Traversing the Multiverse

Do you ever get that uncanny feeling that you’re living in multiple universes at the same time?

I do.

It’s hard to explain, really. Sometimes it can come as déjà vu. Other times it can come as the feeling that something much deeper is going on in the midst of daily events.

It’s a hunch, an intuition that somehow you’re connected to something you can’t quite name.

It’s like reality isn’t quite real anymore. Or it’s like reality is so real that somehow everything seems different from what you normally experience.

I suspect that many experienced these feelings at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the early days of the lockdown, I remember walking through my neighbourhood feeling that the world had become a place I didn’t recognize anymore.

In the early days of the lockdown, I remember walking through my neighbourhood feeling that the world had become a place I didn’t recognize anymore.

The streets were free of vehicles; few were outdoors; all the shops in the shopping districts were shut.

It was like all the post-apocalyptic movies I’d watched had become our collective reality.

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that since the pandemic there have been a number of blockbuster movies that each explore the multiverse.

Yes, the multiverse had been a trendy topic in quantum physics for some time before the pandemic.

But, for whatever reason, it seems the multiverse is capturing the popular imagination in ways that go far beyond what many had been aware of previously.

This could be because many of us, including me, experienced these strange feelings of unreality during the pandemic.

It could also be because many of us have begun to yearn for realities that are drastically different from those we experience every day.

The multiverse might be becoming increasingly popular because many of us have begun to yearn for realities that are drastically different from those we experience every day.

In a world that’s becoming increasingly characterized by political polarization, economic disparities, and many kinds of injustice, many, if not most of us, are no longer satisfied with the status quo.

It’s likely many of us are experiencing deep desires to escape.

In a not-so-strange way, multiverse movies can provide us with some temporary escape.

But when the movies stop, and we come back to our daily realities, our experience is much the same as before. Escape in any lasting sense rarely, if ever, comes.

I believe this signals at least two things:

For some, the possibility of slipping into alternate realities could be a dream come true.

To find a different universe where you could live a different life, have different relationships, different jobs, different homes, and so on, could be very attractive.

But such a possibility assumes we would experience these different universes as better than our own, that somehow our lives would be easier.

But as the multiverse movies teach us, this is not always the case.

For some, if not many, slipping into a parallel universe could easily be the substance of nightmares.

For some, if not many, slipping into a parallel universe could easily be the substance of nightmares.

If there’s one constant in human existence, it’s that few of us live lives free of pain and struggle.

Yes, we all experience these things in degrees–some seem to have easy lives; others can’t seem to get on top of whatever’s hurting them.

To think, then, that escaping to another universe would somehow make life more liveable, erase all pain and suffering, just doesn’t seem consistent with what most of us experience.

In truth, if life was only easy, if nothing but pleasure characterized everything we do, the likelihood is we’d all feel quite bored.

It seems we as humans need a challenge, we need to strive for something, we need something to aim toward.

Without the need to overcome obstacles, we start to drift and languish. Why bother to achieve anything at all, you might ask?

But here’s where the multiverse comes in . . .

. . . the reality you perceive is the reality you experience.

Neuroscientists are now starting to understand that the reality you perceive is the reality you experience.

Similarly, many philosophers and religious thinkers have understood for millennia that the worlds of concepts, the imagination, and beauty are just as real as the physical universes of which we’re all parts.

So, what does this mean?

If you’re able to imagine a new concept, or engage in creative work, or use words to transform your familial, social, political, and physical worlds, you’re already living in the multiverse!

When anyone engages reality at all its different levels, holding them all together in the process, that person knows there are different universes of which most people are simply unaware.

Why are most people simply unaware?

It’s because many people don’t bring universes they individually inhabit into the collective shared awareness.

Yes, it’s true most of us do this in small ways everyday, like when we share what we’re feeling with someone close to us, or like when we present new ideas for how to do something with co-workers.

Each of these are examples of different universes encountering one another–the universe(s) I inhabit come into contact with those in which other people dwell.

But to transform the collective shared awareness, we need much deeper contact with the multiverse. We need to make our home somewhere other than only the realities we share with others.

We need to make our home somewhere other than only the realities we share with others.

Sounds easy, right? In some ways it is; in other ways it isn’t.

To make our home in spaces we don’t share with others can initially be quite isolating.

In these spaces we learn the uniqueness of our perspectives, the distinctive features of our particular world.

But here’s the tricky part: if our specific world is so foreign from the universes others inhabit, then conversation can become difficult.

Just ask anyone who has travelled anywhere where they don’t speak the local language . . .

In the absence of conversation, however, a person can learn to observe, to see and see through.

See and see through?

Yes, in observation we begin to see and see through what other people claim to be real. We increasingly see and see through the illusions that occupy most people’s daily existence.

We see and see through these things because we catch bigger and bigger glimpses of the true realities that inform all of our shared existence.

Somehow, when we no longer communicate with other people, something deeper, wider, and more expansive begins to communicate with us.

And that is our entry into multiversal realities!

. . . no matter what you call it, it’s a space beyond our daily realities.

Call it the world of the imagination, the world of concepts or forms, or the world of the true, the good, and the beautiful–no matter what you call it, it’s a space beyond our daily realities.

Its name is not the point.

The point is that if we take the time to cultivate inner awareness, an inner sense of presence, we can move into this space in an instant.

All it takes is a conscious decision to attend to the stillness within, and suddenly the world around us becomes vibrant with colour, shimmering with the glamour of the Presence that inhabits all things.

Yes, this may seem overly idealistic, close to impossible (it is true that building awareness of this Presence takes work).

But once that awareness is there, the Presence can be detected at nearly any time, in nearly any place.

Silence and isolation are necessary to start building awareness of this presence.

I stated earlier that times of solitude and isolation are necessary to start building such awareness of this Presence.

Solitude and isolation are necessary because silence is this Presence’s main entry point.

Silence bridges our inner awareness and the reality of this Presence that permeates all.

Silence therefore bridges between the multiversal Presence and all the physical spaces we share with others.

If somehow we can bring this Presence into us with silence, then those we interact with take notice; they see and hear something different in us, something they can’t quite name.

This is how we traverse the multiverse.

The multiverse is real . . .

The lesson? The multiverse is real, but not in the sense that many popular movies or even science talk about it.

In its reality, we ourselves can traverse this multiverse, simply by embodying a different kind of reality, a connection to the Presence that permeates all that is.

In this multiverse, escape is no longer necessary because we experience the silent Presence as already our home.

Furthermore, by constantly connecting our presence to the Presence, that’s how the worlds we share get transformed by the multiverse.

That’s when collective desires to escape disappear, because that’s when multiversal dreams or nightmares simply dissolve by encountering the multiversal Presence’s silent yet truly transforming reality in us.

We can live in the multiverse because we are capable of traversing it.

But in the multiverse we discover the Presence.

What the Presence reveals in us uncovers the multiverse’s ultimate truth and importance.

Disclaimer: The advice and suggestions offered on this site are not substitutes for consultation with qualified mental or spiritual health professionals. The perspectives offered here are those of the author, not of those professionals with whom readers might have relationships as clients or patients. In crisis situations, readers are encouraged to contact these professionals for appropriate support and treatment if needed.