I suggest reading an interesting passage from the book Sarangerel "Call of the Shaman", which explains the multidimensional structure of human souls in their connection with the body.
Siberians and Mongols believe that each person is a fusion of at least three different spiritual entities. Comprehension of these three components within oneself and those around them provides an important diagnostic tool for healing and other shamanic work. In Buryat, as well as in other languages, these three parts bear names that have no correspondences in English. For convenience, I will refer to them as “soul,” but referring to them separately, I will use their Mongolian names. The origins of each of the three souls are in one of the three worlds - upper, middle or lower. They can be represented as follows:
1) ami - the upper world - is reborn;
2) sunesu - the lower world - is reborn;
3) sulde - the middle world - is not reborn, but becomes a natural spirit.
The upper world is the homeland of the soul ami; am is related to the word "breath". Ami controls breathing and other bodily functions. It enters our body with the first breath and leaves it with a dying breath. It is unstable, especially in children, and most often it is it that is missed when the soul disappears. Outside the body, it has the form of a bird. In some Siberian cultures, they try to fix the ami in the body by applying the image of a bird to the skin. According to beliefs, ami awaits her next rebirth, turning into a bird, on the World Tree in the upper world, until the goddess Umai sends her down to inhabit the body of a newborn.
Although ami is mainly concerned with the activities of the body, she is endowed with consciousness and retains the memory of past lives. In his reincarnations, ami tries to follow one or another clan. What people often attribute to genetic memory turns out to be memories held by us. Thus, people carry in themselves the memory of their ancestors, even if hidden deep in the subconscious. Identical twins are believed to have one ami, as evidenced by the telepathic connection of some of these twins.
Animals also have an ami soul, so hunters kill them with due respect, since the killed deer will return back to this forest next spring. What happens if a hunter treats a deer badly and breaks a taboo? The soul of this reindeer will advise all reindeer who are to be reborn next spring to avoid this or that village or this or that hunter. In such cases, a shaman is invited to appease the spirits of game animals, so that good luck in the hunt will return to his relatives.
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The soul of sunesu (or suns) belongs to the lower world. She, too, is reborn, but does not follow any kind. For example, a person who was born a Mongol in this life could have been an American in the past, but can already be reborn as an African.
If Umai is responsible for choosing the place and time for the rebirth of the souls, then the spirit of the lower world Erlik Khan determines the rebirth of the souls of the sunesu. Erlik Khan seems to be something like a judge who assigns rebirth to the souls of sunes according to their past deeds. It is believed that he destroys the souls of those who have committed so much evil in their past lives that they have no right to continue to exist. People like Hitler and Stalin are among those creatures whose souls are most likely to be destroyed so that they can no longer bring death to humanity.
Sunesu souls, when they are outside the body, are often imagined as wandering on the waters. The Dol-Bor River is a river of souls, floating with its waves to the mouth, where it flows into the lower world. Animals living in water, according to legends, have a special connection with spirits. This is reflected in the custom of preparing and using arshaan, according to which liquid can contain and transmit spiritual power.
Sunesu souls are capable of splitting into thirteen parts *, although they usually appear as one whole. You can lose twelve of these parts without any special consequences, although this will undermine the human body. However, as a rule, sunesu does not split under normal conditions, and in case of loss of the soul, it leaves the body entirely. It is curious that ancestral practitioners in their work of soul retrieval more often perceive the loss of soul parts than whole souls. Perhaps this is due to the fragmentation of the sunesu or the fact that non-Siberian traditions do not always recognize the composite nature of human souls.
* 13 parts here is quite an interesting factor. The fact is that 12 is the number of identical spheres that can be distributed around the 13th, as shown in the picture above. "The Devil's Dozen", Jesus and the 12 apostles are directly related to what is described here, where a group of 12 particles of consciousness gathers around the activator - the 13th particle, forming a portal. Let's talk about this later
Sunesu is an integral part of the threefold human soul, which leaves the body during shamanic travel and dreams.
In shamans, the memory of helper spirits, especially udhi, can evoke a series of vivid memories that can be mistaken for past life experiences.
Sulde is not reborn, but this does not mean that her existence ceases after the death of a person. With the death of its owner, the sulde goes to look for a place among nature - usually a tree, cliff, river or hill - where it settles. She will continue to visit people and places she knew during her lifetime. Sulde begins her life with the birth of a child, and the personality of a person is imprinted in her, since her appearance molds the experience of this present life.
Its union with ami and sulde gives fullness and diversity to human consciousness. Older souls carry the knowledge and wisdom of past generations; sulde is surprised to discover the world. After death, she joins a host of other sulde souls that live in nature, whom the shaman can call for help and advice. Some sulde souls turn into udha spirits, after which they enter into an alliance with shamans; the reason and process of this transformation remains a mystery.
In their wanderings, sulde often turn out to be sources of disease, stray souls of sulde have little effect on living things until they are summoned for specific purposes. Sulde, settling somewhere, can affect the mental state of the inhabitants of those places - favorably or destructively, depending on the personality of the sulde. The rite of construction of the World Tree is aimed at healing the mental state of sulde souls, restless due to the violent death of their owners *.
* hence "ghosts"
The soul of the sulde resides at the top of the head, where the energy comes from Father-Heaven. As a rule, it is forbidden to touch this place, and the caps covering this part of the head are treated with great respect. Ami and sunesu are mobile and can temporarily leave the body without harming it, but leaving the sulde body very quickly leads to death. Sulde, a creature of the middle world, exceptional, like a body, in view of the one life that fell to her, and perhaps most closely connected with the human brain.