Imagine for a moment that you’re driving. Maybe you’re going to work or to the shop or just driving for the sake of driving. You’ve got some music playing and you’re momentarily caught up in whatever song is on, to the point that your concentration has begun to wander and without realising it, the car has just drifted over towards the side of the road a little too much. You’re nothing more than a few inches away from driving down the side of what would be a fatal drop. You notice just before you go over and straighten the car up on the road as your heart begins to race due to your near death experience…but what if it wasn’t a near death experience? What if you did actually die in that car accident but your consciousness instantly manifests itself into a reality where your car didn’t tip over the edge.
I’m going to assume you’ve heard of the multiverse theory and the many worlds interpretation? If not, then just understand that it is possible that there are an infinite number of universes that exist out-with our own and every time you make a choice or decision, there could potentially be another version of you in a different universe/reality where you made a different decision. That’s probably the easiest way to summarise it but I’d still advise you go read about it somewhere else or even just go watch a YouTube video about it…anyway, you’ve just been in this car crash but suddenly you are alive and as far as you’re concerned, you didn’t die but you nearly did; one second longer and you would have been over the edge of the road. Luckily you managed to notice in time. There may be a term for this idea already but if not, I’m going to call it reality jumping or consciousness-host magnetism.
When you think about how little we understand about consciousness, is it really a stretch to imagine that such a thing could be possible? Graham Hancock once said during a podcast that he views consciousness like a radio signal, in that our bodies are receiving the signal (similarly to a radio) but we have no knowledge of what the source is. Perhaps there is some hub out-with our universe and all universes that sends out a stream or signal so that we are always aware in one universe or another. Maybe we are aware in every universe but just at different times or perhaps we’re aware in every universe at the same time but we are simply one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively (as Bill Hicks once said). I don’t think there is ever any way we could discover such a thing but it’s certainly an interesting topic to think about.
So you die and then before you know it you’re nervously laughing in another universe about the fact that you almost died. Then again, maybe it’s not instant at all. I mean without anywhere to store memories, why would we have any recollection of the journey from one host to another? Perhaps we’ve actually spent billions or trillions of years floating through some dark void between universes but we simply can’t remember it. I guess time might not even exist in that dimension so you’re just an awareness floating through nothingness. Ever zone out and feel like you were a million miles away? Maybe it’s because you just died in another universe and your consciousness has only just re-emerged into this new body. That feeling of having drifted miles away could be like an after-image of the journey you just took. Why would we even be limited to one consciousness? Maybe there are hundreds, thousands or even millions of “you” inside your brain. Since there are potentially an infinite number of universes where the same events, there are theoretically an infinite number of versions of you that have had the exact same experience as you. So perhaps your consciousness just merges with theirs and you’re none the wiser. I mean why would you be? It’s almost like syncing up sound with video. When it’s done perfectly, you can’t notice that the two are in fact separate things. They become one functioning film or TV show. What if mental illness is merely the result of an incompatible consciousness trying to merge with the others? Imagine for a moment that your consciousness is like an item in a shop: it has a bar code on it that is unique to all those items not just that one, individual item. For example, all the white chocolate chip cookies would have the same bar code. What if in some weird, cosmic sense our consciousness (which for the purposes of this post I’m viewing as similar to a base soul or spirit that has no experiences or memories other than the ones that the host body has saved in its brain) has a bar code of sorts; Some unique pattern that allows it to find and merge with others of the same code. The only comparison I can think of is that ridiculous game where you fire coloured bubbles at other coloured bubbles and after a certain number are touching, they pop. What happens then when a slightly different or maybe even completely different code is combined with the others? I can’t think of a better example so I’m going to stick with this bubble pop (or whatever the game’s name is) comparison. If we view your consciousness as a circle or bubble, and everyone else in the entirety of human consciousness has a completely different shape to yours, then we can use the colour of the bubble to distinguish between one compatible bubble and another. So what happens when 5 red bubbles suddenly get joined by a green one? Well, that consciousness believes it is in the right place. It joins the others but the host body doesn’t have the compatible memories or experiences, it doesn’t like the same music or write with the same hand. While the consciousness has no memories, maybe it is programmed or has some sort of hard wiring that stops it from just merging with any host. To begin with it may just observe but soon it would naturally try and control the host body which goes against what is already happening. Maybe this causes a tear of sorts in the psyche and ultimately leads to mental illness. Maybe this also explains why some people feel like they are the wrong sex: perhaps in another universe they are a different gender. They are the same person in every other way but just were born a different sex. If we use the bubble analogy again, what if the host was initially a blue bubble (or several blue bubbles) but a pink bubble (yes I’m using gender stereotypes for the colours) latches on, then another, then another. Would the pink bubble eventually become the controlling force within that host body?
Maybe we could even take this a step further: I remember reading this short story of sorts online. I’ll try and find a link to it so that you can read it (here you go: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html )…anyway, to summarise, this story suggests that when we die we come back as somebody else. Time is not important, you may die now and come back in 1450 but basically you are everyone else that ever has lived and ever will live. The story suggests that this is some form of maturing and that eventually you become a God-like being but you require the experience of all these different lifetimes before you can reach that level. So what if we take my consciousness idea and combine it with that: we could be a being that is living not only a potentially infinite number of versions of one life, but in fact a potentially infinite number of versions of every life. Maybe the code for each consciousness changes in a similar way to a counter. Perhaps you start out with 00001 (I’m of course simplifying this for the comparison) and the first 9 are the same life but after that one, you change to 00010. Each space could represent a new life that you’re to experience. Of course it wouldn’t be as simple as that or perhaps even as organised.
There is of course another way to look at this: Imagine that we don’t experience every universe but a select few. If there are an infinite number of universes then perhaps we experience a billion or a trillion and while we might not live in every one, when we die we have the option of restarting from that point in another universe that is the same. What if this group of universes is like a school or university or gym but in a crazy way that we can’t remotely comprehend while in it? Kind of like not realising you’re dreaming until you wake up. When we finish the combined experience of all these lifetimes, we emerge and can remember everything we’ve seen, learnt, touched, felt, etc. I guess the question then would be: what are we training for? To become Gods? Or are we merely foot soldiers in some sort of whacky alien training programme, preparing ourselves in a simulation for our upcoming war with humanity: Living a ridiculous number of lifetimes in a few weeks to learn their weaknesses and strengths? This is perhaps taking this train of thought a little too far outside the box but it’s fun to think about. Would our experience as humans alter our view on the war we’re about to have with them (now there is a film idea: aliens who live the lives of humans in a simulation that creates realities identical to the one true reality that they live in, only to ultimately find that they sympathize with us).
Of course I can’t imagine it being possible to ever prove or even theorize in any detail about such an idea. There would be something wonderfully relaxing about having such knowledge though. Would we fear death at all? Would we be sad for the deaths of our loved ones? I know religious people must be reading this thinking “well isn’t Heaven the same thing”. Maybe to you it is but as someone without not only the means to get to heaven but also the desire, I’d choose universe hopping over eternal suffering/bliss without a moment’s hesitation. There is also no need for any higher being to exist for such a theory to be true. I mean we know that electrons and such act in really crazy and mysterious ways so why not human consciousness? I mean isn’t it far more mysterious even without this theory?
This would undoubtedly lead to the moral dilemma of whether or not the new you in each universe really is you. I mean who are you? Are you the one, physical body or are you the experiences and memories that that body transports within the memory centres of the brain? Not that it would matter because you would always think that you are you due to being unable to remember your previous life/lives. For instance, I could have died in thousands of different ways already or perhaps this actually is my first life and I’ve been one of the lucky ones who just hasn’t died yet.
We would then also have the question of what happens when you die naturally? Do you just go to a universe where you live longer? There has to be a point where you quite simply do not live any longer in any universe in existence so what then? Do we just restart with no memories in a new, random universe as a baby? That part of it sounds more like hell to me: living longer and longer in each universe while being physically and mentally unable to take care of yourself and probably spending the majority of your time alone, practically begging for death. Not the most cheery note to end on but oh well!
Any thoughts on this post? Feel free to comment them below!
Ranting & Raving 
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