Disclaimer: The following document fragment is presented from an in-character perspective, it should not be taken as the truth of the setting.
Context: For today’s postings, I’ve selected a number of lore texts that all share a common function: they answer questions asked to me by people on Discord, at one point or another. Next, we have the question of human relationship with entities gifted with lesser cognitive and magical abilities. To expand on this question, I’ve decided to make a throwback to an older text, which mentions the hypocritical treatment of dolphins by humans.
Have you ever considered our relationship with dolphins from the perspective of what you know about the eldritch truth?
Like the work of Emanuel Silveira on the nascent, rudimentary utilisation of pseudo-telepathy by some specimens observed in captivity?
That was the work that inspired me to conduct my own experiments, assuming that I could perhaps co-experience the dreams of a dolphin using the same techniques we use on humans. It wasn’t that simple, but after years of hard work, I’ve had some successes. I would like to share those experiences with you as much as possible. And I will go in-depth about my practices in a bit. To start, I would just like to share some thoughts with you to possibly gain your undivided interest until the end of this book.
Dolphins do dream, though, because their senses are different from our own, their dreams are also different. They are not dreams of images seen with the eyes but rather a superimposition of visual and auditory sensations, mixing together into something I can only describe as an image with depth painted by sound. Unsurprisingly, for sure, they experience both positive and negative dreams, fleeting reminiscions of the past and wholly fabricated scenarios, some impossibly so. Do you know how some people dream of falling? You might have those dreams from time to time yourself. Dolphins have similar dreams, but for them, it might be the strange experience of flying through the air, unable to touch the water underneath them. It can be an exhilarating sensation or a nightmare. Just like you fear hitting the ground at the end of your fall, they can experience stress and anxiety over the idea of being thrown onto land or so far into the sky that they can never find their way back. And, of course, they do dream about sinking too. Being drawn so deep into the waters that they find themselves in the places where the strange fish dwell, and the waters shine with small, ghostly light.
And perhaps you might wonder if they dream about us.
They do. And I have seen those dreams. In some of them, we are… strange but benign or even in need of help. But much more often, we are monstrous things, jailors that have taken them from their homes and keep them trapped in glass cells. And believe me, I do not exaggerate when I say that some of them see us as hideous, deformed things, unfit to live in the waters of their world. I don’t even think they are wrong. We must be so strange to them, and then there are our cities, our ships. I see those in their dreams and in their nightmares as well. Particularly there, they take the form of ominous, incomprehensible things and places.
But what I do often think about is that, perhaps, we should rethink our relationship with dolphins. Not just us as humanity, but more specifically, us as mages.
There is a worry that foments in my mind, are we not abductors and destroyers that intrude into their world? We have expressed so many concerns about our own domain being invaded by beings from elsewhere. But perhaps, we’ve already been that to another kindred soul.
Esoteric Musings... 