Dolphin Consciousness and Wanda Syke's Ghost

Here's a fun "person no longer on the planet" story. 

Wanda Sykes Sees Ghost   from The Blaze.com

Comedian Wanda Sykes appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Wednesday, where she revealed an apparent encounter that she claims to have had with a ghost while staying at a historic hotel in Virginia.

“I don’t want people to think I’m crazy, but it happened,” she told host Ellen DeGeneres.

Sykes said that she returned to her room at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia, after a show one night, and suddenly felt that something wasn’t quite right.

“I just had a sense that somebody else is in this room and I was like looking around,” she said, admitting that she had a few drinks. “I just had to make sure that it wasn’t the alcohol, but I was like, ‘No, something is in the room,’ and I kind of looked out of the corner of my eye and it was this woman — it was an old black woman, right, and she just was looking at me.”

Sykes added, “I’m pretty sure she was a slave, because don’t nobody wear stuff like that anymore.”

Wanda Sykes attends the 2015 NBCUniversal Summer Press Day at the Langham Hotel on April 2, 2015 in Pasadena, California. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

The comedian said she didn’t feel like the ghost would hurt her, and said that it seemed as though she was more surprised than anything else to see Sykes inside of such a nice hotel room.

The comedian joked that she told the ghost that “things turned out pretty good,” with DeGeneres and the audience erupting in laughter.

“And I know you’re really probably just blown away to see me — this black woman — in this big hotel room,” Sykes apparently told the ghost, going on to quip about what she did next. ”I got the remote control. ‘If this is good, wait until you see who the president is. This is going to scare the hell out of you.’”

She said the woman stayed and watched her for a little while before disappearing.

“And I said, ‘Why don’t you go scare white people. That’s what I would do if I were you,’” Sykes joked.

Wanda saw a Civil War era ghost in a hotel room.  She said the woman was "dressed like a slave."  So that means she saw her clearly enough, long enough to form an opinion about how she was dressed.  She said the ghost didn't seem upset, or emotional, but had a look on her face as if to say "well, look at you."  Wanda then riffs into a hilarious take on that - thanking the ghost for suffering as a slave, and then offering to turn on CNN so the ghost can see the President.

Couple of observations.  Wanda couldn't know what the ghost was thinking when she looked at her.  The ghost of course, is outside of time - in fact calling her a ghost does her a disservice - let's just call her "a person no longer on the planet."  This person no longer on the planet may have had any number of things on her mind.  One could be: "Oh, look, it's you Wanda, don't you remember when you used to live back in these days and we were friends?  Or you were someone that I knew back then?"  That's one possibility.  Or, "Wanda! I can't believe you don't recognize me.  I'm your great great great grandmother - in your family tree!"  Or just "What the heck are you doing in my room dressed like that?"

As noted here in other posts, there are many accounts from people who remember previous lifetimes where they weren't of the same race, color, creed or gender that they are now.  And they don't just remember a "day" in that lifetime - in some cases people remember the entire life, including the death, and remember the experience of leaving the body and "going home" back to their "soul group" where they hang out with their loved ones and plot their return to the planet. (For more info on that topic, click on "Flipside" or "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" for plenty of those accounts - or even "Flipside the Documentary" available as a DVD or on Gaiam TV.

Book, DVD, Audio

But what's also amazing about this clip is how "normal" it is.  Wanda saw a ghost, it didn't frighten her, she wasn't "spooked." In fact she gave the person who used to be on the planet respect and acknowledged her presence.  

And then Ellen told a story about seeing a man in a house she used to live in, and then tossed it over to her mother who also saw the same man at a different time in that house.

So we have a verification of a "person who used to be on the planet" right in this clip.  Ellen saw the man, and then later her mother saw the same man.  

So the question is - instead of running screaming into the night - how can we show compassion for this man or "people who used to be on the planet?"  Would it be to do what Wanda did, and acknowledge their presence and perhaps suggest "look around yourself person who used to be on the planet, there's a light in the distance.  If you go towards that light, go through that light, all your friends and loved ones are waiting for you to return so that you can figure out a way to get back here, or go and do whatever it is that you're supposed to do.  Don't be afraid - you've done a great job of hanging around the planet, so why not go and have some fun back home?"  

It's the fastest, easiest way to talk a person who is not longer on the planet into leaving your residence - and if they really insist that they've got to stick around, then just say "I appreciate that you want to stick around here, and that's fine by me, but please don't wake up, scare, or otherwise intimidate my guests or me.  You're welcome, but you have a choice to stay or go."  Worse thing that can happen is they take you up on the suggestion and head home.  

Meanwhile....

This month's National Geographic article on "Dolphin Intelligence" by J Foer caught my eye:

Photographs by Brian Skerry

"Bolton presses her palms together over her head, the signal to innovate, and then puts her fists together, the sign for “tandem.” With those two gestures, she has instructed the dolphins to show her a behavior she hasn’t seen during this session and to do it in unison.

Hector and Han disappear beneath the surface. With them is a comparative psychologist named Stan Kuczaj, wearing a wet suit and snorkel gear and carrying a large underwater video camera with hydrophones. He records several seconds of audible chirping between Hector and Han, then his camera captures them both slowly rolling over in unison and flapping their tails three times simultaneously.

Above the surface Bolton presses her thumbs and middle fingers together, telling the dolphins to keep up this cooperative innovation. And they do. The 400-pound animals sink down, exchange a few more high-pitched whistles, and then simultaneously blow bubbles together. Then they pirouette side by side. Then they tail walk. After eight nearly perfectly synchronized sequences, the session ends.

There are two possible explanations of this remarkable behavior. Either one dolphin is mimicking the other so quickly and precisely that the apparent coordination is only an illusion. Or it’s not an illusion at all: When they whistle back and forth beneath the surface, they’re literally discussing a plan."

and then later in the article:

"The last common ancestor of humans and chimps lived some six million years ago. By comparison cetaceans such as dolphins split off from the rest of the mammal lineage about 55 million years ago, and they and primates haven’t shared an ancestor for 95 million years."

So dolphin have been on their own evolutionary track for 55 million years... while humans have been on their own track for about 6 million.  So logic tells us that evolution would probably have done some nifty tricks in terms of these denizens of the deep over all those years.

But what the article above says, is that an instructor used sign language to ask these dolphin to do a series of tricks in unison - but the choice of the tricks and what they would do was up to them.  And then they performed those stunts in the order that they devised.

In other words, they consciously chose what tricks to perform for this human.  

They communicated with each other - in some fashion - on what those tricks would be.  

Hello. Why so crabby?

Let's not get caught up for the moment in how they communicated.  It could have been a series of clicks and whistles.  That's likely. But it's equally possible they have another form of communication that is faster than what we can measure.  I'm not saying they do. I'm not asking for pyramid hats.  I just want us all to consider this possibility; these dolphin just proved they're consciousness.

Now by logic, extend that to the planet.  All animals, all creatures are sentient.  They have their own way of communication, as we have ours.  Ours in by no means superior to theirs - in fact in this case it's proven that theirs is far superior to ours.

There's plenty of folklore of dolphin coming to the aid of humans.  Just search youtube for videos of dolphin approaching humans and trying to communicate with them, steering their boats to safety, or asking humans for help. 

In my own experience, I saw a school of dolphin surface on the Santa Monica beach, about 20 yards off shore, jumping and swimming.  As a joke I yelled "Hey, Dan Marino! (former Miami Dolphin). Over here!"  And one of their group turned and started swimming towards me.  I mean jumping out of the water, flying through the air in my direction, aiming at me as if to say "What? You called? You need help? You were speaking to me?"  I was afraid that I somehow had influenced them to screw up their path and shouted "No, sorry, I was just kidding!" and the Dolphin turned and rejoined his group.  It was funny, but startling.

Not far from here.  "Hey! Dan Marino!"

So.  This National Geographic story proves that dolphin are conscious. They speak to each other and can process complex information faster and better than humans can.  Does that mean all animals are sentient?  I would have to argue that it does. I'm sorry if that's disturbing to those who aren't vegetarians (myself included), but there's not much wiggle room in this explanation.  (Other than to say that no scientist is saying it, they're just more interested in whether they can talk to the dolphin rather than listening to what dolphin might have to tell them.)  And if they're sentient, then it behooves us to do something to protect them, including protecting Orcas (the largest dolphin) from being held in captivity. (Hello Sea World)

So what do these two stories have in common?  We experience life in a 5 dimensional world.  Well, 2 to be sure, 3 for entertainment, and the rest are about our senses.  But other animals on this planet don't experience this world the way we do.  Bees, for example, see ultraviolet light.  Dolphin obviously can communicate in ways we don't understand.  Birds, cats, dogs... cows. 

And we can't experience the world the way a person who is no longer on the planet experiences it.  But we can appreciate it.  We can honor it. We can talk about it without fear of being dunked, hanged or burnt at the stake.

So let's talk about it, shall we?