u/GTJ007

And because I found it so beautiful and thought provoking I just wanted to share my interpretation and thoughts on the events.

I felt that the monolith is a cosmic force that periodically intervenes in the evolution of consciousness, guiding beings through cycles of intelligence, death, transformation, and rebirth.
While watching the film I constantly was thinking it was less about aliens and more about consciousness itself. The monolith being a creator or god that early civilizations from one stage of existence to the next.

Act 1: dawn of man

dawn of man starts on, not prehistoric Earth, but prehistoric moon.

A mysterious cosmic artifact, the monolith, appears.
The monolith doesn’t attack them. It advances them.
It gives them a leap in consciousness or intelligence, symbolized by the discovery of tools.
Their civilization evolves.

Act 2: Modern humans

Millions of years later, a new human civilization, earthlings, humans who the same way as the apes in the beginning, evolved to be able to do space travel and reach the Moon.

They discover the same monolith, but buried, and as they say “it seems like it was deliberately buried”, so we assume it’s a new one buried by someone .

But it’s actually the one from beginning. The apes in the beginning, evolved and eventually became like modern humans hence the bone transition BUT, they destroyed themselves or the planet died, leaving the monolith buried.

Later, we see the scientists visit the monolith on the moon and are seen in some kind of pain or…. Going through the same thing as the man in the end!

Then the story jumps ahead 18 months.
Where a group of earthlings get sent to Jupiter.

Act 3: the Jupiter mission

Humanity organizes a mission to investigate the signal connected to the monolith.
HAL is secretly informed of the mission’s true purpose but the humans are not.

HAL is A.I, but a creation of humanity, who thinks it’s a machine and can’t make a mistake.

But we later learn Hal is sentient, and after feeling fear, is scared to die and commits murder… becoming himself a flawed form of man…

After Bowman disconnects HAL, we learn the mission’s true purpose.

Hal was meant to be taken to the monolith. But why not tell the others? Because it knew, like the previous astronauts, that it they would not survive, or would be sent to the same place as Bowen at the end so Only Hal could survive.

Act 4: Contact

Bowman reaches the Jupiter monolith.
The alignment of the monolith and planets turn into a cosmic lock and key.

The monolith activates something and Bowman is pulled through in a crazy psychedelic journey.

During this sequence he experiences:
distant worlds,
strange forms of life,
higher dimensions,
or realities beyond ordinary human perception.
Or…. Evolves, through much pain as we seen in the facial expressions.

Act 5: The Room Beyond Time
Bowman arrives in the strange room.
Bowman sees older versions of himself, then the perspective/ camera shifts.

Representing a new perspective or… his soul transferring… or time lapsing… or his awareness/ consciousness moving.

When it shows Bowman reaches the end of his life. The monolith appears one final time.
Bowman now sees a child, and his consciousness/ soul, is transferred to it and he is reborn

Act 6: Death and Rebirth
The room sequence represents:aging, mortality, death, and transition.
.
The fetus at the end is seen as giant size and position facing Earth to symbolize: return, rebirth, re-entry into existence, or the next stage of consciousness (or just my own interpretation, just starting over).

To me, the film’s central message is that advancement and transformation are inseparable from death. Every new stage of consciousness requires the previous one to end.

Anyways that’s just the thoughts I had watching it and wanted to share since I think it’s probably a little different than the norm.

So this is just something I been pondering recently…

History tells of all different cultures from natives, to Vikings, to Egyptians, etc who did communication with the dead…

Seances usually involve a medium but I’m curious if anyone can do it if they learn how?

Also is it really talking with the dead? Or is it with other entities or even aliens?

The creator of Star Trek had a seance and contacted aliens to get the information he used to write Star Trek… or so the story goes.

I’m just curious if anyone on here has done one, their experience and thoughts on it historically and personally.

Also…. I want to do it.

I use to play around with ouija board as a kid…. Nothing crazy happened. But my mother did when she was a kid and saw the thing fly across the room, so I definitly believe in the ability to contact something…

I think this concept is very vividly alive in spiritual communities and society today.

I have a friend who goes around and gets all upset at any little thing and goes “I just can’t take it, I’m an empath”.

And I have to tell her, that’s not compassion it’s self destruction (and most likely mental health issues).

Even this subreddit is full of suicidal empathy. People post to get attention or seek help, rather than get professional help because they know that people will be kind and show love, rather than give it to them straight like a professional . And on the flip side there are people here who care and will do their best to help that person(because they think of themselves empaths or have savior complexes, or are just… “kind”). Thus the hurt person won’t get the help they need, the replies will feel fulfilled because the person responds with a “thank you” or “this helped”.

You can really tell the people who do care by responds like “please see a professional” or “this is not the right subreddit for that”.

Now of course this doesn’t apply to ALL posts here, but a lot of these cry’s for help or does, is evident, and we are seeing repetitive patterns.

Like my friend, who “just wants to help others”, it’s a great thing to be compassionate and empathetic, but when we take on the burden of others, which most often effects our mental health (and yes even reading a sad post of someone’s effects your mental health and emotions), then we could say we are doing suicidal empathy.

Curious on what others think about this and where lines are drawn.

I really do this a lot of people could benefit from a therapist, but also…. They are insanely expensive (weird our government doesn’t push for the to be in free medical) and it’s understandable that they can’t afford it. But then, settling for therapy or help from under qualified people doesn’t tend to work either except to get temporary relief at best.

This subreddit, as many have discussed before, is now less about seeking knowledge and peace and becoming more about seeking validation and therapy.

So how do we tackle this suicidal empathy our society is building before it kind of just becomes a norm?