A crazy theory of mine is that perhaps there learning at the lower levels of reality that drives evolution. If evolution can meta-program its genetic code and learn, it could account for the cambrian explosion.
If we take the "trauma/PTSD" example based on some studies e.g. the Holocaust survivors one [1] it seems that some genetic or epigenetic changes do occur the outcome of those changes is still debated.
My own personal view of this is that genetic memory is basically a way of an organism to signal to the next generation how to better utilize it's current genetic toolkit to better survive.
And we have other examples of it, obesity for example has clear influence on the genetics of male sperm and these changes disappear after weight loss is maintained and would reappear if there is a major weight gain.
To me the reason for this is pretty clear your body assumes that if you are collecting fat there is a good reason for it, and transferring that knowledge to an offspring would increase their survival rate.
Another good example is predators anyone who's been around one knows the feeling you get even when you can't see them (on an anecdotal level I'm one of the last ones to get the goosebumps from something like a wolf or a mountain lion and I have a horrible sense of smell, I've known some people with effectively a super nose that would get the hibbie jibbies much more often in the woods or during trekking and I'm pretty sure that it's still because of predators we can't see but still pickup via smell even if it's unconscious) and it's quite different than the feeling you get around other dangerous animals like big bovines big deer (including elk/moose) that can be pretty darn dangerous in some situation it's not even the same scare/feeling that you get from big dogs.
To me that idea that we (or I am) a descendant of people that happened not to be eaten by wolfs and lynx because we somehow were sensing them due to random mutation seems to be highly unlikely especially since I've known people that get the same sense from animals that cannot really harm us today like the Bobcat which is while a Lynx is more the size of a very large house cat or a medium dog than a big cat.
To me it's much more reasonable that some ancestors encountered a predator, deemed it as an extreme threat and that experience was in some way or another encoded into our genes that would allow us to identify them better.
Now I'm not saying that experience can alter the orienting or defensive responses/reflexes but they can fine tune them to specific scenarios, even only as this seems to be the most efficient way of doing this.
