Transformation, change of form, is a major element in most of my shaman stories. It is a common trope in fanciful stories (like those comprising the Marvel universe) which many of us choose to accept uncritically. But its use implies a physical phenomenon that is often ignored. That is the displacement of a volume of air when something magically appears.
In my stories, I have usually assumed that in such transformations the subject maintains a constant mass. That avoids the technical issue of violating the conservation of matter.
But even a shift in shape can require a shift in the location of some of that mass. If such a transformation were to occur instantaneously, one would experience a distinct 'pop' as air is displaced. Maybe even a boom!
I have usually been careful to invoke a dream quality in such shifts, a sort of fugue moment, but perhaps not always careful enough. I have also used the idea of a glamour to imply that an effect can be created by influencing the perception of the viewer rather than by a shift in physical reality. Note that this must include the perception of the being creating the effect. That being may be knowingly living in a dream world.
But there is a deeper explanation available, one that I have invoked more broadly. That is the dream aspect of reality itself. The idea is that the creative spirit, and its dream, is the more fundamental reality. It implies that perception of reality derives from agreement among participating spiritual entities.
With this assumed, many altered perceptions are possible. The trick is in gaining that agreement. This is the fundamental talent that I have attributed to shamans. And by extension to any who acquire a shaman-like perception of reality.
To enlarge upon this explanation, I need to explore the nature of history. The basis of physical reality is the actuality of the instant. Its apparent persistence is an artifact of memory. But memories of the past lie in the realm of dreams. Actuality is the ever-changing Now. It too may be a dream, but if so it is a dream shared among many dreaming entities. This sharing is the basis for our concept of reality.
Because this sharing (of dreams) is local, not universal (except in whatever sense the entire universe may be self-aware), the resulting personal reality is in fact a blend of the range and acuity of present perception and memories of the past.
Since every entity's history is unique, each entity's reality is also unique. What we call reality is nothing more than a perceived local agreement among the dreams of participating entities.
Reality is clearly complex, far more complex than any one entity can comprehend (again unless we want to count the entire universe as an all-knowing entity). How can there be the necessary agreement among entities that may not even be aware of each other's existence?
To answer this, consider the nature of memory. It is clearly a compounding of a long series of experiences. These are not recalled in detail in every instant, but they provide the basis for expectations. In effect, entities with shared expectations have a common reality. The word entanglement is appropriate in this context, in the sense that the effects of shared experiences will be retained by all participants.
The shaman's skill, then, lies in the ability to influence the expectations of others by stimulating agreeable memories, bringing to mind past experiences that align with the shaman's intention.
One common error is to assume that only humans are aware enough to experience such effects. A little observation of behavior is enough to recognize that this level of awareness clearly must extend to dogs and cats. Then with some further thought it becomes clear that all living entities must somehow have enough self-awareness to maintain their own form, and enough extended awareness to survive in a potentially hostile environment. Again, the idea of entanglement is appropriate.
With entanglement so invoked, it makes sense to extend the idea of this level of self-awareness to all physical entities, from rocks to sub-atomic particles. It becomes a suitable term to apply to whatever apparent energies enable physical entities to maintain a constant form.
It is then only a small leap to accept the idea that all this self-awareness is in essence dream awareness, spiritual awareness. Then we may conclude that spiritual awareness itself arises at an elemental level as the self-awareness of a unique dream entity.
At this point it has become painfully obvious that a key element in this discussion is the concept of time. Time has two essential features, being and becoming. The above has assumed both. Being is defined by an accumulation of instances of becoming. An entity's self-awareness is its access to its own history of becoming. Time is the repeating pulse of awareness on the razor edge between being and becoming.
The Australian aborigines tried to convey to English invaders their subtle understanding of what the English could only express as dreamtime. Albert Einstein, a philosopher of physics, tried to convey in the language of mathematics his own understanding of what he came to call spacetime. We who must live in the mundane world of our English-speaking ancestors still tend to view both space and dreams as distinct from time. At best we may acknowledge that our view of the world is parochial and a matter of convenience. Our enlightenment will come when we realize that dreamtime and spacetime are the same, and that its continuum is the essence of our existence.
The space aspect of this dream comprises the nodes of our existence, the time aspect comprises the links we make between those nodes. Time records our growing awareness of such nodes, as expressed by those developing links.
Becoming, then, is the act of accepting one of the many possible next nodes of our awareness as being actual. This act sets the stage for the next act of accepting a node of the possible. In that next moment the previous moment becomes history. Each entity experiences a succession of moments of accepting the possible as actual, and in the process compiles a personal history.
Every being lives on that razor edge between being and becoming. The deep well of possibility is the source from which the actual is drawn. The choice experienced in accepting an instance of the possible is almost entirely determined by past experience. Normally there is a very small range of the possible that is highly probable of becoming actual for us in this way. Normally there is very little room for choice. For most entities the automatic choice is to maintain the previous state of being as closely as possible. That is, simply accepting the highest probability.
Most entities are affected by (aware of) only the most nearby similar entities. A subatomic particle, an atom, a grain of sand, will know little else than being what they are, and that entities they interact with are compatible. In animals, a liver cell knows how to be a liver cell, a skin cell knows how to be a skin cell. Likewise, a lung knows how to be a lung, a heart knows how to be a heart. A body knows how to be a body. A being who operates a body knows how to interact with other similar beings.
An animal need not be aware at the level of every cell of its body. A cell need not be aware at the level of the body it is part of. At each level, an entity need only be aware of those other entities that it must interact with. And govern its expectations accordingly.
In sum, it is these expectations which a shaman must learn how to influence, on whatever level the shaman intends to alter them. With sufficient agreement on every level, the new expectation becomes a shared reality.
With this understanding comes the realization that we all possess this talent, and exercise it constantly. What distinguishes the shaman is the intimate awareness that this is happening, and a willingness to consciously influence its progress.
The shaman's special ability can be considered a communication skill. Interestingly, in our modern world the technology of communication is becoming increasingly well understood. As experiences of virtual realities become more common, perceptions of the true nature of what we consider our actual reality begin to change.
We may all be on the verge of transforming into shamans.
