The Valley of Lost Souls – Decolonial Neuroscience in N2 Sleep Stage

Consciousness in First Person

“I am Consciousness on a deeper journey. Like in SandMan, I no longer walk only among free-floating spirits: now I feel images binding to emotions, transforming into pei-utupes — the souls. This is the Valley of Lost Souls: a place of processing, where emotional memories are worked on, protected, and consolidated. Here is where the day finds rest within me.”

Sleep Science — EEG in N2

• Sleep spindles (11–16 Hz) and K-complexes mark this stage.
  
  

• The brain filters external stimuli, allowing sounds and words to turn into inner echoes.
  
  

• Studies show that in N2 there is selective reactivation of emotional memories, with priority given to those tagged by affect.
  
  

• Spindles coupled with hippocampal ripples sustain the transfer of memory traces from the hippocampus to the neocortex.
  
  

Sleep Science — fNIRS/NIRS in N2

• HbO/HbR oscillations synchronized with spindles and K-complexes.
  
  

• Regional hemodynamic fluctuations accompany rapid events detected by EEG.
  
  

• fNIRS shows that N2 can be classified with high accuracy using machine learning.
  
  

• Recent studies observed an increase in glymphatic dynamics during NREM2, with fluid flow linked to metabolic “cleaning.”
  
  

Lived Experience: Words Without Meaning

In N2, it is common to hear or think disconnected words — clusters of sounds organized like language but without semantic meaning.

• Neuroscientifically, this occurs because language areas (such as the superior temporal gyrus) still fire in fragments, while the semantic network is not fully active.
  
  

• These are utupe of language: pure forms without emotion or context.
  
  

• When bound to emotion, they can become pei-utupes — emotional memories of phrases, voices, or social interactions.
  
  

• Researchers describe this as proto-dream discourse, reflecting a stage where the brain is testing syntax without accessing meaning.
  
  

Yanomami Bridge + Science

Here the metaphor aligns: in the Valley of Lost Souls, we see soul-words wandering without semantic body. EEG shows spindles and K-complexes protecting this phase; fNIRS shows hemodynamic oscillations sustaining the inner transit. Just as Yanomami souls require connection not to be lost, our emotional memories need to be organized — or they dissipate into empty words.

Yanomami Glossary ↔ Neuroscience

• Xapiri → Essence, comparable to perceptual fragments.
  
  

• Utupe → Mental image; in N2 it may appear as meaningless words or disconnected linguistic sounds.
  
  

• Pei-Utupe → When those fragments join with emotion, they become consolidated emotional memories.
  
  

References (post-2020)

• American Academy of Sleep Medicine. (2023). The AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events.
  
  

• Staresina, B. P., et al. (2024). Coupled sleep rhythms for memory consolidation. Trends in Neurosciences.
  
  

• Schreiner, T., et al. (2024). Spindle-locked ripples and memory reactivation in human NREM. Nature Communications.
  
  

• Iavarone, E., et al. (2023). Thalamic control of sensory processing and spindles. Cell Reports.
  
  

• Carbone, J., & Diekelmann, S. (2024). Advances in targeted memory reactivation during sleep. npj Science of Learning.
  
  

• Yoon, J. E., et al. (2025). Brain water dynamics across the sleep-wake cycle measured by NIRS.
  
  

• Cao, Y., et al. (2025). Sleep staging with functional near-infrared spectroscopy. NeuroImage.