As treevoice said "what the bleep do we know" is a very good documentary if you want to dive deeper down into this. And also Dr. Emoto's water experiments, really interesting. But I definitely think you're on to something. And if you really want to take this further I would not suggest that you read "the secret". There's so many better resources out there. A very good book I recommend if you'd like to try and make small changes in your "reality" so to say is Maxwell Maltz "Psycho-Cybernetics", it's so good! And then there's a book called "The Field" by Lynne McTaggart which talks about how we and everything in the universe is connected through a sea of energy, there's lots of research and many experiments in it, I think you'd really like it.

As for animals being able to "read brainwaves" I think it's more that they can both smell us and feel our vibrations. They can sense from our smell if we're calm, scared or angry. I think they can also feel our energy. They're really so much smarter then us when you think about it.

Here's also a very good tedtalk that touches on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU