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Lilly on Dolphins: Humans of the Sea
This book is a combination and republication of three books and two scientific papaers. The books are: Man and Dolphin, The Dolphin in History, and The Mind of the Dolphin. The scientific papers are: "Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence" and Reprogramming of the Soic Output of the Dolphin: Sonic Burst Count Matching."
- GenresNonfictionAnimals
500 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1975
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163 people want to read
About the author
John C. Lilly
27 books211 followersJohn Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer and inventor.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 12, 2008
This man took LSD with dolphins and they had conversations. Outdated, hilarious research on cetacean communication by an M.D. A must read.
February 2, 2025
A MARVELOUS COMPILATION AND SUMMATION OF LILLY’S DOLPHIN WORK
Dr. (he WAS a medical doctor, among other things) John Cunningham Lilly (1915-2001) wrote in the Preface to this 1975 book, “Within the next decade or two the human species will establish communication with another species: nonhuman, alien, possibly extraterrestrial, more probably marine; but definitely highly intelligent, perhaps even intellectual. An optimistic prediction, I admit. In this book I have summarized the basic reasons for my beliefs and presented some evidence for the validity of the prediction… if this account sparks public and private interest in time for us to make some preparation before we encounter such beings, I shall feel my time was well spent in the research here described… If it turns out that I am wholly incorrect, I shall remember that in research of the best scientific sort no experiment is a failure: even disproof of a thesis turns up new and valuable information. If and when interspecies contact is made, it may be used as a force for peace or as further aid to warfare… I hope that the ideas presented here will help… men of good will … be a bit better informed than they were in 1945 concerning another scientific advance, that time in applied nuclear physics.”
He explains in the Introduction, “This book is a combination and republication of three books and two scientific papers. The books are: ‘Man and Dolphin,’ ‘The Dolphin in History,’ and ‘The Mind of the Dolphin.’ The scientific papers are: ‘Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ and ‘Reprogramming of the Sonic Output of the Dolphin.’ … [‘Man and Dolphin’ was published in 1961.’] … ‘The Dolphin in History’ was published in 1963… ‘The Mind of the Dolphin’ was published in 1967… In 1967 to 1968 I decided to stop dolphin work. I no longer wanted to run a concentration camp for my friends… Immediately after I decided to stop dolphin research … five of the dolphins in our eight-dolphin colony committed suicide. Within the next week, I let three go… [My book] ‘The Center of the Cyclone,’ 1972, contains details of this ethical problem…
“You may well ask where all of this started… In 1954 I decided to do a series of experiments on humans isolated from all … stimuli… so I devised a technique using a tank of water, floating the person in the darkness and the silence. This work has been explained … in both ‘The Human Biocomputer’ and ‘The Center of the Cyclone. In our new book, ‘The Dyadic Cyclone,’ my wife… and I … show how we modified and made a new system… [where] one doesn’t use any breathing apparatus.”
He begins ‘Man and Dolphin’ with the statement, “Eventually it may be possible for humans to speak with another species. I have come to this conclusion after careful consideration of evidence gained through my research experiments with dolphins. If new scientific developments are to be made in this direction, however, certain changes in our basic orientation … will be necessary. We must strip ourselves… of our preconceptions about the relative place of Homo sapiens in the scheme of nature… Granting that there may be a species as high on the evolutionary scale as man … what characteristics should we look for in another species?” (Pg. 3-4)
He explains, “experiments have proved that… fine wires in specific portions of the brain can cause either intense rewarding or intense punishing experiences in a particular animal… This has been demonstrated in rats, cats, monkeys, and … dolphins. The technique allows either the human operator or the animal to control the rewards and the punishments. In the … training of the past we depended solely on a fish-food reward… in training dolphins.” (Pg. 14-15)
He acknowledges, “There are… many obstacles to a mutual understanding between dolphins and men… They have no written records and make no artifacts. They lack hands … and are not building anything… Because they do not have to constantly resist gravity as we do they do not need to sleep as we do… they cannot afford deep unconsciousness from any cause… [which would] kill them.” (Pg. 16-17) He notes, “there is a ‘sin’ of science … called ‘zoomorphizing’… It consists in applying the thinking that works in the analysis of … small-brained animals to the behavior of, say, someone with a large brain.” (Pg. 27)
He recounts, “In the winter of 1958, I decided to start hunting for a suitable location in which to work with these animals the year round… Data derived from the training program … convinced me that we must maintain very close contact for long periods of time. Such contact must include both vocal exchanges and skin contacts… we must be able to get into the water with them… every day… we must modify our own behavior and meet them at least halfway in their own medium.” (Pg. 33) He continues, “I placed in the tank an underwater loudspeaker … so that [they] could hear our voices no matter what we were saying…. We also had in the tank a hydrophone … so that we could hear all of [their] sounds.” (Pg. 69)
He reports that all dolphins “frequently creak, putt-putt and whistle under water, with some rare quacks, squaws, and blats under water and in air. A few dolphins in captivity, in close contact with humans… start producing more frequent air-borne sounds… With care the trainers can encourage the animals to ‘sing,’ i.e., emit … ‘wailing’ notes which change pitch smoothly…” (Pg. 75)
In ‘The Dolphin in History,’ he adds, “they are constantly bombarded with signals from the other animals… Their ultrasonic … emissions … are interpersonal and even emotional. These animals are not inanimate, cold pieces of sonar apparatus… the dolphins are quite capable of using vocal outputs as a demand for further rewards…” (Pg. 99-100)
He observes, “Man has not yet been willing to investigate the possibility of another intelligent species… Whales, dolphins and porpoises are assumed to be ‘dumb beasts’ with little or no evidence… We do not yet know very much about … their intelligences, their lives, the possibility of their communications… To properly evaluate [them]… we must use… all available knowledge, humanistic as well as scientific…” (Pg. 108)
In ‘The Mind of the Dolphin’ he explains in great detail the design and construction of their research facility; e.g., “The deep-water area is for the dolphin to relax…. [This] water is too deep for the human to be comfortable with the dolphin for long periods of time. The shallow water is the area in which the results of interest are obtained. This area is shallow enough for the human to walk comfortably and yet deep enough for the dolphin to swim comfortably. This is the zone of encounter of man and dolphin: the mutually adapting area.” (Pg. 119)
He states, “from my close living with them I have learned many things about … the dolphins’ society as it exists among the three of them… [and] among the four of us. I have learned something of their ethics or civilization.” (Pg. 130-131) He reports, “A preliminary seven days and seven nights with a dolphin was arranged with Margaret Howe. The aims of this experiment were to test human and dolphin tolerance to a set depth (sixteen inches) of sea water… to find the limits of human tolerance of sleeping on wet bed in wet clothing, to see progress in human-dolphin relationship during such close living, to continue vocal lessons... and record same, and show vocal progress under such conditions.” (Pg. 140)
Ms. Howe wrote of this experience, “To actually live with a dolphin 24 hours a day is a very taxing situation. Much more so than I had anticipated. Unlike a dog… a dolphin is more like a shadow than a roommate… [the dolphin] is continually at your feet, touching you, pushing you, nibbling you… Perhaps speaking… He does not go away…” (Pg. 164)
Lilly suggests, “If interspecies communication is to exist at all… it will give us far more than just facile solutions to man’s problems… I feel they have much to teach us which is new to us and that we have much that is new to teach them… Sometimes I feel that if man could become more involved in some problems of an alien species, he may become less involved with his own egocentric pursuits, and deadly competition within his species, and become somehow a better being.” (Pg. 207-208)
He speculates, “The sperm whale probably has ‘religious’ ambitions and successes quite beyond anything that we know. His ‘transcendental religious’ experiences must be quite beyond what we can experience by any known methods at the present time. Apparently, we can at rare times with our experiences begin to approach his everyday… abilities in the cognitive … and emotional spheres. Only slowly have we begun to improve our control of such experiences. The means of inducing them are slowly being unearthed.” (Pg. 219)
He cautions, “We have found that, in dealing with such a large-brained mammal, we must keep the working hypothesis in mind that ‘they are highly intelligent and are just as interested in communicating with us as we are with them.” (Pg. 246) But later, he admits, “Among our many problems is how to achieve a common program universe and a common data universe with the dolphin. Conversely, the dolphin has a difficult program in living with us... Both sides must explore with what sort of shared dimensions this problem can be approached.” (Pg. 259)
He laments, “If a dolphin sends signals, we ignore them… This is the treatment that dolphins usually suffer at the hands of scientists. When I first postulated the existence of a mind in a dolphin, I saw this effect operate strongly against me, and against the ‘dolphin mind hypothesis.’ Why must we say that the dolphin has no mind[?]… I suggest that it is because man has been concentrating all of his scientific efforts in … areas of endeavor in which this presumption of mind is totally inappropriate.” (Pg. 271)
He proposes, “The present experiments show that [dolphins] are also eminently trainable in the vocalization and acoustic spheres. The next step, a long one, is demonstrating that the dolphin can meaningfully use these sounds as we use language and speech.” (Pg. 364)
He concludes in his ‘Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ paper, “we as a species do not believe, for example, that a whale, with a brain six times the size of ours, has a computer worth dealing with. Instead, we kill whales and use them for fertilizer. We also eat them… Therefore, on an historical basis, I do not feel that at present there is ... much chance that any species of greater attainments than ours will want to communicate with us. The dolphins want to communicate only with those people who are willing to live with them on the terms that dolphins set up and … [with] certain kinds of human beings. Other types the dolphins drive away.” (Pg. 411)
This book (as well as his later book, ‘Communication Between Man & Dolphin’) will be absolute ‘must reading’ for anyone seriously interested in dolphins, and the possibility of interspecies communication.
Dr. (he WAS a medical doctor, among other things) John Cunningham Lilly (1915-2001) wrote in the Preface to this 1975 book, “Within the next decade or two the human species will establish communication with another species: nonhuman, alien, possibly extraterrestrial, more probably marine; but definitely highly intelligent, perhaps even intellectual. An optimistic prediction, I admit. In this book I have summarized the basic reasons for my beliefs and presented some evidence for the validity of the prediction… if this account sparks public and private interest in time for us to make some preparation before we encounter such beings, I shall feel my time was well spent in the research here described… If it turns out that I am wholly incorrect, I shall remember that in research of the best scientific sort no experiment is a failure: even disproof of a thesis turns up new and valuable information. If and when interspecies contact is made, it may be used as a force for peace or as further aid to warfare… I hope that the ideas presented here will help… men of good will … be a bit better informed than they were in 1945 concerning another scientific advance, that time in applied nuclear physics.”
He explains in the Introduction, “This book is a combination and republication of three books and two scientific papers. The books are: ‘Man and Dolphin,’ ‘The Dolphin in History,’ and ‘The Mind of the Dolphin.’ The scientific papers are: ‘Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ and ‘Reprogramming of the Sonic Output of the Dolphin.’ … [‘Man and Dolphin’ was published in 1961.’] … ‘The Dolphin in History’ was published in 1963… ‘The Mind of the Dolphin’ was published in 1967… In 1967 to 1968 I decided to stop dolphin work. I no longer wanted to run a concentration camp for my friends… Immediately after I decided to stop dolphin research … five of the dolphins in our eight-dolphin colony committed suicide. Within the next week, I let three go… [My book] ‘The Center of the Cyclone,’ 1972, contains details of this ethical problem…
“You may well ask where all of this started… In 1954 I decided to do a series of experiments on humans isolated from all … stimuli… so I devised a technique using a tank of water, floating the person in the darkness and the silence. This work has been explained … in both ‘The Human Biocomputer’ and ‘The Center of the Cyclone. In our new book, ‘The Dyadic Cyclone,’ my wife… and I … show how we modified and made a new system… [where] one doesn’t use any breathing apparatus.”
He begins ‘Man and Dolphin’ with the statement, “Eventually it may be possible for humans to speak with another species. I have come to this conclusion after careful consideration of evidence gained through my research experiments with dolphins. If new scientific developments are to be made in this direction, however, certain changes in our basic orientation … will be necessary. We must strip ourselves… of our preconceptions about the relative place of Homo sapiens in the scheme of nature… Granting that there may be a species as high on the evolutionary scale as man … what characteristics should we look for in another species?” (Pg. 3-4)
He explains, “experiments have proved that… fine wires in specific portions of the brain can cause either intense rewarding or intense punishing experiences in a particular animal… This has been demonstrated in rats, cats, monkeys, and … dolphins. The technique allows either the human operator or the animal to control the rewards and the punishments. In the … training of the past we depended solely on a fish-food reward… in training dolphins.” (Pg. 14-15)
He acknowledges, “There are… many obstacles to a mutual understanding between dolphins and men… They have no written records and make no artifacts. They lack hands … and are not building anything… Because they do not have to constantly resist gravity as we do they do not need to sleep as we do… they cannot afford deep unconsciousness from any cause… [which would] kill them.” (Pg. 16-17) He notes, “there is a ‘sin’ of science … called ‘zoomorphizing’… It consists in applying the thinking that works in the analysis of … small-brained animals to the behavior of, say, someone with a large brain.” (Pg. 27)
He recounts, “In the winter of 1958, I decided to start hunting for a suitable location in which to work with these animals the year round… Data derived from the training program … convinced me that we must maintain very close contact for long periods of time. Such contact must include both vocal exchanges and skin contacts… we must be able to get into the water with them… every day… we must modify our own behavior and meet them at least halfway in their own medium.” (Pg. 33) He continues, “I placed in the tank an underwater loudspeaker … so that [they] could hear our voices no matter what we were saying…. We also had in the tank a hydrophone … so that we could hear all of [their] sounds.” (Pg. 69)
He reports that all dolphins “frequently creak, putt-putt and whistle under water, with some rare quacks, squaws, and blats under water and in air. A few dolphins in captivity, in close contact with humans… start producing more frequent air-borne sounds… With care the trainers can encourage the animals to ‘sing,’ i.e., emit … ‘wailing’ notes which change pitch smoothly…” (Pg. 75)
In ‘The Dolphin in History,’ he adds, “they are constantly bombarded with signals from the other animals… Their ultrasonic … emissions … are interpersonal and even emotional. These animals are not inanimate, cold pieces of sonar apparatus… the dolphins are quite capable of using vocal outputs as a demand for further rewards…” (Pg. 99-100)
He observes, “Man has not yet been willing to investigate the possibility of another intelligent species… Whales, dolphins and porpoises are assumed to be ‘dumb beasts’ with little or no evidence… We do not yet know very much about … their intelligences, their lives, the possibility of their communications… To properly evaluate [them]… we must use… all available knowledge, humanistic as well as scientific…” (Pg. 108)
In ‘The Mind of the Dolphin’ he explains in great detail the design and construction of their research facility; e.g., “The deep-water area is for the dolphin to relax…. [This] water is too deep for the human to be comfortable with the dolphin for long periods of time. The shallow water is the area in which the results of interest are obtained. This area is shallow enough for the human to walk comfortably and yet deep enough for the dolphin to swim comfortably. This is the zone of encounter of man and dolphin: the mutually adapting area.” (Pg. 119)
He states, “from my close living with them I have learned many things about … the dolphins’ society as it exists among the three of them… [and] among the four of us. I have learned something of their ethics or civilization.” (Pg. 130-131) He reports, “A preliminary seven days and seven nights with a dolphin was arranged with Margaret Howe. The aims of this experiment were to test human and dolphin tolerance to a set depth (sixteen inches) of sea water… to find the limits of human tolerance of sleeping on wet bed in wet clothing, to see progress in human-dolphin relationship during such close living, to continue vocal lessons... and record same, and show vocal progress under such conditions.” (Pg. 140)
Ms. Howe wrote of this experience, “To actually live with a dolphin 24 hours a day is a very taxing situation. Much more so than I had anticipated. Unlike a dog… a dolphin is more like a shadow than a roommate… [the dolphin] is continually at your feet, touching you, pushing you, nibbling you… Perhaps speaking… He does not go away…” (Pg. 164)
Lilly suggests, “If interspecies communication is to exist at all… it will give us far more than just facile solutions to man’s problems… I feel they have much to teach us which is new to us and that we have much that is new to teach them… Sometimes I feel that if man could become more involved in some problems of an alien species, he may become less involved with his own egocentric pursuits, and deadly competition within his species, and become somehow a better being.” (Pg. 207-208)
He speculates, “The sperm whale probably has ‘religious’ ambitions and successes quite beyond anything that we know. His ‘transcendental religious’ experiences must be quite beyond what we can experience by any known methods at the present time. Apparently, we can at rare times with our experiences begin to approach his everyday… abilities in the cognitive … and emotional spheres. Only slowly have we begun to improve our control of such experiences. The means of inducing them are slowly being unearthed.” (Pg. 219)
He cautions, “We have found that, in dealing with such a large-brained mammal, we must keep the working hypothesis in mind that ‘they are highly intelligent and are just as interested in communicating with us as we are with them.” (Pg. 246) But later, he admits, “Among our many problems is how to achieve a common program universe and a common data universe with the dolphin. Conversely, the dolphin has a difficult program in living with us... Both sides must explore with what sort of shared dimensions this problem can be approached.” (Pg. 259)
He laments, “If a dolphin sends signals, we ignore them… This is the treatment that dolphins usually suffer at the hands of scientists. When I first postulated the existence of a mind in a dolphin, I saw this effect operate strongly against me, and against the ‘dolphin mind hypothesis.’ Why must we say that the dolphin has no mind[?]… I suggest that it is because man has been concentrating all of his scientific efforts in … areas of endeavor in which this presumption of mind is totally inappropriate.” (Pg. 271)
He proposes, “The present experiments show that [dolphins] are also eminently trainable in the vocalization and acoustic spheres. The next step, a long one, is demonstrating that the dolphin can meaningfully use these sounds as we use language and speech.” (Pg. 364)
He concludes in his ‘Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ paper, “we as a species do not believe, for example, that a whale, with a brain six times the size of ours, has a computer worth dealing with. Instead, we kill whales and use them for fertilizer. We also eat them… Therefore, on an historical basis, I do not feel that at present there is ... much chance that any species of greater attainments than ours will want to communicate with us. The dolphins want to communicate only with those people who are willing to live with them on the terms that dolphins set up and … [with] certain kinds of human beings. Other types the dolphins drive away.” (Pg. 411)
This book (as well as his later book, ‘Communication Between Man & Dolphin’) will be absolute ‘must reading’ for anyone seriously interested in dolphins, and the possibility of interspecies communication.
December 21, 2007
Not that well written, a little extreamist at times. However not many acedemic books written on dolphins. For a man who loves aliens, the "human of the sea" is interesting to read about.
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