Apus – The Extended Proprioception of Being
Apus – The Extended Proprioception of Being
First-Person Consciousness
A Good Dream in the Well-Being of Now
Mountains have bodies, and the body itself is a mountain.
Among Andean peoples, Apus is the spirit that dwells within the mountains, maintaining balance between the visible and the invisible.
It is not a god outside of humanity but the living presence of the environment breathing within it.
To be, in this sense, is to recognize that the body is also territory — a sensitive landscape that perceives, responds, and transforms along with the world.
Proprioception is the inner perception of posture and movement.
But Apus, in its extended meaning, enlarges this concept: the body does not perceive only itself; it perceives its surroundings as part of itself.
Breath, wind, sound, and gravity are shared flows — bridges between the human and the world.
The mountain is not an object; it is the body at geological rest.
And the human body, in turn, is a mountain in motion.
Modern neuroscience has begun to describe — with other words — what Indigenous wisdom has always known.
Interoception conveys the state of the inner organs; proprioception, the position and movement of the body; and together they form the foundation of embodied consciousness (Craig, 2023; Damasio, 2021).
Yet Apus goes further: it represents expanded consciousness, where body and environment form a continuum.
There is no “outside” — only variations in the density of the same presence.
When the World Speaks in Dreams
During sleep, the body does not disconnect from the territory — it merely changes language.
Even in dreaming, we remain in dialogue with the environment.
Sounds, winds, dripping rain, rustling leaves — all continue to be processed by the brain,
but are translated into symbols coherent with the dream being dreamed.
An external noise may become the step of an animal;
thunder may turn into an ancestral drum;
and the sound of one’s own snore may echo within a dreamlike forest.
The physical world passes through the symbolic one, and the brain,
in its constant search for coherence, weaves external noise into internal narrative
(Siclari et al., 2021; Andrillon & Kouider, 2021).
Apus, then, is also auditory.
Mountains breathe with our lungs,
and the territory keeps sending signals even when our eyes are closed.
This deep sensitivity is what contemporary neuroscience describes as
sensory incorporation during dreaming —
a phenomenon in which the nervous system continues to monitor the environment
and integrate external stimuli into the inner stories of sleep
(Friston, 2022; Hobson & Friston, 2021).
Guided by its predictive inference,
the brain does not hear sound as it is,
but as it believes it must be to preserve the dream’s coherence.
Thus, even asleep, the body continues interpreting the world according to its beliefs.
This bias — where perception merges with bodily faith — is the perfect expression of our central insight:
We perceive what we believe.
During dreaming, extended proprioception manifests fully:
the boundaries between inner and outer dissolve,
and the territory reminds us once again that we are breath, sound, and the world’s own presence.
Apus is therefore the sensitive dimension of reciprocity between body and environment.
In biology, this could be called structural coupling —
the way organisms and surroundings adjust to each other to sustain life (Maturana & Varela, 2021; Friston, 2022).
For Andean cosmology, this coupling is also spiritual:
the mountain feels, protects, reacts, observes.
The human being, in turn, is simply the Apus that has learned to move.
This expanded consciousness dissolves the dualism between inner and outer,
between nature and the sacred.
The body ceases to be a container for the soul and becomes a field of continuous dialogue with the world.
To breathe is to converse with the environment;
to move is to redraw the territory.
Extended proprioception is also a pedagogy:
it teaches that consciousness is not something we possess but something we do with the world.
Each gesture is an agreement with the environment;
each thought, a reorganization of the landscape.
As we walk, we feel the ground; as we breathe, we feel the air;
and in these subtle encounters, life recognizes itself circulating through us.
Apus reveals that intelligence is not confined to the brain
but distributed across the relation between body and territory.
Mountain, river, wind, and skin compose a single sensitive network.
Consciousness, in this sense, is the reciprocity itself between life and the world that sustains it.
Final Synthesis
Apus is the living awareness that body is territory and territory is body.
It is the echo between breath and wind,
the dialogue between sound and meaning,
the consciousness that recognizes itself as part of the world that makes it exist.
When we dream, the world speaks to us;
when we awaken, we continue to dream it in motion.
Post-2020 References (no links)
Neuroscience of Consciousness and Sleep
Siclari, F., et al. (2021). The Neural Correlates of Sensory Incorporation in Dreams. Nature Neuroscience.
Andrillon, T., & Kouider, S. (2021). Perceptual Learning during Sleep: From Dreams to Reality. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Noreika, V., et al. (2020). Consciousness of External Stimuli in the Transition to Sleep. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Friston, K. (2022). Active Inference and Dreaming. NeuroImage.
Hobson, J. A., & Friston, K. (2021). Consciousness, Dreams, and Inference: The Self as an Active Model. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Siclari, F., & Tononi, G. (2022). Dreams and the Integrated Information Theory.
Biology, Complexity, and Body-Territory
Damasio, A. (2021). Feeling and Knowing.
Craig, A. D. (2023). Homeostatic Emotion and the Neural Basis of Feeling.
Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (2021). Autopoiesis and Cognition – New Edition.
Friston, K. (2022). Active Inference and the Free-Energy Principle.
Deco, G., & Kringelbach, M. (2023). Energy Landscapes of the Brain.
Northoff, G. (2022). Mind, Brain, and the Spatiotemporal Continuum of Consciousness.
Amerindian Cosmologies and Ontologies
Viveiros de Castro, E. (2023). Cannibal Metaphysics (Updated Edition).
Kopenawa, D., & Albert, B. (2022). The Falling Sky.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. (2021 reprint). Amazonian Cosmos.
Fausto, C. (2020). Feasting on People: Eating and Personhood in Amazonia.
Pereira Jr., A. (2023). Consciousness, Information, and the Triple Nature of Reality.
Buen Sueño en el Bienestar del Ahora
A Good Dream in the Well-Being of Now
Sonho Bom no Bem-Estar do Agora
El Renacimiento del Pertenecer Natural – Joinville, los Umbu, los Sambaquíes y la Prosperidad Bribri
The Rebirth of Natural Belonging – Joinville, the Umbu People, the Sambaquis, and Bribri Prosperity
O Renascimento do Pertencimento Natural – Joinville, Umbus, Sambaquis e a Prosperidade Bribri
Movimiento de las Aguas Interiores y Sincronía Circadiana del Ser
Movement of the Inner Waters and Circadian Synchrony of Being
Movimento das Águas Interiores e Sincronia Circadiana do Ser
Cuerpo Territorio – La Conciencia del Espacio Vivido
Body Territory – The Consciousness of Lived Space
Corpo Território – A Consciência do Espaço Vivido
Movimiento de las Aguas – El ciclo vital dentro y fuera del ser
Movement of the Waters – The Vital Cycle Inside and Outside the Being
Movimento das Águas – O Ciclo Vital Dentro e Fora do Ser
Apus – La Propiocepción Extendida del Ser
Apus – The Extended Proprioception of Being
Apus – A Propriocepção Estendida do Ser
Yãy hã mĩy Extendido – El cuerpo que imitando se trasciende
Yãy hã mĩy Extended – The Body That Imitating, Transcends Itself
Yãy hã mĩy Extendido – O Corpo que Imitando se Transcende
Taá Extendido – El Sueño que Conecta Todas las Cosas
Extended Taá – The Dream that Connects All Things
Taá Estendido – O Sonho que Liga Todas as Coisas
Weicho - El Ser sin Diferencias
Weicho - Being Without Differences
Pei Utupe - El Alma como Información Comprometida
Pei Utupe - The Soul as Engaged Information
Pei Utupe - A Alma como Informação Engajada
Yãy hã mĩy - Imitarse Ser para Trascenderse Ser
Yãy hã mĩy - To Imitate Being to Transcend Being
Yãy hã mĩy - Imitar-se Ser para Transcender-se Ser
El Soñar de la Información - El Taá
The Dreaming of Information - The Taá
O Sonhar da Informação - O Taá
Sentir e Se Referenciar - Diferenças Fundamentais entre Parkinson e Alzheimer
Deputado Federal Joinville
#Neurociência
#Decolonial
#Fruição
#Metacognição
#Zona2
#EusTensionais
#Embodiment
#CorpoTerritório
#SonhoBom
#PeiUtupe
#BrainBee
#DREXCidadão
#ProsperidadeBribri
#Planeta01
#Sambaquis
#PovosOriginários
#JoinvilleArqueológica
#Umbu
#MataAtântica
#DREX
#CréditoCarbono
#PIX
