Not That Kind of 9/11 Post

A link on MSN brought me to a link on Shaving Kens (and did you know that you, too, can Shave the (Orangutan) Baby? WTF?) which led me somewhere about dolls and a story of police smashing a car window to save a Reborn doll. Which led into reading about the Uncanny Valley hypothesis, which says that when objects or representations look too human, it triggers revulsion instead of empathy.

This is how I got to reading about Capgras Delusion, a belief that a familiar person or object has been replaced by an identical duplicate. I found it startling because I've had brief moments of this sensation - though nothing strong enough to render "belief" - and had no idea that it has a name.

Turns out Capgras Syndrome is one of many Delusional Misidentification Syndromes. Anyone high enough can have a moment of feeling any number of them, so I imagine they don't become "syndromes" unless the experience is chronic (no pun intended) or violent. The most common of these is probably deja vu, though our stoner friends may be best acquainted with its opposite - Jamais vu, a sense of being completely unfamiliar with something you know well.

The common thread among these is "inappropriate familiarity", and it seems any normal person, particularly in an altered state, is susceptible. After all, who has never met a stranger who feels like an old friend or experienced déjà vu? Many disorders and syndromes are simply extreme manifestations of natural brain function, and exist to some degree in all of us.

A common explanation for "inappropriate familiarity" type of phenomena is that they are an anomaly of memory, like a file showing an incorrect creation date. Perhaps they are, perhaps it's just "glitches in the Matrix", or maybe it's indicative of something else we don't know yet. I like to think that we're all connected, in a more significant way than just the obvious chain-reaction of physical events.

We think of ourselves as individuals, separate and autonomous simply because we're mobile and self-contained. What if the individuality is illusion and we are literally one creature with independent parts - one soul with many aspects and functions which must be expressed through the development of every possible personality? Whether for good, evil, or something in between, we are merely individual cells in this creature called Humanity and we all serve our purpose.

Is this too out-there an idea for most people? I think so. It treads all over our sacred individualism and demands a complete paradigm shift. In redefining the very premise of spirituality, of the salvation of the Soul, we could become a new creature - be "born again" - and we might find that all religion throughout the ages has been saying the same thing.

Funny the places Shaving Kens can lead you...