Forestluv

Why can't it be both?

@Sharp If you want to go to absolute truth, be cautious here. Labeling something as deception is relative. Everything you wrote about is within relativity. You don't get to claim absolute by using relative tools. To enter the realm of the absolute, one must surrender the labeling of both deception and not deception. Within the relative human level, what you wrote makes a lot of sense and has practical value. Yet, you don't get to claim universal truth. In this realm what you wrote has no more relevance than a bird chirp.

@noselfnofun Along the Y axis of Now, memories are impulses appearing Now. Along the X axis of the timeline construct, memories are representations of previous events. Yet, memories are not always “accurate”. There are many different ways to interpret life events and the mind often edits, deletes and adds in stuff to previous events. I’m not sure what you mean be the term “illusion”.

I think you are describing a really important aspect of direct experience which is key. Few people understand it and as you say, direct experience is key. It is not something that can be theorized or scientifically proven. I'm totally comfortable in that domain. I think the view you are presenting is tied a bit much to thoughts. Thoughts dominant our perception and sense of being. It is possible to exist without thought. I've gone 10 minutes or so without thought. There are other impulses in my mind-body, just no thoughts. So if I am hiking in nature without thought, is anything "real"? Is realness dependent on thoughts? To me, thought is just one mode of being. There are lots of other modes, yet thoughts love to dominate. Consider this situation: Last week I was on a plane in a thoughtless state of consciousness. There was simply awareness without thought. There was an appearance of a flight attendant carrying a box filled with four different items: Cookies, Pretzels and Peanuts. Within my mind-body a desire for cookies arose. There was an awareness of this desire and my hand pointed to the cookie packages. The flight attendant then handed me a package of cookies. Smiles arose. My mind-body then knew to open the package and place the cookie in my mouth and chew. Then the first thought arose in my mind: "This is so yummy". During that whole process, not a single thought arose. Other modes of being were operative such as intuition. I would say that the events without thought that arose were real. There was a real desire for cookies that arose, yet there was no thought to validate that desire such as "I want cookies". There is realness independent of thoughts. Thoughts are within realness, yet not necessary for realness. From a dualistic perspective of "outside" and "inside" I would agree.

@theking00 Be careful with the belief that there is a place outside the matrix. The mind loves to create a story about how the matrix is a struggle and how there is a place outside the matrix that is peaceful. Humans may seek that place their entire life only to find it doesn't exist outside of the place they already reside.

Ahhh, wonderful questions. The screen metaphor is so so juicy and fun to unpack. This screen metaphor goes beyond the "observer + object" stage, yet includes both observer and object. As you picked up on, it includes both absolute and relative. I consider it to be a metaphor that seems deceptively simple. Yet it is very deep. Let's first consider stages and consider the relative and absolute as separate. The first stage is awareness of objects reveals itself. There is detached awareness that does not identify with any object. This awareness does not give meaning to any object or happening. If meaning is assigned to an object or meaning, awareness is aware of that yet is still detached from that meaning assignment. Here, objects include all things such as trees, pencils, sounds, feelings, thoughts etc. If a thought arises, there is awareness of that thought, yet it has no more relevance than a bird chirp. The thoughts might be "My neighboor is so annoying" and the body may feel irritated. Again, there is detached awareness that there are thoughts, meaning and feelings arising - yet as awareness has no more relevance than a bird chirp. One trap at the personal level is to identify as being the "observer". Thoughts and beliefs such as "I am observing my thoughts" is indicative of identification with awareness. In Spira's analogy it would be like identifying as a person in the theater watching the movie. As detached as this observer may be, there is still separation. One way out of this dynamic is when awareness of the observer (person watching the movie) is revealed. Yet then again, a mind can identify as being the observer of the observer. Then there is awareness of the observer of the observer - which is then identified with it. There is a threshold in which there are so many awareness of observer levels that it becomes infinite and collapses into simply awareness. Spira is going one step further into nonduality. In the above video he is trying to pull the women a half-step. Yet she isn't ready for even a half-step - it is actually a big step. . . So here we venture into nonduality, but it is important to note we are not rejecting duality. Integrating the two is a further step which we will address in a bit. . . Imagine the movie playing on the screen. If we step back, we can see objects like cars and people moving around. We can see joy, happiness etc. This is a valid perspective, yet let's let go of that and zoom into the screen. If we look real close, we can see the screen and pixels dancing around. From this close-up view there is only pixels moving around - we can no longer make sense of it and give it meaning. There are no more cars and people moving around. There is no way to assign meaning. How could one say the dancing pixels are "love"? We may see some pixels and say "that is love", yet when we step back we see those pixels are organized in such a way that a person is murdering another person. Ooops!! That aint love from this perspective!! So from the pixel perspective, we simply have dancing pixels moving around. There is no way for us to make any distinctions. Now, take a closer look. We first saw separate pixels interacting with each other. Yet if we look even closer, we see that it is actually one giant pixel that is modulating. The giant pixels swirls around. Here is a key. . . to assign any distinction or value to the one giant pixel, what needs to happen? For example, to say "it is love", what needs to happen? Within the giant pixel there is nothing. To assign a something there must be separation. There must be some separate entity observing the giant pixel and assigning love. This is the big step into nonduality that is very challenging. The sense of separation dissolves and there is just the dancing pixel. There is no longer a separate you. It is only the swirling pixel. Any statement about that pixel requires separation. Awareness itself is a duality. For there to be awareness, there must be a separate thing to be aware of. In this analogy, awareness and object collapse into one (the one giant swirling pixel). To take it one step further, look around you. The human mind is conditioned to have a "far-out" view and see all the objects. Yet can you see all the pixels? Everything around you are the pixels on an invisible screen. Notice how some pixels around you are moving and some pixels are still. The tree branch pixels are moving. The parked car pixels are still. Now look deeper. See the one giant pixel of everything around you. It is one giant pixel swirling around. A big step further. . . see that YOU are also pixels within the one giant swirling pixel. . . What needs to happen to make any statement about the one swirling pixel? Just like above, there needs to be separation from the one giant pixel. To say "it is love" is separation. How can the one giant pixel be love? That would mean it isn't hate. Yet the one giant pixels is Everything. This is why one word is too many. Everything is within the One giant swirling pixel. It is infinite. That is nonduality. That is the absolute. At this point we are still making a distinction between nonduality (absolute) and duality (relative). The human mind is so conditioned into duality (relative) that I think it's important to spend consider effort toward nonduality and gaining considerable grounding in nonduality before the next step that integrates nonduality and duality. The trap here is embracing nonduality and rejecting duality. This will cause all sorts of struggles and inner turmoil because they are both actually the same. Going back to the movie example. From that one giant swirling pixel, any "thing" can arise. Now, any thing that arises is relative. Don't reject the relative, just understand it. From the One swirling pixel, can a tree arise? Of course, take a step back and see a tree. Yet notice that tree is relative. Does the One giant pixel see a tree? Does a rock see a tree? An ant? No. So is the tree there? Yes and No. It's relative. This is where humans get stuck on an objective external reality. Essentially, the human mind is obsessed with proving to itself and others that the tree is objectively real. It is and it isn't. It's just relative. The movie is both one giant swirling pixel AND lots of objects - cars people, love, hate etc. The absolute and relative are integrated as one. However, the perception of the absolute flows through the filter of a human mind-body. In the relative, my mind-body will not transform into a bird or fly, nor will it start speaking Russian today. So all things relative are also absolute. The human mind creates that separation. When that separation dissolves, magnificence emerges. I find it very challenging to enter this space with other humans because other humans are totally immersed within the relative. I find it much much easier to enter these spaces in nature. Go hiking in nature and let that separation dissolve. Including subconscious orientations such as "I am human. That is a tree". Let that dissolve and BE the one giant swirling pixel. Not a human observing the One giant swirling pixel. Actually BEing it. Then zoom out for the far out perspective. Going back and forth between absolute is a trip. Communication and connectedness with trees, insects, animals is truly amazing.

For those of us that are Last Thursdayites, today is a special day. . . It’s Thursday baby!!! ? So get out there and create an amazing reality you can enjoy until Next Thursdayism kicks in.

As curious as I am about a potential coral, I think a coral video is counter-productive at the collective level. According to spiral theory, one cannot understand two conscious levels higher than where they are centered. Three conscious levels higher is completey beyond any comprehension. There are very few people centered in Yellow. Look at the yellow mega-thread. Very few of those videos are yellow. Recognizing yellow is much easier than actually embodying yellow. That means very few people are yellow centered. Even those few people centered in yellow couldn’t understand coral. So even if a description of coral was possible it would be incomprehensible and misinterpreted. It likely wouldn’t even be verbal. Imagine if Leo just stood there without saying anything. He just stood there staring at the camera. You would be like “wtf is this?”. Little do you know he is on a coral frequency of immaterial photontronic intuition hybridized from three different intersecting dimensions. Coral would be batshit crazy like that. Hundreds of years away kinda stuff.

A thought experiment: Imagine you will be asked a trivia question. If you answer correctly, you win a billion dollars. Yet if you answer incorrectly, you lose everything you own - your house, car, job, clothing - everything. So you don’t want to guess. You are on national TV in front if millions of viewers. Here it comes. . . Is a gablish a tecklit of a fromwik? What comes to mind? Would you go blank? Be confused? You are stumped because there is an abscence of meaning. It doesn’t have meanng, yet that doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. There is simply an absence of meaning (I made the words up). Therefore, the answer is not “yes”, nor is the answer “no”. It is neither yes or no. (Or both yes and no). Our human minds are conditioned to to assign meaning and think in opoosites: “it either is or is not”, “either yes or no”, “life is good, death is bad”. If the mind does not assign meaning, there is absence of meaning. When faced with this, the mind wants to go to the other extreme and say it is meaningless. Yet neither is true. There is an absence of meaning. A haptid doesn’t have meaning nor is it meaningless, it never existed in your reality. You never assigned it meaning. In nonduality we may say things like “enlightenment is one, yet also not one” or “the ego is an illusion, yet it also exists” or “everything arises from nothing” or “there is groundless ground”. These types of contradictions used to drive me crazy, until I let go of the mind’s obsession with assigning meaning and became comfortable with abscence of meaning. Then, I higher-order intuitive understanding arose. A nonverbal, nonconceptual knowing that I never knew existed. When I desired to assign meaning and explain verbally, I was never satisfied with an answer and was continually in seeking mode. Yet with this intuitive knowing, there is an abscence of either satisfaction or dissatisfaction because there is nothing to satisfy. There is just a knowing. Similiar to how you just know you want chocolate ice cream. It’s just a knowing that cannot be proven or explained. You just know you want chocolate ice cream.

Awesome! I hope it’s posted on YT!

That takes a lot of skill and mastery

@Tony 845 Are you going to ask a question? I’d love to see that.

@Tony 845 Be careful about getting lulled into the enlightenment story trap. Below is a woman who got immersed into the enlightenment story trap for decades. Notice her attachment to the idea that enlightenment is some “thing” or “happening”. That is the trap and there is no end to the story because that enlightenment thing or happening doesn’t exist. It IS Now. Everything right Now. There is no enlightenment thing.

@Sharp Nice post Sharp. In particular, I liked how you described various dream immersion states such as the mall and politics. Yet also things like yoga and self-inquiry. It’s easy for me to step back and see it in people doing “low conscious” everday activities. Yet it’s also easy for me to get dream immersed in “high conscious” activities like talking about yoga. Even tonight I got immersed into it by rambling on about the nature of trauma. . . yet it was oh so profound! ? Last week I was deeply immersed in nature in Sedona and felt like I really stepped outside of the human mind patterns, including discussions about the best yoga techniques, the nature of self-inquiry, what is reality etc. All that stuff seemed similiar to duscussing sports, reality tv, politics etc. It’s just different topics of the same type of immersion. Humans seemed so far away and such strange creatures. I could relate and communicate better with trees than humans. Returning to people places was really awkward and I felt really uncomfortable trying to interact with them. It was like a different dimension.

A very interesting article, yet a duplicate thread. The original thread on this article can be found here;

If it is neuronal death, it's dead and irreversible. For example with spinal cord injuries or exposure to highly neurotoxic chemicals like methamphetamine. Neuronal damage can take many forms. The healing potential depends on the type of damage. For example, a neuron can suffer loss of neurites - these are neuronal extensions that communicate with other neurons. As well, there can be loss of neural plasticity - this is the ability of neural networks to rewire to allow learning and new perspectives. Neurotrophic factors stimulate the formation of new neurites and increase neuronal plasticity, yet we haven't developed effective ones that can cross the blood-brain barrier. Recently psychedelics have been shown to act a neurotrophic factors in cell culture and in mice. They are part of a new class of molecules referred to as psychoplastogens. . . As well, meditation has been shown to increase grey matter. For example, in a region of the brain associated with empathy. Even people that had never meditated in there life showed increased grey matter after eight weeks of a meditation program. This grey matter increase represents formation of neurite extensions and is reflective of enhanced abilities. For example, the new meditators showing increased grey matter would be correlated with an increased ability of empathy. Regarding the creation of new neuronal cells. . . Differentiated neuronal cells have exited the cell cycle and no longer divide. There are a very small number of adult neural stem cells that have the capacity to re-enter the cell cycle and create new neurons. Yet, we currently do not understand this mechanism. There has not been a lot of research regarding the effect of releasing emotional blockages on neural health. I think this is a wonderful area of research to explore. I believe this is an unexplored region for two reasons: First, releasing emotional blockages is still within the areas of psychological therapy, meditation, yoga, reiki etc. Neuroscience is still contracted within a reductionist and materialist paradigm. They are expanding, yet it is slow. Second, I believe science has become more and more influenced by corporations and capitalism. Most research funding is dominated by utility. What scientific gadget can we create and profit off of? What profitable new drugs can we develop? Even nonprofit academic research institutions are restrained by this. Studies involving the neuroscience of meditation, emotional blockage release, reiki etc. just aren't profitable and aren't funded. Hopefully as the collective consciousness increases, so will this type of funding. In particular from highly conscious wealthy donors. This would depend on our definition of "trauma" and "real". I am using the term trauma in a holistic perspective that includes both the immaterial energetic systems and material systems. To see if we are using the term "real" in the same context. . . Imagine a person is being chased by an aggressive dog. The person's mind is hyper alert. There body is breathing heavily and filled with hormones creating stress. Would you consider that heavy breathing and that hormonal stress response the body is experiencing as being "real". I do. And if we agree that it is real, then I see no way that one can conclude that traumatic experiences have real effects that can persist for years. I think we may be using different usages of the term trauma. If you could explain how you are using the term trauma it would help me. I am using the term to include both the immaterial, such as energetic systems (chakras, energetic blocks, meridians, intuition etc) as well as material biological systems (neurotransmitters, hormones etc). Together, they would yield mind-body sensations referred to as anxiety, panic, stress and terror. I think an integration of both immaterial and material is necessary for a holistic view of trauma and removing one would yield an incomplete perspective at the human mind-body level. I don't see "enlightenment" as a thing and I don't see a "you" in enlightenment. I don't see a path to "enlightenment" because there is no place for a path to lead to. The One Everything/Nothing does not have any separation. I see psychedelics as a powerful tool to expand one's consciousness. Imagine going from the conscious level of a mouse to that of a human. Psychedelics can greatly expand human consciousness beyond the ordinary state. Psychedelics can also produce whacky nonsense and I don't think they are effective for a mind-body until that mind-body has reached a certain conscious level. In particular, I think the mind-body needs to develop a grounded "observer + object" stage. If not, the psychedelic trip is often recontextualized in a way that is counter-productive to consciousness expansion. I would consider both sober experiences and psychedelic experiences to be enlightenment, since there is no escape from enlightenment. I think trying to manipulate with pills is a contracted view that is counter-productive. It is trying to isolate one component of an integrated system and manipulate that component. This is a highly limited view that does not consider the holistic view, including the energetic systems I mentioned above. If I was to develop research and treatment plans, I would only place about 5% of my resources in pill development and usage - and this would only be temporary to help allow more holistic healing. 95% of my focus would be outside of pills and medication. There are much richer and more productive areas to explore. Neuroscience is associated with pills and medications, yet it is beyond that. The strength of neuroscience is observation of the physical realm and how the nonphysical impacts the physical. For example, FMRIs and EEG brain scans can help us develop treatment plans for a person. A person could consider both their subjective experience of meditation, yoga, reiki etc. with brain scans revealing physical activity. I think a major deterrent in progress is separation. I see so many divided camps. There are the neuroscientists, reiki masters, yogis, exercise enthusiasts, psychologists etc that are all in their own camps defending their own views. It is all inter-related. It is holistic. Imagine a Reiki master of energetic systems that is also a neuroscience master. She does Reiki and uses real time feedback of intuition, empathy, energetic sensations and EEG feedback. Or a healer that integrates psychotherapy, Reiki, yoga, mediation and brain scans. Whatever tool is appropriate, or a combination of tools. I think it's a deterrent to categorize things as this and that and insist that my tool is better than yours. It's like a carpenter that will only use a hammer and is anti-screwdriver. Its absurd. There is awareness that my mind-body is being chased by an aggressive dog. There is awareness that the mind-body is running. There is awareness that the mind-body is experiencing stress and panic. Awareness does not remove the sensations of what is occurring in the mind-body. The mind-body is still running and experiencing stress and terror. Quite often, higher level awareness can help relax the mind-body and help dissolve anxiety, yet not necessarily. At a trans-personal level, there is an unconditional peace and stillness in that higher-order awareness. Yet that is independent of the mind-body sensations. The mind-body could be experiencing relaxation, joy or terror and that higher-order stillness is present. Yet, that is not what I am referring to as trauma. I am using the term trauma in both a metaphysical and mind-body context. There is a still presence even if the body is undergoing trauma. One could make a distinction here and say from a trans-personal level that the suffering of trauma is not real, yet the mind-body pain of trauma is real. Again, we are using relative terms. Sure, if we remove distinctions then joy and trauma is transcended. And so is love, anger, frustration - whatever. To me, that is a different conversation above the human level. An interesting one yet different. It seems here we are talking at the human level of consciousness of experience. I would say acute trauma is an integrated experience of thought, feelings and energetics. I don't think one can reduce it to thought. I knew an 8 yr. old boy that was forced to watch his mother being brutally stabbed to death by his father. At the human level, that experience had widespread effects on that child - including memories and thoughts. Yet, not limited to that. His whole limbic system and HPA system was altered. His energetic systems of intuition and empathy were altered. I could feel it just being around him. Even if he wasn't thinking about memories of the event. You could remove the thoughts and memories and there would still be after effects. I don't see it in these dualistic terms. I don't think one can separate a within and a without. They are an integrated whole. I think higher-order awareness is very helpful for the mind-body, yet the stillness of higher-order awareness does not necessarily relieve the mind-body of the experience. If a mind-body was being beaten, would trans-personal awareness remove the pain of the mind-body? This is at the human level. At a trans-human level there is a still presence that transcends the mind-body experience yet does not eliminate the mind-body experience. This awareness can be help alleviate symptoms of the mind-body, yet not necessarily. One mentality I see over and over is that there is some thing called "enlightenment" that will remove one's ills. Panic, depression etc. The One Everything/Nothing includes everything. The idea that there is a thing called enlightenment that will relieve one's experience of pain is highly dualistic and at the level of the personality. The trans-human level includes the human mind-body and beyond. It doesn't care about the wants and needs of the self. That energetic motivation is at the level of the self. At the trans-human level of consciousness it doesn't matter if the mind-body is experiencing joy, pain, love, terror or whatever. It is an unconditional freedom. When you say you overcame OCD, that is at the human level. When you say "OCD" I am assuming you are referring to mental and physical symptoms commonly called "OCD". The physiological symptoms of OCD dissolved. Yet that has nothing to do with the trans-human level of consciousness. With that said, I think it is very important to have a healthy mind-body at the human level - that includes the dissolution of sensations such as OCD, depression, panic etc. The trans-personal level of awareness can help immensely with alleviating the symptoms of various neurosis. Yet I would not agree to the statement that neuroses are not real at the human level. This level is highly subjective. Right now, my mind-body is experiencing neck and shoulder pain. There is a higher-order awareness of this pain that is detached from the pain and does not identify with the pain. Yet, the pain is still present. From your perspective, are you saying the pain in my shoulder's and neck is not real? I think awareness can help relieve blockages and many neuroses, yet there are also structural problems. Awareness of leg paralysis won’t do much to restore leg functionality. Thank you. My mind is highly in tune with psychological dynamics and likes to deconstruct psychological dynamics. I try to do it in an impersonal way. Yet, it can often come across as overly-assertive and personal. It is not my intention, yet often the impact. It is something I am working on to be a more effective communicator. I appreciate your openness. Your English is excellent as a second language. These types of conversations can be highly abstract and nuanced. They are at an a very advanced language level. I speak Spanish at an upper intermediate level and there is no way I could come close to having this type of conversation in Spanish. Your ideas regarding trauma has led me to contemplate this and gain some greater clarity. For that, I thank you.

@theking00 At times, I found nondual type answers to be esoteric, confusing and frustrating. I resonated with more "Down to Earth" answers. For me, one of the biggest breakthroughs in this area was reaching the "observer + object" stage in meditation. Here, there is awareness of thoughts and feelings. This awareness is detached and does not identify with thoughts or feelings. One method I found helpful was labeling thoughts and feelings without criticism or judgement. It was a long repetitive process until I got my first glimpses of the detached observer. With further practice one can get "distance" from attachment to thoughts and feelings. This opens up a whole new world of exploration. I still enter this zone regularly and work within it. An image that just appeared in my mind: imagine a person chained to a tree. The chain represents attachment and the tree represents thoughts and feelings. The mind likes to blame the tree, yet the tree is not retraining the person. It is the chain that is restraining. Free yourself of that chain and you can begin to explore. Including climbing trees and exploring realms outside the matrix.

@Bluebird Dualistic perspective: 1st Law of Thermodynamics - energy is neither created nor destroyed. Energy can only be changed from one form to another. Nondual perspective: One Everything. There is no separate, finite "you". There is no escape.

One of my favorite parts of the forum is observing people expand their consciousness. It can be really amazing. Nice imagery. That is a great orientation to have.

It's who resonates with you in this moment right now. It's who reveals insights that are ready to be revealed within you now. It's who sings with your inner guru.

Please don't start click-bait inflammatory threads that are mindless drive-by bashings of spiritual teachers. If you would like to start a thread with concerns about a spiritual teacher, put thought into it and write a thoughtful essay of your concerns in the OP.

Yes, I understand there is a personality dynamic that believes it is simply speaking from personal direct experience. Yet there is an extrapolation of personal direct experience into broader truths that apply to others. This is a conflation of the relative with the universal. Once this was revealed in the thread, there was a shift in tone and an expansion of consciousness. The comments offered here are impersonal. They are not directed at you personally. They are observations of what appears to me as a common contracted mind dynamic that when deconstructed can lead to consciousness expansion. No it wasn't at all. The below statements are broad statements of application that extend beyond one's personal direct experience onto others. These statements are not limited to a personal experience. They are universal statements. They literally describe what trauma means for other people. Observe how a personal direct experience is extrapolated to apply to others. I am revealing that that is a very limited and contracted view. The exact opposite of your relative direct experience may occur in someone else's direct experience. Or hundreds of different forms than that of your own. Lack of awareness and acceptance of this relativity will restrain a mind within one limited perspective. In terms of spiral dynamics this is an absolute key in evolving from the Orange level to the Yellow level. Trauma is highly complex in relative terms and there is no objective statements of trauma that can be universally applied. As described above, severe trauma effects the individual and collective in various ways. For one person, trauma may end after the event and recovery may simply be letting go of memories. For another, trauma may have widespread effects. Memory may be just one piece of the puzzle. Multiple physical and nonphysical systems may be effected and the traumatic effects may persist for years. The person may be re-traumatized repeatedly. Traumatic effects can even be passed on to children. . . I am intentionally using terms like "may be" and "can be" to reinforce that this is not always the case. What may be good advice for one person may be horrible advice for another person. In the big picture, both research and direct experience matter. Their integration forms a more holistic perspective.

To my knowledge, there is no metric to objectively quantify accumulated trauma. If one exists, it would be a major breakthrough in this area and I would be very interested in leaning more about it. This is a very limited view. Memories are one component within a highly complex integrated network. Memories stored in the hypothalamus are just one piece of the puzzle. For example, hypothalamic memories are integrated within the limbic system. There is also inter-connectiveness with the HPA axis (which regulates stress), the DMN (which regulates self identity) and the PFC (an area of rational thinking). As well, trauma causes widespread epigenetic alterations that change gene expression in the brain - for years after the trauma. Hypothalamic memories are an important component, yet we can’t isolate it from the holistic integrated system. Traumatic events cause widespread alterations in various biological components. Neuroscientists are now developing techniques to erase memories. This may alleviate the severity of the long-term traumatic effects, yet it will not erase it. Not even close. That’s like looking at someone who just got hit by a train and saying “If we can just erase his memory of the collision, he will be alright”. This is starting to expand a bit, yet is still very contracted. What is referred to here of “the ego” is much more complex and expansive than what you alluded to. From a psychological self perspective, the protective mechanism you describe is one of the keys for therapy - in particular to raise one’s awareness of underlying mind-body dynamics of thought patterns and emotions. Yet we need to go a conscious level higher and become aware of the inter-relationship of those thoughts / feelings with systems of seeking energy, identification and attachment. As well, there are both mental memories and body memory to deal with. As well, there are other components when we go to a higher conscious level and observe negative traumatic effects on energetic systems such as empathy and intuition. And this is all at the individual level. The next higher levels consider the impact of traumatic events on inter-personal consciousness and the collective consciousness. People are like neutransmitters to each other in a higher order collective “brain”. Trauma has an impact at this level as well. And the immaterial is integrated with the material. For example, how do all the above factors relate to altered gene methylation patterns? And how are these epigenetic changes maintained for years? . . . You mention that trauma ends after the event. Then how would you explain trauma-induced epigenetic changes that last for years? And did you know these trauma-induced epigenetic changes can be passed on to children? If trauma is simply memories, how would you explain a child inheriting aspects of their parent’s the trauma? The young child didn’t experience it, has no memories and doesn't even have an ego yet! It all happened before they were even born. Lastly, every individual and collective consciousness is different. There is no one size fits all modality. What works for one individual/collective may not work for another. One person may work through trauma fairly smoothly and may actually become empowered by it. They may help others. Another person with similar trauma events may have severe PTSD and be repeatedly retraumatized. Another person may undergo brain injury with lesions. A holistic perspective integrates generalities with uniqueness.

@Highest Reminds me of this video