Then - Seperate. Now - Together.

When did we start to think about thinking? When were we actually aware that we may be conscious beings and that others around us are as conscious as we are? Most of us assume that we've always had it and that the growth of self-awareness occurred along with our physical evolution. What if it is something somewhat new? What if our ability to formulate our decisions is something that developed not that long ago?

Are you familiar with the bicameral mind?

It seems like there a time in which we communicated with the gods, where the separation of the god-head and mankind was very slim. To exist was to be controlled by the voices of the gods. We gave them names and they were plentiful. We gave them our emotions as well as the physical forces that shaped our world. Our art was handed to us directly from the heavens. They were in no sense ‘figments of the imagination’ of anyone. They were man’s volition. Slowly over time, we stopped listening. We began the journey to self-introspection. Where did they go? Were they ever there at all?

The one place where gods inarguably exist is the human mind, in all their grandeur and monstrosity. Our brain, split but together in two parts; the left and the right. These gods were encased in the right side of our brain, the irrational side. More than three thousand years ago, the right part of our brains would issue orders to the left part of the brain which is responsible for rationality and language. Our hallucinations were as real as anything. We all lived our lives like that of a modern schizophrenic. We functioned in a society, but we were all as crazy as the person beside us. Our language was a rich tapestry, we did not go about grunting and slobbering like the animals but merely accounted for our actions and art as the will of the gods.

Then, somehow things began to change. The voices grew more quiet by the centuries. We began to streamline our gods. We put faith in statues and idols, kings and queens. Eventually the voice was gone and we amalgamated all of our greatest gods into one. Instead of names such as Apollo and Astarte and Dionysus we gave our heavenly glory monosyllabic names; Yahweh, Allah, and God. Somehow we took away the diversity of the voices inside our heads and gave the supreme being a name that was no more than a single guttural noise.

Eventually the gods were gone. They have been replaced with multiple personalities and psychological demons. Every now and then, someone blessed with an atavistic brain emerges to listen to the gods once more. Someone who regularly dips back into lost times and brings forward the glory of our once separated minds. And as for the rest of us, we are lucky to get small whispers of old voices. They are there sometimes, and they speak in hushed tones. You will hear them before you fall asleep, submerged in a bathtub or riding on a bus.

Be calm, you're not going crazy. You're engaging in something that was once common but is now lost.