Life Takes 8 Cycles to Complete

An exchange on an anonymous message board. Curious anonymous participants react one after another to a mysterious thread posted by someone.

Does anyone know about this?

• [3]What do you mean?
• [4]>>3 promised to go to the employment office after summer vacation.
• [5]Maybe because the “Ha” in “Hello Work” looks like the number eight. It reveals the OP’s hidden desire to make this their last job hunt.

Until this point, it was just an exchange of jokes, but with the original poster’s reply, the conversation began to take an unexpected direction.

>>4 >>5 It’s seriously not like that. Regarding employment, I’m a 4th-year university student waiting for the results of a higher-level local civil service exam. I heard that when you die, your life is judged as either good or bad. If it’s judged as good, you’re reborn as a human again. Apparently, if you can complete this cycle 8 times in a row, you can go to heaven. The 7th and 8th cycles are supposedly extremely difficult environments to grow up in, beyond just “hard mode.” The 7th cycle varies from person to person, but in the 8th cycle, there’s supposedly a moment when you definitely realize you’re on your 8th cycle. People on their 8th cycle are supposedly Buddha, Christ, etc. There were quite a few in China in the past, apparently. I don’t know where to start explaining, so ask me anything you want to know. Of course, there’s plenty I don’t know. By the way, if you live a completely ordinary, unremarkable life, you’re supposedly reborn as an animal or something until you can be reborn as a human again.

What the thread starter began describing was a unique theory of life cycles and reincarnation. It’s in anonymous spaces like message boards where such mysterious experiences and ideas are often shared.

• [8]Oh, then I’m definitely on my 8th cycle. I can totally feel that this life is my last one.
• [9]Who told you this?

>>8 It’s not just a feeling, apparently you truly realize it completely. I felt like this wasn’t my 1st cycle, or rather, I realized it couldn’t possibly be my 1st cycle, so I asked someone about it. >>9 A being that’s human but not human. An alter personality of someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder. By the way, it’s not just that alternate personality who knows this. Probably all proper DID individuals know about it. You never know when or where you might meet one, but if you do, I think you should ask them. Life is a series of choices, and if you pay attention to the small choices that you usually don’t think about, I think you’ll realize that this life is a bit too scripted.

The conversation gradually becomes more complex, mixing psychiatric concepts like Dissociative Identity Disorder with spiritual worldviews.

• [16]>>10 There are others talking about different things, what do you think about that? It’s the first time I’ve heard about 8 cycles, and does OP believe this story is true? By the way, I realized this life is my last one just based on a feeling. I suddenly realized that if I don’t do it here, it’s over. Well, this is what you’d call enlightenment.
• [19]>An alter personality of someone with DID. So it’s all just your delusion. Boring.

Due to the nature of message boards, believers and skeptics intermingle.

>>16 In life, there are times when you intuitively feel that a certain choice will lead to a certain outcome. The feeling of knowing you’re on your 8th cycle is apparently different from that. The feeling that this might be your last life supposedly happens to many people. People talking about different things are probably “solo players” who realized they’re not on their first cycle. That’s probably why there are differences in the stories. >>19 Oh, not me, I thought there might be some misunderstanding, but I think if you asked the alter personality of someone with DID, they would all give the same response. It’s like shared knowledge.

The original poster further develops their theory, attempting to explain it using gaming terminology like “solo player.” In Japanese internet culture, it’s common to compare reality to games.

• [22]Someone once told me “You’re on your 7th cycle and have come quite far.” I wonder if that’s related?
• [23]I’m on my first cycle and I won’t even complete it.
• [24]>>6 I’ve definitely been walking through a super hard mode life! I thought it was my fault, but if it’s my last one I can endure it. But I’m not doing well in this last life, so I’ll have to redo it or become an animal… As long as I don’t have to be human again. Being human is too painful! But I still think my life is blessed and watched over by luck in many ways.
• [26]Where did you get this information from anyway?
• [27]This is probably just a delusional comfort made up by someone who didn’t study, lazed around playing games all day, got terrible grades, couldn’t get into a good school, failed to find employment, settled at the bottom, and became desperate lol.

Various responses are posted, with skeptical voices being strong. “w” is a Japanese internet slang symbol representing laughter.

>>22 That seems like it might be related. The “high on the 7th cycle” part overlaps quite a bit with what I heard. >>23 They say suicides and accidents occur due to carelessness. Since they’re not included in your almost certain future, if you overcome them and continue living, you should be able to complete the cycle. >>24 Apparently falling as low as an insect makes it really difficult to return to being human. There are supposedly quite a few people on their 8th cycle in Japan. Beyond that is heaven, they say. Heaven is apparently mostly empty because hardly anyone makes it there. >>26 Some being that’s human but not human. When they showed me how they could accelerate natural healing of an injury right in front of me, I had no choice but to believe, even if I didn’t want to. >>27 I already said it’s shared knowledge, didn’t I? At the very least, those two aren’t people who couldn’t go to school. One turned down Waseda University because they wanted to go to Tokyo University, and the other scored over 90% on the Center Exam but for some reason went to a vocational school and is now considering retaking the exam for a national university.

The poster defends their claims by mixing in rebuttals, trying to add credibility to their story. The specific examples related to the Japanese university entrance examination culture resonate with Japanese readers.

• [29]Dissociative Identity Disorder is not such an occult thing. You don’t know what you don’t know. Therefore, there’s no “shared knowledge” that all people with DID would know. Even if some other entity gave you this knowledge, it has nothing to do with Dissociative Identity Disorder.
• [36]What? What? Isn’t that strange? Perfect memory ability exists in savants, but in that case, there should be some kind of disability. Usually it’s autism or something. Using your brain to that extent, no, having a superhuman brain—are you even human? You must be a new type of human. Isn’t savant syndrome way too amazing??

A rebuttal from a participant with medical knowledge. The image is a reaction with sarcasm.

>>29 That’s right. I think there are probably different types of DID. One person has a single alter, while another has about 14 personalities living inside them, but there are almost no personalities with suicidal tendencies. I think there’s a possibility that people with something different from what’s commonly seen as problematic DID are simply diagnosed the same way. I might get called out for saying something unrelated, but the reason I believed this was because I saw up close the abilities that the personalities of someone with 14 personalities had. Personalities with perfect memory, or ones that could improve eyesight by imagining how to use muscles, or run faster. Personalities that could accelerate natural healing or block pain. Personalities that could see ghosts. Personalities that could find and view the future and past from something like a database. By the way, when I had a personality with perfect memory casually take an IQ test, something incredible happened. Apparently they can use parts of the brain that normal humans can’t. Alter personalities apparently don’t become ghosts when they disappear, unlike humans. They simply vanish without a place to return to. But if the host personality continues as a human in the next cycle, they’re apparently born with some information carried over. So they said the fundamental soul is one. Humans who die and become ghosts can apparently remain in this world to some extent. The ghost of my ex-girlfriend who committed suicide was apparently beside me all the time, but the personality who could see ghosts relayed to me what she was saying? I don’t know, but when I asked a few days later, they said she had disappeared. Apparently there was a cat on one side of me and her on the other, and they could correctly identify the dead cat’s color and pattern, and even guessed her cause of death without me saying anything, so I had no choice but to believe. By the way, if you get this information like I did and confirm it deeply, it’s apparently against the rules of this world, so you’ll either be corrected or erased. You’re supposed to complete 8 cycles properly and then understand what this world is, that’s the necessary order. I believe the phrase “God is dead,” so I asked what about that? They said, “God is dead, but he also exists,” and I’m somewhat convinced about that.

The story takes a dramatic turn. The poster begins to describe their experience in a long text, weaving together supernatural phenomena, personal tragedy, and cosmological reflections.

• [31]I think that’s more like schizophrenia. Is this an accurate diagnosis?
• [33]Excuse me? There’s only one brain, right?

Questions from a medical perspective are raised.

>>31 One of them is diagnosed with schizophrenia but not with DID. The other is diagnosed with DID but not schizophrenia. >>32 So I’ve met two people who know about these things currently.

• [36]What? What? Isn’t that strange? Perfect memory ability exists in savants, but in that case, there should be some kind of disability. Usually it’s autism or something. Using your brain to that extent, no, having a superhuman brain—are you even human? You must be a new type of human. Isn’t savant syndrome way too amazing??

>>36 I also thought it might be a kind of savant syndrome, but the host personality doesn’t have any disabilities that would interfere with daily life at all. If anything, they seem more intelligent than the average person. But their extremely self-deprecating personality is really puzzling. They can also regulate body temperature, adjust the state of being drunk or sober as they like. Each personality can apparently choose such abilities freely. They usually decide within two weeks of being born, but can apparently decide the moment they’re born. However, the range of abilities they can choose apparently depends on the innate qualities of that human’s brain. So, the host said that having so many different personalities living inside them with so many different abilities is not normal. The cause of personality formation is apparently from expecting wonderful things despite bad trauma. In the case of my relationship with that person, it was irregular—the child that was supposed to be born between that person and me was born as a personality inside them. A boy who was supposed to be born in a life that I and that person didn’t choose. When I consulted the other person with an alter personality about this, they said they’d been watching this world too much lately and had forgotten about such dimensional talk. I haven’t decided how long I’ll stay awake, but if there are any posts, I’ll answer what I can tomorrow as well. I’m really happy that there are people who are genuinely asking questions. I want to find people who know a little about this, or who show understanding and say “this is what I think.” As just a normal human myself, I think there are many questions I wouldn’t think of on my own. They won’t answer everything, but I think new possibilities will emerge from what they do answer.

The story develops further, with the poster beginning to talk about “a child who was supposed to be born as a personality.” There’s a palpable sense of loneliness and desire for understanding in their narrative.

• [39]Amazing.
• [42]There’s the theory that the soul splits when it dies and enters separate vessels. There’s the theory that humans were originally experimental subjects, and their souls are observed as they reincarnate multiple times. How do you reconcile these theories with the 8-cycle life theory from an OP perspective?

>>42 As someone who received some answers to this question just yesterday and today, I can only say I don’t know the details, but I think the soul probably doesn’t split. It’s really a mystery how the absolute number increases, now that I think about it. It might be related to the 1st cycle? When you combine plants, insects, animals, and hell, there are many different souls, and when going from human to something else, it doesn’t split, but when at the level of plants, it might separate, which seems reasonable. Since animals are basically followed by humans, if they split there, I couldn’t explain the ghost of the cat that was next to me. I don’t think it’s an experiment? If there’s a being that created such a system, and this world itself is a vessel for souls, and if there’s more than one world, then perhaps the existence of souls in this world is like a game aimed at reaching heaven? I really don’t know about the world beyond that. It’s like asking what’s outside the expanding universe. The rule for going to heaven is completing 8 cycles as a human, and since I haven’t yet asked what’s in heaven, if I get a chance to hear about it, I’ll answer what I can about that. But this story is built on the premise that souls and vessels definitely exist. For people who deny that, this story just becomes a delusion.

The poster attempts to organize and explain their worldview. Their explanation uniquely merges ancient concepts of reincarnation with gaming concepts of “cycles.”

• [49]Who determines the criteria for completion?
• [50]I have an acquaintance who committed suicide, so I want to know more about that. It’s impossible to go back to the past, so there’s no point in regretting it, but… Is there some rule that suicide victims definitely suffer terrible consequences? Or if it was some kind of mistake, does the cycle reset to the beginning? Also, is there really such a thing as connections from previous lives? Like parent-child or husband-wife relationships.
• [52]>>43 You should have written that first, you useless idiot.
• [53]So reincarnation ends after 8 cycles. What’s with this “8 weeks to completion”? No matter how I think about it, I’m still on my first cycle, so I’ll relax and study.
• [55]Is the harsh environment of the 7th and 8th cycles referring to poverty?

The topic expands to ethical issues, the meaning of suicide, and the specifics of what “hard mode” entails. Characteristically rough comments from the message board are mixed in.

• [56]Is it something like the six realms + heaven and hell? The Six Realms (Rokudō or Rikudō) in Buddhism refer to the six worlds of suffering that sentient beings transmigrate through: •Deva Realm (Tendō, also Tenjōdō or Tengaidō) •Human Realm (Ningendō) •Asura Realm (Shuradō) •Animal Realm (Chikushōdō) •Hungry Ghost Realm (Gakidō) •Hell Realm (Jigokudō) In Buddhism, transmigration is understood not as a spatial event or a world one goes to after death, but as a state of mind. For example, if one transmigrates to the Deva Realm, one’s mental state is like that of a Deva, and if one transmigrates to the Hell Realm, one’s mental state is like that of Hell. Some traditions also recognize beings who fall outside these six paths of transmigration, sometimes called “outside paths” (gedō or maen), though this is not a common concept across all of Buddhism. Quoted from Wikipedia-Six Realms.
• [57]Can someone who knows tell if someone is on a certain cycle like “oh, this person is on the X cycle”?
• [61]What does “the 7th and 8th cycles are beyond just hard mode environments” mean? Very hard? Easy?
• [62]>>49 Please just tell me this one thing for real. I was born to kill this guy. I don’t know if he’s the collective consciousness of humanity or something else, but I have to erase him. I was born to erase him.

Suddenly, an unusual post appears. Is it just a nonsensical statement typical of message boards, or does it have some deeper meaning?

• [65]I want to know which cycle I’m on, is there any way to figure it out?
• [68]I know someone who committed murder and was reborn as a human.
• [71]>>68 Like, they meet a similar death in their next life, right?
• [79]>>34 I feel like I read a manga with a similar premise in Jump, but if it’s real, that’s amazing.
• [83]>>34 Who’s counting these cycles anyway? Please don’t say God lol.

The board is chaotic, with a mix of serious questions, joke-like comments, and skeptical opinions. There’s also a reference to Japanese manga culture.

• [87]↓Did anyone watch this? I liked the show itself, but I especially liked this episode. Matsumoto Shinsuke – Which reincarnation are you on.
• [88]>>87 I was thinking of the same episode lol.
• [89]>>87 I’ve never seen it, but I was thinking of exactly the same thing lol.
• [91]There’s the Six Realms of existence, the Ten Ox Herding Pictures, but the 8 cycles is something I’ve never heard of. It’s possible that different soul communities create such rules. According to some myths, the world itself is on its 4th cycle, or was it the 7th?
• [92]Mother Teresa was originally a soul that could have graduated from being human, but she chose to reincarnate again for service and compassion and became Mother Teresa. There was something like that somewhere. I wonder if that’s something you can decide on your own lol.
• [94]It’s not about completing cycles, but simply whether you’ve collected all the flags. The completion rate is apparently about 1/1,000,000,000. Since about 50 million people die worldwide each year, that means about one person completes it every 20 years globally lol.
• [95]Well, that might actually be the probability. Only a handful of saints can reach heaven.

The topic evolves into religious and philosophical discussions, with some participants discussing the probability of reincarnation from a mathematical perspective.

>>49 A systemic god, maybe?? I don’t know if the god is the being that created it, or if there was originally a god in this world. >>50 Um, I think other people are writing or misunderstanding, but the cycles 1, 2, etc. don’t mean repeating the same life. Time is always progressing, which is why there are ghosts. Regarding suicide, my counterpart let something slip today, apparently my previous life ended in suicide. They stubbornly refused to say anything more. I heard there are special exceptions for suicide, but I don’t know what the criteria for those exceptions are. >>55 Physical disabilities could be part of it too, I think. They said there are quite a few people on their 8th cycle in Japan, so even if there are quite a few, the fact that heaven is empty means the difficulty of completing the 8th cycle must be extraordinary. >>56 From what I’ve heard, it’s more like the Five Destinies. Since animals come after humans. >>57 They said they can identify to some extent from experience and intuition. The difference between the 1st cycle and beyond, and especially the 8th cycle, is apparently quite clear. You can apparently determine for yourself whether you’re on your 1st cycle or beyond. The feeling or idea that your life isn’t your 1st cycle means you’re on your 2nd cycle or beyond. That’s because there’s no reason for a 1st cycle human to have such an idea in the first place. By the way, they said people who think “isn’t Ashida Mana on her second life cycle?” are out of the question. >>61 Extremely difficult, in the very hard direction. >>65 As I wrote above, you’d have to meet a being who knows about this and ask directly. >>68 Given that there are exceptions, I don’t think it’s absolutely impossible. >>79 >>83 I think they’re separate from gods. They said they’re just beings that disappear when the person dies. But other than knowing such things, they’re no different from humans. >>91 So myths are made-up stories after all? They did say Jesus and Buddha existed. >>94 I don’t know, I’m not sure if you heard this somewhere or what, but that story seems somewhat credible. It’s quite interesting. >>95 Heaven is sparse and empty, you know lol. But people in heaven die and return to being human. Sorry for the long gap. I haven’t had the opportunity to speak much with the person who tells me quite a bit about this, and since I don’t remember everything I’ve been told, I think I can talk with less ambiguity about things I’ve heard when asked questions.

• [101]>>99 Doesn’t that person say something like “There is no good or evil in this world”? Like, the concept of good and evil exists, but good and evil themselves don’t? Oh, and ask them if a being with the soul of Jesus Christ has been born in Japan today. According to my understanding, a reincarnation of Jesus Christ is in Japan now.

>>101 Oh, before, what was it… When I asked “What’s the criteria for completion?” they said something like, “There are good people and bad people, right? So that’s what it is.” In terms of humans, I think the criteria is good people and bad people? I think that’s all we can understand. A reincarnation of Christ, huh… With over 2000 years passed, I don’t think he’d still be living in heaven, so it’s possible. I’ll ask when I get a chance to talk to the person who tells me quite a bit! Don’t get your hopes up ><

• [103]>>102 Good people and bad people, huh… That’s quite a flexible response from that person. >I’ll ask when I get a chance to talk to the person who tells me quite a bit! Oh, thank you! Thank you! Apparently it takes about 50 years for a person to be reborn after they die. It would be fun to hear about the mechanisms of souls and such. Well, I’ll wait patiently~.
• [105]I wonder if people who have memories of past lives are on their second cycle or beyond?
• [107]New souls are being born too, right? I wonder if the system is designed to avoid ending up with just the leftovers that keep failing to make it through the cycles. I’m curious about the fate of the many who never manage to complete the cycles.
• [109]I’ve tried so hard, but I wonder if I won’t complete this life either? That makes me sad to think about.
• [116]Can you see all lives after they’re all over? Well, even if you can get a bird’s eye view, that consciousness doesn’t seem like one that would fuss much about tragedies and comedies.
• [120]>>116 After the end, a blooper reel plays along with the credits.
• [121]>>120 That sounds way too fun.

The conversation ends with humorous comments, but this strange discussion seems to have left a strong impression on many participants. It was a peculiar moment unique to anonymous message boards, offering an opportunity to reconsider the meaning of life and reflect on one’s existence from a perspective beyond the present world.