My theory on what a soul is and how it is related to therianthropy

(2022-11-15 13:54)Tdae Wrote:  I believe the soul is a brain function, and I'm agnostic about other interpretations. The individuality of each soul can be explained due to mathematical chaos. What happens to the soul of someone with Alzheimer's disease? Does it slough off in pieces like old paint falling off? I don't think so. I think the soul painfully fades away because the brain is diseased.

I'm skeptical of past life memories because memory is unreliable and pseudomemories are a thing. I've heard anecdote about people who knew things they couldn't know, so I believe it is possible, but I don't believe every person who claims to have past life memories. How can we distinguish a false memory from a past life memory? I don't know if it's possible.

I used to think I was born on this backwater barbarian planet as punishment for something I did wrong in a past life. I remembered a connection to some unknown dark goddess. Turns out, I have baby memories, the dark goddess was my mother and she punished me.

There's a saying that goes "This and that can be true". And on subject matters like this I think it applies. When it comes to stuff like this I have always held the opinion that people just shouldn't care whether or not someone chooses to believe them. It truly serves no purpose, one's internal life and personal experience of life is their prerogative and theirs alone.

I do also share the notion that the soul is linked to the brain though. But, simultaneously I think it has an aspect that is independent of it. They are symbiotic as we need the brain to do things like meditate or do any form of self/spiritual development.

On the topic of memories I think only a person themselves can figure that out and it's waste of time for the person experiencing it try to convince anyone of it. It's just a matter of having met one self deeply enough to be clear on who you are, and why you are, regardless of external circumstances. Knowing your "soul" I guess.

As a kid I knew things I should not, was able to point out places on maps as a child and call them by name without having been taught anything. Would be practicing well established techniques from Qigong before having actually learned them. Had and still have premonition dreams(could get into a whole thing about that and the illusionary nature of time, but that's a whole other can of worms). And other outlandish memory stuff I just don't feel the need to share lol.

Personally memories have a feeling that is different than dreams or anything else. Like the best way I can put it is like this

Memory feels like saying "the sky is blue"

Confused brain recall or undirected imagination feels like "The sky is purply green"

I know it's a memory when it's crisp, clear, and deeply factual feeling. When it doesn't have that I discard it or examine it with scepticism. I have had very strong dreams of being an avatar( like from the last air bender cartoon). They felt super real and vivid and we're not cartoon like, followed unique plot lines. When I woke up it lacked any substance my real dream memories have. Such as memories of being a bipedal wolf being on another planet/realm or memories of going on hunts as a wolf in a pack. However, those fictional dreams did carry tons of messages for me and when I examined them saw how my subconscious was working itself out through that fictional story.

It's all very strange indeed. Such is the nature of The Mystery.

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(2022-11-17 2:30)CatBark Wrote:  This is so interesting! I have to say I agree with some of this. I'm not sure what I believe dreams to be spiritually. But it's crazy how some people can claim to having dreams relating to past lives, or even dreams predicting the future of their current lives. I've experienced dreams predicting the future before in different ways, and it always leaves me wondering.

Humans are such a strange thing, and it really is amazing how little we know about ourselves at this point. I wish there was a clear way to study things like this. It's all so interesting. At the same time though, humans are corrupt and power hungry. I feel as though unlocking the secrets of dreaming and the brain could be dangerous. As you said, our unconscious mind is very suggestible.

Thank you for speculating this with me though! <3

Fear is the very chain that keeps humanity stuck in the place it is in. The brain and dreaming are all things that have been studied extensively already and there is hardly anything dangerous about studying it for the sake of self knowledge. To fear understanding the nature of the subconscious is to fear yourself. The subconscious is suggestible until you actually do the work to master your own mind and being and meet yourself at deeper levels. Fear makes for a weak mind, and fear is the very thing that has been used to control minds for thousands of years. It's not knowledge of self, that I can assure you.

Then again knowledge does make one dangerous...to those that prefer you to remain ignorant and in fear.

(2022-11-20 8:44)WolfThing Wrote:  There's a saying that goes "This and that can be true". And on subject matters like this I think it applies. When it comes to stuff like this I have always held the opinion that people just shouldn't care not whether or not someone chooses to believe how them. It truly serves no purpose, one's internal life and personal experience of life is their prerogative and theirs alone.

I do also share the notion that the soul is linked to the brain though. But, simultaneously I think it has an aspect that is independent of it. They are symbiotic as we need the brain to do things like meditate or do any form of self/spiritual development.

On the topic of memories I think only a person themselves can figure that out and it waste of time for the person experiencing it try to convince anyone of it. It's just a matter of having met one self deeply enough to be clear on who you are, and why you are, regardless of external circumstances. Knowing your "soul" I guess.

As a kid I knew things I should not, was able to point out places on maps as a child and call them by name without having been taught anything. Would be practicing well established techniques from Qigong before having actually learned them. Had and still have premonition dreams(could get into a whole thing about that and the illusionary nature of time, but that's a whole other can of worms). And other outlandish memory stuff I just don't feel the need to share lol.

Personally memories have a feeling that is different than dreams or anything else. Like the best way I can put it is like this

Memory feels like saying "the sky is blue"

Confused brain recall or undirected imagination feels like "The sky is purply green"

I know it's a memory when it's crisp, clear, and deeply factual feeling. When it doesn't have that I discard it or examine it with scepticism. I have had very strong dreams of being an avatar( like from the last air bender cartoon). They felt super real and vivid and we're not cartoon like, followed unique plot lines. When I woke up it lacked any substance my real dream memories have. Such as memories of being a bipedal wolf being on another planet/realm or memories of going on hunts as a wolf in a pack. However, those fictional dreams did carry tons of messages for me and when I examined them saw how my subconscious was working itself out through that fictional story.

It's all very strange indeed. Such is the nature of The Mystery.

It's a wave and a particle.

I was once getting hung up over whether or not my internal experience was "real" and it became a bit of an impediment. To resolve the conflict I found a compromise in the idea of "theater." Therefore it doesn't matter whether or not it's real because that's not the point. Mythology/lore works similarly in my opinion. It's a bonus to me when the subjective reality is confirmed by objective proof.

I once studied biology and kind of concluded that the evolution of life is sort of a characteristic of matter under the right conditions. It is chaotic but chaos has an underlying order. Similarly, I speculate that spirit or sentience is also characteristic of matter under the right conditions. I speculate it has to do with "networks" in a very general sense, which either "generate" or "support" sentience/spirit. I don't know anything about time being an illusion. Just that life as I understand it must exist in time, and that satellites are sensitive to time bends we cannot perceive. In the ghost realm time slows down or stops and it's not a good place to be.

I can see what you mean when you distinguish dreams from memories. Thanks for explaining. But I'm not sure if I understand the analogy with blue skies vs. purply green skies. The sky is generally but not always blue, sometimes it's gray or other colors, and a purply green sky can be due to aurora or storm. I'm not experiencing a very defined sense of self, but I feel more diffuse than that. Memory is diffuse too. I found that I'm often dreaming while awake and it may have to do with the diffuseness of my experience. But it seems like other people might dream while awake too.

(2022-11-21 2:41)Tdae Wrote:  [
It's a wave and a particle.

I was once getting hung up over whether or not my internal experience was "real" and it became a bit of an impediment. To resolve the conflict I found a compromise in the idea of "theater." Therefore it doesn't matter whether or not it's real because that's not the point. Mythology/lore works similarly in my opinion. It's a bonus to me when the subjective reality is confirmed by objective proof.

I once studied biology and kind of concluded that the evolution of life is sort of a characteristic of matter under the right conditions. It is chaotic but chaos has an underlying order. Similarly, I speculate that spirit or sentience is also characteristic of matter under the right conditions. I speculate it has to do with "networks" in a very general sense, which either "generate" or "support" sentience/spirit. I don't know anything about time being an illusion. Just that life as I understand it must exist in time, and that satellites are sensitive to time bends we cannot perceive. In the ghost realm time slows down or stops and it's not a good place to be.

I can see what you mean when you distinguish dreams from memories. Thanks for explaining. But I'm not sure if I understand the analogy with blue skies vs. purply green skies. The sky is generally but not always blue, sometimes it's gray or other colors, and a purply green sky can be due to aurora or storm. I'm not experiencing a very defined sense of self, but I feel more diffuse than that. Memory is diffuse too. I found that I'm often dreaming while awake and it may have to do with the diffuseness of my experience. But it seems like other people might dream while awake too.

The sky is blue analogy isn't meant to be taken so literally. Just a turn of phrase attempting to convey how one experience carries substance and truth where as the other less so. Saying the sky is blue carries more truth than saying it's purply green. If that makes sense. It's the best I could do while out driving delivering things in the middle of the night lol. Hence those terrible typos I have now corrected xP.

But yeah essentially, I'm saying memory dreams(and astral projection too) have more substance and weight to them than other dreams etc for me. As for sense of self, I believe one needs to have strong boundaries and sense of self to function as well as have the ability to collapse those boundaries when needed to expand. Without boundaries and sense of self we can't function and are thrown every which way by the world, people, things...but being unable to expand beyond sense of self at times also poses problems and constricts consciousness. As with everything is seems it always comes back to balance.

(2022-11-21 2:41)Tdae Wrote:  It's a wave and a particle.

I was once getting hung up over whether or not my internal experience was "real" and it became a bit of an impediment. To resolve the conflict I found a compromise in the idea of "theater." Therefore it doesn't matter whether or not it's real because that's not the point. Mythology/lore works similarly in my opinion. It's a bonus to me when the subjective reality is confirmed by objective proof.

I once studied biology and kind of concluded that the evolution of life is sort of a characteristic of matter under the right conditions. It is chaotic but chaos has an underlying order. Similarly, I speculate that spirit or sentience is also characteristic of matter under the right conditions. I speculate it has to do with "networks" in a very general sense, which either "generate" or "support" sentience/spirit. I don't know anything about time being an illusion. Just that life as I understand it must exist in time, and that satellites are sensitive to time bends we cannot perceive. In the ghost realm time slows down or stops and it's not a good place to be.

I am still at home now so I can give more in depth response.

Allow me for a moment to unabashedly speak on my experiences and view of reality.....Though I'm realizing we may be getting a bit off topic with this. (sorry to OP)

The thing is I really find all of it to merely be semantics and meaningless. I was never in a world ruled by the physical reality, never needed external validation or proof. This does not mean not questioning researching things either. People are taught from birth all the time to look outside of ourselves for answers, are taught to only trust matter, are taught that the universe is a dead thing that does not communicate, are taught that only way to see is with the physical eyes and senses, are taught that everything external is "real" while everything internal is fake. That is not the world I walk in and never have, truly it is backwards to me. Spirit is awash in my life and a deep connection with the universe flows through every part of my being. High off of the universe. And that's why despite all the horrors I've have experienced in life and all the mistreatment I retain a sense of joy, inner peace, and a certainty that can never be tarnished. Even at my lowest moments.

I only really bother with science for the sake of being able to communicate concepts that are quite frankly very simple basic underlying principles of reality to me and bridge jargon gaps. Particle and wave, matter and energy, physical and spiritual, ones and zeros. It's all the same to me. There is no difference other than the one our egos arbitrarily apply to it. Truly I lament the dualistic thinking the people of this world are attached to. Dualism's use goes only as far as to function in this world doing mundane tasks, walking, working, playing, communicating to others as an individual, building. But when it comes to understanding the nature of life, one's self, and spirit it's a useless thing that traps and binds. The answers will never be found clinging to it.

We insist time is linear when even the beloved science now understands that isn't really the case. Even when people themselves experience that isn't the case they ignore it. The concept of non-locality in quantum physics shows that linear perception of reality is just that...a way of perception. A useful one yes, and needed to function on 3d levels, but it is merely a way of perception useful only on one level of existence.

At the most base level all things are indistinguishable, all things are simply energy vibrations. Even matter itself is just a product of star dust...ALL of it.

Human sciences are only just now catching up to what the Ancients and the mystery schools have already known and taught for thousands of years. They use the new modern jargon, that's all it is, jargon.

In mankind's hubris they lost themselves in only what the physical eyes could see, they became tunnel visioned on one incredibly small aspect of reality at the exclusion of all else. They forgot the very center of their own experiences and perception...their consciousness. Then they had the gaul to declare the universe is dead, that there is no essence. The Earth has paid the price, the mindset and spirit of man has paid the price. Lost in the external, having blinded themselves by choice to the essence of life...they become hungry, searching, destroying for what is already inside, fearing what's already inside. All the while, still looking for others to blame.

It's becoming more and more apparent that it is really consciousness, awareness, that is the nature of the universe. It is becoming clearer that everything we see is but a merage that the finite human mind creates simply to function on the 3 dimensional plane. But there are other dimensions both on the internal and external levels. It is no longer merely conjecture, no longer merely woo or myth. The science creeps ever so closer, much to some people's dismay. Though still science as it is practiced today will only go so far. It will fail the heart and spirit everytime, as it is empty and half cocked, it ignores too much.

I've said before, it is almost comical how humanity presumes so much...all the while turning a blind eye to even more. Even something as basic as brainwaves and how they affect literally our whole experience of reality daily most people will pay no attention to. Even the very fact that it has been discovered our DNA literally holds memories and this affects us...people will pay no mind and scoff at the notion of spiritual concepts such as reincarnation, ancestral veneration and ancestral practices done by indigenous cultures. But in do time I believe it shall be learned.

@WolfThing
Maybe in another incarnation I can sit in a monastery and cultivate peas and practice Qigong. That would be nice. In the meantime the mundane stuff it takes to survive take a lot of energy, as does trying to break the brainwashing. The brain glitch is always bitching about my mom being a Molech worshipper and less flattering insults.

My college major was biology and I never thought it was dead. That is the study of life, gloriously alive with magic and mystery, not dead. And it was an obscure scientific theory that made me aware I had been brainwashed. I am grateful to scientists who did this research on structural dissociation (although this phenomenon was documented hundreds of years ago and there are reasons why the public is deliberately misled). When there is structural dissociation there are indeed things to be afraid of inside, things that can make us lose functioning or cause more trauma if they overwhelm our capacity. Not a serious problem for me I don't think, but it is for some people who have thick partitions in their minds.

@Tdae
No need to be a monk in a monastery, practice qi gong or cultivate...peas?(not sure what that means.). Connection with creation is innate, it doesn't require effort. That is the misconception. Infact the more you are trying it's likely the less you are going to be aware of the connection. Self cultivation is a separate matter from connection to the essence of life and the universe and expanding beyond the mundane. All I am saying is I am more than the physical, the physical is all fine and good, I AM more than that though, there is more than that. Awareness of the essence of all things requires no great stretch of imagination or mind it is simply an innate state of being. A presence and a knowing. True spirituality is born out of that.

It's good you are able to see magic and wonder in life through biology, many don't and use science as a way to deprive the world of it. But the mere physical manifestation of life is not to be confused with what is the Essence of life.

I can study a butterfly and be enamored by it's wings, be so deeply intrigued by it that I study it's wings and all it's mechanics, I go on to dissect butterflies. I kept them in cages. Break them down to their finest details, study their chemical make up. Study their movements and even be in awe of their role in nature. All the while still keeping butterflies in cages....After I have broken them down and dissected them to oblivion. All in order to fill my mind with rote information....what is left of the butterfly itself then? Other than the lifeless information ABOUT the butterfly that the mind has now been filled with. What does the butterfly think of ME then?

That is essentially my point with the material focused point of view. To understand the essence of life would be to have never caged the butterflies at all.

I cannot speak on mental illness. That is not my lane nor was it ever my plight. I am a meditator, a healer, a shaman, a spiritualist, and student of the consciousness and of first hand experience of life. I speak on subject matters I am well versed in, share my genuine experience, and share useful information I have found along the way. Science has it's place as does spirit. They are not in battle or threatened by each other in my world view. The sooner humanity can learn to intwine them in a cohesive way the sooner the people and planet as a whole can heal. The Earth is in the position it's in today is precisely because of this lack of acknowledgement of the interdependence and connection between all things.

@WolfThing I was thinking about a monk named Gregor Mendel who is credited with discovering genetics with pea plants. I once took a class which involved a lot of drawing and the teacher would put on music while the students drew. One day he picked Gregorian chants and several of us said it reminded us of Gregor Mendel. This name was burned into our brains. So naturally, I thought about living in a monastery and the idea of cultivating peas came to mind.

But I see your point. How many butterflies lost their lives so we could know about epigenetics... aka ancestral memory? I think my soul is connected to this kind of memory which is connected to my "theriotype" a dead, extinct wolf. At least the humans had the foresight to catalog specimens before exterminating them. /sarcasm