Evolution of a Group Mind

I’m commenting on the first Wolf Park video submitted wherein a moose head is brought from the cache TO THE CENTER as Energy wants to move!
Any two heart cells when placed in a conductive medium synchronize with each others beat.

The first thing to do is turn off the sound and learn to see the group as one system, rather than as one individual relating to another individual and working out a linear, conceptual system of relationships. We’re looking at a group mind, and the object of such a system is to align and synchronize the components so energy can move, in particular, the deepest energy held in the emotional battery, (DIS), which in its latent form is internal potential energy that is drawn to external forms of potential energy via the principle of emotional conductivity. In other words, each wolf is attracted to another wolf with a force of emotional appetite that can’t be consummated through simple physical contact or companionship. Secondly, ENERGY CAN ONLY MOVE AS A WAVE so if the group can coalesce as a wave function, each the equal/opposite of the others as if cardinal points on a compass face, then their deepest energies can move. This process doesn’t happen by a process of learning per se but by a process of evolution.
The first step is to define the circle’s midpoint around which their individual energies can be deflected, thus we see one wolf drag the moose head into the center as an indirect means of satisfying its attraction to the others. The moose head is an indirect manner by which they can connect with each other and get around the fundamental conundrum of their makeup, i.e. a hunger beyond the means of singular attainment. They then begin to urinate on the prey object indicating that their simple predator/prey attraction to each other is evolving into the sexual range as this is how electrical attraction becomes a magnetic one (hunger over balance). The urine is essential to emotional synchronization since it is the external manifestation of each others preyful essence and can be ingested by the others no doubt inducing hormonal shifts within each other. The softer wolf (active/indirect, the one most easily interrupted out of its energy and hence the easiest to deflect) is trying to rub its shoulder blade, and hence make contact with its heart, with the moose head and this action is an overt physical form of synchronization, an indirect means of touching its heart to the hearts of the others. (Note that the forequarters when stiffened, are the point of resistance to making contact, whereas a softened shoulder area means the individual is able to “flip polarity” for example by flipping over and rolling on the ground). Only the heart can process DIS via a feeling and resolve unresolved emotion and so the softer wolf is initializing this higher level of elaboration, and were it to roll on the ground it would be presenting a very powerful preyful visual image to the others, and this would release a lot of their energies. But things aren’t quite rightly synchronized yet so the softer wolf which is the one most prone to act prey like (otherwise known as submissive) is also the one most easily interrupted and so it doesn’t complete the act. Nonetheless it’s disposition to do so indicates a shift in the group and you can see the wolf trying to make indirect physical contact with the bush and the boulder, and “running in place” other wise known as scraping after it urinates. These actions are indirect ways of making contact with the others, it’s reliving the physical memory of hearty contact, but its balance issue is too strong for it to be able to let go yet. Nevertheless, its body tone and language is softening and becoming an obvious wave form.
When Denali vibes Grizzer, Grizzer’s valve to DIS opens (tail rise) and then expresses his deflected attraction to Denali by sexually expressing himself on an alternative midpoint (otherwise known as scent marking). Meanwhile Denali comes up from behind to smell the south pole and his tail (equal/opposite to stiffness of Grizzer) is soft and fluxing because he is connecting his front end to his rear end through the preyful essence he’s ingesting from Grizzer. But he can’t make direct contact with Grizzer and so as his energy rises he deflects over toward Maya and mounts her as indirect expression of attraction toward Grizzer (whose static energy is keeping the energy from flowing in the group) and then Maya expresses the tension between Grizzer and Denali, that was passed onto her when she was mounted, onto Aiden by rushing him onto the stoop. What’s happened is that Denali has taken the charge off of Grizzer, put it on Maya, who then put it on Aiden. The charge is moving toward the path of least resistance and all this group movement is having an obvious sensualizing effect on Grizzer and which is lifting the yoke on the others. Maya and Denali even get into some active prey-making in front of Grizzer but it doesn’t knock him off balance because he’s feeling more supple. And note also that after the dust settles, Aiden feels even more attracted to the group because all his squealing really reveals not that he is in pain but that the deepest layers of his battery are being brought to the surface and so his stuck energy is being put into play as well and he’s feeling freer to follow the pull of attraction. (Also note that his high pitched squealing, which is the physical memory of an earlier emotional shock and probably some degree of pain, inhibits the others because he is acting predator like, a real prey animal dies in silence and in that state can’t control the predator because it isn’t acting like a predator)
In one sequence, Aiden by wanting to roll on scent, is feeling connected and so he’s able to reference his heart and begins to move more energy by expressing himself sexually, (leg lifting) and running-in-place (scraping) which is expressing a dynamic form of energy in the presence of the others. Since there is no such thing as a dominance hierarchy, (although one can certainly understand why it would be theorized as such as indeed there is a discrete physics to what’s going on and so far dominance is the only model that approximates the phenomenon) the omega expressing energy is not contradictory in terms of an energy model.
Over the course of the video there is an increasing frequency of interactions, i.e. the beat is quickening, and with the mounting energy they begin to bring more pressure on each other in direct face-to-face encounters which thereby trigger deeper reserves in the battery that is then expressed via sexual deflection (leg lifting) onto a midpoint, the scent object, so that the energy can continue to move. Sexuality is how the prey/predator static electric differentiation can evolve into the free flowing group dynamic (sociability, i.e. the fully formed circle with N,S,E,W differentiation). The running in place (ground scratching) gets more vigorous, one wolf returns to the carcass with more energy, their orbits around the midpoint grow larger. Inhibited forms of prey-making comes out (play) and then more active forms of prey-making on each other begin to come out with the softer wolf the safest object of attraction as when one rushes it onto the stoop. This reflects the growing amount of unresolved emotion coming out into the stream of attraction and what keeps it constrained from actual violence is that their energies have been deflected onto a midpoint, notice that as they push into each other and snarl, they nevertheless manifest a somewhat deflected gaze, not a totally focused one which means that they are referencing their little-brain over their Big-Brain. Also when Denali snarls and it comes out in a somewhat coherent metered bark, this means that Grizzer doesn’t have to respond because Denali is expressing fear without holding it back. The energy is moving and so Grizzer is able to deflect from head-to-head fixation which would overload the circuit between them. And if they were in an open natural setting I believe the interactions would continue to evolve into more animated expressions until thus excited and synchronized, they would be off on a hunt so that the moose (potential energy) can bring their collectivized batteries (potential energy)to total consummation. Finally as the energy in the exhibit group escalates, the infectiousness of energy moving then spreads to the adjoining pen of retired wolves and they become stirred up as well.
The wolf that was responsible for initializing the group mind was the one that dragged the moose head into the center of the group, and the wolf that was the most responsible for synchronizing the group into one mind was the softer one. Equal opposites defining the North and the South so that East and West could come into existence, if they were in a situation when there was an object of resistance available (moose) to fully absorb their combined energies.

Want to Learn More about Natural Dog Training?

Join the exclusive and interactive group that will allow you to ask questions and take part in discussions with the founder of the Natural Dog Training method, Kevin Behan.

Join over 65 Natural Dog trainers and owners, discussing hundreds of dog training topics with photos and videos!

We will cover such topics as natural puppy rearing, and how to properly develop your dog's drive and use it to create an emotional bond and achieve obedience as a result.

Create Your Account Today!

Published October 16, 2010 by Kevin Behan
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

16 responses to “Evolution of a Group Mind”

  1. Christine says:

    Ahhhh…that feels better‼♥ This is so good for my heart. 🙂 BTW, I shared the link for this article on their FB page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/International-Wolf-Center/91243924799) along with an invitation to them, and Dave Mech as well, to take a look at it and make a comment. I sincerely hope they do!☺ Who knows what minds it might open.♥
    PS-I’d like to apologize for all the ineffective posts…can’t figure out why I can’t get those videos to show up! 🙁

  2. Christine says:

    And might I add Beautiful as well?‼♥ 🙂

  3. christine randolph says:

    so just by moving around each other and performing relatively vigorous tasks in a seemingly disorganized sequence such as mounting, scratching, playing, chasing, yelping, pushing the moose head etc. the group mind is invoked ? obviously in this instance the group mind has not achieved anything tangible as it would in a hunt.

    but I assume these behaviours always congeal the animals into a group each time they stir each other up and start the “dance” ? obviously our pet dogs do not hunt for real either so they seem to have similar ways to invoke a group mind around food or around the owner etc. anything of interest, without real life prey being present.

    so since this seems like a useful and bonding thing to do, how can a pet dog owner best foster this, invoke this and participate in this ?

  4. kbehan says:

    (BTW the “alpha” one has the most “moose energy”) Pushing, pulling, barking, biting, flipping, carrying, hunting in the infinite iterations that a dog is capable of entertaining, is a good way to participate in the group mind that evolves around the handler as the ground and center of the circle. Be the moose your dog always wanted you to be!

  5. Heather says:

    It is interesting that a prey animal dies in silence. I imagine it as the same shift of emotional energy to its heart that a wolf in a group experiences.

    Wolves must sometimes go off on their own (e.g., to die or to establish new territory) and this would be unknown to the other wolves. I wonder if the group members adjust well to the changes.

    I hosted a dog playdate today. Happy and his Brittany buddy were so excited to see each other, they started playing before they even made contact, the Brittany grabbing the nearest stick and Happy bouncing after her. I just had to smile; that is how life should be!

  6. christine randolph says:

    animals playing is the best. So when behaviourists say that they cannot explain why adult animals play, the answer is, to work on the group mind !

  7. Heather says:

    Definitely. I loved that description too!

    It sounds important to get the steps to establishing the group mind technically correct for us dog owners (maybe a reference set of group mind commandments would help). I was thinking specifically about what other barriers to the movement of energy had to be removed in the exhibit group before they could fully align around the circle’s midpoint/center. Trying to translate that into alternative midpoints I could use.

    I like watching without sound. I find that it quiets my own mind, which is essential to experiencing the moment without thoughts, seeing what is there but also feeling it and processing the experience as a whole – like the synchronization the wolves have achieved. I also slowed down play of the video (by pausing it, especially at the beginning) until I could keep up with the wolves’ full tempo.

  8. kbehan says:

    Right, emotion is energy and its principles of conductivity are the operating system of the group mind. When dogs play, they are triggering each others unresolved emotion and by synchronizing with each other, they are putting stress (potential energy) into motion. Eventually, enough intensity is achieved through the wave action they mutually create so that they can do work together against a source of resistance (potential energy) that can absorb, conduct and resolve their collective energies. It’s an incredibly simple principle that explains complex social behavior.

  9. kbehan says:

    The first thing to understand is that every action is a function of ATTRACTION. Next, canines are attracted to each other with a force that can’t be consummated by physical contact, this in other words is the best definition of SEXUALITY, hunger for the form of things. Sexuality is not about procreation fundamentally which is why mainstream science which is gene-centric can’t come up with a coherent definition for it. It’s a means by which emotion as information can be transferred not only from individual to individual, but even across species lines. Note that wolves only enjoy success against those (large) prey that aren’t in sexual prime. Sexuality turns resistance to prey-making into an intensified HUNGER, in other words it turns STRESS back into DESIRE. This is critical because in this form, intense behaviors (DRIVE) can be easily deflected which is what prompts the wolves in the video to gravitate to the moose head as a MIDPOINT for their collective energies. And this is vital because it means that canines aren’t limited by a simple on/off response as in a Fixed Action Pattern but rather can hold onto a feeling of attraction when the intensity of a situation would overwhelm the EMOTIONAL CAPACITY of other species. This is the one and only reason why dogs can fit in man’s world whereas other species cannot, even though there are many which are “smarter,” use tools, can be taught sign language, are more submissive, etc., etc.. The dog is the most oral/hungry/sexual animal on earth and one doesn’t need an academic expert to verify this premise. It may look like the sun may revolve around the earth, (thought/gene-centricity) but the best interpretation of the evidence does not support this consensus. Try playing tug-of-war with an ape, he will probably kill you. Cats don’t chase Frisbees, or hang on to bite-toys while being swung off the ground. Activities that dogs construe as fun and do not need any training whatsoever to perform. It’s mystifying to me why something so simple and yet infinitely complex is not obvious to any fair minded observer. Critics ask where is the science in these theories, to wit I can only say it’s under our noses if only we’d open our eyes and stop reading thoughts into what we observe. There is no fact supporting dominance or reproductive advantage, there is only interpretation of evidence. Consensus of interpretation is not science, only a model that can account for all phenomenon is scientific because it is the most logical interpretation of the evidence. Some may think science is filling in the blanks in regards to the phenomenon of emotion/personality/sexuality/play/sociability etc, etc., and yet the exact opposite is happening as the more it reads mental states of fairness, dominance, submission, optimism v. pessimism into behavior, it then ends up contradicting itself elsewhere (for thirty years behaviorism has been saying that dogs don’t experience guilt). Science is even retreating from the notion of dominance and is now talking in vague terms about a family dynamic to account for social structure. It’s now saying dogs aren’t related to wolves which is quite odd for a gene-centric model given a 98% gene correlation between dogs and wolves. Also, if dogs are capable of a TOM, then why is it when an owner gets mad at one dog, the other dog doesn’t gloat, like a young (and spoiled) child might do once he recognizes he now has the advantage over the child being scolded, but the dog instead internalizes the stress just as if it is also being scolded? Why is it when you call one dog, they all come? The reason the science is all over the map on absolutely every one of these matters is because it doesn’t have a model. My premise is that the only explanation that fully encompasses all the evidence and all the phenomena of consciousness is that emotion is the operating system of a group intelligence, so that if an individual goes by feel it will behave according to a group mind rather than as a self-contained ego and intelligence, i.e. a “personhood.”
    This why we see in the video that what’s really going on is the all important step to SYNCHRONIZE each others expression of energy so that each one’s efforts AMPLIFY the effort of the others. And when the FREQUENCY of the collective waveform is strong enough, then DIS comes up to the surface and the group is now configured and able to take on an OBJECT OF GREAT RESISTANCE. There are many dog owners out there whose dogs take off after they get them energized to a certain level in play. They throw the ball a couple of times and then the dog zooms off and runs away. This is because the owner triggered the dogs’ battery and the physical memory of being corrected came up and so the wave form between dog and owner (i.e. EMOTIONAL BOND) wasn’t strong enough to contain it the energy summoned by the ball playing and so the dog HAD to find an object of resistance to which it could feel bonded. Therefore if one’s dog will play with them no-matter-what, (which means understanding what DRIVE is) then the owner can have control no-matter-what. It’s that simple. Keep On Pushing!

  10. Christine says:

    This is a great conversation. I’m getting good flow and understanding from the comments and questions.
    I’m with Heather in that watching w/o sound helps quiet all the confusion and focus on the moment. Earlier videos didn’t have the commentaries so looking at some of those videos could be even more helpful as you can hear the wolves vocalizations.

  11. christine randolph says:

    haha ! dogs not related to wolves, yep it is getting more and more bizarre out there in the “world of dog science”… thankfully, we have already changed that since dogs and wolves are as we speak mating and producing offspring, so there, even to the most staunchest supporter of the “non related” theory, this would have to be a very obvious fact.

    about explaining behaviour. we cannot and will not satisfactorily explain/predict behaviour of animals or humans unless we make a GIANT LEAP in science…we can find ways to improve behaviour or explain behaviour in hindsight but what we really need is to be able to PREDICT behaviour with sufficient accuracy to prevent certain traumatic incidents such as mass killings at schools and universities, terrorist attacks, pet dogs biting people or other dogs or animals etc.

  12. kbehan says:

    Here’s what we can predict, whatever is stuck in the emotional battery will come out in hyper-explosive/implosive form. This happens at every level of organization from within the individual to the highest orders of civilization. For example denied rage (due to fear of aggression) in the collective-consciousness of society (a very big emotional battery) is why kids bring machine guns to school to massacre their peers. When I was a kid, kids had hero fantasies. Now increasingly they hold villain (explosion) or suicidal (implosion) fantasies.

  13. Heather says:

    So primeates are not good companions because they think too much about competition and winning, while dogs are playing the game for the sheer fun of it (and the unbreakable emotional bond with their owner).

    So, you have a dog that will play with you no matter what…what is the best game to play and when?

    The east-west coordinates sort of complicates things for me (now I know why my legal clients complain about legalese) but that understanding will sort out I’m sure.

  14. kbehan says:

    The push/pull-of-war game is great because the dog gets to flip polarity with full intensity and is experiencing the complete sequence of the prey drive, then you can work heel, sit, down, stay, recall into the formula and now obedience is what hunting a moose feels like. The more complex the behaviors as a construct of Drive, the more energy it can conduct and the more resolving is the activity. As for the East/West, watch two dogs about to play in that moment when they are staring at each other (electrostatic pressure build-up), then one minimizes its head (predatory aspect) and maximizes its butt (preyful aspect) and so the electrical current is flowing in that dog and it is becoming the opposite to the other and so we have the North/South magnetic polarities defined, then the dog at the South Polarity that is doing the bowing does a quick shuffle side to side and this is the East/West axis being defined which opens the valve in the other dog so that it is no longer holding on to its sense of self and feels a magnetic pull to the other that has occupied the preyful or south polarity. The hunt is on.

  15. Heather says:

    I was at a fair over the summer, and it occurred to me that one way people can experience the sequence that takes place gradually over the course of becomming the moose to your dog (from being off balance to the smooth wave function) is by going on certain rides. EG, going into a funhouse will knock you off balance, which you can ground into hunger circuitry if you can get onto a ride that takes you in a smooth overhead circle (that one looks scary but it’s not, the centrifugal force keeps you grounded in your seat) then fianally you can go on a ferris wheel, which creates a smooth wave function. Doing this with someone else would be fun, too. The ride that I’ve never gone on but would like to is the one that uses an electromagnetic induction motor to launch people at 120 mph up and over a 400 ft hill at an angle that is beyond vertical.

  16. Heather says:

    Christine, I bet you are often prescient. But I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that kids today will either explode or implode–optimistically, they achieve a sense of resonance with their surroundings. Although if there ever was an appropriate context for guilt, it would be leaving them to figure this out on their own. Anyway, I figure if I can become the moose I always wanted to be with my dog, anything is possible.

Leave a Reply

Books about Natural Dog Training by Kevin Behan

In Your Dog Is Your Mirror, dog trainer Kevin Behan proposes a radical new model for understanding canine behavior: a dog’s behavior and emotion, indeed its very cognition, are driven by our emotion. The dog doesn’t respond to what the owner thinks, says, or does; it responds to what the owner feels. And in this way, dogs can actually put people back in touch with their own emotions. Behan demonstrates that dogs and humans are connected more profoundly than has ever been imagined — by heart — and that this approach to dog cognition can help us understand many of dogs’ most inscrutable behaviors. This groundbreaking, provocative book opens the door to a whole new understanding between species, and perhaps a whole new understanding of ourselves.
  Natural Dog Training is about how dogs see the world and what this means in regards to training. The first part of this book presents a new theory for the social behavior of canines, featuring the drive to hunt, not the pack instincts, as seminal to canine behavior. The second part reinterprets how dogs actually learn. The third section presents exercises and handling techniques to put this theory into practice with a puppy. The final section sets forth a training program with a special emphasis on coming when called.
%d bloggers like this: