Novel in Process

Where does my vision of this other world come from you ask? That is an excellent question. I can’t tell you. Not because I won’t, but because I don’t know myself.

The original idea came from a long and complex dream where it felt as if I was inside the minds of a number of different people. It was much like watching a movie with access to these stranger’s thoughts. I couldn’t affect events, I didn’t have context, I didn’t know where I was. Some things were explained to the people I was “inhabiting” for lack of a better word. This helped me to understand a bit more of what was happening. But honestly it was all very confusing.

The world these people lived in was not ours. That much was clear. It was fully fleshed, with everything looking different and new to me. How can all that come from inside my head in a dream? I don’t have an answer for you. But I’ve found over the years I can get into a sort of trance state and this world will expand. Details fill in, new knowledge comes through. It is more like discovery than creation.

For years this mental state would arrive unnaounced while I was busy with other tasks. Driving on a lonely highway is particularly suited to opening the portal. I am not distracted, it is more like mowing the lawn or doing a repeptitive task that allows the mind to focus on the task and also do deeper thinking. Patterns emerge and ideas that often feel like memories or visions come across. Now I’m getting better at calling up this mental state when I want to write. Sometimes access to it is lost for months at a time, then suddenly the flood gates open and I just need to write when I can find the time.

What is particularly strange is I have no problem retaining this flood of information. I met a neighbor last night, don’t ask me her name, I don’t recall. But I do have a clear vision of a village cut into the rock wall in a desert canyon on a planet that doesn’t exist. I can tell you stories about the families of the main people that I follow in my visits to this other place. I can tell you about the small rituals of their daily lives. I can tell you about their hopes and dreams.

I have an idea, based on science, of what could be happening. It sounds more interesting than the idea that some part of my mind spools this out for my pleasure when I’m bored on a long drive. Perhaps I’m seeing into another world that does exist. Am I seeing around a corner in the multiverse?

The concept of the multiverse states that every time something changes a new universe of infinite possibilities is spawned. This is happening at all times across an infinite universe of infinite iterations. Which essentially means anything we can imagine may be true in another version of the universe. It also means everything is true, everything is happening, has happened, will happen. Does your brain hurt yet?

To expand your knowledge on this theory - listen to this excellent RadioLab podcast - The Multi Universe(s). When I first read about this concept I was reminded of one of my favorite novels, Robert Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast*. Four people travel through space-time into other universes, some we recognize as fictional from the minds of other authors like Burroughs and Heinlein himself. They use a ship outfitted with a “continua device” From wikipedia, “The geometry of the novel’s universe contains six dimensions; the three spatial dimensions known to the real world, and three time dimensions - t, the real world’s temporal dimension, τ (tau), and т (teh). The continua device can travel on all six axes. The continua device allows travel into various fictional universes, such as the Land of Oz, as well as through time.” I loved the idea as a child and still find it fascinating.

Which brings me back to my other world. Maybe it’s real. Maybe I’m not really imagining it from the æther. Maybe, just maybe, my mind bends space-time a bit and I’m peering through the quantum looking glass at a people that really exist. Unlikely but nonetheless fun to ponder.

* - while doing a bit of researching via google on The Number of the Beast for this post I came across a delightful thread from the Heinlein Society speculating on the reason Heinlein wrote this book that deviates from the Lazarus Long stories so late in his career.

“Spider Robinson once said, after having figured out only a part of what the book was, that this is a book that Heinlein wrote for his friends, for the people who *care* about the field. I add that he also wrote it for any nascent writers with enough wit to realize what it was … the supreme hacker’s easter-egg.”

Looks like I’ll be digging around in the Heinlein section of my bookshelf sometime soon.