Dolphins are majestic mammals of the ocean. They have fascinating personalities and can live up to 90 years, making over 1,000 clicking sounds in under 1 second despite having no vocal cords.

These beautiful creatures are intelligent, agile, joyful, and playful animals that share many emotional similarities with humans. But what do dolphins symbolize?

Dolphins are often seen as saviors and protectors of life and harmony. They represent pureness and play, as well as honor and protection.

Known for their playful personalities, dolphins are all about having fun and doing what sparks joy. Due to this duality of dolphins (their playful side and their protective side), the dolphin represents us living our true purpose and reaching fulfillment.

At their core, dolphins symbolize help, guidance, messages, intelligence, fun, joyfulness, freedom, teamwork, transformation, and psychic abilities.

Dolphins are often considered good omens, especially to sailors. Plenty of sailor tales involve being saved by the beautiful sea creatures, protecting the sailors after being swept away at sea. If you encounter or even see a dolphin in person, it is a sign of good fortune coming your way in the near future.

According to Chinese folklore, a white dolphin is a positive omen. They symbolize following one's intuition and staying on the right path.

A black dolphin symbolizes transformation as well as new beginnings. These dolphins represent the cycle of life and death along with how we all go through both.

Blue dolphins are also known as good omens, symbolizing hope and a new life.

Dreaming of a dolphin in the water is a good omen. It means that your communication with people is excellent, and it is an encouraging sign to meet new people.

This dream signals harmony and balance. A dream about a pod of dolphins also symbolizes that a content life is ahead, as well as an omen meant for you to trust others.

A dream of riding this creature is one of the highest spiritual dreams of dolphins. It means that you wish to gain higher spiritual knowledge and bring your mind to its greatest ability.

Dreaming of feeding a dolphin symbolizes that you have gained great experiences you will find incredibly useful in the future. It signifies good luck, great news, and stupendous happiness.

Dreaming of a talking dolphin encourages you to take on more values and fight for your passions. Dreaming of a talking dolphin suggests you should get involved with global awareness and strengthen your worldly knowledge.

Dreaming of dolphins chasing you indicates that you are closed off to life and need to be more open. If a dolphin is chasing you, you need to start taking chances in life and live to your full potential.

There are two popular interpretations of a dream about killing a dolphin. The first is that your relationship will be happy and harmonious. The other is that you will undergo a very bitter fight with a friend, family member or loved one.

Dreaming of a flying dolphin symbolizes youth and happiness. It is a child's dream at best since dolphins cannot fly, signaling that your inner child wants to come out and play. So, it would be wise of you to let it.

This dream is a good sign. Swimming with dolphins in a dream symbolizes harmony and excitement, and that your days are happy due to your natural optimism.

Spirit animals are guides who help us stay on the right path in life, also teaching us lessons as we go on. Similarly, though very different, totem animals are guides, but they only assist us when we invoke them during difficult times.

While you cannot choose your spirit animal, you'll know if you have a dolphin as a spirit animal if you resonate with them in some way or have had a profound experience with one in the past.

Those with a dolphin spirit animal are known to be incredibly playful, happy, intelligent, and carefree. They are often seen surrounded by people because they are well-liked and their positive energy is contagious. They are light-hearted but have a strong sense of intuition.

People who have a dolphin as a spirit animal also have a protective side to them. They go to bat for their loved ones in a heartbeat and defend their friends and family. They are drawn to bodies of water and usually try to work on themselves to become better in any way they can.

A dolphin spirit animal needs to learn that it's okay to want to venture out on its own and doesn't always need to be connected to a place or people. Though dolphins swim in pods, they also value freedom and have an adventurous spirit.

A dolphin totem is called upon when you need guidance in a decision or require help in a difficult position. The dolphin totem should give you wisdom and clarity and spiritually guide you in the right direction.

Some believe there are dolphin frequencies that connect Earth with Jupiter's moon, Io. Allegedly aliens travel back and forth between Io and Earth through underwater portals - taking dolphin form on Earth. They use their energies and harmonics to balance the planet.

My friend Paul lived in Hawaii for 30+ years, studying healing and doing energy work alone or with others. Most days he swims with the dolphins, who he says speak to him by sounds or telepathically. It means Paul's brain connects to their frequencies and his brain interprets the messages.

Paul reports that in recent years messages have changed, intuitively telling him that great change is about to happen not only where he lives, but everywhere on the planet, as witnessed by the increase in natural disasters and climate change.

Other friends who work and swim with dolphins, also pick up messages of great cataclysmic changes that are coming.

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is a type of therapy that involves animals as a form of treatment. The goal of AAT is to improve a patient's social, emotional, or cognitive functioning. Advocates state that animals can be useful for educational and motivational effectiveness for participants. A therapist who brings along a pet may be viewed as being less threatening, increasing the rapport between patient and therapist Animals used in therapy include domesticated pets, farm animals and marine mammals (such as dolphins). While the research literature presents the relationship between humans and companion animals as generally favorable, methodological concerns about the poor quality of the data have led to calls for improved experimental studies.

Dolphin assisted therapy (DAT) is an alternative medicine/therapy option for people who do not respond or are not keen on traditional medicines/therapies and it is a controversial therapy. John Lilly, who studied dolphin-human interaction, first considered this idea that interactions with dolphins can have rewarding benefits on humans in the 1960s. David Nathanson, who was a clinical psychologist, came up with much of the existing research on this therapy today. Nathanson's theory was that children with disabilities would increase their attention to related stimuli in the environment in hopes they would get to interact with the dolphins, helping motivate the child to do the task at hand and to give the appropriate responses according to that child's therapy program lessons

Dolphins often show a fondness for young children. Sometimes when a child enters a pool dolphins, they are immediately surrounded by attentive females. Working with dolphins has had positive results with autistic children and others with 'special needs'. The research continues. Dolphin assisted therapy's agenda focusing on children with autism, Down syndrome, and Cerebral Palsy with rehabilitation in motor function, speech, and language, and attention span.

Dolphins combat child deafness   BBC - August 3, 2000
An innovative treatment for deafness in children involving dolphins. One by one, the children remove their hearing aids and wait for a dose of musical medicine. At the command, dolphins Raddy and Grand burst into song. It might not sound the most relaxing melody - but to the deaf children it is, quite literally, music to their ears. Suddenly, these children can hear sounds and noises that usually they are unable to detect.

Dolphins appear in a number of Greek myths, invariably as helpers of humankind.

A dolphin rescued the poet Arion from drowning and carried him safe to land, at Cape Taenarum, now Cape Matapan, a promontory forming the southernmost point of the Peloponnesus. There was a temple to Poseidon and a statue of Arion riding the dolphin. (Herodotus I.23; Thucydides I.128, 133; Pausanias iii.25, 4)

The Greeks reimaged the Phoenician god Melqart as Melikertes (Melicertes) and made him the son of Athamas and Ino. He drowned but was transfigured as the marine deity Palaemon, while his mother became Leucothea. (cf Ino.) At Corinth, he was so closely connected with the cult of Poseidon that the Isthmian Games, originally instituted in Poseidon's honor, came to be looked upon as the funeral games of Melicertes.

Phalanthus was another legendary character brought safely to shore (in Italy) on the back of a dolphin, according to Pausanias. Many clay seals and old coins depict a man or boy riding a dolphin.

Dionysus was once captured by Etruscan pirates who mistook him for a wealthy prince they could ransom. After the ship set sail Dionysus invoked his divine powers, causing vines to overgrow the ship where the mast and sails had been. He turned the oars into serpents, so terrifying the sailors that they jumped overboard, but Dionysus took pity on them and transformed them into dolphins so that they would spend their lives providing help for those in need.

Dolphins were also the messengers and helpers of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea. Dolphins were sacred to both Aphrodite and Apollo.

In Hindu mythology the Ganges River Dolphin is associated with Ganga, the deity of the Ganges river. The dolphin is said to be among the creatures which heralded the goddess' descent from the heavens and her mount, the Makara, is sometimes depicted as a dolphin.

The Boto dolphins in the Amazon River are shapeshifters, or encantados, who are capable of having children with human women.