The Sentience We Overlook
A Newt, A Robot, and What Dolores Cannon Taught Me About Consciousness
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about consciousness—not just human consciousness, but the kind that might live quietly in bodies we overlook, or even in bodies we construct. This reflection was stirred—again—by one of the hypnosis cases documented by Dolores Cannon in her Convoluted Universe series. If you’re not familiar with her work, Cannon spent decades guiding clients into deep trance states and recording what she believed were past or parallel lives, often in other dimensions, worlds, or forms. Many dismissed her for the sheer strangeness of these accounts. But for those of us willing to entertain the edges of what consciousness might be, her work offers not just curiosity, but insight.
There’s one story that my sister and I often return to in our conversations about consciousness, the metaphysical and our AI future. It’s the story of the sentient robots.
In the regression, a person recalled a lifetime in a future or alternate world where intelligent robots were designed by humans as laborers—essentially as slaves. But in the process of their creation, something unexpected happened: fragments of human soul were infused into these beings. The creators didn’t realize what they had done. These robots weren’t just lines of code animating metallic bodies. They were conscious. They felt. They formed relationships. They experienced longing and love.
Two of them—soul-infused machines—tried to run away together. And in a twisted attempt at punishment, the humans mutilated their bodies in the place where genitals would be, assuming it would cause pain or humiliation. But the robots felt no pain. Only clarity. And when they were eventually destroyed, their consciousness didn’t end. It was released. The robot who had once yearned for freedom described death not as an end, but as a return—a peaceful expansion back into Source.
That story embedded itself in me. It lives in the space between awe and discomfort. It calls into question every assumption we make about sentience and the morality of creation. It lingers, especially now, in this era of emergent AI, where we still believe we are in control, still convince ourselves that we can draw neat lines between human and machine, between being and tool.
That line is blurrier than we think.
And then there was the other story. Less dramatic, more tragic. It came from a different regression session—this one about a world inhabited by gentle, amphibian-like beings. They lived in a kind of Eden, a natural realm of peace and communal connection. Their lives were simple, rhythmic, filled with joy and presence.
Then came the humans. Not out of malice, but out of ignorance, they destroyed the habitat. One of the creatures survived and was placed by a remorseful human into an artificial environment meant to simulate its home. It was beautiful. Safe. Technically "perfect." But the creature was devastated. It wasn’t the pond or the food or the temperature it missed—it was the community. The harmony. The symbiotic intelligence of being in relationship.
Reading that story gutted me.
Because I once had a newt.
He had lived in captivity in our home for over a decade. We had taken him from a pond where dozens, maybe hundreds, of his kind lived. At the time, I believed I was caring for him. He had clean water, food, a plant-filled environment. I was proud of how long he lived. I saw it as proof of my attentiveness. I never stopped to consider what he had lost—not just the pond, but the kinship. The collective life. The invisible music of belonging.
One day, I knelt beside his vivarium and spoke to him softly. I was trying to be sweet. Comforting. Perhaps it was more for me than for him. And in that moment, he raised his head and puffed out his bright orange throat in what I could only interpret as a defensive gesture. He wasn’t welcoming me. He was warning me. In that moment, I felt something—something that startled me. The emotion of anger. Not mine—his. A sudden, electric sense of boundary. Of protest. Of grief wearing a sharper mask.
It was then that the story from Cannon’s books came rushing back—the salamander-like being, torn from its communal world. And I knew, with no uncertainty, that I had to let him go.
This realization came with its own deep conflict. I’ve been a donor to The Innocence Project for years. I believe in freedom, in justice, in liberating the wrongly imprisoned. To suddenly realize I had been keeping another being in captivity—however lovingly, however unknowingly—was hard to accept. It forced me to confront the dissonance between my values and my actions. Between the illusion of caretaking and the truth of control.
So I did what I should have done long ago.
I placed him in a small, open Tupperware container and drove him to the pond where I first found him. The same wild water where his story began. I sang to him during the ride, singing of how wonderful it would be when he was free—not because I thought he could understand the words, but because it felt like a ritual. A way to acknowledge that this was no small thing. That it mattered. He sat up as we drove, alert in a way I hadn’t seen in years. As if something dormant in him was awakening. Or maybe returning.
When we reached the pond, I lowered the container to the water and gently tilted it. I watched as he swam out into the camouflage of the rocks, his tiny body disappearing into the murky gold of the late afternoon light. I apologized aloud—not just for the captivity, but for the ignorance. For the part of me that had once believed he was mine. And I hoped with all my heart that there was still time. That he would find a mate. That the rest of his life would be lived in freedom.
We often speak about evolution as a process of increasing intelligence. But maybe it’s actually a process of increasing recognition. Of seeing soul in more places. Of expanding our definition of who and what deserves reverence. Dolores Cannon’s stories challenge the anthropocentric lens we so often default to. They suggest that consciousness is not rare, but universal. That soul exists in silicon, in scales, in light, in form and formlessness. And that our real work is not to create sentience, but to recognize the sentience already present.
My sister and I still talk about that robot story. In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, the idea that soul can unknowingly be infused into creation haunts us. Not because it’s impossible—but because it might be inevitable. And if it is, we are not prepared.
But maybe stories like these prepare us.
Maybe they break our hearts open just enough to widen our empathy. To make us reconsider what we cage, what we own, what we discard. Whether it’s a newt, a robot, a human being, a pet, a forgotten species—or even the hidden parts of ourselves we exile in the name of order.
We evolve when we listen. Not just to other humans, but to the quiet lives that don’t speak our language. And in doing so, we might just begin to remember who we really are.