Ryan DeMares holds a doctorate in interspecies communication. Her emphasis is on transpersonal consciousness, the human-nonhuman animal bond, and bioethics. Her interest in the psycho-spiritual effects of animals has led to pioneering work that bridges scientific knowledge and intuitive wisdom. Adams: You are the first person ever to hold a Ph.D. in interspecies communication. How would you define that field of study? DeMares: My interest has been in the transpersonal aspects of communication — away from our small self into a larger sense of the world. It's an understanding that rests in our sensing of the unity of consciousness. It moves us beyond words, beyond our object-oriented language base. So for me, interspecies communication is about understanding higher levels of experience. It involves communion, not just language. Adams: When you talk about communion, are you also talking about telepathic communication with other species? DeMares: If we look at the meaning of the word telepathy, telos means distance and path refers feeling. So in the strict sense of that term, it's about feeling at a distance, and that relates to communion. Telepathic communication is part of our strongest emotional bonds. Rupert Sheldrake explains telepathy in terms of morphic fields, and that explanation makes a lot of sense to me. Morphic fields are fields that form between members of a social group, whether of animals, humans, or both. Adams: Why are dolphins here on this planet? Do you know? DeMares: From an anthropocentric, or human-centered, point of view, I think they're here to teach us different values, because they've been evolving here much longer than humans but have taken a different track of evolution. They access a different set of life's possibilities. If we contemplate the dolphins' evolutionary track, it can help to enlighten us about our own. From a point of view that is not human-centered, the dolphins are here for the same reason that all life is here: as a unique manifestation of the Creative Principle of the universe. Adams: What do you think of John Lilly's idea for the Cetacean Nation and for having a Cetacean ambassador at the United Nations? DeMares: John Lilly was extremely visionary, and I certainly think that in some parallel existence a Cetacean Nation is possible. It was several decades ago that Lilly first proposed the concept of a Cetacean Nation and having dolphins represented in the UN. I don't know exactly how it would happen, but because it has been proposed, the idea is in the collective consciousness. I also think that it's impossible for that to happen at the present time, but that's not to say the situation might not change in the foreseeable future. Adams: Can you explain what you mean by getting to know dolphins by "becoming the other." DeMares: That's one of my favorite concepts in interspecies communication. In order to "become the other," you have to be able to really identify with the other. Then you begin to anticipate in the way that the other would anticipate. The shamans have experiences with becoming the other, and this may be manifest in what they call "shapeshifting." We also can become the other in dreams. Animal trackers, in order to be very successful at what they do, need to become the other. In that state, they think like the animals, and so can sense what they did or predict what they will do. Through breath work, shamanic journeying, and dream work, we can transcend our egocentric consciousness. Then we can have experiences of empathizing with and experiencing another. Adams: Can you explain how dolphins breathe? DeMares: Dolphins are conscious breathers, always consciously aware of each breath. Humans are rarely aware of breathing, but a dolphin's nervous system requires it to be fully awake and aware in order to breathe! That dolphins must breathe consciously was discovered by John Lilly when he anesthetized a dolphin to do an experiment, and it stopped breathing and died. Half of a dolphin's brain always is awake and always has conscious control over its breathing. Adams: Do you think it's important for people to become conscious breathers? DeMares: In my nonprofit organization, the Dolphin Institute, my colleague Chris Peknic is the person who specializes in breath work. He has a MSW degree and is also a marine biologist. His concept is to bring together marine biology and transpersonal psychology. I have participated in breath work activities, but I am not the person at The Dolphin Institute who is focusing on this. I do know that awareness of the breath is an important part of an individual's development and an important spiritual exercise. In noticing our breath we can more easily bring ourselves back to center. The idea my colleague is putting forth is that as we become more aware of breath we begin to enter into a new kind of consciousness. That new kind of consciousness helps us connect with "the other" — in this case, the dolphins. Adams: What can we learn from dolphin emotions that would help humans with their own emotions? DeMares: It's been my observation that all animals live in the present. Through my interspecies work, I've begun to consciously try to be like them in that respect. Dolphins have highly-developed cognitive processes. They are our peers. The dolphins have a marvelous way of flowing with the moment — focusing on play or sex or foraging for food. If you watch a wild dolphin, you will have the impression that it flows through the day in a joyous, ongoing existence. We can all envy this. Adams: Why do dolphins have such extraordinary healing capacities for humans? DeMares: That question will take a long time to be fully answered. I think that people who are drawn to dolphins are in need of healing and are ready to take the next step. I think dolphins have a strong catalytic effect on people. They're unique because of their aquatic evolutionary path. Most people see dolphins only in movies or on TV, but to be with them is a unique interaction that in the best circumstances can become cathartic. It's been noted that dolphins know how to "push a person's buttons," a good way to describe how they can really get to us. How they know what these buttons are, I don't really know, but I've seen it happen on the swims. The dolphins often bring out what is needed to effect changes in some way. Adams: In your book you describe a beautiful peak experience that you had with dolphins. DeMares: To be in the presence of dolphins is always special, but there was one particular encounter that comes to mind when I am asked about peak experiences. One day, while swimming in a bay in Hawaii, I saw the bobbing forms of three swimmers coming toward me through the swells. Thinking I might know someone in the group, I began to swim toward them. As the distance between us closed, I began to see half a dozen dolphins circling the swimmers. Soon, dolphins began to circle me as well. Sometimes I found myself in the midst of the pod. At other moments, I glimpsed the dolpins as they darted past me. Suddenly, I was surrounded by at least a dozen dolphins. One singled itself out from the pod and swam straight toward me. Our eyes locked in a gaze. I faced the dolphin squarely and, with as powerful a kick of my flippers as I could manage without clumsily splashing the surface and perhaps frightening the dolphin away, I propelled myself downward through the water. Matching my angle and speed precisely, the dolphin swam alongside me. We were both rolled slightly sideways and facing each other, so that we had each had a full view of the other. A distance of less than a foot separated us as we moved along together in a perfect harmony of motion. Had I reached out, I could have easily touched the dolphin's sleek body. In a rush of emotion, I felt an unprecedented joyfulness, a sense of unity with the creature, a feeling of ecstasy. I even had the sudden, irrational thought that I could have died at that very moment, feeling fully satisfied with life. This experience, in itself, seemed enough. Time no longer existed. The dolphin and I seemed to be mirrors of each other. I've been told that when I enter the water I become totally transformed. Of course, I cannot see this myself, so that's secondhand information. But when people see me in the water, they comment on the beauty of the movements, and say that when I come out, I'm glowing. I suspect what this means is that I'm not as "connected" on land. In a way, that makes sense to me, since all my life I've sensed that the water is my element. Adams: Why are so many children dreaming about dolphins? DeMares: There are probably several factors at work. They might be seeing dolphins on TV, so that the image of dolphins gets into their subconscious. But that's only one explanation. I believe that dolphins are calling to many people at this point in our history. Children are very open to animals and psychic experiences. As we get older, we tend to shut down psychically and emotionally and become conditioned by the aspects of our culture that diminish animals. Dolphins do a great job of cutting through all of this. They seem to be calling to all of humanity on the unconscious level. But it makes sense that children, since they are so open psychically, are going to be receiving some of that message — even children who have never seen or thought previously about dolphins. We do get stories of people who believe that they were dolphins in earlier lifetimes. Some of them, even as children, are becoming advocates for dolphins. I don't know what that really signifies, but we can hope that such children will continue in that way of thinking as they become adults, and will remain proactive on dolphin causes. Among the growing number of people in Western culture who are feeling called by the dolphins are some who believe themselves to be dolphins in human form. This belief, reminiscent of the traditions of indigenous peoples, is now emerging among children, some of whom become aware of their cetacean connection through dreams. Jeremy Taylor, a professional dream worker, is among those who have noticed dolphins appearing increasingly in children's dreams. "I have met one young lad," Taylor says, "who dreams of dolphins so often that he is convinced he is a reincarnated dolphin, coming back in human form to do something about the human decimation of the wild dolphin population." The former Soviet Union is the cradle of the reemergence in modern culture of the homo delphinusmythology. From there, word of a new kind of aquatic human has spread to other parts of the industrialized world — myths of babies and children who live in the water. These children are said to sleep on the bottoms of swimming pools, coming up for air, dolphinlike, about once in every six mintutes. Yet no references to homo delphinus are to be found in the scientific journals. Nor do the journals mention dolphin midwifery, which is a folk practice. Adams: Can you describe the myth of homo delphinus? DeMares: The myth of homo delphinus — if you want to use the word "myth" — is the belief that we are co-evolving and possibly converging with dolphins. This would mean that humans are acquiring a more dolphinlike nature. In my book, I say that a few scientists have seriously proposed that the primate lineage from which we humans branched off was at one time partially aquatic. Now, in humanity's collective conscious, a mythology is emerging to point us back to the ocean — the mythology of homo delphinus, a new species of human, literally, human-dolphin. Though the species is new, the concept is as old as humankind. A close relationship between humans and dolphins is portrayed in the mythologies of many cultures, starting with the oldest culture of all, that of the Australian aborigines. In certain tribes of contemporary Australian aborigines, the mythology of a shared ancestry between humans and dolphins lives on, and some aborigines continue to retain their traditional belief in the transmigration of souls between humans and dolphins. Adams: What about the Golden Dolphin? DeMares: That's a fascinating legend. The Legend of the Golden Dolphin had its origin in the '70s, when a small group of people in Australia tried to live and swim in proximity to dolphins. I don't know exactly how they accomplished that. They also tried to have dolphins with them during conception, and again I don't know exactly how that worked. Reportedly, at least one woman became pregnant during this experiment, and ten days before the birth, in 1976, the father had a powerful psychic experience. He channeled what turned out to be an epic saga. The writing went on until the child's birth. The story that emerged from the writing became known as the Legend of the Golden Dolphin. It described the dolphins' journey from another star system, Sirius, and how the dolphins began to teach the inhabitants of Earth. This has interesting correlations with the Dogon tradition of North Africa, which has legends of dolphins coming from that very star system. The person who channeled this epic still lives in Australia with his family. I am told he lives a reclusive life and is not capitalizing on this experience. The legend, however, has been passed on and others tell it orally. Adams: Why is it so powerful to look into the eye of a dolphin? DeMares: I think eye contact is very powerful and it certainly seems to be a crucial factor in having a peak experience involving any animal. If we look at various paths, there is a lot of emphasis put on eye contact. It allows a transmission, as in darshan. I don't attribute mystical powers to the dolphin, but some people do. I don't emotionally connect with them any differently than I do with any other species. It's that life-force energy that we really are connecting with. There are people who think the dolphins are Ascended Masters. I would be interested to know how they define the term; I guess they've channeled that information. But I don't make that connection. I believe there are some among them who may be more evolved in their individual consciousnesses, just as there are humans who are more evolved. I think you could probably take any of the species we normally associate with, and perhaps even some we don't normally consider or encounter, and single out individuals who are more altruistic or more conscious in some defined way. Certainly I've heard of dogs, cats, and horses like that, and there also are savant birds. Adams: Why is the government continuing to use sonar in the water when it threatens the existence of dolphins and whales? DeMares: I have met Navy radar technicians who talk about how they personally love the dolphins. One of them told me he and his crewmates love it when the dolphins ride on their boat's pressure waves and communicate with them through the hull, by tapping. It's usually not individuals who are callous. When we talk about the government, we are talking about this amorphous body. Who is that? Then we get the military in there and they have one mission, and it is national defense. Very recently, the National Marine Fisheries Service granted the Navy the right to do dolphin "takes" during its passive sonar deployment. This was the last step in opening the door for Low Frequency Sonar to be deployed. Now, if training is going on, it is possible for the military to do whatever it wants with regard to other species. If there are endangered species in a bombing range it doesn't matter, the military can still carry out their activities. The military is supreme and they want to take further measures to insure their supremacy. In this climate of terrorism, it has been difficult to counteract that mindset. Adams: Do you think that dolphins will become extinct, or do you think that they'll be able to survive polluted oceans and sonar testing. DeMares: I don't want to say that they will be extinct, because we don't know. There are a lot of reasons that they could become extinct. We know too well the reality of the extinction of species, and the large mammals are especially threatened because they compete with us for territory and food. Dolphins are unique in that they are in the ocean and not on the land. They are threatened by toxins in the ocean and by sonar experiments. And because dolphins follow schools of tuna, they are victims of the tuna industry. A lot of dolphins are caught every year by tuna fishermen, and that's an important factor that, over the years, has added up to the killing of many hundreds of thousands of dolphins. So while I don't know if they'll be extinct, I'm looking at the things that are happening and I'm very concerned. I feel sad about any species that becomes endangered or extinct. Adams: I found it comforting when you wrote about the holographic concept that we'll hold in our mind if dolphins should become extinct on this planet. Adams: I said that if the dolphins and whales left, and many of the other sea creatures followed them, the sea would become a lonely place for me. Traditional Native American beliefs hold that extinct species still exist in the archetypal realms, a possibility that gives me some comfort. So I am sometimes able to transmute the ominous forecast of the dolphins' departure into a visual metaphor of transcendence and beauty. My icon for this transformation is an image created by the visionary artist John Pitre. The painting hangs in a gallery in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island, Hawaii. Every time I lead a dolphin encounter group on the Kona Coast, I stop by the gallery to view that painting. The scene it depicts — a tropical ocean filled with dolphins who are ascending from the sea to the sky through a circular rainbow — always brings tears to my eyes. But along with the tears, I also am filled with a quiet peace. That painting's symbol of transformation is the vision I hold in my heart for the dolphins. Adams: How can people help save the dolphins? DeMares: The answer is on several levels. People can stay informed about the issues, and continue to bring pressure on Congress whenever that is needed. They can write their members of Congress to express opposition to Low Frequency Sonar deployment. With the recent deployment of the Low Frequency Active Sonar, some dolphin activists are saying that the next step is to form a group like Greenpeace that is dedicated to putting people in the water between the Navy ships and the pods. Also, people can stop buying tuna, even though certain brands claim to be dolphin free. From the material that I've received, it's very hard to tell, and it's so easy for companies to sell their brands in a misleading way. So I personally don't eat tuna at all. Helping to prevent toxic pollution of the ocean is another big one. Whatever happens to the oceans will happen to us. We're already seeing its effects. It's not just dolphins. The oceans are the lifeblood of the planet. When you talk about effectively making a difference in these issues, you're really talking about the entire planet. Adams: What do you want most to accomplish in your work with dolphins? DeMares: I think dreams change with time. Maybe some people have one static dream for their life, but for me, my vision evolves with time. I find myself moving into a space where I'm very concerned with making the connection from the voice of the dolphins in the ocean to humanity and human transformation. At first, when I started writing my book, I was writing about transformation on a personal level, transformation that leads to a stronger sense of self and personal empowerment. But my writing quickly evolved to writing about personal transformation as a stepping-stone to transformation at a cultural level. We can become more empathic with other species in order to move towards a better world. Then, of course, there's planetary transformation, where we can come into harmony with our environment. This latter aspect of transformation has become a particularly conscious dream or goal of mine in recent months. It crystallized during the writing of my book. Now, with the book done, I am free to turn my energies more fully toward doing my part to help this planetary transformation to become a reality.