Are dogs and cats the same?

[paqart]

There are several Sheldrake-related threads on the forum, and as I read them, something was tickling my memory, trying to surface. Finally, I spotted the connection. Sheldrake has studied dogs who know when their master will return. I wonder if there is a similar study with cats?

What brings this to mind is that when I was a teenager living in Sonoma, California back in the early eighties, my cat did something like this. It was to such an uncanny degree that I noticed it and tested it several times to see if my initial observation was correct.

The way it went was this: there was a large field behind our house, maybe twenty acres or so. It was my habit during the summer to go out there and paint small landscapes in oil. The family cat, named Porgy, always came with me. Once I started painting, he would disappear into the woods at the far end of the field. When I had finished painting and was ready to go back to the house, I'd see the grass parting from a long ways off as Porgy cut a trail through the field, and then he'd leap out of it and be by my side for the walk back to the house.

At first I thought he was keeping tabs on me while he romped in the trees somewhere else, and noticed me doing something that clued him in to the fact I was about to depart. Maybe he recognized that when I put down my palette, or closed my paint box, that I was about to go, so he'd come running. The problem was that I didn't remember doing these things before he showed up, though I usually had advanced to those kinds of motions by the time I was aware that he was charging towards me.

The first couple times I thought it was a funny coincidence, then I thought he was picking up on cues I didn't remember giving. Then, because I wanted to know how he knew I would be leaving, I decided to test him.

On the next several painting excursions, when I was done painting, I didn't do anything that would be a sign that I was leaving. I didn't close up my paints or start packing or anything. The only thing I did that was different, and I doubt Porgy could have seen this, is that I pretended to continue painting, but without letting the brush touch the canvas or paper I was painting on. Still, Porgy knew it was time to go, and came charging through the brush to meet me.

He also had a habit of following me into town, a forty-five minute bike ride away. As soon as I got on my bike, he'd start chasing me. An hour or more later, he'd walk into whatever shop I was at. This, I admit, is less difficult to explain than the other item, but to me it was impressive because of the physical effort involved on his part.

Some years later, after my family and I moved to Maine, I got an apartment in Portland and started college. Porgy stayed with my dad and stepmother. One night I dreamed that he was angry with me, repeatedly shouting (or snarling) "How could you let them kill me?" Two weeks later I told my dad about the dream (keeping in mind please that I was as much an anti-psi atheist as Randi at the time) because I thought he would think it was funny, not because I thought it was special in any way. My dad, who also didn't believe in psychic mumbo-jumbo, very soberly responded with the news that two weeks previously, around the time of the dream, he had authorized the euthanization of Porgy, because he had feline leukemia.

Later, my grandfather died, and I dreamed of him often. In a couple of those dreams, Porgy was with him, back to his pleasant self.

So, is it worth it to study cats also? I think it might be.

AP

[David Bailey]

My only personal experience of psi relates to just this!

Sheldrake did a preliminary survey of this phenomena before deciding on testing dogs. He found that 30% of cats and 50% of dogs seem to show this to some extent. Perhaps cats are as good as dogs, but just more aloof - who knows!

Our experience was with with our cat Golly. At the time, we would return from home at very varied times in the evening (sometimes going out for a meal, etc.). Golly was usually waiting in the garden when we arrived, and I felt vaguely sorry that he spent so much time waiting for us to come home. Then our next door neighbour told us that Golly would spend his evening with her, and ask to go out just before we arrived back. The lady in question was old, so the time from asking to being let out must have been at least 30 seconds, yet he was there in the garden by the time we drove up! At the time I rather dismissed the neighbour's report - being (then) highly skeptical of such things - and it was only years later that I read of Sheldrake's work.

Our subsequent cats have not shown this ability.

David

[paqart]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

My only personal experience of psi relates to just this!

Our experience was with with our cat Golly. At the time, we would return from home at very varied times in the evening (sometimes going out for a meal, etc.). Golly was usually waiting in the garden when we arrived,

Our subsequent cats have not shown this ability.

David

Thanks for the anecdote, it was interesting to read. Any more out there?

AP

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by paqart

Thanks for the anecdote, it was interesting to read. Any more out there?

AP

LOL - don't call it an anecdote - you know what skeptics do with them!

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

LOL - don't call it an anecdote - you know what skeptics do with them!

No problem, I believe the anecdote. I believe that your neighbor carefully kept track of exactly when Golly asked to be let out. And I believe that he was always there when you drove up. In this case, there could not possibly be any confirmation bias involved.

Just yankin' your chain.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

No problem, I believe the anecdote. I believe that your neighbor carefully kept track of exactly when Golly asked to be let out. And I believe that he was always there when you drove up. In this case, there could not possibly be any confirmation bias involved.

~~ Paul

The point is, she didn't need to - she let Golly out, then heard us arrive shortly afterwords. I am sure she had not heard of Rupert Sheldrake (possibly he was still doing orthodox biochemical research at the time!). We observed that he was already in the garden as we pulled up. By chance this set of circumstances reduced the likelihood of alternative explanations.

Lots of science works like this. People presumably noted bits of paper sticking to combs - it might have been grease or whatever - so someone did more careful experiments

What do you think of Paqart's observations?

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by David

The point is, she didn't need to - she let Golly out, then heard us arrive shortly afterwords.

Yes, that's the story. How often did she let him out when you didn't drive up? How often did you actually drive up awhile later, but she compressed the time in her memory?

What do you think of Paqart's observations?

Sounds like Porgy was quite the cat.

~~ Paul

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Yes, that's the story. How often did she let him out when you didn't drive up? How often did you actually drive up awhile later, but she compressed the time in her memory?

~~ Paul

Fair questions, but the point is that she was not one to come up with fanciful ideas, and to the best of my knowledge she had no interest in new age ideas, etc - fairly down to earth type.

David

[paqart]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Fair questions, but the point is that she was not one to come up with fanciful ideas, and to the best of my knowledge she had no interest in new age ideas, etc - fairly down to earth type.

David

It is tough to appreciate this kind of thing until it happens to you. This is why it is going to make sense to Paul or other skeptics that these questions about things you may have overlooked seem reasonable. You know it didn't happen, because you were there. I trust you on it because I've had the same kind of thing, and much more spectacular things as well, happen right in front of my eyes, I wish sometimes that a direct person-to-person experience transfer could take place, to wash away these kinds of suspicions, but we're left with imperfect means of communication and can only do our best.

Paul, I've avoided mentioning my experiences in any detail, partly because I just finished writing a book about them and don't feel like rewriting them here, and the book isn't out yet so I can't send people there either. What I would like to do, on the chance it is useful to you, is to briefly describe a series of events, from the perspective of someone who had a hard time with the few psi events related to me that he became a part of. Then, I'll drop in a link to a fuller account on my website. It is pertinent because you are asking exactly the same questions he did, and it may prove interesting to you to see how that sequence of events played out.

To save time, this is going to be bulleted, so please forgive the lack of style:

1. First dream
   1987: I have a dream that I will meet an old friend from another life soon, that he had lived in Alaska
2. Woodbourne
   Two weeks later: On the last day of a stay at an ashram, I run into a physicist named Richard, who lived in Alaska for a couple of years (I found this out later). He plays chess, and invites me to a game when I get back to New York. To our surprise, we live only a couple blocks away from each other.
3. Geller
   1988 (or so) After a disappointing demonstration at the home of a Cable TV show host named Diana Gazes, a woman who claimed to be able to replicate the results of Uri Geller, I discussed the evening with Richard. I told him how disappointing it was. He responded that he'd studied Geller in person when he was a graduate student in Ohio and that they found no evidence that Geller could do what he claimed, but they were able to figure out ways he might have tricked them. As he said this, he had just pulled his key out of his pocket, preparatory to opening a door. Neither one of us were paying attention to his key when I responded that "just because Gazes and Geller" didn't do it, doesn't mean it can't be done!" Then, he dropped his keys in astonishment. The key to his door was bent at such a severe angle, the door couldn't be opened.
4. Suicide
   Before the key incident (but concluding afterward) I hadn't yet developed a strong interest in psi. Just a few weeks after Woodbourne, Richard wanted to bring his girlfriend over for dinner with me and my girlfriend. After the doorbell rang, I went to the door. When I touched the doorknob, I knew that the girl on the other side would commit suicide. Later that night, after they'd gone, I told my wife of this premonition. I did not mention it to Richard's girlfriend or Richard. She killed herself by jumping out of their 16th floor apartment about a year later, shortly after Richard started working on a grant related to the CERN project in Switzerland. I knew nothing about her when I had the premonition, and it is the only premonition of that type I've ever had.
5. OOBE 1
   I dreamed I saw Richard at his lab in Japan (he worked at several labs around the world, but principally Japan, Geneva, Chicago, and Davis). He was doing something to small objects that reminded me of scrabble tiles, because they all had block lettering on them, single letters. He would pick them up, do something to it, then toss it in a box.
   
   I called him to see if he was doing anything like that on the previous day, and he was. He was cutting up circuit boards, labeling them with block letters, "A", "B", etc, then tossing them in a box.
6. OOBE 2
   I saw Richard in a dream, with a young Japanese woman, taking a large but not heavy object out of a small space and bring it into a building I assumed to be his office. He was going to show it to the woman and some others. The object was black and white, mostly white, reminded me of the silhouette of the Manhattan skyline for some reason, was the width of a car, about a foot wide, and half a foot tall. I made a drawing of the lab I saw and called Richard with a description.
   
   He said it didn't match, but a month later sent a letter telling me that someone else in his lab saw my fax, noticed a similarity to the layout there, and then he remembered an incident where a secretary (Japanese) helped him bring an electronic keyboard (the pattern of black and white keys always makes me think of postcard skyline silhouettes) into the office to show some of the people there.
7. TWINS
   While talking with a neighbor about setting up a racquetball game, I realized that I couldn't have been with Richard as his wife gave birth, just an hour earlier and 3,000 miles away. It was so real that it registered as a memory of something I'd been physically present for, not a dream. Deciding it must have been a dream, I sent an email to Richard to congratulate him.
   
   He sent me another one back pretty soon, telling me that his twins were born that morning, six weeks ahead of schedule, and that my email was the first thing he saw when he got back from the hospital, just before he was about to start making calls to send out the news.

Out of the lot, my impression was that Richard was most impressed with the last, though I have far more interesting and dramatic examples in my collection. The reason it appealed to him, I think, is that it played out in real time and he knew what the variables were. Even though it was a small event, the old questions that would come up with other incidents, the kind of questions I see cropping up here, did not apply and he knew it for a fact.

For a fuller description, see the "for skeptics/Randi" section of my dream pages:Twins (dreams)

You may want to read some of the other items there, to have a better idea what kind of incidents I have alluded to in various posts here.

The point I'm trying to make is this: regardless of how complex, dramatic, simple, or pedestrian, one of these psi events may be, when it happens to you, you will know that these questions of cold-reading, selective memory, improper double-blinds, etc, are not a factor. Until it happens to you, it will be difficult to believe, because the events themselves can be so bizarre or alien to your own experience. And I haven't even come close to describing some of the stranger incidents in my files, so far, this is all run-of-the-mill stuff.

As far as Porgy goes, my good buddy who died by lethal injection after a bout of feline leukemia, I have had many dreams of the spirits of various animals, one of which claimed to have been born as a dog who would come to live with a certain family for the express purpose of betraying his owner at a crucial time. I have a hard time knowing what to make of these, because one can't easily talk to an animal to verify a dream like that, but I've had a lot of others verified, and two of the animal dreams (Porgy complaining of being killed) and then another, also related to a death, did have verifiable elements. It makes one wonder about the rest.

And that is what my original post is about. Not whether a cat can demonstrate some level of ESP, or a dog, or any other animal, but what kinds of invisible levels of communication might we discover if we looked. The dog who said he wanted to betray his master was a real troublemaker that got his master into a lot of trouble. I knew that already, but what if the dream was right? It is an interesting idea, and a potentially valuable insight.

AP

[P_Synthesis]

Have to say Paqart, I really admire your putting it all out there like that.