Zoesthesia & Therianthropy

There is currently no word for "the experiences that give rise to therianthropy." The therian community has a million different terms for pieces of it - mental shifts, phantom shifts, sensory shifts, etc. I propose a new term. Hear me out:

Zoesthesia ("zo-esthesia", from the Greek "zōion" [life/animal] and "aisthesis" [perception]): "The subjective inner non-human animal experiences that give rise to therianthropy."

Therianthropy is an identity. Zoesthesia is the root of that identity, and can include all forms of shifts therians have previously described. Zoesthesia can be experienced from a young age and can occur before one's identity forms, before one knows the words for what they're experiencing. It is the "happening" behind the curtain - instinct. Consider:

1. It's neutral, even if it sounds like it implies a neurological bias.
2. It doesn't replace "therianthropy" as a term.
3. It sounds similar to synesthesia - the crossing of the senses in the brain, which is not seen as a disorder.
4. It's a spectrum, just like synesthesia - everyone's experiences are different.
5. Using "zoesthete" instead of "therian" is possible, though it does not imply any sort of identity, nor does it imply that one interprets these experiences as belonging to any specific non-human animal. This is primarily to describe "therianthropy underneath the hood." You could even say that therians are individuals who experience zoesthesia.
6. It is not exclusive. We could use it to account for spiritual experiences as well - past life memories, "auras," the whole nine yards. If you think about it, all of those things also occur in your brain. Literally everything does. Your brain is hallucinating its own version of reality right now, and everything "spiritual" that you believe is just based on something your brain experienced. And everything that appears to be "external" is a recreation of it by your neurons.

I suggest this because of the latest happenings within the global therian community. A lot of young people in China, for example, think that "therian" is a fandom they can join. Younger folks globally should know that becoming more aware of the happenings in their consciousness is the point - not joining a fandom or getting likes on TikTok.

I believe that the way we do that is by turning the focus beyond identity, toward the inner experiences that lead to that identity. Time and time again, I've heard non-therians say "You can't identify as an animal, that's just not possible." There are significantly more convincing ways to talk about the experiences we have. Zoesthesia has my vote.

A more general, similarly neutral version of this that would apply to all alterhumans would be "allosthesia," from the Greek "allos" (other) and "aisthesis."

What are your thoughts?

While I'm more often than not very quick to dismiss any new terms, my therianthropy is almost exclusively about nonhuman experiences and barely about identity... so I'm not so sure about outright dismissing it now.

I'm kinda torn here. On one hand, I think we should instead focus on clearing up misinformation surrounding the term we already have, therianthropy. But on the other hand, I feel like it's unfortunately tainted beyond recognition at a larger scale... though I don't think that's a term issue. If this new term actually does gain some traction I'm 100% positive that it will get mangled as well eventually.

On a personal level, I have been considering for some time to stop calling myself a therian because the current consensus on the definition is only partially true for me at this point and I was wondering what else I could possibly call myself. This would be it, however I don't know how much we as an entire community would really benefit from it given what I said in the previous paragraph.

As a concept that can be called upon in conversation, sure. But if the only reason for this new term is because people don't understand what a therian is, then I doubt it'll change anything. We can keep making up new terms and they can keep misunderstanding them and changing definitions, it would be a never-ending cycle of frustration and there is a limited number of relevant words we can put together to define ourselves.

Editing to add, I missed the "it doesn't replace "therianthropy" as a term" part, but I feel like my point still stands. The accepted definition of therianthropy already includes "a person who experiences being [...] a non-human animal" and people still managed to ignore that part.

(Today 1:15)Observer Wrote:  If this new term actually does gain some traction I'm 100% positive that it will get mangled as well eventually.

...

But if the only reason for this new term is because people don't understand what a therian is, then I doubt it'll change anything.

I actually think that this term could be used in scientific circles - something that researchers can use to refer to and study our experiences. Provided that researchers take this up, I think it could have a very positive impact.

(Today 1:15)Observer Wrote:  On a personal level, I have been considering for some time to stop calling myself a therian because the current consensus on the definition is only partially true for me at this point and I was wondering what else I could possibly call myself. This would be it, however I don't know how much we as an entire community would really benefit from it given what I said in the previous paragraph.

If it resonates with you, you're free to use it. It's just a mashup of words, like many of the words in the English language. If it does catch on, maybe the focus on inner experiences instead of identity will result in different kinds of conversations within the community.

Think of it this way. I've been part of the synesthesia community for a long time. In that community, discussions on experiences tend to be very formal or scientific. It's almost as if the structure of the word itself invites a certain type of conversation. Can you imagine what the public perception of that community might be like if it was officially called something that attracted hippies instead? Sure, there's talk of auras and other spiritual concepts at times (not that there's anything wrong with that!), but synesthesia is widely seen as a positive and verifiable phenomenon with empirical research to back it up. The same can be true of zoesthesia.

I'll be honest, the reason why this came up was because I've been writing a guide for the Chinese therian community for the last week - first in English, before I translate it into Chinese. Part way through, I began using TG's own guide as reference. As someone who's studied psychology and tries to be precise with my speech, I was rather disappointed with how TG describes types of therianthropy (contherians, suntherians, non-shifting therians, etc.). It feels much more intuitive to describe zoesthesia as a spectrum that can give rise to a therian identity. The APA did the same thing to the autism spectrum when they removed Asperger's from the DSM. Everyone hated it at the time - I did too, but now I understand why they did it.