Petting a cat to see if you're silent or not

I believe any cat owner has experienced this at least once. I used to have a cat who would like some petting, she'd purr and relax while you're doing it, but THE SECOND you start thinking about something else while your hand keeps mechanically petting her, she'd get angry and bite you. You'd come out of "your" thoughts and concentrate on petting her, she'd purr and relax again, the moment your internal dialogue breaks in, she bites you again. I've tried and tested my theory many times - always the same result, as long as your head is empty/in the moment/concentrated on the cat - all is good, the moment you break the silence, - all hell breaks loose. lol

I've heard simialr stories from other cat owners, but they never seemed to connect it to their own thoughts, they'd brush it off as "the cat has had enough pets and doesn't want any more".

It always seemed bizarre to me how the cat would "know" when you stop thinking about them while petting. I think the cat just hates the mechanical movement and appreciates when every stroke is done with care lol I had a 'silence detecting machine' and didn't even know it, but I remember the feeling, and it is something.

19 Comments

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u/danl999 12 points 2022-09-27 19:27

There's the greeble subreddit. It's fun to think they can actually perceive inorganic beings.

And witches are associated with cats, although I have to think it's inorganic being cats that can actually become "familiar spirits".

Maybe you can create a "magic cat" for us!

I had a cat that bit. My mom made it "run away".

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u/CiChocolate 2 points 2022-09-27 19:40

Fascinating.

And sorry - nope, I don't want a cat anymore, neither organic, nor ethereal. 🙃

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u/ahsim1906 4 points 2022-09-27 20:27

I can think of other thoughts unrelated to petting my cats while petting them and this doesn’t happen. What I notice is it happens if I don’t pet them in a way that they find relaxing. So maybe that’s the aspect of “mechanically” petting them. Cats don’t like that, but neither do humans sometimes. Rubbing or massaging the same area can build internal frustration and feel uncomfortable. But I can simultaneously be in my own head while I guess also being conscious about the way I pet my cats. I think it’s just natural to me at this point. Cats can be finicky. If you touch them in the wrong place, or rub too fast it can be off putting to them. Some people understand cats and some people just don’t.

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u/fatdiscokid420 9 points 2022-09-27 20:32

The Egyptians worshipped them for a reason

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u/PreciseInstance 5 points 2022-09-27 20:37

Wow though i was the only one. I genuinely think cats can help with silence, atleast they did in my experience.

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u/CiChocolate 2 points 2022-09-27 20:46

Ikr?
I think if you tune in to your feelings when someone is scratching your back, you can tell if they are in the moment or not, too. lol

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u/PreciseInstance 7 points 2022-09-27 21:05

I think its more than that. Cats themselves are probably more silent creatures than humans. It would make sense for them to be part time "seers" with no power behind them. Its kinda like the saying "when you look into the void the void stares back". When you "see" a cat you recognize its cold and ruthless silence that it holds, and that the cat is "greater" that what it seems that it is.

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u/CiChocolate 1 points 2022-09-27 21:08

Hm, aren’t all animals silent???

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u/PreciseInstance 3 points 2022-09-28 01:19

I don't think the same concept of silence is explicable to animals or plants. Dj called alfred (the dog in taishas book) a sorcerer dog, because he was impeccable in many ways normal dogs where not. Maybe animals have other concerns that prevent them from being "silent" all the time. How about when a dog is all restless and attention seeking, or a cat doing the same. I think it is a part of that behavior that can prevent them from being considered "silent"?

But again i am just speculating, i have genuinely no idea about such concept as what can be considered "silence" for animals.

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u/tabdrops 3 points 2022-09-28 08:36

Animals with silent knowledge are those which just follow their instincts. Should give the right direction about silent animals.

The dog in Taisha's book was called Manfred. We consider him as a shapeshifted sorcerer, like other sorcerers transformed into trees in one of Carlos' books.

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u/Jadeyelmonte 4 points 2022-09-29 20:44

About Manfred:

TA: Yes. Manfred was, and is because his awareness is still...
HE: A dog?
TA: ...in existence. No, he succeeded in going with don Juan's party. He was an old sorcerer that tried to make the crossing. The ancient sorcerers, through dreaming of course, they would take different forms in order to practice their dreaming and those forms, and those forms would be different positions of the assemblage point, but they, depending on their energy and their impeccability, some of them would be trapped in different dream positions and did not make it to the ultimate goal which is total freedom.
Manfred was a sorcerer that was trapped at a dream position which was the energy formation of a dog. He had enough energy at the moment of death or dissolution to get into this form of a dog so that he would not be... So his awareness would not totally be lost. So it was like an escape route that he used and of course he was profoundly one of the tragic cases because his awareness was so keen but his physical form was so limited and he would rage and rage. But on an energetic... This is a good question because when you perceive things, we perceive them in the shape of physical forms, and we are interacting with dogs and trees and people and things, objects. But our energy bodies perceive, can perceive, energy - and sorcerers, don Juan and especially Emilito who really - Manfred was his protege, his ward in that sense, they interacted with him on an energetic level, so he was not a dog. He was an energy being, an entity.

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u/peanutbutterfeelings 1 points 2022-09-27 21:17

Ha! I like this. I notice when I’ve gotten silent and “big” they freak out and puff up when I enter the room, so that’s kinda neat.

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u/CiChocolate 1 points 2022-09-27 21:56

Interesting. What do you mean by “big”? Btw, by “silence” I mean the absence of inner dialogue/chatter.

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u/peanutbutterfeelings 1 points 2022-09-28 10:56

Yeah, same page on silence. Basically if I’ve grounded deeply and let myself expand energeticly. Like my aura is electric, things will turn on or maybe go haywire if I’m touching it in this state and I get nervous or frustrated.

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u/qbenzo928 5 points 2022-09-28 02:25

Just like with human people, I do think it is dependent on the cat. I say this as someone that grew up with a "crazy cat lady" mom lol.

Just like with humans, there are plenty of dumb cats lol

However

Some of them seemed....extra special...
There were definitely some that recognized when I was tripping on mushrooms or something similar. Or even beyond tripping, some that were clearly more conscious than the other cats lol. There was one particular cat that always hung out and acted different any time I was tripping. Luna. Still think about that particular cat from time to time. Would sit on my chest while I was tripping hard in my early days...pretty awesome stuff

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u/hideobalm 3 points 2022-09-28 04:29

I have something weirdly similar to this.

When i walk into my house, after listening to a podcast on headphones all the way home, I get an unignorable urge to remove them when the cat comes up to me at the door.

I have wondered about why this is. But yeah it feels awfully rude to have them on when she comes up to greet and chat to me when I first come in.

It’s like an intense amount of energy, there is no way I can keep them on, and have another narrative in my head.

It only tends to be in that transitory moment or arriving home- i guess cos that’s a big deal to here.

I am fine to engage with media near her otherwise, but homecoming when she has plenty to say, they have to come off.

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u/Content_Donut9081 4 points 2022-09-28 05:58

The advantage that cats have is that they don’t have all this intellectual barriers in their heads. They eat, hunt, reproduce, sleep. And repeat. They are just accepting their fate. Their ability to sense energy and act according to that is just so much more developed in them than it is in humans. Not that we don’t have it, but we have lost it because we think it’s a good idea to learn how to make fire and then … yeah … things are gonna improve 😂 no, they don’t. Cats just have a natural instinct to sense what’s going on. Just the same way how dogs can sense earthquakes days before they happen.

It’s why humans love cats and dogs so much. Because they are an extension of ourselves and resemble that what we’ve lost.

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u/SharonSmoke 2 points 2022-09-28 11:05

Have you noticed yourself doing this, too? To an extent? Sometimes people are far away, but pretending to be present in order to placate or scratch an itch. I’m thinking of sexual intimacy especially. Being with someone in their “mechanical” state is night and day different from being with someone concentrating on sharing and enjoying the present moment. It often happens in simple conversations, too. It’s easy to tell when someone is engaged vs. only partially listening, right?

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u/tabdrops 3 points 2022-09-28 16:26

Here's another remarkable story about cats.

Strangers started looting that fruit trees in my garden. There's also a fence around the outside so that it's obvious to everyone that no one else has anything to do in there. Fruit trees off the property, belonging to general public, didn't seem to have been of interest. Therefore I'm inclined to consider this as an flier's attack, to piss me off.

However, since that there's a camera with motion detector. Currently it's directed at the entrance gate, which is as high and made as the rest of the fence. Interestingly, all the cats caught on camera seem to know where's the gate located to jump over. They could have chosen any segment of the fence. Nope. They take the entrance.