Glad you have heard of those. Simply amazing. A lot of people haven't for some reason. I too have heard that about plants and experiments with different music like some were exposed to classical and others to heavy metal. The ones that listed to classical grew and flourished while the ones listening to heavy metal stagnated and some of them even died. Crazy stuff that main stream science is just beginning to understand.
I think I would panic too if someone wanted to burn me with a lighter haha. but yeah all beings have consciousness in them, whether we can detect that or not is a different story. I actually think that the earth itself is conscious. I have been looking more and more into that. Kind of like the movie Avatar if you have ever seen it.