Part 8/10:
The conversation touches on the idea that many religious myths, including Noah's Ark and the great flood, symbolize the trauma of birth—the chaos and fluidity of exiting the womb. Carl Jung hypothesized that near-death experiences might be re-experiences of birth, with the tunnel of light representing the birth canal.
Furthermore, the trauma of realizing one's separateness from the universe and others—marked by the child's first gaze into the mother's eyes—leads to developing narratives, superstitions, and paranormal beliefs as coping mechanisms. These narratives serve as psychological shields against the existential terror of solitude and vulnerability in a vast, indifferent cosmos.