Mind is perception, memory, response.

"What's on for tonight, oh master of the cosmic giggle?" Terry asks from the bed. Debby curls up beside him. Walter, Janice and Freddy snuggle on the planking of the tree house floor. It is chilly and they have a blanket over the three of them. I am sitting at the roughhewn dinner table with a kerosene lamp glowing at my elbow and notes for the night's mind game induction in front of me.

"Well, We've been expanding our awareness for two months and it's almost time to leave the Solomons. I figure we've had enough foreplay. We've had some really interesting experiences.

Like the time Fruity Bat (Janice's tame fruit bat) pissed on Janice while we were at the bottom of a deep pit in the Earth standing in the center of a magic circle inscribed with occult symbols." This brings laughter from everyone but Janice.

"And we've suffered various forms of nocturnal insects flying into our ears and sudden sounds in the night." I pause and we listen to the night sounds of the rainforest and the soft whisper of the lagoon. This is all part of the induction.

"Tonight we quit all this bullshit and get on with the business of contacting the group mind of the dolphins. According to Dr. Walter, here, the dolphins were seen around Ulawa this past week. So, tonight, the game plan is to leave our bodies here, fly our well trained and capable group mind over to Ulawa, contact the mind of the dolphins and ask them to come to the lagoon in the morning. OK?"

"It's too bad we don't have one of those occasional people with a special, natural telepathic talent with dolphins," Walter muses from under the blanket on the floor.

"Maybe we could locate one and lure him here," Terry offers from the bed as he cuddles the beautiful Debby.

"No, it would be too much to find one who would not only be a dolphin adept but also free to - or interested in - lollygagging off to a remote Pacific island to do mental experiments at night in a tree house." comments Walter. "Ok, let's do it."

I turn down the kerosene lantern and allow a moment for us to group together by listening to the sounds of the forest and lagoon. Sibilant cries of bats, insects, frogs, and the soft distant thunder of surf from the windward side of the island wash through us all. The deeper we listen, the more levels of sound enter our group awareness, bringing our thoughts into harmony. I begin the induction with a standard relaxation and, since the sounds of the jungle are conveniently close to us, I lead us all on a mental walk through a dense tropical rainforest. Only to find....

"Out of the trees rises a giant stone pyramid with aged, moss-covered rock suggesting thousands upon thousands of years. It is an ancient and forgotten temple still reflecting the intelligence which built it. You see an opening in the rocks, with symbols around the portal. As you look at these you begin to understand the symbols are magical script whose meaning lies somewhere deep within you and you drift deeper and deeper within your inner mind in search of the meaning of the symbols, drifting towards a faint glowing understanding, and as you move deeper the symbols on the ancient temple become clearer and younger and glow with depth, and they call you forward inside the pyramid, gliding deeper and deeper until time itself drops away as you pass deeper into these ancient rooms of inner knowledge.

"You allow yourself to drift, carried along by a spiritual wind, you hear the sound of my voice and focus your awareness on each and every word. You become aware, even as you hear my words, of the massive life energies of the forest around you and now of the lagoon. Your senses reach out to feel the endless life of the Sea. Vast shoals of life radiate outward in all directions.

"In a few moments I will stop speaking and you will leave your focus within the pyramid of life and move outward, drifting out through the trees. You will fly to the northeast, to the island of Ulawa. There you will find the mind of the dolphins and join with them. You will ask the dolphin minds to play with us and later you will invite them to come to Malaupaina and visit with us. Each and every moment you will be at the height of your awareness and sensitivity so everything will be bright and clear, beautiful and filled with life. When you have invited the dolphins to our lagoon, you will return here, easily and naturally. When you awaken, you will remember everything vividly and clearly."

There is more, a lengthening and deepening of the hypnotic trance state, but by now, I am also in a state of deep hypnosis and the voice which speaks to us is not mine but some other voice made of our group consciousness. A voice coming through us from something beyond us...

The echo of a popping sound awakes me into the shimmering night in the forest. I feel vividly alive and aware. I float against the ceiling looking down on my body. It is folded forward onto the table. Head down, turned to the side so I can see the profile of my face. My eyes are closed and I appear to be in a deep sleep. I sense the others already moving away into the night. Weightless, I drift slowly towards the screen and twist myself, as if I were swimming, to the proper orientation - lying prone, hands out ahead of me, face forward.

The mosquito screen offers a faint resistance, its individual little square openings netted off by the cool fiberglass threads. These sieve through me and I am free, flying out into the night.

Leaves of Banyan tree brush dark life through my fingertips.

Green movement

exhilarating flashes of the tree's ancient being tingle inside of me

as I pass through a branch and burst out over the lagoon.

OH! The beauty of the open lagoon and star swept night fills me like the breath of life itself. Moonlight glitters on lagoon wavelets and I drift past Moira enthralled with the glory all around me.

In a euphoria of joy I gain speed and elevation, soaring towards the moon glint on palm fronds on the far side of the lagoon.

Rise upwards!

I lift, tinglepulse-climb higher as trees rush towards me. I lift, and fly above the palms. Moonlight leaps from windtossed fronds and my spirit sings with power and strength.

Soar higher! Sea curves below, quick-silver glittering in the moonlight. See everywhere all at once! The three sisters, ancient dark shadows alive upon the sea, green within green, shimmering with allure. On Sea's midnight blue expanse Ulawa mounds to the Northeast.

Faster! Faster! Drunk, crazy drunk with joy. Out! Away! Ulawa slides by to the North. Moonlight staggerflashes from southeast swells. Beats into my being with increasing power. Ulawa....North....

Sea streaks past below. I rocket southeast. Should go to Ulawa. Can't stop or turn seized pulled immense power has GOT ME! Sea expands, diamond studded flickerflashing, IMPACT.

Weightless in profound blackness. Fear shark swims in the emptiness, a predator, hungry for my mind. I fumble for control. Sense location: 10 miles southeast of Malaupaina. Orientation: Facing southeast. Sea Floor far below vast and smooth. Shoals of zooplankton rise slowly upward on nocturnal drives like living, flat clouds. Sea is an enormous cavern all around. A silver sky domes far above. I am deep under Sea.

There! Ahead. Approaching. A pod of seven cachalot whales. They perceive me. I see them clearly, vividly, every detail of their massive texture. I sense their movement. I sense and become their shared awareness. I see phosphorescence bloom on the brow of the majestic male who leads them. He sees me! They pulse, a mighty thought/perception blossoms through me. He orients his sonarvoice towards me. I am awash in a booming, throbbing, vision so clear and sharp I can see right INSIDE them ALL!

I awake sitting bolt upright in the tree house. Sweat pours from my face. I tremble all over. Control activates and I am not afraid, yet my body shows all the signs of fear and shock. The hypnotic dream was so real. "Because it did not go as you planned?" an inner voice asks, clear as a bell. I laugh back at it. Smartass. Yet this is true. The plan, the hypnotic induction and all the instructions were to go to Ulawa and contact the mind of dolphins. Nobody mentioned cachalots, the mighty sperm whales. Never, not once during the entire project has anyone said a word about whales.

Why? Why did I go southeast instead of northeast? Why the feeling of being....captured, controlled, PULLED far to the southeast to face seven huge cachalot whales? I did not even attempt to communicate with them. The cold sweat freezes and I feel an icy certainty I had not the slightest chance of communicating anything at all to them. THEY were communicating with ME. But, what did they communicate? I don't recall anything other than the vision and the thrumming which amplified the vision. I don't remember the message if there was one. Some hypnotist. I even disobeyed the command to remember everything.

I look at the others. They are quietly lying there. Asleep? In a trance state talking to dolphins at Ulawa? I listen to the Island for awhile and feel inside. There is an odd emptiness in me. As if...As if I have finished something. "An after-sex downer," I say silently to myself. I stretch my arms and massage the back of my neck. That was an odd thing to think. After sex... After sex... I sit very still. Feeling there is some sort of message. But it is like a fertilization. A planted seed of thought. Something that grows following the coming together.

Presently, after what seems to be a long time, the others begin to stir. Janice wakes up glowing with pleasure. "Oh it was simply great," she laughs. "I had a fantastic time flying and soaring around in the moonlight watching dolphins from high in the night sky over Ulawa."

Walter's voice emerges from the blanket. "I think I just went to sleep. I forget what happened."

Freddy and Debby had a nice dream about visiting the dolphins but neither thought to ask the dolphins anything. They thought someone else would attend to business while they just played.

"I didn't ask either," Janice pouts.

Terry is ecstatic. "Hey, you can't imagine. Really terrific! I actually became a dolphin spirit. I didn't want to appear to them as me, so I took on the form of a dolphin. A spirit dolphin. They were aware of me, but not afraid. I think they accepted me as some kind of magic being. Oh man, it was super! I was there, really and truly over there in Ulawa."

Terry had such a good time being a dolphin spirit, leaping into the air, swimming at high speed, and seeing with his super sonar he also forgot to ask the dolphins to come to Malaupaina.

So, not too surprisingly, no dolphins show up in the lagoon the next morning. No cachalot whales, either. We have other things to do, getting ready to leave. I feel no desire at all to try to contact the dolphins again. Somehow, deep down, when I stop to think about it, I feel the experiment was not really a failure.

Where do we go from here? Maybe my air trial is just starting.

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