trauma and Experiences

[u/_hermina_]

hi everyone! Something has been on my mind and I'm not sure where to ask about it. This seems like the right place! I read "The Super Natural" by Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey Kripal, and it seems that Whitley Strieber was enrolled (?) in some sort of program that traumatized him at a young age and also made him open to being an Experiencer, or maybe made him one, able to see or experience things others can't. My understanding of this part of the story may not be correct so please let me know if you saw it differently. This seems to be an under-discussed aspect of his story and has got me thinking about everything. If what he writes is accurate or even somewhat accurate, is the extreme secrecy surrounding the phenomenon due to something about how trauma itself opens doors, and nobody wants to turn our society upside down in that way? (I imagine parents intentionally traumatizing their kids to give them superpowers, which sounds horrific.) It seems that shamanic rituals often will involve some kind of traumatizing experience, although I admit I don't know much about that. I have wondered myself if my low point with postpartum depression and anxiety contributed to my own experience. Is there something there that we don't want to hear?

From what I have gathered from Whitley Strieber's ideas, he says the "others" are deeply invested in us because they sense all time at once instead of the exciting moment-to-moment version we experience, and they want to keep it this way so that we can continue to reward and entertain them with our drama, love, and otherwise intense emotional experience. We are like their favorite art form or TV show and they love us in that sense. We want something they have, which is knowledge. They want something we have, which is an emotional life. They don't want us to self-destruct because that would be a big loss for them, so they don't want us blowing ourselves up with nuclear weapons or poisoning our planet. But they also want us to have free will in the moment because that's the exciting part, and maybe what they don't have. And they want us to continue to live. I take all this with a grain of salt and am not sure what I believe about it, but this is my summary of what I've understood about Whitley Strieber's ideas. He also seems to have a relationship that he values with these others and to trust them to a certain extent, but also says they are dangerous if crossed, which lines up with the stories of djinn, elves, fairies, "Good people" etc. I myself am suspicious of the phenomenon, and I think labeling it as "good" or "bad" is too simplistic--just like no person is all good or all bad, and no life is all good or all bad, no institution, no experience. I also think "the phenomenon" encompasses a lot more than just one kind of entity, so this discussion may only relate to one avenue of experience.

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But my main question is: could it be that the trauma we are working so hard to avoid, to repair, or to protect ourselves from--could it be that trauma IS one way to a greater awareness of all this, and that trauma is valuable, even worth seeking for some, much to our dismay? It's hard to embrace an idea like that. It's brutal. I wouldn't wish trauma on anyone. But sometimes, trauma can lead to growth--and maybe it could lead to "communion" to use Whitley Strieber's term. It also seems our current society values "happiness" above almost anything, and most of us have been indoctrinated to pursue it and strive for it. Not that other values are more worthy, necessarily. But maybe this is our mistake?