I've found that I, personally, am an impressionable person. However, I've never met someone else like me. I loved fighting when I was younger, and because I was different, I was often left behind. Perhaps this is something I developed over time. However, it doesn't feel that way.

It feels as if it had always been a part of me in some way, shape, or form. Whether it was from my own nature or the way I developed at a young age. Though, it feels as though it's been with me all my life. I only panic now because I know what it is.

I do not know either. One thing I struggle with is what I believe in, so I honestly don't know why I'm a therian, or what the reason for it is. I do however think there's something more going on than simply the decision to focus on the more animal side of human nature because there was a point in my life where I did everything to push my therianthropy away and ignore it. It came back full force without any decision making from me. I didn't do anything to trigger it nor did I choose to bring it back into my life; it just showed up.

I mean, if you want to know people's theories, we literally have a whole forum category dedicated to people explaining how or why they believe their therianthropy exists. You can find it here.

Mine is in there too, which is called the multiverse theory.

Surely it's nice to take a moment to think about it at times, but some people do surely focus on it too much, especially when it comes to calling themselves "spiritual" or "psychological therians". I think it's way more interesting to focus on WHAT we experience instead of WHY. But that may just be me.

Why are we therians? I agree with Pushy Zver, no clue. It's not like anything can actually be confirmed.

For me that's actually a big reason I constantly find myself worried that I'm just wasting my time and should stop "making myself crazy". In reality I don't make myself crazy though, and once I just get it out of my head...It proofs itself to me again.

Random mental-shift while interacting with dogs or ferrets, still feeling like favorite animal is a mayor understatement when it comes to ferrets...

It's just there, I don't know why dogs and ferrets, I don't know why therian at all. There's a ton of different theories to it. I don't even think there would be a scientific "one size fits all" answer really. That could differ immensely as well.

(2022-08-11 16:33)-SERVALCAT- Wrote:  personally, I think that the word "therian" is used simply to describe the more animal parts of us. I often wonder if we actually decide that we are therians. of course, I don't mean waking up one day and saying "hey, I think I'll identify as a wolf", but more of a subconscious decision, finding comfort in a label for some of our little quirks.

I don't think my therianthropy is something i use to excuse my quirks or cover them up. I already knew that i was a little different before i even started questioning i'm a therian and i simply accepted that even though it was a little hard in the first place, because i knew that it's better to just have those harmless quirks than try to change them and force myself to be someone else lol.
Plus, despite it's size, the therian community still seems too big and diverse for all of it to be just people that might be insecure about their differences

Yes, I agree. I speculate it starts with something going wrong in the mind-body connection due to neurology or trauma, and the mind interprets the metabolic mess into something meaningful like therianthropy.

I do not know...
there are many theories, but none of them can be verified and confirmed

Why are we therians?

See, I know that there are a lot of people who blame their therianthropy on a past life, or for spiritual reasons, but I don't feel I fit in with either. I also don't feel that I was "born into the wrong body" so to speak.

personally, I think that the word "therian" is used simply to describe the more animal parts of us. I often wonder if we actually decide that we are therians. of course, I don't mean waking up one day and saying "hey, I think I'll identify as a wolf", but more of a subconscious decision, finding comfort in a label for some of our little quirks.

Another thing I wonder about, is do we make up our shifts? like every little slightly animalistic thing we feel, we just blame on being a therian? of course, these are just my ponderings.

I'd say that I honestly have no idea why we are what we are. I do however think that we subconsciously exaggerate what we believe. I'd love to hear your guy's theories and questions about the matter too.

Hi,

I didn't notice this post earlier.

(2021-02-27 13:41)Bubbles Wrote:  This doesn't affect me, and I don't know if anyone has voiced this concern, but what about systems? Some alters could be under 13, so should be not be allowed from the site when they're in the "driver's seat" of the host? And what about the age on the profile, what should the host say?

The rule is one account per physical body and the age (birthdate) is supposed to be of the physical body aka "the truth".

Good luck proving the mental age of your made up alter in court. So I hope that covers what they should be allowed to do.

Obviously some people are retarded and their mental age is much younger than that of their physical body... in those cases it's not ideal but there is no way to be fair to everyone and also cover such exceptions, so for now, physical age it is.

LP,
Dusty

(2022-05-07 6:45)DustWolf Wrote:  So we talked about this on Discord some time ago, but to explain what @Liatha is saying here. Eastern traditions say that what you reincarnate as, depends on your "good deeds for the community" (simplified) in your previous life. Since animals live by instinct and cannot choose to do good deeds for the community, it doesn't seem possible for an animal (below on the scale) to reincarnate as a human (above on the scale).

Other people in our conversation, like @Li-lan have argued that what "reincarnation" is (aka "being born again in another body" rather than "reincarnation" the religious concept), is not owned by any religious group and therefore what the Eastern traditions say about it does not matter.

Thinking about it now, I also find myself wondering, since I believe animals can make choices in their lives: Perhaps it's possible for animals to do "good deeds for the community" (dharma). I mean outside of pets attending religious duties with their owners. Could a dog in what she does for her family be considered to engage in dharma?

Personally I think Dharma, Karma and all other such ideas about there being some universal "good credit" is a bunch of made up BS. I think it's a staple or nearly every religion (Christian heaven vs hell, Wiccan Law of Three, etc) as a control mechanism for the populous. I (creator of the religion) want you to behave a certain way, so god, the universe, whatever higher power will reward you if you do and punish you if you don't.
Furthermore I think the idea of their being a scale where human is at the top or a "reward" for doing good things is laughable. I don't think human is "better" than being a different animal. Sounds like something humans would make up because we think we're special.
So that's why I don't attach any Eastern religious beliefs around reincarnation to the concept. I don't have an issue if people choose to practice a religion, but the way I see it there's no value in the anthropocentric ideology often taught along with reincarnation. You can believe in a concept like heaven without being a Christian either.

My personal beliefs around it is that we get to choose to incarnate and have this physical experience in these bodies. And the reason we're here is simply to be alive. I'm sure certain souls have some goal from their life. Something to learn, or maybe something to teach. It feels like humans have this sense of need for a higher purpose, some goal to chase down, so I often see a lot of other aspects of religion as fulfilling that.

But answering your question Dust, I would personally say yes. A dog, a wolf any animal. I think it's a false idea that an animal can't have free will. Just because you have stronger instructs driving you and less executive functioning doesn't mean there's not free will in your decisions. It's not like instincts don't control human decision making sometimes.
Although you have to wonder with certain animals like lizards who aren't social at all, how one would ever "move up" that hypothetical ladder towards being human.