime; B) All generators working in the pulse regime; C) Different versions of combined signals; Vertical Axis- Frequency; Horizontal axis – Time (After Markov & Ostrovskaya) 24



The figure shows a sonagram or “voiceprint” of sounds made by a Bottlenosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) showing the simultaneous production of three separate sounds. The darkness of the graph is proportional to sound power. Clicks appear as vertical lines and whistles as more horizontal traces. As you can see, the signals are complex.

Dolphins have a fifth sound channel with a frequency of 130KHz. It is a high intensity, narrow beam directed by the teeth acting as a wave-guide, like an acoustic Yagi antenna. It is likely used for “private” communication at short ranges. We have yet to fully understand how this sound is made.



Phase Control, Sound Aiming and Sound Cancellation


If the peaks and valleys of two signals coincide, they are said to be "in phase". Two signals in phase will reinforce each other and their power will add; two signals exactly out of phase will cancel. Dolphins control the phase of their sounds. Lilly showed how dolphins use phase to steer their sound beams. Microphones were placed on either side of the blowhole of a dolphin. At times only one microphone picked up sound while the other showed zero signal. This means that the dolphin was making at least two sounds such that, say, sounds to the left were cancelled out, while sounds to the right were reinforced, and vice-versa. The same principle is used in phased array sonars and radars. Thereby the dolphins can aim their sounds with the head still.


The figure below shows a dolphin making separate simultaneous sounds on the left and right. Sometimes the microphones (placed about 6 inches apart on either side of the blowhole) picked up sounds only on the left or right (the instances of vertical or horizontal patterns). The dolphin was generating an anti-phase sound that actively cancelled out sounds on the “quiet” side.


Dolphin Sound Production on the Right and the Left Side

Hydrophones were placed on each side of the dolphin's blowhole (as shown). Sounds from the right side deflected an oscilloscope trace horizontally and sounds from the left side deflected the trace vertically. The figure shows photographs taken during sound production. If the dolphin clicked only on the left, one sees only a vertical trace. Clicks on the right form horizontal traces and similarly for whistles on each side. Whistles coupled between both sides form complex ellipses on the screen. In a given click train, the dolphin may control the clicks such that the ellipse patterns shift their axes. [Capital "S" means stereo, i.e., sound linked on the two sides and "D" means “double" (or separated) sound production on the two sides without coupling.] (After J. C. Lilly) 25


Another time Lilly picked up a whistle as recorded by one hydrophone (underwater microphone) that appeared to be made by one dolphin. However the same signal was picked up by a second hydrophone. Analysis showed the whistle was made by two dolphins. One made the first part of the whistle and the second finished it. The transition between the two dolphins was smooth and in phase! This demonstrates exquisite phase control and phase locking among dolphins.


So the dolphins, singly and in pods are masters of phase control.



What can a dolphin do with these sounds?

Dolphins use high intensity sound pulses to stun fish and other prey. If their 1KW of acoustic power were focused to a small point, the water would turn to steam, causing cavitation. This level of acoustic power focused on a fish could easily stun or kill it. Dolphin sounds are loud enough to allow communication over a range of at least 36 miles.

When dolphins use their sonar, they direct sounds toward a target and receive the returning echoes with their ears. The dolphin may perceive an echo “image” showing density differences in the target, be it a fish or a human body. For example, gas bubbles in the stomach reflect sound strongly, while soft tissues with densities near water are largely “transparent” to the sounds. Bones, being denser than water, also reflect strongly. Therefore, the dolphin may have a sort of “acoustic X-ray image” of us in the water, much like the images formed using medical ultrasound.

At frequencies of 280 kHz to 1 MHz, dolphins are able to sense quite small features, perhaps with resolutions under a millimeter. We know that they can detect and retrieve a 2mm diameter “BB” shot dropped in the water at a range of 70 feet. Dolphins could also focus sounds into spots under a millimeter. With 4-5 separate sound sources, use of other techniques like acoustic interferometry are possible.

Dolphins produce what are called semi-coherent acoustic waves where a sound’s wavefronts are “in step” or “in phase” and therefore are, roughly, like an acoustic “laser”. As we saw they can steer their sounds using techniques akin to phased array sonars and maintain phase coupling among two or more dolphins.

Dolphins could use what is called “time reversed acoustics”. In this technique, incoming sounds are recorded at several points and then played out in reverse to send an amplified sound directly back to its source. Such techniques have been used to break up kidney stones using what is called a self-focusing lithotryptor.26

From the dolphin anatomy and sound capability, I conclude they are capable of many such feats. Consider the complexity of the 3-D sound fields the dolphins could create in groups with each dolphin producing four sounds each, while maintaining tight phase locking among themselves. With four phonators plus a 130 kilohertz signal from the jaw, dolphins can focus their sounds into small areas at high powers. They can, in principal, break kidney stones, remove bone spurs, cause cavitation in small regions, etc.


Vortex Ring Production



As one example of dolphin expertise, consider their bubble rings. Dolphins blow bubble rings, then make them larger or smaller (from about the thickness of a straw to 1 to 2 feet in diameter). The rings stay submerged instead of rising to the surface! Dolphins play with the rings - moving them around with their rostrum, bouncing the rings off a wall, or elongating them with a flick of their dorsal fins into 15 foot spirals.


Doing all this requires direct and active control of the vortex rings through sound. Otherwise, the rings would rapidly break up and disperse or float to the surface.27


Vortex rings can be formed in water and can contain and transport acoustic energy for long distances rapidly. Such vortexes could account for the tightly focused, powerful sounds the dolphins use.

Human High Frequency Saccula Perception


We recently learned the surprising capability of the saccula, part of our vestibular system, having primarily to do with balance. It is now demonstrated that the saccula responds to sound frequencies of up to 250 kHz, giving us direct perception of ultrasound well into the dolphin range. Our ordinary frequency limit of hearing through the ears is about 20 kHz. It can be shown that people can discriminate high frequency sounds with the saccula and “feel” the sounds. We have yet to learn what specific physiological effects this might have.28



Ultrasound, Sonochemistry & Sonoluminescence


The high frequency sounds made by dolphins can cause the same effects as medical ultrasound, such as microbubble formation and cavitation. A bubble is a cavity and the collapse of a bubble can heat the steam inside it to some 6000 degrees Fahrenheit (near the surface temperature of the sun!). At such temperatures novel chemical reactions occur called sonochemistry.


The chemical effects of ultrasound, sonochemistry and sonoluminescence arise from acoustic cavitation: the formation, growth, and implosive collapse of bubbles in a liquid. Cavitational collapse produces intense local heating (~5000 K), high pressures (~1000 atm), and enormous heating and cooling rates (>10 9 K/sec). Acoustic cavitation provides a unique interaction of energy and matter, and ultrasonic irradiation of liquids causes high energy chemical reactions to occur, often accompanied by the emission of light… Thus, cavitation can create extraordinary physical and chemical conditions in otherwise cold liquids.29


Through these mechanisms, ultrasound causes improved healing of bone fractures and non-unions and improves healing soft tissue injuries etc. Ultrasound can affect cell membranes, and chemistry and even alter gene expression.


…exposure of cells to therapeutic ultrasound under nonthermal conditions modifies cellular functions…[can] modulate membrane properties, alter cellular proliferation, and produce increases in proteins associated with inflammation and injury repair. … these data suggest that nonthermal effects of therapeutic ultrasound can modify the inflammatory response. Exposure to … therapeutic doses of US …alter[ed] the expression of both the ALP and OP genes … in osteoblast-like cells. The two highest doses showed that ALP and OP expression were clearly up-regulated, particularly ALP, whereas at the lowest dose of 120 mW/cm2, the OP gene was down-regulated.

…recent reports demonstrat[e] that ultrasound affects enzyme activity and possibly gene regulation [We]…present a probable molecular mechanism of ultrasound's nonthermal therapeutic action. The frequency resonance hypothesis describes possible biological mechanisms that may alter protein function. [By] absorption of ultrasonic may…modify…[a protein’s] 3-dimensional structure …and alter [its] functional activity. Second, the resonance or shearing [caused by] the wave …may dissociate a multimolecular complex, thereby disrupting the complex's function. 30


Acoustic Control of DNA



J. Harle & J. C. Knowles show that different power levels of ultrasound (US) can change gene expression in osteoblasts (bone forming cells). 31 They state in part:

Ultrasound …is commonly used [to] aid …injury to soft connective tissues and for fracture healing. However, the precise effects of therapeutic US on tissue …are not clearly understood although they are likely to involve changes in key cellular functions. The …study …examined the effects of …US on the activity of two bone-associated proteins, alkalinephosphatase (ALP) and osteopontin (OP)… ALP showed progressively higher expression with increasing US intensities, whereas …show[ed] down-regulation at 120 mW/cm2, the lowest US exposure. …ALP and OP clearly exhibited gene-specific response profiles. These findings suggest that …US exposure could …improve repair and regeneration processes…


Ultrasound is known to do the following:


[1]. Improve healing rates and tissue strength.

[2] Benefit soft tissue wound sites and the elbow joint.

[3] US treatment of hard tissue injuries, such as bone fractures, [show] …markedly improved healing rates … (approximately 30±40%) while animal studies [show] enhanced fracture healing …improved rates of bone regeneration and …suggest …the use of US to enhance tissue repair and regeneration …it is possible that US exposure …may modulate gene transcription processes, perhaps by a mechano-transduction pathway…


So effects similar to those seen with dolphins occur with medical ultrasound. We infer that dolphins, with intelligent and precise control of sound could accomplish similar or greater feats.


It is worth noting observations of sonoluminescence where a strange blue light comes from breaking bubbles acoustically stimulated at about 30 kHz. This light has a unique spectrum and some investigators report nuclear “cold” fusion events occur in the vibrating bubble. I therefore speculate, along with physicist Tony Smith 32, that the dolphins may even be able to generate fusion events!



Piezoelectricity and the Effects of Electrical Signals on the Body


Key to our next discussion is the piezoelectric effect. To illustrate, if a quartz crystal is bent, it will produce an electric charge. Quartz is piezoelectric. In phonographs, a quartz crystal needle rides in the groove of a phonograph record. As the record turns, the groove, cut according to the recorded sound, bends the quartz crystal needle back and forth. This creates electrical signals that are amplified into the sounds we hear. The piezoelectric effect works the other way as well: if an electric charge is placed across the quartz crystal, it bends. This aspect is used in current smoke alarms, where a piezoelectric speaker is used. Electrical energy causes the crystal in the speaker to deform rapidly and create the alarm’s sound.


Some 60% our bodies are piezoelectric, especially bone. Bone is a many-layered sandwich of hydroxyapatite (a form of calcium carbonate) and a protein collagen. Both are piezoelectric, but of opposite sign. That is, if bending a hydroxyapatite crystal causes a plus/minus charge; collagen bent in the same way would generate a minus/plus charge.


So, bone, when bent, creates electrical currents. The bone forming cells, osteocytes, follow these currents. When bone is stressed it creates electrical charges which signal the osteocytes to thicken the bone where there is more load or remove bone where there is less load, automatically shaping our bones to match the stress on them.


Similar low frequency electrical currents in the body cause many effects, including directing the pioneer fibers of neurons, causing changes in reaction times or circadian rhythms, and even inducing limb regeneration as documented by Cyril Smith 33 and Robert O. Becker, M.D.34


Dolphin’s sounds vibrate our bodies and create piezoelectric currents. A key point to remember is that internally and externally generated electromagnetic signals are the same at the cellular level; cells respond in the same way.


So dolphin sounds, through their direct acoustic effects of the micro-currents generated by the acoustic vibration of our piezoelectric tissues, especially bone, can clearly cause changes similar to ones already observed in electromedicine and ultrasound therapy.


Cyril Smith35 found that low power electromagnetic signals of the proper frequency can improve allergic reactions, among other things. He found a correspondence between the effects of herbal and homeopathic treatments and electromagnetic frequencies such that the proper electrical frequency had the same effect as the physical remedy!


We know that electromagnetic fields at the proper frequencies resonate with specific biological structures. Royal Raymond Rife and his intellectual descendants have found frequencies that resonate with and destroy pathogens. To understand how this works, we must briefly explain nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).


If one stimulates molecules, crystals or tissues with EM fields (usually in radio frequencies, “RF”) while holding them in strong, steady magnetic fields, one finds frequencies at which protons absorb the RF strongly and spin rapidly. The resonant frequencies differ for protons in water or in fatty tissue, for example.


Protons absorb electromagnetic energy only at specific combinations of radio frequency and magnetic field – the point of nuclear magnetic resonance. For example, in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, a person is placed in a strong magnetic field to "lock" the protons in place. Then a radio signal is scanned through many frequencies to find the NMR spectrum. Using computer processing, detailed images of the body, brain and other tissues are created that reflect differences in tissue chemistry. One can even detect specific elements, such as calcium.






















Paramecium undergoing electroporation from a 1150 Hz EM signal


As Rife and others found, some frequencies can disrupt cell structures. Above we see a Paramecium caudatum, a single celled animal, undergoing evisceration, electroporation, and disintegration when exposed to a 1150 Hz AC field from a Rife/Bare plasma device.36 What determines the effective frequency is the 0.5 Gauss magnetic field of the Earth. If we include the Earth’s magnetic field in our consideration, we find that the NMR frequencies are lower and that even a 1050 Hz signal is at the NMR frequency for key elements in the cell wall of the Paramecium.

Another effect similar to electroporation is known as Voltage Dependent Ion Gating (VDIG). Ion channels in the cell open in the presence of an external voltage. By creating a charge differential at cell walls, Rife generators and other electromedicine devices can give pain relief, cause relaxation or stimulation. VDIG occurs at an electrical field of only 1/10 the intensity necessary to produce electroporation and is thought to produce a flow of ions, like calcium, potassium, and sodium, across the cell wall.

The above discussion shows that resonances occur which can disrupt cell membranes and the frequencies are well within a dolphin’s frequency range and as we shall see, dolphins can create electomagnetic fields that can cause effects identical to those seen above and in electromedicine in general.


While the examples given have to do with resonances that kill cells, we also know from the work of Robert Beck37, Robert O. Becker, Royal Raymond Rife, and Cyril Smith, et alia, there are many frequencies that heal and promote well being, and can even cause limb regeneration in mammals. There is a vast landscape to explore here.



Dolphin Electromagnetic Effects


The dolphin effects go beyond sound alone and piezoelectric effects. Dean Rollings and Eldon Byrd discovered that the dolphin melon is piezoelectric. Sonic excitation of the melon will therefore create electromagnetic fields. The melon in a dolphin contains perhaps one-quarter gallon of a special oil called valproic acid. Because of its large volume, the melon could produce quite powerful electromagnetic fields, especially when vibrated by about 1 kW of acoustic power. Assuming a conversion efficiency of about 10%, the peak electromagnetic field generated by the melon would be on the order of 100 Watts. So dolphins are radio transmitters.38


Dr. Byrd measured electromagnetic, magnetic and electrostatic fields made by the dolphins. He measured EM fields while the dolphins were swimming with people and found EM fields in the same frequency band of our EEG or “brain waves”. He felt they were attempting to communicate with us in the EEG band.


Our human sensitivity limits to electric and magnetic fields are about seven picowatts electric and 1 milligauss magnetic. Biologically significant events are affected even at these tiny levels. For example, changes of respiration, reaction time, navigation in birds, growth and direction of nerve cell pioneer fibers and changes in circadian rhythms occur at gradients of 1-2 volts per meter and about 1-3 milligauss magnetic.


The electromagnetic fields produced by dolphins are sufficient to affect our biology and could even deliver a sizable shock! This opens many possible mechanisms that we can only cover briefly here. Dolphins generate fields similar to those found effective in electromedicine, such as extremely low frequency (ELF) fields, and can cause effects similar to Rife generators or similar devices.

Changing Gene Expression


The acoustic and electromagnetic fields of the dolphins may change our gene expression. According to theoretical biologist Jeremy Broner39 the best models for the operation of DNA are based on Irene Cosic’s resonant model of biomolecular recognition.40 According to this model, control of DNA is done by sound, light and EM resonances. This is key to dolphins’ effect on our wellbeing.


Active or “puffed” DNA (that DNA which is being read or used) is in resonant coupling with the protein or products being produced. This suggests that the entire cell is under tight light and sound-based resonant signals. Further, according to Dr. Broner, phonon or sound energy in the DNA sets up standing waves along the DNA - a musical chord - that determines what areas of the DNA become active or are “turned off”. DNA absorbs in acoustic, magnetic, electromagnetic (microwave) and visible light bands. Should all this be so (and this whole field in great flux) we surmise that electrical, magnetic, acoustic and light energy all affect the state of DNA in complex ways. (See also Appendix IV.)


We explore below the control of DNA by microwave and sound and relate this to dolphin capabilities.

Microwave Control of DNA


In 1987, Dr. Ross Adey, M.D., then at Loma Linda University in southern California, told me that particular frequencies of microwaves, pulsed at rather low rates could change brain state. For example, a signal consisting of 150 MHz microwave pulsed at 10 cycles per second will change calcium levels in isolated brain slices plus or minus some 20% or more. These results were obtained about 1970. Dr. Adey went on to discover that there are combinations of frequency and pulse rate that will trigger "oncogenes”.

Oncogenes are genes in our chromosomes which, when triggered, cause cells to become cancerous. Dr. Adey said proper EM signals could trigger ANY gene.41 Therefore, the sound and electromagnetic field around DNA determines, in part, its pattern of gene expression. For this to occur, DNA must absorb and radiate energy in these bands and we know DNA absorbs and emits sound, light, other electromagnetic frequencies. Adey’s work shows that these bio-photons and phonons (a quantum unit of sound) can change gene expression.

Dolphin sounds can affect the DNA directly and by piezoelectric effects generate micro-currents in our bodies, so dolphins may be capable of regulating aspects of our gene expression.

Changing the Structure of Water

Dr. James Clegg, University of Miami, (who studied the structure of water in cells) showed that all proteins, chromosomes, etc, in cells have a layer of bound water about 10 molecules thick. Therefore, when an enzyme reacts with a substrate, the only substance that actually touches the substrate molecule is water. Since other substances in the cell are also coated with packed water, the chemical reactions in the cell are mostly interactions of shaped layers of water molecules.

Clegg found that water in our cells is similar to a semiconductor, virtually solid, and usually bound to a surface, except where ongoing chemical reactions occur and even there, only a few molecules at a time are involved.42 The structured or packed water in cells is stiff and approximates the qualities of water ice. Structured water has clusters and long strings of ordered molecules that conduct electricity more easily.

Any water we drink must be conditioned to match our blood's surface tension of 42 dynes/cm. Structuring water lowers surface tension (to at least 68 dynes/cm^2 versus distilled water at 72 dynes/cm^2) and has an effect on the water similar to adding soap. Substances dissolve more easily in water with lower surface tension. Boiling water, for example, has a surface tension of about 68 dynes/cm and easily dissolves many things. Structured water at room temperature with 68 dynes/cm surface tension has the same "dissolving power" as boiling water! Therefore, drinking structured water allows the body to "wash" itself more effectively.

The water in the areas where people have the longest life spans all share characteristics like lowered surface tension indicative of being structured.43 For example, the Hunza mountain water has a surface tension of some 68 dynes/cm.44

According to Igor Smirnov (who works with structured water, in part, as a way to improve the health of people exposed to Chernobyl) the nucleus of the cell has two layers of membrane which makes it difficult to introduce agents to modify, say, gene expression. Yet, structured water easily reaches the nucleus and can carry information and change the gene state.45

Structured water packs along the DNA backbone and forms the tensile part of the DNA structure. The molecules themselves are compressive members. Thus the structure of DNA is like Buckminster Fuller’s tensegrity mast, in which tensile and compressive forces are balanced. Such structures are flexible. The state of each part affects the whole. If you play with a tensegrity mast you find that any change in the tension of any of the cables will twist or bend the whole mast. Tensions and lengths must be balanced for the mast to be straight. Similarly, the packing of water in DNA is important to maintaining its proper shape.

DNA and its protein scaffold assume many information-carrying shapes. We know that acoustic and electromagnetic fields change the structure of water and this in turn changes the DNA. EM and acoustic fields in the range of 0-30 Hz can structure water. One of the best signals mimics the geomagnetic field.46 Steven Birch found the average frequency of sound emitted by dolphins when swimming with people was 26 Hz, an effective frequency for structuring water.


Effects of Structured Water

Structured water can encode patterns. We know this from the work of Cyril Smith. Briefly, Smith found frequencies, idiosyncratic to each patient, which would improve their allergic symptoms. Simply holding a vial of water that has been exposed to "calming" frequencies would damp their allergic reactions. The water in the vials was exposed to very low power electrical fields in the Extreme Low Frequency (ELF) range (below ~1000 Hz). He showed that water so exposed had measurably different light absorption spectra, especially in the UV range. This shows that a pattern was impressed on the water that was maintained, or “remembered” by the water. So, when we can impress water with the correct patterns, it can enter the cell nucleus, affecting the packed water around the DNA and change its state leading to different patterns of gene expression.


Overall Summary

We now see that sound and electromagnetic fields can change gene expression and water structure. We have determined that the proper EM and perhaps acoustic frequency can trigger any gene. We have seen how the packing of water affects the DNA. We further see that the dolphin’s sound and electromagnetic fields are well suited to cause such effects.

We now know the dolphins can cause micro-bubbles in tissues with their ultrasound signals and likely speed bone break healing.

There exists experimental data that unifies the effects we have been exploring. Berkshire Labs (Appendix IV.) has shown, among other things, that acoustic and electromagnetic fields can profoundly alter chemistry. They have found, for example, that the effects of a platinum catalyst can be duplicated by introduction of only the energy spectrum of the platinum! This suggests that energy fields are paramount, superceding mere matter.

Dr. Stephen Birch has demonstrated that free dolphins swimming with people generate a fundamental tone on average of about 26 Hz. This can cause a piezoelectric effect in our bodies which can cause a cascade of effects that lowers the frequency of the electroencephalogram and increases its power. This is consistent with his model and indicates an increase in the levels of endorphins. We would also suggest that compounds new to us may be released as well. We propose to call them EnDolphins as coined by Paradise Newland.

Dr.Birch developed an electro-acoustic-endorphin model consistent with his results. To quote from the abstract of his thesis "Dolphin-Human Interaction Effects:

Dolphin assisted therapeutic effects include alleviation of pain in spinal patients, improved learning in neurologically impaired children and alleviation of depression." Some of these effects are specifically neurological, for example: "Following dolphin contact, noticeable changes in subject EEG activity are observed. These are characterized by a decrease in frequency and an increase in amplitude, with some evidence of hemispheric synchronization. In this study, 85% of subjects displayed these modifications following dolphin contact, these findings correlate with findings by other research groups. A hormonal mechanism has been postulated... which cause[s] analgesia, improved learning and potentiate[s] psychological self-reward mechanisms.


His overall model of dolphin-human interactions is summarized the figure on the previous page. There is a vast territory to be explored here. We see that dolphin therapy has the potential to improve many conditions.



The dolphins can likely do the following:




Dolphins can closely observe our internal structures, with their sonar and then focus their sounds and electromagnetic fields to specific locations or immerse the whole body in a myriad of electromagnetic, magnetic, and electrostatic fields corresponding to their sounds created either singly or in pods.


So we find that dolphins have at least the following therapeutic modalities:




Imagine the fields a pod of 20 or more dolphins might create with all of them singing their songs with up to 5 unique sounds each, all of it blended into a harmonious and in phase symphony, with their electromagnetics combined with their acoustic fields, all changing dynamically with the pod’s underwater ballet. A milieu of such richness can easily duplicate and surely go far beyond current ultrasound therapy and electromedicine. The dolphins have yet to show us all they know. Their potential goes beyond what we have observed. Some of these are summarized in the figure below.


So we come to the end of the beginning of our tale. Dolphins can change us in many ways, through their love, joy, empathy, and touch, or produce sharply focused, precisely targeted, high-intensity sound and ultrasound capable of changing bones and joints, resonating specific structures, entraining brain waves and the heart. Through piezoelectricity, electromagnetic fields are generated that can affect tissues, neurons, behaviors like circadian rhythms and, ultimately, gene expression. These results correspond with known effects of ultrasound and electromedicine.

The dolphins are masters of all these realms and more yet to be realized.






Dolphin sounds vibrate our bodies, creating piezoelectric micro-currents resulting in a cascade of events that cause release of endorphins [and EnDolphins] which reduce pain, increase learning, reduce EEG frequency and increase EEG power. (After Birch 1997) 47



The Future

Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others: The Constitution of this Republic should make a special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom. - Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence


With increased experience, knowledge, better communication and communion with the dolphins, therapeutic results will improve and expand. We need a Dolphin-Human Habitat where we are free to explore all this together with free dolphins that choose to be with us. I feel current DAT is too structured and mainly uses dolphins as “rewards” in behavioral modification programs. This minimizes the time clients have in the water with the dolphins and forces the dolphins to perform stereotypical behaviors on cue. This minimizes the chance the dolphins can apply the capabilities we have reviewed here.

Dolphin therapy is best approached by letting the clients become friends with the dolphins and to permit this, one should allow as much time as possible in the water with them over as many days as possible. There should be more study of the acoustic and electrical environment produced by the dolphins as part of the therapy and interaction. This will move us to an era of documented results and eventually to extensive interaction with M.D.’s (Medical Dolphins).

Some of our progress is currently hampered by laws based on obsolete views of the Cetacea that still consider them lowly animals. This currently leads to whaling, destructive fishing practices, military operations that threaten the Cetacea and an overall lack of concern for their home, the waters of the Earth. In reality the Cetacea are members of a vast, ancient culture that have been and are always offering us their assistance. We have only to realize this, respect the Cetacea and rejoin our age-old partnership. It is we who must remember our connection with the waters of the planet and their loving inhabitants.

For the benefit of all of us, especially the children, let us go to the essence of the Cetacea, learn to communicate fluently, then the humans, dolphins and whales can move forward together as co-species, in mutual love and respect and joy, as we have done for eons before.



In the spirit of Aloha,


Michael T. Hyson, Ph.D.
Research Director
Sirius Institute
Puna, Hawai’i
November 23, 2003

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Appendix I. Bernard Rimland on Autism



The Autism Epidemic Is Real, and Excessive Vaccinations Are the Cause
Statement by Bernard Rimland, Ph.D.
July 14, 2003

The vaccine manufacturers, the Center for Disease Control, the FDA, and the various medical associations have failed miserably in their duty to protect our children. Rather than acknowledge their role in creating the immense, catastrophic rise in autism, these organizations have resorted to denial and obfuscation. They stand to lose their credibility, and billions of dollars in liability suits will soon reach the courts.

As a full-time professional research scientist for 50 years, and as a researcher in the field of autism for 45 years, I have been shocked and chagrined by the medical establishment’s ongoing efforts to trivialize the solid and compelling evidence that faulty vaccination policies are the root cause of the epidemic. There are many consistent lines of evidence implicating vaccines, and no even marginally plausible alternative hypotheses.

As the number of childhood vaccines has increased 700%, from 3 in the ‘70s to 22 in 2000, the prevalence of autism has also showed a parallel increase of 700%.

Late onset autism, (starting in the 2nd year), was almost unheard of in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s; today such cases outnumber early onset cases 5 to 1, the increase paralleling the increase in required vaccines.·

Thousands of parents report – and demonstrate with home videos -- that their children were normal and responsive until suffering an adverse vaccine reaction. (The Autism Research Institute has been tracking such autism-related vaccination reactions since 1967.)

Mercury, one of the most toxic substances known, is used as a preservative in many vaccines. Some infants have had 125 times the maximum allowable limit of mercury injected directly into their bloodstreams, in one day, in vaccines. (People vary enormously in their sensitivity to mercury, because certain genes predispose to mercury sensitivity. The highly-touted New England Journal of Medicine Danish study failed to mention the very convenient fact that none of the Danish children had prior exposure to mercury, since Denmark, unlike the U.S. had, banned mercury from childhood vaccines in 1992, the year before the birth year of the children in the study.)

There are numerous scientific studies showing large differences in clinical laboratory measures of blood, urine and biopsies which compare autistic children with normal controls. Such findings, pointing directly to vaccines as the cause of the group differences, are conveniently overlooked by those attempting to conceal the strong connection between the autism epidemic and excessive use of unsafe vaccines.

The truth must – and will – emerge. It is long overdue.

Bernard Rimland, Ph.D.
Director, Autism Research Institute
Editor, Autism Research Review International
Founder, Autism Society of America


The Autism Increase: Research Needed on the Vaccine Connection

Testimony of Bernard Rimland, Ph.D. Before
House Committee on Government Reform

April 6, 2000

My name is Bernard Rimland. I am a research psychologist (Ph.D.) and am Director of the Autism Research Institute, which I founded in 1967. I am also the founder of the Autism Society of America (1965), and the editor of the Autism Research Review International. My book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implication for a Neural Theory of Behavior (1964) is widely credited with changing the field of psychiatry from its claim that autism is an emotional illness, caused by destructive mothers, to its current recognition that autism is a biological disorder. I have lectured on autism and related problems throughout the world, and am author of numerous publications. I served as primary technical advisor on autism for the film Rain Man.

My son Mark was born in 1956. It was obvious from birth that this perfectly normal-looking infant had something drastically wrong with him. I had earned my Ph.D in experimental psychology 3 years earlier and had never encountered the word autism. Our pediatrician, with 35 years of experience, had never heard of autism either. Autism was extremely rare then – it is extremely common now.

Some supposed experts will tell you that the increase reflects only greater awareness. That is nonsense. Any pediatrician, teacher or school official with 20 or more years experience will confirm what the studies tell us: there is a real increase in autism and the numbers are huge and growing. The epidemic is serious and worldwide.

Soon after my textbook on autism was published in 1964, I began to hear from other parents. Many parents told me that their children were normal until getting a triple vaccine – the DPT shot. In 1965 I began systematically collecting data on the symptoms and possible causes of autism: In 1967—33 years ago—I began querying the parents, specifically about the child’s response to the DPT shot. Many had reported marked deterioration.

During the past few years the Autism Research Institute has been flooded with an upsurge in pleas for help from parents throughout the world – from wherever the World Health Organization vaccine guidelines are followed. The majority of these parents say their children were normal until getting the MMR – another triple vaccine. Let me dispel several myths promoted by those who deny the autism-vaccine connection:

1. They claim the vaccines are safe, but physicians are indoctrinated to disbelieve claims of harm and are not trained to recognize nor required to report any adverse reactions. From 90% to 99% of the adverse reactions reported to doctors are never reported by those doctors to the government’s extremely lax Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, known as the VAERS.

2. They say that the suspected linkage between the MMR vaccination and autism has been disproved by a study conducted by Brent Taylor and his colleagues in London, and published last year in The Lancet.

The Taylor study is seriously flawed in many ways, as had been noted in a number of letters to the editor of The Lancet and in a number of additional letters on the subject which have been posted on the internet. It was subject to strong attack at a recent meeting of the British Statistical Society. I have been a full-time researcher my entire professional life, for almost 50 years, and I respectfully asked Dr. Taylor for a copy of the data so that I could reanalyze them. He refused this ordinary professional courtesy, and I have subsequently written to the editor of The Lancet requesting that an impartial committee be asked to reexamine Dr. Taylor’s statistical methods. If he refuses again, I urged The Lancet to retract his paper.

3. They say that autism has a large genetic component, and therefore vaccines must play a minimal, if any, role in the causation of autism. My book Infantile Autism, published in 1964, was the first systematic attempt to marshal the evidence for genetics as a contributing cause of autism, so I am certainly not hostile to that idea. However, genes do not begin to account for the huge increase in the incidence of autism, ranging from 250% to 500% in various places.

I might add that we have just reviewed all of the recent genetic studies for the next issue of the Autism Research Review International, which I edit. The results are spectacularly inconsistent. The best guess is that there are at least 20 different genes involved in the causation of autism. Gene therapy