There are the ongoing notes of my honest, naive attempt to understand the nature of the reality we find ourselves in. It’s primarily phenomenological, however that has always been our starting point for explorations.
My sense is, there’s more to this reality than we understand. There are enough everyday phenomena that feel like they don’t fully add up, like something more is going on that we haven’t (yet) found a satisfactory explanation for. Perhaps, like a donkey staring at an iPad, we are not intelligent enough to comprehend the full nature of reality directly. It may simply be too complex for us.
Alternatively, there may be whole dimensions of scientific exploration that we’ve yet to open up. Areas which would help put to rest such enormous questions about what the true nature of life and death are, whether the soul exists, and so on.
Lacking this groundbreaking discovery, I still feel like there may be sufficient clues that can give us a sense of what’s really going on if we just gather them all together and stare really hard… maybe. Like how Copernicus and Galileo were able to uncover the nature of our solar system through inference.
So that’s why I keep this — it’s a semi-organised pile of loose threads to pull on. In continuing to notice things and list them here, I think there’s room for us to start exploring common themes or connections between them. It’s a harmless, curious exercise, one that has surely been carried out many times before by other like-minded people.
Why do we dream? Where do we go? Why does it feel like after a deep sleep, we’ve gone far away and we rush suddenly across absurd amounts of space to crash land back into our bodies with a noticeable thud? How differently we experience time when we leave our bodies during dreams — or even short naps! How discombobulated in time one feels after a 10 minute nap.
We don’t seem to fully understand the role of sleep. The unconscious seems to play a role in dreams — but we quickly go mad without sleep and even die after 10–12 days. So it’s necessary for life. But what is it? You might last longer without food than sleep.
I doubt time is linear. Our experience of it can be so subjective and linked to our mental state. But also I’ve seen people draw knowledge from the “future”. It might all exist at once, or be a probability state/field?
How we’re easily able to wake up regularly only a minute or so before our regular alarm clocks. There’s some wild mysterious things happening in our relation to time. It feels like an idea we’ve poorly understood.
It seems odd. Space is impossibly empty. Everything is unimaginably huge and far away. Seems a bit pointlessly so. Are we really understanding it properly? It feels like we’ve not yet grasped what we’re looking at. Is it really so empty or can we not see it (yet)?
Why does a 2.4m ceiling feel low to us? We do seem to have a need for spaces that are illogically larger than us.
It would be insanely uncomfortable to only grant us the space our bodies need. So it appears as if something extends above us, we can feel it. It’s most comfortable at around 2.7–3m ceiling height. We all just instinctively know this.
Especially when many people gather and are running at a highly emotional state: a cathedral, an airport or station. The more human energy, the higher the space needs to be somehow.
Any architect will know that the size of a building under construction changes constantly. It’s way smaller than you thought, then suddenly the spaces become normal sizes or even huge. It’s very hard to explain.
They have a huge energetic impact upon me. They can bring me into greater connection with my feelings and provide a great source of solace. Lakes, rivers, the sea. Even the Regents Canal.
The physical presence of others. Zoom doesn’t quite cut it. It’s missing something. We get very lonely and isolated without others around.
For some reason this makes a difference to me. Perhaps a placebo could trick me though. But I get a totally different sense of something when I know it’s recorded vs watching it live. The feeling is entirely different.
Can we imbue inanimate objects with our meanings and energies using our own intention? I feel we can. Teddy bears. Religious relics. Spaces too.
How a living body can feel empty. How a dead body feels like nothing and no one to behold. How people with dementia fade in and out like a broken modem. They’re suddenly there, you feel their presence, then they’re gone again.
How Mum is able to just tune in. Seeing and knowing impossible things. From seemingly anything: the Romans used animal entrails and birds in the sky, others use tea leaves or palmistry. It’s just tuning in.
The chances are just absurdly low.
Obviously gigantic and yet we don’t understand the first thing about what they are. At least officially.
What is the deal with trees? They’re such an alien form of life. The timeframes on which they exist are so absurd to us. And yet we’re both forms of life. We love them and we need them around us. Do they really spend most of their time in another dimension?
Were all the ancient people around the world just plain wrong? It seems fishy. They weren’t idiots.
Why do they appear all around the world? Why is their stonework so absurdly impossibly huge and perfect. Not just Egypt — South and Central America, all across Asia. We have no explanations.
It’s definitely there. It’s not even that far away. It’s almost parallel to our existence, and some seem much more dialled into it than others. It’s a lower energy, darker, more seedy and desperate. People can become enmeshed with these: dark beings might inhabit casinos, strip clubs, gangs, fighting events, cults.
Black magic appears to be real. It’s been practised forever. Deals with the devil. Sacrifice, energies from lower dimensions ‘feeding’ on loosh. Often leading to knowledge seemingly from nowhere: impossible pyramids, rocketry, iconic music.
It’s clearly much more significant than the purely physical dimension. There’s a lot of nuanced energetic stuff going on, I’d wager. I think sex can cross into the astral energies sometimes. It seems to often go paired with a certain underhanded quality. Jack Parsons of the JPL was a huge believer, as were his contemporaries. Sex often plays a role in cults as well. It’s a huge driver of human behaviour and power dynamics. The small death. It’s hugely energetic.
Why can we be transported to another place, so moved and affected by sound in so many nuanced ways? How can two people play the same thing and one sounds wonderful while the other awful? “Opening the gates of magic.”
Particularly motherhood. The bond of growing and nourishing another life inside of you. Another soul. Someone who you bond with in a way that’s otherwise unimaginable. In a way, what a privilege to be able to do that.
Our names are so powerful. Naming a child is a form of magic we try our best to embark on. Their choice of name or nickname matters too, can shape our self image, energy, perhaps even the paths of our lives. This magic is well acknowledged, we even have a name for it: nominative determinism.
Even animals want to cuddle. Even the weight of a tiny bird or a butterfly on your finger is somehow magical.
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]]>In some ways this is the beginning. Work has been a form of distraction, meaning, but also an arduous form of slavery we’ve put ourselves through.
We have much yet to discover. Scientific breakthroughs. But also our ancestry, archeology. It’s everywhere. Right under our feet are countless beautiful artifacts that can tell us stories of different lives and worldviews.
About ourselves. We hardly know ourselves, let alone others. Perhaps there’s now the time for real healing and therapy to happen. For us to learn how to communicate again, if not better than ever before. A telepathy at the feeling and soul or energy level. Probably a level of psychedelic exploration as well.
Having children will probably come back into fashion. Perhaps the birth rate returns to normal. It gives us purpose, meaning, an identity, and we don’t want robots to raise our children. It’s a beautiful, profound thing and it’s automation-proof!
I can see a return to the more timeless (or ancient) aspects of life. Being better in touch with who and how we really are, as humans, rather than attempting to make ourselves into robots. Paying more attention to relations, the seasons, traditions, religion, family. These things all begin to matter more once work disappears.
Perhaps a rebuilding of society — of the norms that suit everybody. Respect, a return of public behavioural norms.
Maybe letters will come back. Real proper ones. Not generated content but that slow, considered and highly personal hobby of communicating with loved ones. Men and women of letters.
About the mysteries and magics of the universe. There are so many bizarre things left yet to unravel. So much we cannot know just yet. But, like a kaleidoscope, we can snatch abstract glimpses of the nature of reality. There are some real clues and those are only a starting point. A thread to pull.
We have to fall in love with doing and being and becoming again. There’s all this reality left to explore and encounter, we’ve allowed ourselves to become passive consumers of content. Which is fine in the right doses. But the proxy of anything will never match its reality. AI can never climb a mountain or swim in a lake for us.
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