Brenda Burger has devised a method that enables her customers to swim with the dolphins in the middle of the desert.

Owner and operator of the La Quinta Healing Arts spa for more than seven years, Burger recently added a new method of relaxation called Virtual Dolphin Therapy.

Situated in one of the three rooms in Burger's business in La Quinta, dolphin therapy entails lying on a specially designed, water-filled sound wave table with a flat screen television overhead that projects film footage of a pod of dolphins synchronized with music.

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Photos By Dan Elliott

Brenda Burger came up with the dolphin therapy idea while swimming in the Bahamas with a pod of dolphins.

The table was designed by Don Estes, a Santa Monica certified medical technologist, laboratory director and neuroscientist.

"He was giving a lecture in Palm Springs and he showed us some of his inventions, including the sound wave table," Burger said. "He gave me a therapy on the sound wave table; the vibrations come through the table, and I was blown away by the experience."

Burger and Estes partnered to incorporate the table into the new form of dolphin therapy. Burger came up with the dolphin therapy idea while swimming in the Bahamas with a pod of dolphins.

Burger wanted to find a way to duplicate the experience for those who were unable to experience it in person, but she did not know how to do it until she met Estes.

"Ten days after meeting Estes I had this epiphany," Burger said. "I remembered the dolphins and I remembered Don's table and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to just watch a pod of dolphins swimming around and enjoy their graceful beauty?'"

"The presence of dolphins just rocks you to a gentle place in your mind, it helps you relax," she said.

In its present stage, the experience veers more toward relaxation than the sensation of swimming with dolphins, but it does allow the user an opportunity to reach a tranquil state.

"Some people get a massage and I don't think they're getting anything out of it," Burger said. "They're not enjoying it, they're not relaxing."

"The brain has a lot of things to think about. It's very difficult to turn the brain off," she added. "You have to give the mind something to do. The traditional method is to have a mantra or focus on a mental image; why not look at a pod of dolphins?"

Burger plans to expand the therapy to allow for greater selection of imagery and accompanying music, including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Machu Picchu ruins of Peru.

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Brenda Burger of the La Quinta Healing Art Center in La Quinta demonstrates Dolphin Therapy.

Burger is franchising the virtual dolphin therapy in its present and future states for $25,000.

A former commercial real estate agent, Burger has spent the last 11 years in massage therapy, including working full time at a resort and spa for 3-½ years before she opened La Quinta Healing Arts.

While the virtual dolphin therapy has only been available for only a few months, the business offers more than 15 forms of massages and relaxation therapy.

Burger said her clients vary from those looking for alternative means of relaxation and stress reduction to those experiencing various degrees of pain; particularly the La Quinta golfing community.

"Golf is a sport that is not, I would say, entirely natural for the body," Burger said. "There's a lot of shoulder and lower back pain and a lot of times it's people who are retired and probably 60 years and up."

A lot of her clients come specially recommended from local doctors and chiropractors as well as overflow from the La Quinta Resort and Spa.

Burger has noticed a a drop in the numbr of customers, which she attributes to the struggling economy.

"We have noticed a difference; we have to market our business in a way to support people within the economy," Burger said. "Therapy is disposable income; this is the first thing people are going to not do."

"But people with pain, they still will come in," she said.

La Quinta Healing Arts employs nine therapists in the winter tourist season and four to five out of season.

Don Estes is founder and director of InnerSense Inc. and inventor of VibraSound Sensory Resonance technologies.