The Illusion Of Matter

On the Illusion of Matter
May 2015

The point of this essay is to look at the way physical experiences are manifest. I have tried to base my descriptions on evidence that many of us see every day. I have chosen to talk about the “what” as opposed to the “how” of the matter, as I think the “how” is probably beyond our ability to know. It is certainly beyond my ability to infer based on the evidence I have collected to date.

As you can infer from the title, this paper covers the topic of whether matter exists in a physical form. I believe it is possible that it does not. The implications of this are wide ranging and impactful. However I would like to also state that even if it is true, it does not mean that the study and use of more conventional physics is valueless. This is because although I contend that matter doesn't exist in a what one would conventionally call “physical” form, its illusion is quite real, and since most of our lives take place in a physical (albeit illusionary) construct, how we seem to interact within the physical characteristics of our existence is of great consequence to us.

Although it is quite possible that actual physical particles (or even for that matter waves) don't exist in a physical sense, their illusion does follow quite strict rules, and these rules are reasonably well understood by the reductionist scientific world. Further, the wide range of scientific discoveries that have been made over the centuries have had tangible impact on billions of us that is impossible to ignore. That is: the study and manipulation of our world using materialist science has tremendously impacted our life experiences. So from some perspectives, we might say that whether matter is illusionary or not has little bearing on our lives. I would agree that this is true from SOME perspectives. However from other perspectives the difference is huge.

So, to begin-
the mind is perfectly capable of creating a 3D immersive (lifelike) experience: it is called a dream.
________

In a lucid dream I was riding on a train. Sitting in a widow seat, I looked out at the passing scenery while fully knowing I was tucked in my bed 10 miles from Boston, at about 4:30 AM. As we passed a large grove of trees I noticed the fine details, the rough bark, the infinite variety of shapes and sizes of each tree. I looked at individual branches and could find nothing that hinted at the fact that there was no physical matter comprising it all. I knew as I was looking at it, that this was all a creation, an illusion, of some sort.

I then looked at the perspective of the scene: the relative motion of the closest tress as they moved in perfect perspective against those further away, and those which moved relatively against those even further away. What could create this? What kind of power would be required for a computer to conceive, design in the most minute detail, and render all this in real time? Could the physical brain contain such power?

Then I took my experience to a new level. I decided to fly out of the train, within and above the quickly passing forest. I effortlessly moved up through the roof of the train and I literally flew through some of the trees. I felt a slight sensation as I passed through the material of each one. I glanced back over at the train powering down the tracks, a long line of passenger cars behind the diesel engine, followed by a caboose. I glanced in the other direction and again saw the fully realistic view of near and far trees passing in perfect perspective, even as I swooped up and over the forest.

Still, I could not find anything out of place. I could find nothing to give me a hint that what I was watching wasn't “real”. Perhaps this was because it WAS real: as real as any experience. Perhaps it was the same as any experience in our objective reality. Perhaps this dreaming/non-physical world is just as real as the waking one because it is being created in the same way as any real waking-world experience. How would that work? How COULD that work?

For purposes of this discussion, we can categorize two types of immersive personal experiences: physical and non-physical. We are all quite familiar with the physical, and we assume it is “powered” by sensing the existence of a separate “solid” material world, one comprised of matter. The non-physical is no less familiar but is quite different. Examples are- dreams, OBE, NDE, shared death experiences, etc.

Starting with the physical: Let's take a closer look particularly at our vision sense.

It has been pointed out many times that there is no intrinsic color to anything. Vision relies on photons (which carry color information only as a function of vibratory frequency) striking the retina in the eye, which  excites various rods and cones in particular ratios, which send electro-chemical information to the brain, and then something somehow interprets this information and through a process which no one understands, we perceive color. Oddly, nowhere along this trail of processes is there a sense, even a hint, of color.

Consider how a picture is transmitted to your TV. The quality of color doesn't exist in the transmitted data stream. Of course the information contains data that is used by the TV electronics to indicate color, but that is not the same as the actual qualitative experience of red being included in the data set. The TV must use its electronics to sort out the codes and turn on the proper colored dots for the quality of color to take form.  In a similar way, your eyes don't directly project colors on the visual screen of your awareness. Rather the mind, like the TV, sorts and interprets and converts the information sent from the eyes and creates a visual scene of the physical world, which is then projected on the screen of our “theater of the mind”. Many will argue that the brain, like the TV, converts the incoming sense data and biologically creates the sensation of color. OK I accept that this is a reasonable position. But lets hold that thought for a bit and look at this from a different perspective.

Let's turn to a different type of experience, a non-physical based one, that we can all imagine: a dream. We have all had completely realistic dreams, ones which occasionally, for all intents and purposes, can be indistinguishable from “real life”. Sights, sounds, touch, and even emotions appear as they would in our waking experience .

So again focusing on vision; we can easily see that while sleeping, our eyes are closed, consequently there is no visual sense data being presented to our brain. So it appears it is not necessary for us to actually be receiving sense input to have an immersive 3D (“real life”) visual experience. We can see that it is possible, somehow, for one to fabricate a totally convincing lifelike experience of a non-physical world: we all do it every night when we sleep.

Some would say, yes but those experiences are just comprised of memories. That somehow “sense data” is being provided to the brain's visual cortex from a memory. I would respond in two ways:
1- I have had many many dreams where I have experienced whole new, or vastly different environments from those that I have experienced in the past. I reject the notion that dreams are comprised of memories only: there is way too much evidence to the contrary.
2- Even if this were the case (that dreams are comprised only of memories) this doesn't change the fact that we are creating an immersive realistic experience with no physical sensory input. We are creating the experience from something else, something not containing nor as the result of, matter at all.

In one famous quote, a gentleman demonstrated the reason for his faith in the reality of physical matter by kicking a stone and submitting this is as obvious and convincing evidence of the supremacy of matter as the fundamental bedrock of our experience: but let's look closer.

Imagine you are in a dream, and talking to a person about this very subject, and the person kicks a dream stone and says, “see isn't it obvious that matter is real?”. He might show you the scuff on his shoe. He might even pick up the rock and hit you on the head. How would you respond? Well, you might respond as you would in waking consciousness and either agree with the obviousness of the demonstration, or you might argue the point: but in the end the other person would probably not be convinced. Why would they? It's just your opinion against theirs and lacking solid proof, yours is of no higher standing than theirs. We have a stand-off.

Now, let's say that you were to become lucid in this dream of yours, as I have many times. You would realize then, from your larger perspective, that this whole scene is playing out in a dream while you are lying in bed. You would know with absolute certainty that in this dream reality there IS no “solid matter” to comprise the rock. You would KNOW that this other person was being fooled. You yourself, while earlier in this dream non-lucidly, might have also been similarly fooled, but from your new (lucid) perspective, it is obvious that physical matter plays no role in this place. Here, in this physical-looking dream, just like in “real life”: shoes scuff, eggs fall and break, cars crash, and a punch in the nose will hurt and make your eyes water. All these things happen in the world of matter, and so too here in the non-physical dream space. Of course in the dream world it is possible for the rules to occasionally be different: sometimes you can fly, sometimes you can fall great distances and bounce etc, but most of the time the environment behaves pretty much the same as in the waking ("physical") world. In any case, amazingly, a realistic experiential environment is being fabricated that is similar to (perhaps even indistinguishable from) real life. And it isn't just a fuzzy “dream-like” state of mind that is giving us this impression, as we will discover during lucid dreaming.

So what we are left with is this: on a nightly basis, we find ourselves in quite realistic worlds, which apparently we create. Ones that can present as totally physical in behavior, but who's physical-looking objects lack any material basis. Perhaps the dream world that we experience comes from our memories, perhaps our imagination, perhaps it exists in some form in a larger consciousness. These are points that we might examine more closely, but we know that the experience is not formulated based on sense data from our eyes and ears. We know in some way, something is constructing our dream environment from something non-physical in nature. Although we don't know the nature of this world, and whether it exists apart from ourselves, let's just think of this environmental information which is at the root of this non-physical experience, as a dataset. Literally a set of data which describes our dream world.

Having looked more closely at our dreams we can see that the “projector” which illuminates our screen of experience need not be comprised of photons bouncing of “solid” material surfaces, but rather can also be a construction of our minds. Perhaps this is a fundamental attribute of consciousness. Perhaps consciousness is primary. Perhaps further, this mechanism of experience-construction is the thing behind that which we experience as our “real life” 3D world as well.

What we can now see is, in the case of the physical world and the non-physical, our mind is involved with producing the content which is projected on our experiential screen. Remember, even in the physical process of sight, the mind/brain must convert the electro-chemical nerve impulses to display color. Both types of experiences may involve similar processes: but more on that in a bit.

A powerful way to look closer at these phenomenon can be through exploration while in “mixed consciousness”. This can make it possible for us to use our clear, lucid, awake, analytical thought process to experience and test the limits of this non-physical environment, as we are experiencing it. We can do this via lucid dreaming.

Recently I awoke (became lucid) in a dream where I was standing on the beach watching a beautiful multi-colored sunset. I could feel the sand between my toes and the warm sun on my face. I watched the rippling water and heard the small waves lapping on the wet sand. I stood there in amazement as I marveled at my mind's ability to create this scene, one which I had never seen before. It was indistinguishable from waking reality, and was playing out in 3D full motion video, with sight, smell, feeling, and sound before me.

While standing there alone on the beach, I spoke out loud to myself. I spoke to the incredible fact that while I knew I was lying in bed asleep, dreaming, I was also somehow bringing this totally new and sparkling world into existence.

While some part of me was asleep in my bed, another part was fully conscious of this fact and observing and narrating the scene, and apparently another part was creating the wind and the water and the Sun. Was some aspect of my mind planning each ripple in the ocean? Was some aspect of my mind choosing to move the clouds in unison through the sky? Were there unseen fish in that ocean swimming beneath the surface of the water? Were there people on that distant sailboat talking about their plans to start a family or buy a new home?

Dreaming is not the only case where we can see this non-physical reality creation process play out. We can also point to phenomena such as: Out of Body experiences, Near Death Experiences, Shared Death Experiences, shamanic journeying, and Remote Viewing. So there is a process in play here that may take many forms in many situations.

So now let's imagine the mind creating both the physical AND non-physical experience.

This is a big deal: in the case of the physical I am asking you to imagine that there IS NO physical aspect to anything. I'm suggesting that perhaps matter doesn't exist in a physical form at all. I am NOT just saying, as many currently do, that most of any physical object is comprised of empty space, and that even the small amount of space that IS occupied only contains vibrating electromagnetic strings,, so really isn't “physical”. No: what I am saying is perhaps what we experience as physical is actually a totally non-physical construction that contains neither particles or waves, but is rather only an idea: data. It is created by consciousness itself, just as in a dream. I am further saying that it is personal. It applies to you only. It has all of the attributes of the physical, but lacks that which we call matter. It lacks even the Planck-level underpinnings of matter. A lot to ask, but lets run with this thought.

Now that we have seen while dreaming we regularly experience an apparently physical world without the aid of any physical matter, we must consider the possibility that our “real” world has the same non-physical basis. After-all, isn't it reasonable to suppose that the same amazingly powerful creative process which forms the experience of our non-physical world may also be at the root of our “real world” experiences? Why should we presume that there are two utterly different ways which our world comes to expression? Parsimony would suggest there is but ONE underlying mechanism of experiential expression.

Imagine that right here, right now, although you are having a “physical” experience, it is being created by mind, or consciousness, and is not comprised by separate actual objects. I'm not suggesting that those physical objects don't exist in your experience, just that their source, their very nature, may not be what you think. Perhaps we don't exist in a physical world at all. Perhaps we exist as consciousness and we construct/manifest the experience of physical world in which we exist.

This is NOT to say that we manifest actual material reality, it is to say that we manifest the experience of physical reality. There is a non-trivial and unmistakable difference.

In one case, there are actual mechanical objects which stand alone from each other and us, and with which we interact through a process of billiard-ball mechanics. Alternatively, a manifested experience of reality contains no material objects whatsoever, and consequently no mechanical interactions. This method of expression only contains an experience where supposed objects appear as if they are acted upon by other supposed objects.

How would one even know the difference between actual physical reality and the manifested experience of physical reality? Perhaps you might ask: does it really even matter? Fair questions. We'll get to that part later. For now let's just poke around this a little more completely.

Now might be a good time to more clearly nail down the difference between “real life” or objective reality vs your more subjective, more personal, non-physical reality.

First- we need to look at the relative unchanging nature of “real life”. Not only is the world the same when you wake up as when you went to sleep, it is generally unchangeable while you are awake unless you interact with it physically. OTOH the non-physical is a much more malleable environment that more readily responds to your wishes. If you want a door to appear, it can. If you want to fly, go ahead. You can even pass through walls if you wish it to be so.

Second- another major difference is that real life is the same for everyone; it is “objective”. It is objectively consistent for all. Whereas the non-physical seems to be particular to the person “creating” it and is generally not a sharable experience. There are many documented exceptions lets think of it this way, for the time being.

I said earlier that I am suggesting that your experience of the real world is a creation of your consciousness and so that it is personal to you. So how can the physical experience be personal to you, but also objectively consistent for all?  Seems like a contradiction.

Also does this mean I am suggesting that you are the only being in existence and that you bring the entire universe into existence (solipsism)?

No. Am I suggesting that each of us exists, but brings a different and unique version of our reality into existence? No: but you are getting warmer. Read on.

So how does this model of reality hold up with our proposition of the supremacy of consciousness?

If we were to allow for two different classes of reality's experiential “data”: (objective and subjective) it holds up quite well.

The objective data set is that which is accessible to all entities who are participating in the particular reality: i.e it reflects the state of this apparently physical/material universe. Whether a dog or cat or human, or a cave dwelling bat, all will have the same shared basis of physical reality. All will individually experience whatever  is appropriate for their senses. A backyard with 10 green oak trees in it will look that way to a human. A bat will experience those trees differently, especially at night, when vision is not possible. It would experience 10 large objects with its sound location apparatus. All creatures will have a shared sense of the same reality because all will be based on the same objective data set.

On the other hand, when we consider a subjective data set we find it is particular to each observer and is dependent and changeable based on the observer's beliefs and desires. Although the way we create our experience is the same as with objective reality, this non-physical experience can be deeper and richer than the objective because it is not limited to that which is fed by the traditional human senses. Nor are we limited by traditional physics. For example we might be able to see with 360 degree vision, or be able to fly without physical assistance. Finally this data set will often be lost when the observer's attention is interrupted e.g. when one wakes up.

So if we allow for the possibility of two different sets of data to supply the input to the mind's world-creation process, we can see how this may result in a convincing physical or non-physical experience.

We can take this one step further and see that it is entirely possible for one's experience to include aspects of both data sets simultaneously. We have all experienced such a cases as: a real dog barking bleeding into a dream where a dream dog is barking. Or when your actual body needs to go the bathroom, one dreams about going to the bathroom.

There are many more interesting examples of mixed data experiences that might explain the otherwise unexplainable. What about the untold thousands of cases of awake people reporting visitations by the departed? Take for example, my father's oft-told story about a beloved grandfather physically appearing in his bedroom, at the foot of his bed, offering words of comfort on the night of his death in a car crash (the crash was not otherwise known to my father). Or of people reporting seeing angles or demons, or religious figures? What about the burning bush of Moses?: all cases where one perhaps is seeing a mix of the objective and subjective worlds simultaneously. How about all the cases where people swear they saw something incredible in the “real world”, and where usually only that person experiences that amazing thing, while others see only objective reality? What about UFOs? Or ghost sightings?

Further- there are documented cases of shared dreams and OBE experiences where two or more people were able to have an experience, document the details, and then compare notes with others to confirm a the shared non-physical event sequence. Or take for example “Shared Death” experiences, where a living loved one moves along with a deceased loved one part way through the process of the post-death transition. These sorts of experiences appear to be where we are able to share someone else's subjective (“non-physical”) reality. So it looks like we are able to access not only the usual objective data and our own subjective data, but in rare cases, someone else's subjective data as well.

One aspect of what we might consider our subjective data set is our memories. These memories span our waking life time and our non-physical experiences as well. By non-physical I refer to not just dreams but other experiences while in other states such as OBE and NDE. I would guess that our subjective data set includes memories of all those dreams that we've had and forgotten. And also those worlds, landscapes and people we've dreamed of, and have never thought of again. Memories of any environment seem to be available from any other as long as we are lucid enough to notice.

We have all come to understand that only a portion of what we experience when we are awake, seem to be available to us as memories. Only those things that are somehow notable seem to be available to us. It was during an interesting dream where I found that this is actually not the case.

I had a dream where I was sitting in my third grade classroom. I was speaking to my friends, most of which I had forgotten long ago. I suddenly realized that I remembered the names of each child in the class. This is information that was completely lost to me several decades ago.

The real kicker was, as I was talking to a particular friend and we discussed going to his house after school one day, he said that he would ask his mother, and that I should give him a call later so we could make plans. At that moment I realized knew his phone number just as if I was once again 8 years old and dialing it every day. This is definitely information that had been totally lost to me. And when I awoke that number was still clear a crystal in my thoughts.

I have since once again, forgotten the names of most of my forgotten friends, but I now realize the memories of all of that stuff, the faces, the names, the addresses and even the phone numbers, are still very alive and real and fresh, somewhere. Although it may not be accessible to my conscious physical-experience awareness, I have no doubt that it exists, intact, in some aspect of “mind”.

And if such a minuscule, unimportant day in my life is there, available, unperturbed, I now see that in all likelihood, every moment of every day of my life, perhaps every fragment of thought and every dream experience I've ever had, is available to be remembered. And if our actual physical experience is really a process driven by a “data-set”, all of this is available to be actually relived if I wish.

And finally, since we are actually able to share (to “live”) other people's subjective data, then we could actually experience what it is like to live other people's lives as well. And interestingly, this is exactly what many have reported during NDE, past live recall and other metaphysical events:
- the process of re-living even the most mundane, forgotten aspect of their lives, and
- the process of experiencing many aspects of their life through the perspective of those who with whom we've interacted, even to the point of allowing us to feel the emotions of the other person during the recalled event.

These ideas have been around for thousands of years, as family stories, as legend, as myth, as teachings, so I guess it should be of no surprise that these pieces fit together so well.

Earlier I mentioned that perhaps in some ways this view of how our world is comprised is not so important. After-all, whether matter has a physical composition or not, may be immaterial as long as it behaves in certain predictable ways when it is observed. Right?

Well yes this is true, however recognizing the real truth, that the physical world is an illusionary construct of our mind, plays a huge role in understanding and perhaps explaining the currently explainable. I refer to things like remote viewing, spiritual healing, the placebo effect, mediumship, end of life visions, end of life lucidity, out of body experiences, and on and on. These are all explainable if we use a mixed consciousness model that includes the objective and subjective.


Other aspects to study and consider-

Perhaps we could participate in a different shared reality
Perhaps we could create a new shared reality
How does time figure in?
Multi lives?
Akashic records?
One set of objective data contains all experiences, all lives from all contributors?
Other realities? Other dimensions?

The Critical Skill

Affinity.. In this essay I use it to describe an attraction between two things. Think of it as a sort of magnetic attraction that binds two things together until they are separated enough to make the attraction dissipate.

Consider the grooves in a vinyl record. The record needle can travel anywhere on the surface of the record but it doesn't because it is “locked in”. It is compelled to follow the groove because it is the path of least resistance.

How about a cross country skier? They can ski anywhere they want, but they tend to stay in the prepared tracks. It is easier to stay in the tracks than to venture outside of them. They have an affinity for those tracks.

Ever look at a window during a rain storm? Those individual droplets hang there, held together by surface tension, as they move downward on the window a bit at a time. Then they combine with another drop and fall faster and eventually they find the track left by a previous droplet and they tend to follow that path in it's zigzag course downward. Reduced friction makes it easier for them to do so. They have an affinity for that track.

Another example might be that of a classical electron. It has places where it “likes” to be: valence levels. It doesn't choose to have random levels of energy, rather particular ones for which it has an “affinity”. Actually the term affinity is used very often when discussing chemical reactions at the atomic level.

Finally, imagine two strong magnets placed a couple feet apart. And imagine you are waving around a screw driver, and when it comes close to one of the magnets it snaps into contact. And it remains there until you exert enough force to pry it away. And after you pry it away, and wave it around again, it may come close enough to become attached to the other magnet, and then it gets stuck there. It “wants” to remain there. It hasn't lost it's affinity for the first magnet, it's just that it is currently in the grasp of the new magnet, and there it will remain until disturbed by a sufficient force, or until the attraction energy dissipates for some reason.

We each have a varying level of consciousness (LOC) which describes our awareness level at any point in time. During normal waking life experience, this LOC is attached to, (is driven/fed by) data from our senses: “sense data”. i.e. sight, sound, feeling, taste and smell. This sense data is the “magnet” to which our consciousness is attracted. We have an affinity for our sense data. Once the two are “connected” they are hard to separate. They stick together until a force is applied or until the attractive energy goes away.

When you close your eyes to go to sleep, the primary “energizing force” driving the attraction to the senses (vision) disappears. With eyes closed, all you can “see” is blackness. Initially blackness is not just the lack of eyesight: it IS what your eye is seeing: that is, blackness. The eye is communicating to your brain that what is sees is “the color” black. You are still actively seeing at this point. You are still connected to the sense of sight: for a while. And over time, especially if the other senses are not very strong, the attraction drops to the point where awareness is free to wonder, to drift aimlessly.

What happens then usually starts with subtle visual sensations that are not driven by your eyes. It usually starts with subtle shifting swirling monochromatic clouds. This period, called hypnogogia, continues as shapes take more form and eventually take on color, and eventually a whole new non-physical world takes form: a dream. In this dream-space, all the senses are represented to us (sometimes some are more realistic than others) but are not driven by the sense organs of the physical body, but are created but some other mechanism.

I am theorizing that these black swirls in a field of black are actually the combination of TWO visual streams. Think of it as similar to a photographic double exposure. The first is the black that you are seeing with your eyes, and the other, the swirling, is the initial sensation of the sight-like vision which is created by something else. Whatever it is that creates it, it is the same mechanism that creates a visual scene in a dream.

Note- In another paper I describe how even our real life experience is created by this non-physical means. How there actually IS NO physical aspect to anything. How there is no real world at all in the objective sense that most people believe. But I'll leave that aside for now and stick to the subject of: our affinity to connect to either the world of the senses OR the world of dream.

So when we are fully asleep, we are connected to the non-physical (dream) world. One formulated using simulated sense data. Our awareness has moved from being attached to one magnet (our real world sense data), and then it spent some time drifting (unconnected), and now has attached to the other “magnet” of our simulated dream-based sense data.

This new magnet seems less powerful than the real life one, as we seem to be able to wake up and disconnect from it much more easily than when we go to sleep. Also the dream world itself is much more malleable than our real world. Note-This fact is discussed in my other paper on the topic.

Also as evidence of a weaker attraction we see that if a loud noise or other pronounced physical sense is encountered, it will usually break (or perhaps actually overwhelm) the affinity for dreaming, at which point we will reconnect to our physical senses: we will wake up.

Alternatively, when we have had sufficient sleep, we find that the force energizing the “magnet” of our dream vision seems to decrease to the point that once again, our consciousness drifts again, back to the (now) more powerful attraction to real world sense data. This alternating affinity of our consciousness to sleep vs waking “sense” data is the daily cycle of sleep and wake that we all experience.

Think of how we look at the stars at night. How beautiful and magnificent they are. We can't do this during the day, not because they are not still there and shining, but because the light from those stars are overwhelmed by the light of the Sun. In the same way, our dream aspect may always be there, but the glare of our physical sense data may simply overwhelm the the more subtle and perhaps weaker power of the non-physical “magnet”.

There is another aspect to our daily sleep cycle which I think encapsulates “the critical skill”. This is regarding the fact that our actual LOC in wake vs sleep is quite different. We have all found that when we dream, our mental acuity is decreased. Our level of discernment is also much less.

For example: where we might accept a talking dog or even our unaided ability to fly while dreaming, we would immediately reject this in our waking state. (This is not that case if we are lucid dreaming, but hold that thought for a minute.)

So what's the big deal? What could we do if we suddenly found ourselves in a dream, while retaining our waking lucidity? I have written a blog describing a lucid dream where I discovered that some aspect of me was creating the world, at the same time as the conscious and alert aspect of me stood and watched in amazement.

But further, what I am really getting to is the fact that in many spritual practices, we have been told that there is not only a whole aspect of non-physical reality waiting to be explored, but that there are entities in this non-physical world which are there and available to offer guidance and information to us, if we were only able to ask, and pay attention to, and remember the responses. That's a pretty “big deal” I would say.

Many say that we, while dreaming, have these interactions with non-physical entities all the time, but we don't remember most of them. You might say that this is all hogwash and that there are no individuated conscious entities other than in physical reality, but I choose to listen to the mounds of data substantiating this fact, and to try and experience this myself so I can draw my own conclusions.

Unfortunately for me, lucid dreams are few and far between. Perhaps I have one every two weeks at this point. Also the way I have experienced lucid dreams is via a spontaneous awakening inside the dream. The good news is that I have evidence that the dream world is quite realistic and detailed and in-fact is indistinguishable from real life. The bad news is, I never seem to have a prepared game plan for exploring, since I awoke in the middle of dream with no warning and no prepared game-plan to execute.

What would be a better situation is if I could prepare a plan (an intention) and travel into a dream-like state while maintaining full lucidity and while holding this intention. In this case I could proceed with a plan, get the information I desired, and return with that information. Also, if it is true that “helpers” of some sort are available, I could solicit help from the appropriate resource, rather than fumble around randomly in this other world.

This brings us to the “critical skill”. How can one move to a dream-like state (a place where the non-physical reality provides the sense data to formulate the experience) while maintaining full lucid awareness? There are lucid dream techniques to do this but:

a- I have been unable to make it work, and

b- lucid dreaming doesn't provide for the type of coaching and assistance that could prove to be invaluable to a searcher. However, shamanic journeying does.

I plan to use shamanic journeying to accomplish this. And although I have been unsuccessful so far, I plan to continue to work on this skill.

In addition, I think an awareness of the “transitional affinity” aspect of consciousness and sense data vs simulation data, can provide a road-map to help understand the nuances of what is taking place, and can perhaps provide the framework for devising a more repeatable and perhaps easier to learn transition methodology.

That's the “critical skill” and one of the things I'm up to at this time..

Cracking Open the Oyster: Reincarnation

Cracking Open the Oyster: Reincarnation

The topic of lucid dreaming lead me to decide that I needed to take a closer look at things that previously I would cast aside as incompatible with science. 

But where to look? And how? First of all: the possible topics are so wide ranging that one could get lost in all the myriad of details, and expert claims, and denials. And secondly, how could I as a relative newcomer, an outsider, to ANY of the relevant fields of study, compete or substantially disagree with an expert in that field? 

I have read about mediums that communicate with the dead, and the foretelling of future events, and the acquisition of impossible knowledge and incredible stories of experiences of people after coming close to death. But in all cases there was always some loophole provided by a scientific expert that I could reference, to explain it away. So there are lots of subject areas to consider, but in all cases scientific experts have already weighed in and and disproved the claim.

So where to begin with this hairball of a problem?

As you might have noticed, I like analogies, so let's try this one...

We occasionally spend time with my in-laws in Wellfleet on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. As many know, Wellfleet is known for more than their pristine beaches. It's the Wellfleet oyster that many regard as the most famous asset associated with the place.

Once a year, in October they hold the "Oyster Fest". And chief among the activities is the oyster shucking contest. These guys and gals are amazing. They can shuck an oyster in seconds, where a less experienced person may work for 20 minutes or more and never end up opening that darn shell.

You can immediately tell a neophyte "shucker" by the fact that they don't know where to stick the point of the oyster knife to open the shell. That one minuscule "sweet spot" where the two shells join is the key the whole operation. Hit the spot and you've got a chance of success. Miss the spot and you can work all you want but will probably end up with no oyster to eat, or perhaps a big mess of broken shell and a hacked up mollusk. 

So I thought about the crux of the matter, of this "thing" I was trying to understand, to uncover, to discover. What was the least common denominator of the thing? And what was the best way to get to the soft underbelly of it, the one little joint in the two shells, so that I could leverage it open and take a closer look? 

What I came up with as a good point of examination was the following question: where does experiential information get stored? Particularly, where does a person's personal and private memory go when they die? If one were to "prove" that this particular information, which existed in only one place (the brain of a particular, now dead, person) but could still be accessed in some way, we would have found the "sweet spot on the oyster". This could represent a door which could be pried open to expose a whole range of amazing topics otherwise inaccessible to me and those "scientific materialists" like me.

The key to using this approach is: it would allow me to illuminate a major point of either coincidence or departure from scientific thinking. We would either find that science's claim that experiential knowledge (personal memories) are stored in a complex biological mass of electro-chemical processes (the brain) or, that it is stored in some other place entirely. Perhaps outside of the body, or even someplace separate from the physical world all together. So where to apply this methodology?

I was always quite sure that reincarnation was one of the many examples of people convincing themselves of something they wanted to believe. Why for example do so many of the cases of reincarnation involve people in India? Could it be because the predominant religion in India (Hinduism) holds it as fact? I never took reincarnation stories seriously enough to investigate them in any way. I now find it odd that this particular subject could become the one that would be so convincing to me.

Here's what I discovered-

In 1966, a Canadian, Dr Ian Stevenson wrote a book titled “20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation”. In this book he told many stories that as the title states, “suggest” reincarnation.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm

Let's take a look at one of them.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm#swarnlata

This case is extracted from charts and commentary on pages 67 to 91 in Dr. Ian Stevenson’s classic book, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. This is the original long version written for the book by Carol Bowman called "Children's Past Lives", but due to space constraints a shorter, edited version appeared in the book. This is the original extract in its entirety.

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Sweet Swarnlata's Story

The story of Swarnlata is characteristic of Stevenson's cases: the young girl's memories began when she was 3, she gave enough information to enable Stevenson to locate the family of the deceased person she remembered (the case was "solved"), and she gave more than 50 specific facts that were verified. But Swarnlata's case was also different from most because her memories did not fade. And this is a sweet case, characterized by love and happy memories rather than by violent death and struggles between castes and families, like in so many other cases.

Swarnlata Mishra was born to an intellectual and prosperous family in Pradesh in India in 1948. When she was just three years old and traveling with her father past the town of Katni more than 100 miles from her home, she suddenly pointed and asked the driver to turn down a road to "my house", and suggested they could get a better cup of tea there than they could on the road.

Soon after, she related more details of her life in Katni, all of which were written down by her father. She said her name was Biya Pathak, and that she had two sons. She gave details of the house: it was white with black doors fitted with iron bars; four rooms were stuccoed, but other parts were less finished; the front floor was of stone slabs. She located the house in Zhurkutia, a district of Katni; behind the house was a girl's school, in front was a railway line, and lime furnaces were visible from the house. She added that the family had a motor car (a very rare item in India in the 1950's, and especially before Swarnlata was born). Swarnlata said Biya died of a "pain in her throat", and was treated by Dr. S. C. Bhabrat in Jabalpur. She also remembered an incident at a wedding when she and a friend had difficulty finding a latrine.

In the spring of 1959, when Swarnlata was 10 years old, news of the case reached Professor Sri H. N. Banerjee, an Indian researcher of paranormal phenomenon and colleague of Stevenson. Banerjee took the notes her father made and traveled to Katni to determine if Swarnlata's memories could be verified.

Using nothing more than the description that Swarnlata had given, he found the house--despite the house having been enlarged and improved since 1939 when Biya died. It belonged to the Pathak's (a common name in India), a wealthy, prominent family, with extensive business interests. The lime furnaces were on land adjoining the property; the girls school was 100 yards behind the Pathak's property, but not visible from the front.

He interviewed the family and verified everything Swarnlata had said. Biya Pathak had died in 1939 leaving behind a grieving husband, two young sons, and many younger brothers. These Pathaks had never heard of the Mishra family, who lived a hundred miles away; the Mishra's had no knowledge of the Pathak family.

The next scene in this story sounds like a plot from Agatha Christie, but is all true, extracted from the Stevenson's tabulations in Swarnlata's published case. In the summer of 1959, Biya's husband, son, and eldest brother journeyed to the town of Chhatarpur, the town where Swarnlata now lived, to test Swarnlata's memory. They did not reveal their identities or purpose to others in the town, but enlisted nine townsmen to accompany them to the Mishar home, where they arrived unannounced.

Swarnlata immediately recognized her brother and called him "Babu", Biya's pet name for him. Stevenson gives only the barest facts, but I can imagine the emotions ran high at this point. Imagine how Babu felt to be recognized immediately by his dead sister reborn. 

Ten-year-old Swarnlata went around the room looking at each man in turn; some she identified as men she knew from her town, some were strangers to her. Then she came to Sri Chintamini Pandey, Biya's husband. Swarnlata lowered her eyes, looked bashful--as Hindu wives do in the presence of their husbands--and spoke his name. Stevenson says nothing of Sri Pandey's reaction at finding his wife after twenty years

Swarnlata also correctly identified her son from her past life, Murli, who was 13 years old when Biya died. But Murli schemed to mislead her, and "for almost twenty-four hours insisted against her objections that he was not Murli, but someone else." Murli had also brought along a friend and tried to mislead Swarnlata once again by insisting he was Naresh, Biya's other son, who was about the same age as this friend. Swarnlata insisted just as strongly that he was a stranger.

Finally, Swarnlata reminded Sri Pandey that he had purloined 1200 rupees Biya kept in a box. Sri Pandey admitted to the truth of this private fact that only he and his wife had known.

Gold Fillings

A few weeks later, Swarnlata's father took her to Katni to visit the home and town where Biya lived and died.

Upon arriving she immediately noticed and remarked about the changes to the house. She asked about the parapet at the back of the house, a verandah, and the neem tree that used to grow in the compound; all had been removed since Biya's death. She identified Biya's room and the room in which she had died. She recognized one of Biya's brothers and correctly identified him as her second brother. She did the same for her third and fourth brother, the wife of the younger brother, the son of the second brother (calling him by his pet name "Baboo"), a close friend of the family's (correctly commenting that he was now wearing spectacles, which he in fact had acquired since Biya had died) and his wife (calling her by her pet name "Bhoujai"), Biya's sister-in-law--all with appropriate emotions of weeping and nervous laughter. She also correctly identified a former servant, an old betelnut seller, and the family cowherd (despite her youngest brother's attempt to test Swarnlata by insisting that the cowherd had died).

Later, Swarnlata was presented to a room full of strangers and asked whom she recognized. She correctly picked out her husband's cousin, the wife of Biya's brother-in-law, and a midwife--whom she identified not by her current name, but by a name she had used when Biya was alive. Biya's son Murli, in another test, introduced Swarnlata to a man he called a new friend, Bhola. Swarnlata insisted correctly that this man was actually Biya's second son, Naresh. In another test, Biya's youngest brother tried to trap Swarnlata by saying that Biya had lost her teeth; Swarnlata did not fall for this, and went on to say that Biya had gold fillings in her front teeth--a fact that the brothers had forgotten and were forced to confirm by consulting with their wives, who reminded them that what Swarnlata said was true.

This must have been a spectacle. Here was a ten-year-old stranger from far away--so far, in terms of Indian culture, that her dialect was distinctly different than that of the Pathaks--who acted confidently like an older sister of the household, was familiar with intimate names and family secrets, and remembered even marriage relationships, old servants, and friends. Just as amazing, her memory was frozen at the time of Biya's death; Swarnlata knew nothing about the Pathak family that had happened since 1939.

In the following years, Swarnlata visited the Pathak family at regular intervals. Stevenson investigated the case in 1961, witnessing one of these visits. He observed the loving relationship between Swarnlata and the other members of the family. They all accepted her as Biya reborn.

Swarnlata behaved appropriately reserved towards Biya's elders, but when alone with Biya's sons, she was relaxed and playful as a mother would be--behavior that would otherwise be totally inappropriate in India for a 10-year-old girl in the company of unrelated men in their mid-thirties.

The Pathak brothers and Swarnlata observed the Hindu custom of Rakhi, in which brothers and sisters annually renew their devotion to each other by exchanging gifts. In fact the Pathak brothers were distressed and angry one year when Swarnlata missed the ceremony; they felt that because she had lived with them for 40 years and with the Mishras for only 10 years that they had a greater claim on her. As evidence of how strongly the Pathaks believed that Swarnlata was their Biya, they admitted that they had changed their views of reincarnation upon meeting Swarnlata and accepting her as Biya reborn (the Pathaks, because of their status and wealth, emulated Western ideas and had not believed in reincarnation before this happened). Swarnlata's father, Sri Mishra, also accepted the truth of Swarnlata's past identity: years later, when it came time for Swarnlata to marry he consulted with the Pathaks about the choice of a husband for her.

How did Swarnlata feel about all of this? Was it confusing for her to remember so completely the life of a grown woman? Stevenson visited her in later years and corresponded with her for ten years after this case was investigated. He reports that she grew up normally, received an advanced degree in botany, and got married. She said that sometimes, when she reminisced about her happy life in Katni, her eyes brimmed with tears and, for a moment, she wished she could return to the wealth and life of Biya. But her loyalty to the Mishra family was undivided and, except for the regular visits to Katni, she went about the business of growing into a beautiful young woman, accepting fully her station in this life.

The story above describes a little girl named Swarnlata who demonstrated to her family that she had a previous life. She recounted dozens of details about her other life including the names and ages of her children and intimate details of her life that only she and her former husband knew. The facts are irrefutable . After reading the account and studying the details, Dr Almeder, PhD, Dept of Philosophy at GSU even went so far as to state: “it would be irrational to disbelieve it”.

Dr Almeder also eloquently illustrates the reason to take this sort of evidence seriously. He used the following analogy to illustrate his point of view:

Let's look at a fictitious group of 100 people who one by one jump off the Empire State building. As he describes it, the data shows that “95 of them hit the ground as one might expect they would: painfully and disastrously, but five land gently and walk away. What do you think needs to be explained? Answer: The five that landed gently and walked away.” Focusing on the 95 that crash-landed as one would expect, and chalking the remaining 5 surprising survivors as spurious data points would be utterly ridiculous. Strangely though this “scrubbing of the data” might make sense in some scientific test protocols and is what many of us have been doing all of our lives with stories that don't fit neatly into our reality frame.

I would highly recommend watching the entire video of Dr Almeder speaking on the subject. It is full of cogent and logical insights that for me, were impossible to dismiss and went to the crucial heart of the matter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hZhMDU9GcVg#!

What we have in the story of Swarnlata is a crystal clear demonstration of data that simply can not be explained with today's model of reality and more particularly with a traditional scientific understanding of human existence.

This story, and Dr Almeder's summary of its implications was the tectonic event that caused my dam to break, and which forced me to consider a more expanded view of what life really is. After-all, not to reach this conclusion would for me, be illogical and irrational. It would be ignoring too many data points.

My tipping point had been reached. Your tipping point may be different, but I contend that the examples in our world that can't be explained are so numerous that any person who is open and curious will find the example that compels them to act: to accept the fact that there are aspects of this world that just won't make sense without considering what previously may have been impossible to consider.

So why did it take me over 50 years to reach this point? Perhaps, although I was open and curious for most of my life, I wasn't actively looking. Of the dozen or so amazing unexplainable “paranormal” things I describe in these pages, I never took the time to become fully focused on them until I decided that I needed to discover what all the hullabaloo was about regarding the true nature of existence. And perhaps one doesn't actively look at these things until one is ready. I have a feeling that generally, a person isn't “ready” until they have experienced a certain amount of life.

In my journey, exposure to the Swarnlata story and it's attendant analysis was a major milestone. The oyster had been opened. For me, it was the first evidence that there really IS something going on under surface of reality. It was at this point that my journey changed from ascertaining whether there was a hidden truth to our reality, to accepting that fact and moving on to learn about the details.

The Most Important Experiment In all of Science

The most important experiment in all of science

Quantum mechanics underlies perhaps the most famous of many strange behaviors of our reality. It may be most notable because it seems to straddle the worlds of science and the mystic. Although quantum theory has become one of the world's most successful scientific theories, most people are either entirely ignorant of it, or don't understand its colossal implications. In the end, many would rather ignore it ,since it is an inconvenient truth that opens the door to what Albert Einstein once called “spooky occurrences” which he eventually acknowledged, but could never adequately explain.

Of course there are entire libraries of information dedicated to this subject, so I will not even attempt a thorough review here. Even when fully described, the actions of quantum mechanics still leave brilliant minds unclear about how things actually behave in our world. Prof. Richard Feynman once famously said “anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory doesn't understand it”.

He also said “ What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see, my physics students don't understand it.... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.” (Feynman, Richard P. Nobel Lecture, 1966, 1918-1988, QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter)

So we start with the fact that one of the preeminent minds of 20th century physics claimed not to understand quantum physics. What is not in dispute however is the “spooky” behavior of it, and that is what we will cover here.

Best place to start is with the double slit experiment, perhaps the most influential experiment in the history of science.

This experiment attempts to look at the smallest constituents of light to uncover their basic nature. How do they behave? We find through various experiments that sometimes these objects behave like Newtonian billiard balls: they come in individual discrete chunks (quanta), occupy distinct positions, and travel in straight lines until struck by other “billiard balls” which change their speed and direction.

Remember the rule? Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction...

However we see in other experiments that these pieces if light, these objects, behave like waves: they emanate in all directions, their “size” (amplitude) varies an an analog fashion, and they can combine with other waves to increase or decrease in size.

Long ago science had theorized that light was a wave. It travels at a fixed speed (the speed of light) and it contains all the classical properties of waves. However later-on others found out that light comes in discrete packets: quanta. So for example, if you shine a light on a detector that makes a sound when light hits it, and it is very sensitive, and if you keep turning down the light's intensity, you will eventually get to a point where individual clicks (quanta) are detected with more or less frequency as the brightness is turned down or up a little bit. The force or sound caused by each click doesn't get any lower by turning the light down further, it just clicks less often. This demonstrates that light is made of quantum units, what Feynman and others called “corpuscles”. Light is made of particles even though it seems to usually “act” as a wave.

So we ware going to create an experiment to analyze the properties of photons (the constituent “particles” of light) to see if we can learn more about whether protons are are actually “objects” acting en mass like waves or whether they are something else entirely.

The famous “Double Slit Experiment” was originally devised to study light and its odd tendency to sometimes behave like particles and other times like waves. I think you'll agree that the findings were, to say the least, rather spectacular.

Lets start with a large pool of water. Stand on the edge and drop a rock into it. What do you see?

Fig 1

Fig 1 shows wave radiating in familiar pattern outward from where the rock hit the previously calm water.

Fig 2

Now in Fig 2 lets put a square edge around the pool and see what the waves do.

(fig 3 removed)

See how they combine with each other after they bounce off the walls. See how they interfere with each other? See how the multiple wave shapes combine?

Now let's place a wall in the pool with a slit cut in it to let some of the wave through. Can you imagine what you will see? Actually in Fig 4 we have shown a drawing with two slits (one left and one right), but only one of which is open at a time.

Fig 4

A wave will start from either slit and will move outward as before. No surprise here either.

When we open both slits things get more interesting. Fig 5 shows the two sets of waves moving out from the two openings. As one would expect, these waves interfere with each other. This “interference pattern” is caused by the fact that when the two waves interact you will see the sum of the two expressed as a combined wave form. So if the wave from slit A is 1 foot high and it hits the wave from slit B where it is 1 foot high, at that spot the new wave will be 2 feet high. And alternatively if the wave from A is 1 foot high and hits the wave trough from B which is 1 foot low the result will be a zero foot wave, ie: calm water at that point. So the combined “waveform” shape will be the combined version of the two waves at that particular location at that time at each particular location.

Fig 5

So using this as a model, we have a clear picture of what a wave looks like when passed through one, or two slits.

Now lets look at a similar setup to see how particles would act when going through slits.

In order to see how particles would act in a similar situation, we will use a scatter gun for our experiment this time instead of a rock dropping in the water. Like a machine gun it will shoot lots of pellets one after the other. Our gun is very inaccurate though so the pellets will kind of scatter around a bit instead of hitting one spot on the target which is located on the back of the laboratory (which is the particle analog of the glass side at back of the pool).

Fig 7 shows the somewhat random distribution of the shots and the pattern it leaves on the target.

Fig 7

Fig 8 shows what would happen if we set up a wall with a single slit opened in it. Just like in our wave experiment, the wall containing the slit will block most of the pellets but the slit in the wall will let a few pellets through. The shot pattern on the target will show an unsurprising pattern. A band of pellet marks in the general shape of and directly in the path of the open slit.

Fig 8

Fig. 9 shows that with a second slit open, a second band of pellet marks will be found on the target, just as you would expect. Notice that there is a band of impacts behind the left slit and one behind the right. The main difference between the pellets and the water waves is that with two open slits, the water demonstrates a wave-like interference pattern and the pellets show and particle-like pattern with two bands of markings. The pellets are acting as Newton would predict: as distinctly independent objects, whereas the waves are doing what waves do: interacting and combining. This all fits with what we would expect from our experiences in the world.

Fig 9

What we have shown so far is that pellets act like particles and water acts like waves, and we have shown experimentally how to see the characteristic difference between the two. Particles will tend to go through the either of the two slits and hit the target behind each opening. Waves will also go though a slit, but will then spread out in a regular arc, and if multiple slits of open they will interact and and cause a repeating and more pattern quite unlike the regular wave shape from the single slit: an interference pattern.

Now that we have tested our setup and test methods, and have learned to tell the characteristic differences, the fingerprints, of particles and wave patterns, let's get down to some real work.

We now need a new scatter gun. Instead of shooting pellets, it shoots units of light (photons). This is not a mystical device. If you take apart an old TV that uses a picture tube you will find one of these photon “guns”.

Just like before, the first experiment shoots photons at the target with no intervening slit wall in place. We see a random pattern as shown in fig 10. Once again, no surprise.

Fig 10

Then we set up a wall with a very small slit. We see in fig 11 the same “band” pattern that we saw with our single slit pellet experiment. This is different from what we would have seen with a wave. A wave would have been smeared out to both sides. Eureka! We have confirmed that photons are particles because they have the same pattern as our particle experiment and do not show the distinctive visual fingerprint of waves going through a single slit.

Fig 11

So lets finish this part of the experiment and open the second slit in our wall.

Fig 12

What we find is in fig 12. 

But wait a minute... Notice that on the target under the L and R where we would expect the two bands of particle impacts we see nothing. But now we see various bands starting in the center and occurring to the left and right. This is an interference pattern!

This characterizes photons as waves.

After running the tests over and over again we see that this is consistent. With either the left or right slot open, we see a band (particle) pattern directly behind the open slit, and with both slits open we see the interference (wave) pattern. Wow. It looks like photons can act like both particles and waves depending on the test setup. This is referred to as the wave-particle duality of light by the way.

On closer analysis, maybe somehow the two streams of particles are interacting with each other on the way to the target screen. Maybe the wave behavior is more about particle properties than something mysterious. Maybe it's about electric or magnetic fields, or maybe gravity? Or perhaps occasionally a particle hits the edge of the slit as it passes through and is diverted, kind of like how a stream of water is diverted as it comes out of a faucet and you touch your finger to it? Perhaps this could explain why the particles are “acting like waves” when they pass through two holes.

Ok, so let's back to our test setup. Let's modify the gun so that only one photon is shot every time we pull the trigger. This will guarantee that as each particle travels to the target there will be no other particles in flight that could possibly interfere with it. Maybe this will fix things and show the expected particle.

When we run the photon test again by firing millions of single photons one at a time we find the following. With no slit wall after many firings we get the same random pattern of markings as before.

With a single slit we see a single band of marks, just as we would expect. Same is true if we have a double slit but alternately cover one or the other slit.

With double slits open, when we fire over and over one photon at a time, find find something very odd. We again see an interference pattern emerge!

Think about it: if we fire one proton at a time through the one open slit and we do it over and over again, we get a band behind the slit. However if we fire one proton at a time at two open slits, each proton will do one of three things: randomly hit the slit wall, or go through either one slit, or the other. We would expect to see two bands of impact marks on the far wall. But what we see is: when we fire one proton at a time and then look, and it over an over again an interference pattern emerges! This is definitely not what we saw when we fired the pellets.

Let's look at this in detail:

One photon at a time is being shot at the target... It either hits the wall (because doesn't go through a slit at all), or goes through one slit or the other, right? If the photon is a particle, we would expect it to end up in one of the two individual bands. What could be causing a single photon in flight, going through only one of the two open slits, to be redirected so it doesn't land in the "band" behind the slit it passed through? There are no other particles in flight which could interfere with it. It makes no sense. If the photon was hitting the side of a slit, and being re-directed, it would also do so in the single slit test, and since that is not happening we can eliminate this factor.

The fact that it is creating an interference pattern says that it quite literally MUST be interacting with something because the place where the proton impacted is not in a straight line from the gun to the slit. But what? There is no other photon with which to interact.

So we have this amazing occurrence that each individual photon is acting as if it is being interfered with by other photons as if part of a wave. We understand that with a huge number of particles in flight at the same time perhaps it is possible for them to “act” as a wave. After all isn't that the case with water? Trillions of individual molecules behave en-mass as a wave. But in this case how can you explain wave behavior, when there is only one photon at a time being shot at the target?

We are scientists. We can continue to modify the experiment to figure this situation out.

Here's what we'll do. We'll put a sensor device to “watch” each slit as the photon goes through. For each time we fire, it can tell us which slit each photon passes through, and then we can look at the target and see where it lands. This way we can figure out for each individual photon we fire, what path is taken. We can then, perhaps figure our where and how the photon is being misdirected.

Once again, we start with a single slit open. We fire each photon and the sensor correctly senses it and we find it impacts just where it should: at the target behind the slit we sensed it went through. We do this first with only the right slit open and then with the only the left open and after some time and many single photons fired, we end up with two bands of spots on the target: two bands, just as before without the sensors.This is good. Seems like our sensors are working and not affecting the protons flight pattern.

Then we open the two slits and fire one photon. In this case, the sensor shows it went through the right hand slit and it strikes the target on the right hand side. Then the next photon, randomly hits the slit wall and no photon is sensed going through either slot. Again and again we fire single photons and record which slit each went through, and where each one struck the target. In every case a photon either hit the slit wall (not going through either slit) or it went through the right or left slit and on to the target. For every case where a photon goes through either slit, it ended up striking the target in a band just behind the right or left slit. So now with the two slits open, and sensors activated, the protons decide to behave like particles again? What the heck?

If you've been paying attention you may have noticed a problem here. Without the slit sensors installed, we found that with both slits open, and shooting one photon at a time, we got the "unexpected" appearance of an interference pattern: the unmistakable sign of wave behavior. Now while we are monitoring the slits with our sensors, and we run the exact same procedure, we find the two separate bands of marks on the target: the sign of a particle.

We might presume that our sensors are affecting the test. Even today, decades after these tests first took place, most in the scientific community believe that the change in behavior of the photons must be the result of the sensors interacting with the particles. (After all we posit, in order to sense something we must disturb it at least a little) The sensors must be straightening out the photons somehow and causing them fly straight to the target. Over the years scientists have played around with different sensors and different ways to detect the photons with no change. We always see the same results: sensing the photons makes them behave like particles and not sensing them makes them behave like a wave. And also remember: with one slit covered, when we use the sensor, we get the band pattern. If the sensor was somehow affecting the flight pattern of the light it would affect it in this case also, but it doesn't. 

After decades of testing and analysis, quantum science has concluded an amazing thing: the sensors are not physically interacting enough with the protons as they go through the slits to re-direct their path. Here is the current working theory of what is going on:

Since the objects we are talking about are so small as to be invisible, and without any sensors are also undetectable, they act according to probability, not according to physical movement. For the period of time after we fire the electron and before we try to detect its position, the particle is in an unknown state: it is said to be in quantum superposition.

Most quantum researchers claim that the particles don't even exist physically during this period: that in this state the photons are actually a "wave function" and not a particle at all.This state will continue until the wave function interacts with something that “collapses” the wave function and forces the particle's position to be “revealed”.

So let's follow through with this alternative (quantum) way of looking at things.

A photon is emitted from a photon gun. Because of its tiny size and our inability to determine its location without any sensors, for a time it exists only as a probability, a wave function. For the moment it exists in quantum superposition. For each photon, we could calculate the probability that it will pass through the slit and strike the target, or not.

Actually each photon, while in superposition contains a probability wave function that describes every possible path it could have taken, an infinite number of paths. The particle exists as a probability wave until it is forced to “choose” a position by an interaction with something that collapses the state.

So for example, when a proton hits the target and it is sensed by the impact with a photographic plate, it must “reveal” a position. Since this is the first time the particle has encountered anything, its location is determined by the fact that it has been a probability wave since it left the photon gun so it's impact pattern on the target will reflect this previous probability wave behavior. It will not reflect what slit it went through because while in superposition in went through neither slit, or more accurately both and neither, as it traveled an infinite number of paths (every possible path in fact) probabilistically. So its impact location on the target is determined by this combined probability wave, and not a Newtonian path through a slit, on the way to the target.

Alternatively, if a sensor had been placed at the slit, it would have identified the location of the photon as it passed through. The wave function for the photon would have then been collapsed by the detection process, ending superposition at that point. With superposition concluded, the particle would then behave as a “Newtonian particle” and travel straight to the target in the classical Newtonian fashion. In this case the photon would travel in a straight path from the slit to the target and impact directly behind behind whichever slit it passed through. It would have left a mark close to all of the other marks from other photons which were identified as having gone through that particular slit.

What the scientists are saying is that when objects can't be detected they behave according to probability, not according to "normal rules" with characteristics like mass, speed, momentum and physical location. While being expressed as a probability function (wave) objects act like wave.

What gives them the property of a wave is rather interesting. Scientists theorize that they are blinking in and out of existence (yes this is really what tiny particles like electrons are theorized to do). So imagine something moving very quickly and blinking in and out of existence. They would appear and disappear in a regular pattern which could be plotted as a waveform. Hence, this is how a particle could possibly act as a wave. And why a particle, when in superposition, can exhibit characteristics such as interference patterns rather than exhibit traditional particle behavior. Different colors of light have different energy levels and exhibit different wavelengths reflecting the fact that the electrons blink in and out a varying frequencies.

Unfortunately this quantum probabilistic behavior is so foreign to we humans that many of us refuse to believe it. It just won't sink in because it doesn't make rational sense to us. We can more easily imagine that our slit sensor is pushing the photon onto a different trajectory than to think there is some still not understood machinery that manages whether an object needs to “reveal” it's location.

To make things even stranger: many scientists contend that the mechanism at play which collapses the wave function is consciousness itself. So the wave function is not collapsed by “hitting a target” or even by the fact that a camera witnessed it, but by the fact that a conscious being became aware of the results: for example, by witnessing the camera's image. Had no conscious entity been there to witness the camera, the quantum superposition would not have been disturbed. This has been proven in many ways over the decades.

Had enough? Well let take it up one more crazy notch. There are tests that show this effect is independent of time. i.e. that an event can change the results of a previous event.

Consider the following. In recent years scientists have devised a more cunning test that doesn't involve a sensor to detect which slit was involved. This way the argument that we must be somehow physically interfering with the proton as it transits the slit, can be avoided all together. It is called the Delayed Choice Experiment. I won't describe the details here but if interested the reader should see the links I've provided.

This test does sense the slit but it does it a very clever way. Once the photon goes through the slit it goes through a splitter mirror that spawns two twin photons which go through two very different parts of the test apparatus. One part of the apparatus collects target impact location data, the other part detects slit origin ½ the time and no slit origin the other ½ the time. The "choice" to collect slit data done randomly by a special silvered mirror. The trick is the silvered mirror which makes the "choice" is located such that it is struck AFTER it's twin photon already struck the target. So the choice to determine the path of the photon is made AFTER the target has already been struck.

So after test completion one can inspect the impact data on the target and see if it was caused by a photon for which slit data is known or not.

What we find is that for those photons who were eventually identified as having gone through a particular slit, the impact pattern was two bars. For those photons who were not linked to a particular slit they showed as having an interference pattern.

The points to emphasize are:

1- The path of the photon which eventually stuck the target was never sensed in any way, so there is no way to claim that the path of travel was interfered with at all.

2- The twin photon which eventually was sensed as having gone through a slit made "its choice" to show or not show its slit data AFTER its twin already struck the target. So the decision about whether to collect slit data happened after the target location data was collected.

See the following Youtube video that does a good job illustrating this experiment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSRTvKgAs9c&list=PLD823D27CAF0732C0&index=4

It seems like magic, but it is really how our universe works.

The point of all this is to demonstrate that although you may experience our world as a clockwork mechanism where action and reaction make logical sense, you are not perceiving what is really going on. You are not seeing the true nature of things.

Here's another quick example of the impossible: it is called "quantum entanglement"

Part of the delayed choice experiment involves a single photon striking a crystal, which annihilates the original photon but emits two photons. These two photons are in a way twins. They share the same attributes. For example: like other electrons, photons have a property called spin than can be measured.

It has been discovered that these photons are linked by what is called “quantum entanglement”. What this means is, whatever property one has, the other has: like spin, although in this case their spin would always be opposite of each other.

The odd bit is this: once entangled, if the property of one changes the other immediately changes to match. So if for example if one of the two photons is directed by a mirror to the far end of the galaxy and one is kept around locally, and we were to change the spin of the local twin, the spin of the other photon which could be thousands of light-years away would change instantly. This action is immediate so it is in violation of the speed of light, which is what caused Einstein to refer to it as “spooky actions at a distance”. There is no "physical" connection between the two objects and no force or communication that interacts between them. So how can this be?

It looks like this phenomenon of entanglement may be the functioning mechanism behind the whole mystery of the double slit experiment.

 Is it possible that this mechanism also interconnects us all in some fashion? Could this be the basis of things like ESP or other psi phenomenon? Perhaps we are in some way all entangled at some quantum level?

This quantum mystery is somehow a part of the world that exists, and has been measured scientifically, but is outside of our everyday experience. Again- the point is: the world is not what you think it is.

It is important to consider this fact as we proceed and uncover other odd aspects of reality. If you find yourself having a hard time swallowing some new way of looking at existence, try reminding yourself what you just learned in these sections. Hopefully we've shown you that you don't really understand how the world works in the first place. So perhaps you should not hold so tightly to what you think you understand, and be open to other explanations that are a better fit with all the facts.

The effects shown in the double slit experiment and the effect of quantum entanglement are examples of things that shouldn't, -couldn't-, happen in a billiard ball world: a world where we are totally separate individuals which are in turn separate from the objects being tested. The data seems to show that there is something interconnecting us (possibly via consciousness itself) to everything. Unfortunately we are generally unable to perceive and therefore to discover the nature of this interconnection.

Interestingly, this sense (that there is a hidden nature tho things that is “under the surface) is exactly what many personally intuit. Perhaps this “feeling” many have is more than just a personal thought or emotion, but rather a sensation of a real thing?

Perhaps what mankind has called a “sixth sense” is in actuality just as “real” as touch or taste. Perhaps it is even more so? Perhaps touch, taste and the other senses are the illusions?

Here's where we are left after this experiment-
We have seen that there are interactions that are shown to occur that:
- violate the speed of light
- that seem not to care about time or even just the order of occurrences (chronology)
- that show interactions at great distances instantaneously
- and, most incredibly, are perhaps somehow linked to consciousness

I'll say it again: we may be seeing that not only is our world not a gigantic clockwork machine, but that it is, in fact, in some fashion connected to our consciousness!

Now, with this more informed sense of the possibilities, perhaps we can take a closer look at some of those odd things that happen in our world that seem to defy scientific explanation. Perhaps with a mind more open to oddities of how are reality actually works, we can make better sense of things.