(2020-02-01 10:35)Shapeshifter Wrote:  I respect your plurality and core soul name, but how would one go about discovering their therian name? I would like to know, and I think a few others would as well, if you can/are able to explain.

There's no such thing as a therian name.

It was invented by people who were confabulating therianthropy with spiritual names.

LP,
Dusty

I respect your plurality and core soul name, but how would one go about discovering their therian name? I would like to know, and I think a few others would as well, if you can/are able to explain.

As a spiritual therian and person in general, I don't think my theriotypes that weren't given names by humans have literal names. Wolves on this Earth obviously cannot speak English, and they certainly don't have English names for each other. I believe in the existence of soul names. Now, I'm not sure if this is something that some others believe or if it's just me.

I believe my soul is made up of many parts. Each part of my soul is one of my kintypes. Soul names are the name that the part of that soul has. It's true name despite any other name it had. My core soul name is Luna Silvermoon. It is the most significant name because it is the name of my first life, but I suppose it could be different for everyone (if they believe in soul names to begin with).

Of course this is more of a different belief, and I certainly don't need anyone to believe it or validate me for it. It's real to me, so I ask you to be respectful of what I believe. Instead of saying "that's wrong" or "that doesn't exist" you're simply free to disagree with me without being disrespectful.

Some of my soul names I haven't found yet, including this life's. I don't see it as a special thing, to be honest. It's just something that's apart of who I am. ~ Luna, The Saccharine System

I've seen a lot of younger therianthropes asking people how to find their therian names and if they do have any. There are a few videos on YouTube about how people do cave meditation and wait until the first name that comes up. I personally believe that if therian names actually were a true thing then it wouldn't really work, because anyone who is a therian or not can do this meditation and it wouldn't really be anything "special", if you understand what I mean.
A theriotype is the species an individual identifies as right now. There are a lot of therianthropes who were their theriotype's species in their past and believe that they had a name. Well, past is just past and present is what it is now. You are yourself, your theriotype has your own name. Maybe it would even be more correct to say that it doesn't even have a name? It's your own identity after all.
If people don't want to use their own name on the internet then they can give themselves a nickname they'll be using in the community. Giving a name to their theriotype only because they don't want to use their real name on the internet is really not necessary. I've seen people saying that.
If people want to name their theriotypes then it is their own business, let them live being misinformed and enjoy the life they have.

I don't have much else to add to what's already been said, but yeah soul-searching and documentation then traditional research is what I'd say. If I didn't look animals up at all, I don't think I would have found my kintype. After I had taken a lot of notes and reflected on them I didn't know any animals that matched what I was feeling. However, it was really helpful to be able to look back on my journal for notes/experiences to help stay true to myself when googling animals.

I definitely agree with whats been said about research here before me. I've always known about my animal identity, I just didn't have a name for it. I was, I'll admit, uneducated in the beginning. I stuck to the beliefs I had about wolves instead of sticking with the feelings I had, which wasn't good, I'll tell ya that. I only did research about subspecies once I was certain I was a wolf. That research confirmed the feelings I had, not the other way around.

I recently changed my subspecies identification too, as I realized Mackenzie Valley Wolves fit much more what I experienced.

That's about all I got to speak on. ~ Luna, The Saccharine System

There are two facets of research: 1. internal research where you evaluate how you feel, your behaviors, your instincts, your shifts, etc. and 2. external research where you take #1 and apply it to existing animals and study them to see if your #1 actually matches up with them. For example, if you assume you're a wolf based on the fact that you like to howl, but you don't actually know that many other canines howl too, then you might not really a wolf and need to do more #1 and #2.

My problem with people not doing #2 in addition to #1 is that's part of the reason we have so many wolf therians. I think many people see wolf and simply stop there because they're lazy and wolves are somehow "cool" and the poster animal for therianthropy.

Additionally, people know about wolves from an early age, but how many 8 year olds know what a singing dog is? And A LOT of mammals have overlapping characteristics and behaviors. It takes research #2 into the species itself to be able to determine that that's a coyote feeling versus a dog versus a fox. Clades of animals overlap, so research #2 is necessary if you want to narrow it down specifically.

So it's a combination of gut instinct/what feels "right" and then learning about the animal in question.

(2020-01-28 10:38)DustWolf Wrote:  When I first experienced my dream shifts and my animality, I had no idea it was how wolves behaved. Knowing this is what makes me so confident that I am a wolf therian, because I know that my mind could not have been biased towards that conclusion at the time.

LP,
Dusty

You took the words straight out of my mouth.

I see doing research as one of the unusual and extremely harmful practices originating from Tumblr.

Exposing yourself to facts about animals is only going to make you biased and make it more difficult for you to understand your own feelings. We are all capable of the empathy, to feel something we think another creature might, it is a normal part of our humanity.

If you regularly "research" and expose yourself to facts about different animals, you are always going to feel like you relate to some of it every time, making you increasingly confused about your theriotype. The information might inspire you to have dreams or phantom shifts, or it may enable you to relate to the animal in daily life, all of which can happen independently of your therianthropy. It may make it difficult for you to differentiate from your actual therian experiences and the bias that you've accumulated while "researching" different animals.


The correct approach to determining your theriotype is based off of your experiences. It might be a good idea to avoid materials on the behaviour of animals, so that you reduce the likelihood that you are going to be biased and affected by empathy towards an animal.

When I first experienced my dream shifts and my animality, I had no idea it was how wolves behaved. Knowing this is what makes me so confident that I am a wolf therian, because I know that my mind could not have been biased towards that conclusion at the time.

LP,
Dusty

I didn't do research with the intent of checking my theriotype fits because there's too much of a risk of confirmation bias. What research I have done has been out of curiosity and a passion for primatology. That research did make the feelings stronger because very little of what I read surprises me and a lot of it makes sense to me personally. Therianthropic feelings are there with or without intensive research. I also have to factor in my personality as a human and the fact that bonobo personalities vary greatly and you could use the same test on one that us therians use on ourselves and find anomalies.

I don't need to do any mermaid research because they don't exist and there are a multitude of different types of mermaid. There's no mermaid criteria, it's too personal to quantify like that.