I'm not a misanthropist as my default setting. As individuals and as a species we are all capable of compassion and cruelty. Like any social animal. I am however critical of civilisation for a bunch of reasons, but from an anarcho-primitavist perspective, not a "humans bad" perspective.
I don't think humans are meant to exist in gigantic, anonymous populations. It's the anonymity of these masses that brings out the most destructive behaviour. Leaders don't know their subjects personally, so they're not held accountable for what they sign off on. If ever I am feeling "misanthropic", it's actually grief for a version of humanity that once existed. And will never exist again without a huge disaster and noone wants that.

Humans are complex like any animal and full of good and bad traits, the negatives behaviours don't matter that much when scaled down. Warfare between tribes is different to warfare between nations. Clearing a patch of forest for a settlement is different to clearing the entire amazon for soya beans. I have sympathy for misanthropes to an extent because people around us are indeed a faceless mass. A force. Not just the individuals we live with and the strangers on the other side of the valley. That does also of course mean that good deeds are scaled up too! It's not all bad. I'm sure some people would call me an ecofascist but I don't particularly care.

I'm curious to know if endangered or exploited theriotypes correlate with misanthropy at all. It could make for an interesting poll. The newer planet of the apes series are my favourite films. My sympathies are pretty one-sided. I have a tattoo of the Caesar symbol. Irl I want nothing more than for the zoos, circuses and other facilities to be empty so the entire third act of Rise makes for very cathartic viewing. The way humans have historically treated their cousins is abysmal, and still is now. Not to mention habitat loss etc. And that fact brings out the egdelord in me for sure. I am prepared for bonobos and other apes to go extinct in my lifetime. The only remaining populations will be in captivity. Existing in a vacuum with no effect on their former ecosystems, a living museum exhibit. They don't even look or act the same anymore because being stuck inside 4 walls makes them mentally and physically ill.
Though like I said before, for every large scale act of cruelty, there are equal acts of kindness. And people who make it their aim to combat the damage done are wonderful and I couldn't be misanthropic towards that if I tried.

For me, getting older and learning about the world made me realize that where my anger at "humanity" comes from is actually from power structures and... topics that may be too political to mention? The point is, humanity isn't bad, it just has bad tendencies when there are bad motivations, and bad power structures create bad feedback loops. These things aren't inherent to humanity though, and you truly need look no further than many indigenous communities for evidence that it's not "simply human nature" to devolve into those exploitative power structures. We don't benefit from denying that it does happen for the sake of "loving humans," but we're the only ones who can fix what we've done, so it's best to not shoot ourselves in the foot as a lost cause either. I'm only in my second week of classes but I'm already seeing a lot of this (embracing that we are the solution) in both my political ecology class and my environmental management class. Also, being exposed to the way humans rise up to push back against those power structures for the sake of strangers they will never know, that also gives me great hope.

My therianthropy has never intersected with any misanthropy, and I think part of that is because identify as a jaguar person, someone who is both human AND jaguar. It would be self-loathing, and frankly, I just don't care to do that, when I know it's far more productive for me to look for the good and focus on what I can contribute to, like my degree. Which, in essence, is so I can leave the world better than I found it.

I have a username that I use on therian-centric forums, in order to keep my therianthropy posts online separate from my legal name as well as my gaming nick. But it has no deeper meaning. Susitar is literally the Finnish word for wolf (susi) + a feminine suffix. So in English, it would be something like "wolfess". Just a placeholder to protect my real identity.

When I was 14 and started to awaken, before I found the therian community and didn't really know what was going on, I did create a "wolf name". I loved the novel Watership Down, so inspired by the rabbit names there, I gave myself a "wolf name": Sea Breeze. I had also seen some furry art (without knowing that it was an entire subculture), so I drew some art of this "Sea Breeze", a fox + wolf hybrid with water magic. So in a way, I made a fursona when I was 14?
But it sounded more like a pirate name, to be honest, and I never did use it for anything in the long term. I also realised I was a wolf, and not a fox at all (even if they are my favourite animal) and abandonded all ideas about a "magical hybrid with water powers".

Susitar was something I came up with much later, I think I started to use it on Tumblr first (2010). I realised that Tumblr was much more public and open than say, Werelist. On Werelist I had used my normal gaming handle at first. But my irl friends knew about that username - and I didn't want them to know about my tumblr account. Later, I went back to change my username on Werelist to Susitar as well.

Like many others in this thread, I don't think most wild animals have names in the ways that humans do. Maybe dolphins or something have names, but wolves don't really need that.

Tl;dr: I have a username on therian sites. It's not a "spiritual name" or "therian name", it's just an online handle.

Omg Bag, congrats <3
I never thought I'd ever see this happen

Therians having names for their theriotypes really confuse me, your theriotype is supposed to be YOU. I understand if you were a pet in a past life, or maybe you have an identity disorder where you sometimes don't feel like yourself, but past that I really do not get it at all.

Wow..I did not know of any of this but from what I have read, DustWolf was getting tired so I am glad he can rest but I also hope he still comes here once in awhile.
Congratulations to Bagera too

First off Rain thanks for sharing, no introspection is stupid or false! It's interesting and important to listen to everyone's view to learn from their unique ideas and experiences.

It appears we have similar experiences with phantom shifts; my shifts are very environmentally and emotionally driven. I haven't snarled before to my memory, but I can get jaw phantoms when I'm grouchy or frustrated. I experience my ears and tail swaying when I'm happy and my ears perk up when I'm startled. I can keep those sensations around thinking about them, but they feel fake and exaggerated. I also get some phantoms from environmental factors like cold wind can induce face fur. I react to physical touches like petting or getting picked up. I think these are related as they're involuntary and I figure skip thought in a similar way.

Chapter 2 is very interesting and opens a bit of a can of worms. If phantoms are something neurological, it implies that everyone who experiences phantom shifts:
1. Had a past life to obtain those experiences
2. Has a soul that existed in both bodies
3. Has instincts retained in their soul, not minds
4. Can draw from learnings of the soul
I have not claimed any of these but they appear reasonable so I will explore those ideas more from now on.

Bias of wanting to be your theriotype is problematic, people jump to conclusions that are desirable rather than true. I've become happy as a hybrid of human and canid traits which helps, but bias still exists. I get concerned therianthropy is made up to make you feel special. But I've been critical and don't believe that is the case.

(Ouch, phantom appendicitis sounds rough XD)

Our experiences have a correlation between emotions and sensory input to shifts. I understand connecting those parts of the brain to shifts. I'm not convinced they are related in that way. My shifts feel like natural responses to environmental factors rather than feeling a zap when my face is touched. I believe there's calculations in the brain to connect these things, but more akin to smiling when you are happy.

It makes sense that parts of the brain that controlled the tail died as we evolved. But I think any tail sensation would have died, and the brain would reuse that space for something else.

The diagnostics have advanced a bit over time; Functional MRI (fMRI) has made studying neuronal activation mapping non-invasive (it's still a very low resolution image, but you can discern which regions are active and, I believe, how active they are compared to others.).

This was copypasted from my reply to another thread on this topic:
"You might find this paper discussing the Body Schema interesting: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10605253/ It's rather long, but it does go into phantom limbs.

From what I remember it noted that the brain didn't necessarily reorganize after the loss of a limb, and continued to "expect" signals from it. I think this may have implications for those of us with past lives if what is carried into the present results in the formation of those circuits during childhood development.

Also, this paper discusses the possible mechanisms behind phantom pain: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pain-research/articles/10.3389/fpain.2025.1419762/full "

As for why a psychological therian would experience these things...I'm guessing it's mirroring and internalization of what's being mirrored, so that a modified body schema results. It's difficult to really draw many conclusions without being able to follow therians over the course of their lives to see whether the animal-like body map(and associated phantom sensations) are present since birth or acquired later, and whether it changes or extinguishes over time.

This was a really interesting read Rain, I'm looking forward to more of it! I'll share some of my thoughts thus far, but keep in mind I've not read this book and I'm the opposite of an expert. English is not my first language, so excuse me if some of my writing is sloppy.

The example with the smile made sense to me. The more you consciously think about shifting, the harder it is to do so or feel your limbs. It adds up with how in order to get out of a shift, you just have to remind your conscience of your surroundings. The subconscious is where all of this happens, and if it gets "overshadowed" by us forcing ourselves to act a certain way, it leads to a different result. So naturally, it's also connected to emotion, as each feeling leads to instinctual subconscious actions that were developed throughout evolution, such as the goosebumps we get that are a leftover of the mammalian ancestors who needed their fur to fluff up or be more insulated. We can't force those to happen either, unless we find a way to trick our subconscious into feeling the required things needed to trigger them, such as by being in a certain environment/situation. Same thing can be done in regards to shifts in some ways.
Why phantom limbs can exist in the first place without having biologically existed is anyone's best guess I feel like. As the book explained, the brains of amputees are wired to "expect" more than what they have now, because needing to rewire it is so rare that a lot of the brains kinda just keep it in one way or another, and it could be similar in regard to, say, a phantom tail: The brain already works differently in some way in comparison to the "normal" human brain you'd expect, so it was also wired to expect more than the human body that sends signals back directly from its limbs. Therefore, it also answers why it doesn't fade like "pretend play" - because it works the same as the phantom limbs described in the book, which are also the opposite of "pretend play". It can fade, but oftentimes, as is laid out here, it doesn't. It's a real, learned brain pattern and can stay over time if you don't consciously block it out and therefore also works just as instinctually as all the other limbs you control automatically.
With all of them, your subconscious knows what to do to adapt them to your current situation. So what all of this shows is that, just like the author agreed, it has to do with your brain controlling what it is wired to control. It's just there, and the brain does what it is wired to do, and it's hard for that to change. If it was about your brain wishing that something was there, the phenomenon wouldn't be part of the same area that controls what the rest of your body should instinctively do. It's not thinking "I wish it was there," it's "I need to control my limbs. This pre-installed wiring shows me the limbs I have." There's no thought process checking: Is this or that limb really there? Because every limb that can be controlled there has a reason to be there. No matter if it's feeling in a missing arm, appendix or anything else. Whatever it is for e.g. a phantom tail, as I said, is pretty much just speculation. All we know is (at least us two) that shifts just kinda were there eventually, and later we found therianthropy which we could use to give it a label. I'm honestly not really sure about the whole limb areas in the brain affecting the phantom limbs thing because that's not something I've ever experienced through a simple touch of one specific part. It seems to be a way wider phenomenon, but again, when you get to this stage, it becomes way too much speculation for me to say anything concrete about what it may be. Beyond the aforementioned emotion thing where they can react when the signals for the emotion are being sent. I guess in some way, the brains do also carry leftover brain maps, but I'm not sure in what exact way. Is this lined out more clearly somewhere in the book? Or is it just as you said: "There are, or could be, several maps"?

I feel like the things explained in the book line up really well and could help us explain and deal with certain stuff better, so I'd love to read what you write about the next chapters as you continue reading the book!

this is really intresting Rain