I've been struggling with thinking of how the Astral World (or Spirit World) works in my book. I imagine it being a world of the mind, which serves as the basis of the Physical World. Essentially, everything in my book has a soul (or consciousness) to some extent, which exists in the Spirit World, and gives form to the Physical World. The problems I've run into is how to have characters function in the Spirit World. If it's a world of thoughts, how do you stop anything you think of from coming to life, and can everyone just read anyone's thoughts? That, and how do you limit powers in the world if it's based around thought? I just wondered if anyone had any suggestions, cause I'm stumped at the moment.
The spirit world is accessed through a change in consciousness, so one's body could be sitting on the couch and be simultaneously active in the spirit world. Thoughts are used in the same way as they are in the ordinary world (learn things, make decisions...) At least, this is how it works in my story, although I don't mention the spirit world by name. Since everything has its own consciousness, I don't think thoughts would bring anything to life that doesn't already exist, but they could certainly draw or summon the already existing beings that are being thought about. I hope this helps, but it is your story so you can make your spirit world whatever you want.
Maybe one needs to excercise a certain amount of concentration to make things happen. Maybe the unconscious fleeting thoughts are expressed in a flicker or shifting or blurryness but only thoughts that the character concentrates on take shape.
Limit things by giving them a price. You have to focus in order to exert your will in the spirit world, or some toll is extracted in the physical world for diverting your energy to the spirit world.
Your relationship between the spirit world and the physical world reminds me of Plato’s philosophy if forms or ideas. He said that everything exists in the material world because it participates in an immaterial idea thaT exists independent of the world. For example beauty. The origin of beauty is not found in the beautiful things them selfs but only because they participated in an immaterial eternal beauty that exists in another world. Another coralation is is found in mathematics. Some mathematical truths we know exist but we don’t fully understand them. So we know they exist independent of the mind. And they are found no where in nature they are not an abstraction so they exist independent of nature. If they do not exist in the mind nor in nature these mathematical truths must be in another ‘world’. Yet this math world influences our world as a principle of order. For example the mathematics of partical physics if you like philosophy I suggest reading Plato’s theory of forms which might be inspiring Hope this was helpful
Memetics is your friend here. It is not well known but it is a real science. You can start from Susan Blacmores Meme Machine. You can think computer viruses, poems, words, shared knowledge as immaterial cultural beings. Those cultural beings form coalitions. Cultural immaterial beings adapt to other cultural immaterial beings. Complex adapted group of memes is called memecomplex or shortly memeplexes. When you think how things happen in real world with real immaterial beings (like memes) you start automatically to find out possibilities to do it in narrative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memeplex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme You have a real "astral" of "spirit" world of immaterial cultural beings and a science that is studying it. Thre is a good place to start. And some more...
I've done research on that topic, and it was one of the inspirations for how my world works. The mathematics theory is also one I've heard. It's an interesting way of seeing the world, and it makes for good fiction.
I’m glad to hear that philosophy inspires your fiction as it does mine. I’m currently brainstorming about a a short story heavily influenced by Nietzsche philosophy. I hate his philosophies but they are fascinating. And necessary for the nihilism in my story. I hope to get to read your story when it’s ready so hit me up.
