Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Dolphin Sounds

AS:  Can you talk about the dolphin language?
John Lilly:  No. I can tell you about them trying to speak English.
Aristotle, around 400 BC said, “the voice of the dolphin in air is like the voice of the human in pronouncing vowels and combination of vowels, but he can’t pronounce consonants.”  But we found that the consonants are the supersonic or ultra sonic frequencies, beyond human hearing.
Kutera DecCosta: Movement is a good communicator. You can communicate with dolphins  by mimicking them under water. You have to be a good swimmer, because they get board very fast.   But the more I can keep up with them like spiraling down and undulating, the more they really show an interest in checking me out.
J:  There is a scene in my film, Emerging Love Between Man and Dolphin, where I was doing the dog paddle [in the dolphin pool and Sissy is circling me doing the dog paddle too.
AS: After 40 years of being and studying dolphins what questions do you still have ?
J: I still want to talk to them.  That was part of problem and still is.
AS: What would you ask them?
J:  The history of the planet,.  They’re been around for 25 million years and probably have teaching stories that go way back like the Masi in Africa do. [Masi Merra is a nomadic tribe in Narobi,Kenya, Africa]  When Richard Llewellyn stayed with the Masi, heard their stories, he went and [looked ] up a Greek historian who had gotten the teaching stories of the Masi 2000 years before and they were exactly the same. So there is an oral verbal tradition that can carry over years.
AS:  Did you find there was an oral tradition or continuity of sounds of dolphins and whales  coming from one generation to the next?
K:  Well, I only know about the whales. About 5 years ago, Raphael and I were doing an album and we needed some whale sounds;  some of their songs.  I asked Roger Payne, a researcher, at the at  the International Whale Commission for help.  He said, “you can check it out , but I can tell you that the happiest and most beautiful whale sounds are from the 60’s and 70’s.  After that they  changed dramatically.”  So we ended  up using the whale sounds of the ’60’s.
AS: How do dolphins make their sounds?
J:  There are 4 sound sources.  Dolphins have lost their sense of smell,  but they use their nasal cavity to blow air back and forth to make sounds..
AS:  Is there a difference in sound between the two?
J: Whales have more frequencies.  The Blue whale has frequencies down where the elephant ; 10 cycles per second.  Human hearing stops at 20 cycles per second.
AS: Do dolphins have songs like whales.
J:  Probably.  They love music.  In my St. Thomas research lab we had a switch for music connected to a bungee cord.  And Peter, the dolphin  would have to grab a ball on the end of it and swum in order to close the circuit and start the music.  The first day we had it up, he swam for 8 hours listening to music.
K:  After Raphael and I released our album, Angels of the Deep and played it for the first time in the ocean with underwater speakers, we were surrounded by whales coming to check us out.
AS: Do you feel love from the dolphins when you swim with them?
K: I feel love and I also feel they zap me.
J:  Yes, right.
AS:  What do you mean zap you?
K:  Well when they send out their sonar, you can feel that on your spine, like prickling energy.  I can’t explain it more scientifically.  The feeling is great.
AS: Do you feel better or worse afterwards?
K: I have never felt bad after swimming with dolphins.  I always feel up lifted, my spirit soars and I fee l very grateful for having had the experience.
J:  A friend of mine, Beale Allen, swam with sperm whales in the Indian Ocean and she got zapped and she felt totally changed, you don’t even know her now.
AS:  So they send sound frequencies through your body?
K:  When John and I take people out on a Whale adventure you go into the water and you not only hear the sounds of the whales and dolphins you literally feel it.  Because the sound penetrates your body.  It is like being in a sound chamber.  It is a very unique experience.
AS:  I remember one time I was out with John in a boat and a group o f us were in the water swimming around, when we saw 6 whales approaching us about a mile away.  Then suddenly they were right in front of us, very close. They interacted and swam with us for about a half of hour to an hour. And it seemed to me, well, we call it whale watching, but time it was human watching.  They came with their youngsters, as if to say “that’s how humans look.”
It is a great experience to swim and look into the eye of a whale.  It  is very big and in there you look into eternity.  There you look into ancient, ancient knowledge.  In that moment everything stops and you connect with the eyes of the soul or the eyes of God.

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