Okay... I'm posting this here, hoping someone can see this and help me... but where to start? I hope this is explained well enough...
A little while ago there was a minor discussion in the Syliras OOC thread about ghosts and djed. I wanted to take a look at the topic because the discussion piqued my interest, but unfortunately my interest only led to questions (which it normally does ^^'). Well... mainly there's just one question, and the rest is my theorizing trying to make sense of it.
In the discussion, it was mentioned that ghosts' djed is "dead, unusable." I took a look at the lore, but I didn't exactly see an answer as to why. A ghost is simply the soul of a person who refuses to reincarnate; however, they can reincarnate. Since somehow their djed has changed from the time they were living to the time they were dead, I assume that it has undergone some sort of reversible transformation (reversible because their djed is "unusable" but would have to revert and become "usable" once more for their next life, if they ever chose to reincarnate).
What I'm wondering is what is the cause of their djed becoming "unusable"? It has to be something that is reversed when the soul is reincarnated. So far the only explanation I can come up with is that the djed becomes unusable because it is not connected to some form of body. I'm not certain why this would make a difference to the djed, but I can't come up with another explanation. It doesn't make sense to me that a ghost's djed is dead simply because the ghost is dead (or undead); if that were true, a Nuit's djed would also be dead, but I know that it is not. The only difference I really see between a Nuit and a ghost has to do with one occupying a body (albeit a dead one) and one not.
So, does anyone happen to know if a ghost's djed is unusable simply because it doesn't have a body? If that does happen to be the reason, why does having a body matter?
Or I just had another thought. Perhaps it doesn't have to do with the lack of a physical body, but rather the lack of an astral body. Since a ghost's astral body (the third layer of the soul) is replaced by a different substance called "soulmist". Do you think that is the reason their djed is "unusable"? Because they have this soulmist instead of an astral body?
You can see why I have such problems. I think too hard about things, trying to fit it all together. But hopefully someone can clear this up. Thanks in advance for your help!