If you feel like you share a spiritual connection with your pet, you may be right—new research says animals are in fact likely to have spiritual experiences, per a prominent neurologist who has analyzed the processes of spiritual sensation for over 30 years. Spiritual experiences are thought to originate deep within primitive areas of the human brain—and those areas are shared by other animals with brain structures similar to humans.
As to what an animal subjectively experiences, we may never know, "since only humans are capable of language that can communicate the richness of spiritual experience,” says Kevin Nelson, neurology expert. "Despite this limitation, it is still reasonable to conclude that since the most primitive areas of our brain happen to be the spiritual, then we can expect that animals are also capable of spiritual experiences," added Nelson. Nelson’s now authored "The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain," a new book slated for publication in January 2011.
The finding is an extension of his research on humans, published in journals. A Neurology journal study determined that out-of-body experiences in humans are likely sparked through the brain's arousal system—a system which regulates different states of consciousness. "In humans, we know that if we disrupt the [brain] region where vision, sense of motion, orientation in the Earth's gravitational field, and knowing the position of our body all come together, then out-of-body experiences can be caused literally by the flip of a switch," he said. "There is absolutely no reason to believe it is any different for a dog, cat, or primate’s brain."
Nelson believes that other mammals also probably have near-death experiences, like humans report. People have reported seeing a light or feeling as if they were moving down a tunnel. That phenomenon "is caused by the eye's susceptibility to the low blood flow that occurs with fainting or cardiac arrest," he said. "As blood flow diminishes, vision fails peripherally first. There is no reason to believe that other animals are any different from us." Nelson believes that the light aspect of near-death experiences are explainable through how the visual system defines REM (rapid eye movement) consciousness. "In fact," says Nelson, "the link between REM and the physiological crises causing near-death experience are most strongly linked in animals, like cats and rats, which we can study in the laboratory."
Mystical experiences, or moments that inspire a sense of mystery and wonderment, arise within the limbic system. Researchers know that when specific parts of the limbic system are removed from animal brains, mind-altering drugs like LSD have no effect. Since other animals, such as non-human primates, horses, cats and dogs, also possess similar brain structures, it is possible that they too experience mystical moments, and may even have a sense of spiritual oneness, is Nelson’s theory.
Marc Bekoff, a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology, at the University of Colorado, Boulder, also believes animals have spiritual experiences, which he defines as experiences that are nonmaterial, intangible, introspective and comparable to what humans have.
Like Jane Goodall, Beckoff’s observed chimpanzees dancing with total abandon at waterfalls that emerge after heavy rains. Some of the animals even appear to enter into a trance-like state, similar to that of humans during religious or cultural rituals. Goodall wondered, "Is it not possible that these [chimp] performances are stimulated by feelings akin to wonder and awe? After a waterfall display the performer may sit on a rock, his eyes following the falling water. What is it, this water?"
"Perhaps numerous animals engage in these rituals, but we haven't been lucky enough to see them," Bekoff wrote in a Psychology Today report. "For now, let's keep the door open to the idea that animals can be spiritual beings and let's consider the evidence for such a claim," says the researcher. "Meager as it is, available evidence says, 'Yes, animals can have spiritual experiences,' and we need to conduct further research and engage in interdisciplinary discussions before we say that animals cannot and do not experience spirituality."