I think if you want to look at the medical side of things, there are a whole host of very interesting mental issues that once upon a time would have people quietly thinking they're crazy or staggering off to their therapist - but now lead people to MySpace where they learn "oooh, lots of other people are elves too!"
I'm not talking about things like schizophrenia so much as, for example, Capgras Delusion.
A great many otherkin "symptoms" involve things like a dissociation to a greater or lesser extent from friends and family and the world, a feeling of not belonging, a feeling of being from elsewhere . . . combined (often, but not always) with memories of another life. We all know (or should know) how fragile the experience of memory is, and how essentially impossible it is to tell real from constructed memories apart - especially among people who use techniques of high suggestibility, such as hypnosis, to recover memories.
Does that mean I think all otherkin are bunk? Nope. I think, however, a great many - and possibly including myself - are plain, regular humans who have some either physical or psychological disfunction which has led them to the mistaken belief that they aren't human.
Savage Wrote:From what I have seen, a very common factor in the Otherkin experience is feeling a connection to a distinct nonhuman entity or personality that lives (or once lived) in a world or universe that is not the mundane physical world we live in now. This connection may be experienced as a past life memory, or it may be experienced as a current connection. Not all Otherkin report past life memories or a connection to another world, but a great many do, and it would be of interest to know at least roughly what the percentages are.
An almost universal factor in fact.
However the reason for that I think is pretty straightforward.
If otherkin are bunk, then if you remember being an elf or dragon or angel, well, you better pretty quickly remember living somewhere other than Earth, on account of the distinct lack of same here. On the other hand, if elves and dragons and angels are real, well they would of course remember another world on account of, again, them not actually living here.
Quote:It specifically does not refer to shamanic or mediumistic practices or journeying to a spirit realm. If you do not have a connection to or memories of an alternate universe type world, but you do shamanic journeying, your answer would still be no.
I was torn between yes and no until I actually read your full post, and then promptly changed my vote to no <!-- s

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The reason being is my own experiences of "my world" are of shadow dimensions which are more equivalent to the astral or shamanic journeying than to another universe. On the other hand, I am a multiple and my "other half" did indeed have a physical life elsewhere - but either it was on Earth, it was somewhere else but the people and culture were very much like Earth (no magic, no aliens, etc etc etc), or it was somewhere else but my memory interprets otherwise meaningless images as Earth-like so I can properly understand them.
As such for me personally it's no, and for my other half it's maybe yes, maybe no.