I am not at all sure what I think about Pod People - mainly because there appears to be so many different types of them.
Last weekend I was talking too my brother, and somehow the conversation turned to religion. He asked after a buddy of mine, and I mentioned I hadn't heard from this buddy for a while as he had been fasting on Ramadan. Instantly my brother reacted with "It's a funny old religion" *snicker*. I wasn't going to say anything but then said "Well maybe they fast in order to learn something".
His reaction was exactly as LipstickMystic said in her initial post. Flaring nostrils, raising of the arms, rolling of the eyes. This is how it has always been with him. So for the first time ever I tried to push things out a little. "Why do you always react like that?" - I asked in a very reasonable, curious tone. He looked at me as asked; "Like what?"
"Well - as though you don't like what I am saying." Again I got the same reaction. I asked him what it meant, and that talking and thinking about such things was a part of me. It's who I am. I asked him why he had a problem with this. And yet again came the same reaction, but each time he reacted like this, he withdrew a little more...into his own shell. And so I still pushed some more.
"Why do you cut yourself off like that?" By now he was getting anti, and very defensive. Not only that; there was a hell of a lot of restrained aggression building up within him.
Fight or Flight? I thought so for sure.
Intrigued, I kept on pushing. "If can’t tell me about why I bother you so much, I can never change. I just want to be able to relate to you...what is it about me that is causing this reaction in you?"
He moved to the far end of the room. His body language stiff, his face miserable as sin. He told me to just shut up...that I had no clue. My mum was there, and for once she sided with me (although I want to be clear I wasn't trying to create an argument). She said; "Just tell him how you feel, then you can sort things out." But he turned away and fled the room.
It was a strange situation, and was one of a number of things that has caused me to see my brother in a very different light. What I learnt was that his depth of thought was very shallow. Not because he can't think, but because he chooses not to - and would very actively and aggressively do anything to maintain that.
But why? Is he emotionally crippled? Is he somehow stunted in his development? (Rhetorical questions I think). Both he and I were raised in exactly the same way - yet we are opposites in almost every way imaginable.
I had a dream sometime latter - and saw him as he was when he was about 12 years of age.
And then I realised that people for the most part do ok up to just before they become teenagers...and then things drastically change. And for a vast majority of people they seem to physically and mentally get to the age of around 16 and then even though their body matures, their mind does not.
Sure they gain new experiences, and entrench themselves deeper and deeper into routine and rote, yet their minds and awareness just do not develop. Is puberty when they really start to become Pods – or is it at a younger age?
Either way I see many different types of Pods, we could probably create some form of list even: 
Routine Pod - stuck in 100% routine.
Job Pod - can't see anything outside of the job.
Money Pod - everything is about money.
Fear Pod - scared to do anything other than the things they have already experienced.
Sports Pod - everything is about competition, not necessarily just sports, but bank balance and material accumulation too.
Diversion Pod - everything is about them, they divert every situation so that the focus is always on them.
Aggression Pod - attack everything and everyone constantly, for a variety of reasons...but mostly due to low self-esteem.
And there are many others...
I don't really like making up such labels, but let’s be honest - this is pretty much what this thread is all about. Pods are the very definition of "stereo-type". A few of them just focus on a single of those traits, and it is then very dominant within their character. You can normally pick up on this type of Pod and their Trait simply by looking at them.
Others have a bit of a mix and match of these traits. Mostly this sort are slightly easier to get along with.
Maybe we all have these traits in us. Perhaps that is largely what it is all about. The more Pod-Traits an individual has, the more chance they have of awakening and breaking free. That kinda makes and odd sort of logical sense when you think about it. Those that only let a single or small number of traits dominate them - of course are never going to go anywhere.
With all the Pods I have met - it has mostly been psychological and emotional issues that have caused them to be the way they are...and their Pod-Traits are their security blankets.
There are of course other things going on such as entity attachments and demon-infestation. Those things are a bit more tricky to see when you aren't sensitive to seeing that sort of thing (I am not sensitive to that sort of thing, but have started to identify physical traits that indicate entity attachments within people). I think a lot of people and certainly most Pods have entity-attachments on one level or another. But generally those entities only become "active" in certain emotional situations - and quite often such entities display the epitome of Pod behaviour...though not always, sometimes things get very odd.
Anyway after all that - the one point I really want to make, is that Pod People really do fear the likes of us - and the things we think and talk about. I am not sure many of us get the opportunity to really push a Pod to their limits with regards to what sort of topics they will tolerate. From what I can see though - when you do push it really does seem to activate a Flight of Fight response...and that in itself is very interesting...
Don't forget about Distraction Pods. Distraction Pods are all about entertainment and distraction, 24/7. They're the ones obsessively playing their computer and online games every day, with the huge movie collection and top of the line entertainment centers. I used to know somebody like this, but he definitely isn't the only one like this. He retreated from the world and became a hermit practically. Only left his house to go to work and come home, and then spent all his free time playing those online community computer games and ordering movies from some service off the 'net. Probably Net Flix or something. He even did his shopping online so he wouldn't have to leave his apartment. I would joke to myself that if he could have plugged himself into some sort of Virtual Reality game pod capsule and be attached to that for the rest of his life, with tubes attached to him for feeding and waste removal, then he would have. It was pretty bad. ! I'd try to talk to him about the weird stuff, since he had been my friend for a long time and was an unusual character and - supposedly - open to this stuff, and he'd follow me for most of the way. But then like a rubber band he'd only stretch so far, and would visibly become uncomfortable, wanting to retreat back to his games and movies and distraction and hermit existence. He's what I guess could be called a "mainstream nonconformist." He rejected his Catholic upbringing to become a Wiccan, but that's about as nonconformist as he seems able to go, which to me is still pretty mainstream, hence the nifty title of mainstream nonconformist. 
