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In his book Communion, Whitley Strieber describes his encounters with beings who he refers to as aliens from another civilisation who abducted him and planted strange objects under his skin. I attended a talk he gave on his experiences and on the aliens and he made a number of interesting points.
The reason why aliens are particularly interested in human beings, according to him, is that the composition of the human brain is unique. Primitive animals such as reptiles respond to their environment on an instinctual level. They are ‘at one’ with their surroundings. Their emotions are rudimentary. As we move up the evolutionary scale we get to mammals, which have an instinctual relationship with their environment and also an emotional relationship with other animals, usually their own species. Unlike reptiles they have an emotional relationship with the offspring. Further up the evolutionary scale, human beings have a rational ability as well as well developed emotions and instincts.
In physical terms, the brain evolved from the primitive ‘old brain’, which controls the basic functions of breathing etc, through layers of the brain until the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the brain which is responsible for rational thought.
According to Whitley Strieber there is another layer of the brain beyond the cerebral cortex that deals with intuition. Intuition is not understood by people in the West but is one aspect that mystical training attempts to develop. In the alien species this layer of the brain lies outside of the cerebral cortex, which is why they are often depicted as having large heads. In human beings this level of development does not exist physically in the brain but exists as a layer of electromagnetic activity that extends outside of the head. This gives human beings as unique potential in that the intuitive ability can be extended beyond the realm of what is experienced by the individual. Intuitively, we can travel to the ends of the universe.
I have mentioned before (‘Expanding Consciousness’) how Mohammed traveled on his
night journey to beyond the lote tree, which marked the end of the world of forms
and the start of the world of forces. Only human beings have this potential.
There is another aspect that makes humans unique. On Earth we can see the stars. On other planets with intelligent life, the stars are usually hidden by layers of cloud. This has given humans a unique relationship with the world. We are, in one respect, more extroverted and less introspective than species that can only see inwards to their own world.
