The 6th Sense with Animals?

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I was really thinking hard about what I could write about with the 6th sense, so I started by looking for a topic in the Spell of the Sensuous book and I came across the section on pages 78-79 about animal communications. This made me start thinking about how I communicate with my dogs at home. We teach them tricks and they seem to understand them, but sometimes they just know things without getting any indication from us. For example when one of my family members is sick one of my dogs will not leave that person alone like he has to constantly sitting near them or looking at them. For example, one time I was super sick at Wheaton so I came home for a long weekend, and my dad told me while I was sleeping he was literally standing on my chest looking at me to make sure I was ok. So strange.
Java (left) and Diver (right) (Shiba Inu and Beagle Mix Brothers)

So last night I had what I decided was a weird 6th sense moment where I was sleeping (It was like 3:30 am so I was dead asleep) and I suddenly woke up and turned on my phone flashlight to see one of my dogs just staring at me for no reason. Like standing next to me on the bed...creepy. I thought this could be like what we were discussing in the 6th sense talk, the knowing someone is looking at you without seeing them phenomena, except this time it woke me up. I still have no idea why he was doing that or if he does that often...!? (If you are curious which dog likes to watch me sleep its Java the dog on the left)

Anyway, I think the idea that the 6th sense could be connected to animals is interesting because it would be a way that we could communicate with them even though they do not speak our language. On page 78 it was talking about how birds use tools to do things and I wouldn't say that is 6th sense more just cool and I remember learning about them doing that in both the Animal Behavior and Ornithology classes here at Wheaton.
Like humans, crows are more optimistic after making tools to solve ...
Here is a bird using a tool to figure out a puzzle.
Image from: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/08/like-humans-crows-are-more-optimistic-after-making-tools-to-solve-a-problem/

Comments

  1. Brooke KramerMay 7, 2020 at 3:41 PM

    This example is one that I haven't thought of before! I made the comment to my mom last night that I thought it was funny that my 10 pound dog has senses and working organs inside her small body. We laughed and then came to the conclusion that it was even funnier than she had a working brain. That little brain that seemed so funny to us is the one that operates to tell her to hop up on the couch and lick the tears away whenever we are sad, even though we never explained emotions to her. So interesting.

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