No. That only works in cheesy fantasy novels.

Maybe, non-verbal communication, but not telepathy.

Some do, like Wolf J. Lupus. Most, I imagine, do not, and I am included in that number. I think nonverbal communication (body language and the like) play a huge role, and that that can sometimes be mislabeled as a telepathic connection. But I don't know of any reason to think that brains can communicate between each other directly.

nope, it's just an understanding through body language, animal body language is well understood and well studied and anyone can learn how to read what they are telling you with their movements, it's not telepathy, seriously, telepathy isn't real.

No I don't believe that is possible. Rather than broadcasting brain waves, animals broadcast sound waves and use reflected light waves to communicate with me. This is true of all animals.... Except the mighty Sasquach, which can sense nearby humans in order to avoid them and can radiate a form of radiation that causes cameras to take grainy out of focus pictures.

No.

Sorry, I don't have much more to say. What you ask strikes me more as a good plot opener for children's cartoon than a realistic thought.

Telepathy like in stage magic? Certainly not. But especially herd animals seem to use a form of communication that could be misunderstood as telepathy. Just watch a whole herd of horses; when one horse shies away from a predator, almost every other horse starts running away immediately. This isn´t explainable by communication through sight, sound or smell. All those forms of communication use time to transfer signals, but the entire herd is running a second after the first horse panics.I assume this is some form of empathy. There is some sort of "herd consciousness", I´ve seen it in motion many times and still have no explanation why even the horse on the opposite end of the herd seems to know it´s time to run. I´ve seen the most impressive display of that in a herd of young colts, around 130 individuals. One shied away from a bicycle rider passing by the pasture and even the colt standing roughly 250 meters away on the opposite end of the pasture, with a wall of horses between him and the one panicing, immediately started to run. He wasn´t triggered by sight because he couldn´t see the other colt, not by smell because pheromones need a lot of time and the right environmental conditions (direction of the wind) to travel, and not by sound.

Another thing to consider about "telepathy" is that even humans describe similar experiences. Old couples seem to have tuned in to their partners , they can anticipate every emotion, every action without any visible means of communication. Of course you can explain this by their long time experience with each other, but this only partially explains it.

So, I would not call it telepathy as this clearly hints at stage magic and "cheesy fantasy novels". But you shouldn´t discard the concept behind effortless communication too easily. Before I became interested in riding, I was doing martial arts. Amongst other types like Jiu Jitsu, Aikido and Tae Kwon Do, I studied and practiced Ninjutsu for quite a long time. In Ninjutsu, you are taught all kinds of techniques for close combat with and without weapons. If you manage to reach a certain stage of knowledge, your sensei will start another form of training for you: While your training at the kyu (pupil) stage focuses on your body, the later stages of dan (master) focus on developing your mind and consciousness. Just search for "godan test" on youtube: it´s a test where your sensei will stand behind you, wielding a sword, mostly a bokken (wooden sword) or a shinai (the bamboo swords used in kendo), you kneel in front of him with your back turned towars him, eyes closed. The goal of this test is to avoid the strike from your master, he will try to hit you without any warning. If you have developed your awareness enough, you will avoid his strike by simply "feeling" the intention to strike. I can´t explain it better, just watch it yourselves on youtube. Telepathy? Certainly not. But a state of extremely heightened awareness looking almost like telepathy. I´ve done this test myself a few times and can only say that it´s possible for anybody to do this. But you need to train, you need to do certain exercises for a long time to be able to pull this off. There certainly are states of mind not yet researched enough by science. Don´t discard things too quickly because you can´t believe in them. Martial arts, tantra and psychedelic practices, to name but a few, all include transcendent states of mind deemed impossible and bogus to our science-focused society.Keep an open mind, folks, you never know what science will prove tomorrow... "A science advanced enough always will be perceived as magic by the non scientists."

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfpIwjtJL0I

There's no such thing. There is actually a big esoteric "animal communication" scene with all sorts of these claims but like with all psychics, they are scammers and frauds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_psychic

With BCIs the story is different. So far they are not sophisticated enough to enable communication, but in a couple of years - why not?

......no?

I'll be the odd one out who says yes, I sort off believe in it because I often use it myself. Not for zoo related stuff though, but more than often I know things about my own and other animals I shouldn't even be knowing. Like knowing exactly when something's up with my mate when I'm not home, or being able to recall stories of someone else's dog I never met and passed away years ago...

I will not claim things like telepathy exists since I have no clue how it works myself, but if someone wants to explain how I can describe in detail someone elses dog's story I never met and even predict how they're going to react in certain future situations, be my guest.

Well aren't you a zoophile, Ursusem? Do you think you can communicate telepathically with animals?

No, I don't believe in telepathy at all.

Ursusem have you yourself ever used telepathy to communicate with an animal? I myself have not. Edit: Then again I think it would awesome if we could.

Like most of the others here: no, at least not "telepathy" as the word is commonly used.

Sure, your brain is absurdly powerful, filtering in the order of 200Mb/s (choice quote "135mb/s for a severely over-exposed individual who happens to be on fire while taking a ride in a cement mixer") into the self-perception you have of being you. All of that raw data contains many experiences, most of which you are not conscious of most of the time: only by deliberately trying to expand my own consciousness to produce examples for this sentence, do I see the browns of a vase, listen to my neighbours' footsteps, see two coins on the desk, and notice I'm pinching one toe and both elbows.

If I learn to recognise more, even if it's Pavlovian learning with no conscious effort on my part, then I could very conceivably learn to communicate bi-directionally with a non-human.

That said, languages have a scale of complexities, so while it's probably possible to communicate "food" and "threat" to even a plant a single-celled microbe, any given mind will have a limit on what sort of communication is possible. I'd be extremely surprised if any non-human animal could help you with maths homework, for instance. Those limits may be two-directional, as a human minds are known to have difficulty intuiting full 6-degrees-of-freedom motion, and some creatures have senses that humans do not possess: bats and dolphins probably both think thoughts we cannot think, and dolphins might well have conversations about it.

Hahahaha

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Thanks for this post, imo things like this dont get discussed enough in the zoo community let alone in our society in general. I for one do absolutely believe in interspecies telepathy. I've experienced it many times in a row starting at age 12 with my first canine lover (who lived next door). I posted something about some of my experiences while back on another forum.

I believe telepathic communication is a very natural and integral part of every living creature on this planet, yet it's something that we 2-leggeds have forgotten over the millenia. I didn't initially believe specifically in that at the time this was happening though, and yet this fact was proven to me first-paw in a series of experiences with my first canine lover, Dillon. He was a gorgeous malamute-shepherd mix who lived next door to the house I grew up in and as time went on as wel lived next door to each other, our love for each other grew, which made having this kind of relationship harder and harder to bear because I was only able to see him when his "owner" was taking him out for a walk (this was before I had the guts to ask to take him for walks, and later, spend time with him on my own on a regular basis). By the time I was about 12, my love for him was in full-bloom (although we had not yet had any sexual contact with each other--it wasnt even a thought in my mind at the time, even though we were kissing and cuddling for hours on end whenever we had a chance to be alone together. That's when I began to notice an even deeper connection beginning to develop between us. He would "tell" me when he was getting ready to go for a walk so I could catch them on their way out to meet him before they disappeared.

I would be somewhere--wouldn't matter if it was in the house or several blocks away--and suddenly I would feel this surge of energy (like an intense mixture of exctiement, soul-deep longing and Love in the form of a inner "pull") through my body very much like the feelings I would have every single time I ever managed to catch Dillon coming out of his house for his daily or nightly walk (which, I should point out, was always at randome times so there was no way I consciously or subconsciouly could have timed meeting him!). Along with this surge came a vision in my mind of Dillon and my heart would beat furiously and hard as it felt as if he was "calling" me and telling me that he was outside.

I would drop whatever I was doing at tht moment and start running as fast as my legs could take me back to the house or out to the front yard, just having this strong feeling that I would be able to hold him in my arms again, or at least briefly "pet" him (which was always so much more than just a petting to me). Sure enough as soon as I got outside, I found him just coming out of his gate with his person RIGHT THEN to start their walk. And every time when he would turn to me and look at me with those big beautiful eyes of his, he would whine and whine while pulling hard on his leash to try and get over to me (and his person gave in). He would always have this big smile on his face and a look in his eyes that told me that he knew, and that he knew I knew. This happened EVERY single time I followed that "calling".

I know there's many people who would read this and not believe a word I'm saying or think I imagined it all. Fact is, this was more real than anything in my everyday life experience to date at the time. I've had other experiences since. I'm currently in the process of learning "interspecies communication" and have had some pretty awesome experiences, incl some very interesting sessions with some excellent professional communicators (which, in my experience is relatively difficult to find. Which seems to give the cynical ones all the fuel they need for their rants against it. Oh well. I suppose the old saying it true...for those who refuse to believe, no explanation will suffice.

Anyways, I'd love to chat with other zoos who are into animal communication (or even better, are professional ACs)! =)