Parallel universe

Lovecraft s original From Beyond was written in 1920 and published in 1934. In this haunting tale of parallel universes, before modem physicists were taking the idea as seriously as they do today, Lovecraft opens readers minds to other worlds ... 

We ll discuss scientists view of parallel universes further in Chapter 6, but for now, notice how close Lovecraft s theories are to those of William James, who wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience ... 

The possible existence of Huxley s mysterious, timeless regions of reality has led professional and amateur researchers to ponder the extraordinary effects of the DMT molecule (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine). DMT is a psychoactive chemical that causes intense visions and coaxes users to quickly enter a completely different world that some have likened to an alien or parallel universe. DMT is a chemical produced in our own bodies and by many plants. Daniel Pinchbeck in Breaking Open the Head says, smoking DMT is like being shot from a cannon into another dimension and returning to this world in less than ten minutes. The transition from our world to the DMT universe ( DMTverse ) oc-... 

DMT in the pineal glands of Biblical prophets may have given God to humanity and let ordinary humans perceive parallel universes. If our human ancestors produced more endogenous DMT than we do today, then certain kinds of visions would have been more likely. Many of the ancient Bible stories describe prophets with DMT-like experiences. Consider as one example (Isaiah 6) ... 

Brain Syndromes Open Portals To Parallel Universes... 

Here I want to focus on people afflicted with certain eye diseases who report encounters with elflike beings from parallel universes. In particular, people with Charles Bonnet syndrome see beings from another world. Many scientists would call these beings hallucinations. Others call this syndrome a portal to a parallel reality. These individuals with Charles Bonnet syndrome (or Bonnet people ) are otherwise mentally sound. The beings appear when Bonnet people s visions deteriorate as a result of eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration—or when patients have had both eyes removed. Charles Bonnet syndrome is more common in older people with a high level of education. 

Benjamin believed that people became writers because they are unable to find a book already published with which they are completely happy. I think that is why I wrote my Neoreality science-fiction series that deals with fragmented realities and parallel universes—I could not find a book quite like them to read ... 

Sushi, Psychedelics, Parallel Universes, and the Quest for Transcendence... 

Time is one example of a fourth dimension, but there are others. Parallel universes may even exist besides our own in some ghostly manner, and these might be called other dimensions. But I m interested in a fourth spatial dimension—one that exists in a direction different from up and down, back and front, right and left. ... 

In some science-fiction scenarios where you can freely travel between parallel universes, it s easy to create duplicates of yourself. For example, consider several... 

Figure 3.14 Extending Monopoly games into higher dimensions. The Free Parking square acts as a wormhole between parallel universes. (Drawing by Brian Mansfield.)...

Bond, N. (1950) The Scientific Pioneer Returns, in Lancelot Biggs Spaceman by Nelson S. Bond. New York Doubleday. (Story originally published in 1940.) A ship accelerates into imaginary space that turns out to be a parallel universe. Einstein and Planck fiddled around with hyper-spatial mechanics and discovered that mass is altered when it travels at high velocity. The gadget worked better than you expected. ... 

Laumer, K. (1986) Worlds of the Imperium. New York TOR. Describes alternate worlds in which one man is confronted by his alternate self The protagonist is trapped and kidnapped by the inhabitants of a parallel universe. He learns that he must assassinate a version of himself who is an evil dictator in the parallel world. 

As this book goes to press, I have uncovered several recent discussions dealing with parallel universes and cosmic topology. 

Parallel Universes—Chapter 3 discussed parallel universes and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Readers interested in a lively and critical discussion of this topic should consult Professor Victor Stenger s The Unconscious Quantum (Prometheus Books, 1995). For example, he doubts very much that the parallel universes (in the many-worlds interpretation) all simultaneously exist. He also does not believe that all branches taken by the universe under the act of measurement are equally real. Stenger discusses other approaches such as the alternate histories theory that suggests every allowed history does not occur. What actually happens is selected by chance from a set of allowed probabilities. 

---