Storytelling

An important job of our memory systems is to keep track of locations where our experiences happen; they act as anchors for our personal memories. Consider this: all of your cherished personal memories happened in a particular place and it’s difficult to imagine the event without it. In order to recall a location later, it must be encoded quickly at... See more

stories provide context. Instead of isolated facts or data points, narratives weave information into a relatable framework. For instance, instead of stating statistical data about a product’s efficiency, sharing a customer’s real-life experience using the product can be more impactful. The narrative format makes complex or abstract concepts more... See more

Some stories can serve as templates for consciousness, patterns frozen so that we can observe ourselves

“The world we experience as ‘out there’ is actually a reconstruction of reality that is built inside our heads. It’s an act of creation by the storytelling brain.”

― Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better

shamanic vision journeys tell of entering an underworld or experiencing supernatural flight to a spirit world above. The Tungus shamans of Central Asia descend to the underworld through a narrow hole to cross three streams, where they encounter the spirits. The South American Tapirap shamans change into birds and fly through the cosmos; the North... See more

The techniques of these esoteric traditions are often thought to involve deliberately exotic and mysterious training, such as the use of special, mysterious magic words in meditation. However, the essence of meditation is the focusing of awareness on a single, unchanging source of stimulation. It is the attitude, not the specific form, that is... See more

Oral stories were absorbed into the mythologies of different places and cultures, and versions of them, now written down, followed the same tradition.

Stories, he says, are a:

“...form of culture that remains when nations, languages and faiths have long since died. There is an almost uncanny persistence and durability in the tale which cannot be accounted for in the present state of knowledge.

Storytelling is our superpower