Reality shift

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This article is about purported anomalies in physical, spatial, or temporal reality, from a theoretical perspective. For illusory reality distortions caused by mental disorders, see hallucinations.

Reality shift is a term used by proponents of anomalous phenomena to describe what they feel are enigmatic changes in physical, spatial, or temporal reality. This may include unaccountable physical changes of reality perceived, the unexplained appearance or disappearance of objects of any size, spontaneous healing, and forms of synchronicity. Causes of these proposed anomalies are frequently disputed by both proponents and detractors.

The term is marginally used. There are very few published cases where a sudden reality change has been considered objectively real, and even those are considered to be controversial. In these cases, more popular terms would be anomalous phenomena or paranormal. In many cases, however, the experience is considered by skeptics to be a subjective hallucination stemming from a mental distortion of reality. The cause of these shifts are subject to debate and opposing theories are discussed below. Reality shift as a term, as opposed to anomaly, paranormal occurrence or hallucination, has not gained widespread acceptance.

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[edit] Theories of a dynamic reality

Proponents in favor of reality shifts believe in a dynamic reality that is malleable and subject to radical alterations from what could be considered its normal state.

Among those who support the idea include American mathematician and computer scientist Rudy Rucker, who ascribed reality shifts to there being "a sequence of possible universes, akin to the drafts of a novel" in his book, The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul[1]. He likens each "sheet of reality" as being rigorously deterministic with a great web of synchronistic entanglements whose causes and effects flow forward and backward through time in such a way that changing one thing changes everything around it in both the future and the past.

Likewise, Michael Talbot, who wrote on the subject in several books including The Holographic Universe (1991), proposed the idea that reality is flexible and capable of even large scale alterations, such as the appearance and disappearance of entire groves of trees[2]. He used the phrase shifts in reality to describe his views of reality shifts being radical alterations in the world, and included alleged miracles and psychokinetic events in his book as examples. Talbot based much of his ideas on the work of physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, both of whom held holographic theories or models of the universe. Talbot claimed that paranormal examples of reality shifts "suggest that reality is, in a very real sense, a hologram, a construct."[2].

One personal example Michael Talbot shared in The Holographic Universe was an experience where he claims he and his professor both witnessed a woman fling an umbrella at their feet on the ground, at which point it made odd crackling or sizzling sounds and then reshaped itself into the form of a gnarled stick.[2]

Of course Talbot's theory of the universe being holographic in nature is only one explanation for how it could be possible for such radical alterations to occur. Other proponents of the idea have presented differing opinions.

In 1993, sociologist David Erlandson and his colleagues laid the groundwork for conducting research into alternative paradigm research, with an emphasis on making practical use of naturalistic inquiry techniques, and with particular care to mention the significance of the role reality shifts can have in all forms of naturalistic research. [3] Erlandson points out that the naturalistic researcher believes that observed instability may be attributed not only to error but also to reality shifts. Since reality shifts are potential factor, the quest then focuses not on invariance, but on trackable variance, which is defined as being variablities that can be ascribed to particular sources (error, reality shifts, better insights, etc.)

P.M.H. Atwater's 1999 book, Future Memory, was the first to coin the term reality shift together with extensive descriptions his view of the ways that reality is experienced differently when individuals expand their consciousness, such as the documented cases of native runners, who could allegedly cover in excess of 150 miles per day, so they could make the trip from Lima, Peru to Cuzco in three days, whereas the Spanish who documented this feat required twelve days on horseback to cover the same distance. The Australian aboriginal dreamtime enabled the indigenous Australians to allegedly reach an altered state of consciousness in which they believed themselves to merge with and enter into animals, the earth and whatever else may be in between, changing physical reality in the process. [4]

David Theo Goldberg addressed the subject of reality shifts in legal and social settings when he described the presence of "several simultaneously operating levels of reality" in the context of legal and social situations in his book, Between Law and Culture: Relocating Legal Studies. Goldberg proposes that when people experience reality shifts that transform events in which someone was injured into "a broader chain of causes and effects," this view of the sociological aspects of law illustrates how even when a society widely shares certain understandings of injury and identity, alternative understandings must also be acknowledged, even when those views comprise a minority viewpoint. [5]

[edit] Proposed examples of reality shifts

What types of purported phenomena actually meets the definition of reality shifts is somewhat debated. In a general sense, reality shifts are thought to be sudden changes in one's physical, spatial, or temporal environment, which would of course include a large variety of material.

Some definitions would include alleged anomalies such as the appearance or disappearance of objects, or the transformation or transportation of these objects, from a place where they should have been in a normal reality state.

Cases of reported spontaneous remission of injuries and disease, synchronicity, and a wide range of psychokinetic events, have also been reported as reality shifts.

Temporal events involving an alleged time loop, in which the exact same sequence of events supposedly repeats, or purported time overlaps in which a person interacts with someone from the past or future, or great distances being covered in very short amounts of time are sometimes considered to be reality shifts by believers as well. Retrocausality, the controversial condition of the past apparently appearing to have been influenced by the present, or even the condition of more than one past being recalled, have also been attributed to reality shifts by some believers.

Additional examples of anomalies thought to fall under the term reality shifts might include the alleged ability of one's thoughts to cause traffic lights and weather to change, broken things appearing whole and fully functional without apparently being repaired, empty containers appearing full without recollection of being refilled, materialization of things like money or food without recollection of how it got there, and lights being on or off without switches being touched.

[edit] Criticisms of reality shift theories

The largest criticism of reality shifts is that, if true, they would represent radical deviations from accepted physical assumptions. While physics deals with a wide variety of systems, there are certain theories that are used by all physicists. Each of these theories were experimentally tested numerous times and found correct as an approximation of nature (within a certain domain of validity). For instance, the theory of classical mechanics accurately describes the motion of objects, provided they are much larger than atoms and moving much slower than the speed of light. These "central theories" are important tools for research into more specialized topics, and any physicist, regardless of his or her specialization, is expected to be literate in them.

Many "scientific" explanations of how reality shifts may work are considered to be psuedoscientific. Pseudoscience is something that claims to be scientific but does not follow the scientific method.[6] The reason for this view is that the subjectivity of reality shifts make them difficult to verify in an objective way, a central tenet of the scientific method. Other reasons to consider reality shifts as psuedoscientific is that the predominant explanations of how they work typically point to quantum or subatomic forces that aren't considered to translate to the macroscopic scale in which reality shifts are said to occur. However, more recent experiments imply that quantum phenomena can indeed scale-up and that more experiments, if readily funded, could demonstrate the effects more clearly. For example, molecules as large as buckminsterfullerene have now been shown to produce the quantum wave/interference pattern in a double slit experimental setup.[7] However, note that this effect still occurs only on the submicroscopic scale.

Skeptics may accept cases of reality shifts as accurately reported, but point to more mundane reasons as the cause, for example hallucinations caused by physical or mental illness, or other explanations that fit more conventional theories of science. Events involving multiple witnesses also tend to be rejected.

[edit] Reality shifts in fiction

[edit] Reality shifts in movies

[edit] See also

[edit] Paranormal

[edit] Scientific

[edit] Reality related

[edit] Healing

[edit] Fiction

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Rucker, Rudy (2006). The Lifebox, The Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and How to Be Happy. Thunder's Mouth Press, 128-134. ISBN 1-56025-898-5. 
  2. ^ a b c Talbot, Michael (1991). The Holographic Universe. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 154-161. ISBN 0-06-016381-X. 
  3. ^ Erlandson, David; Edward L. Harris, Barbara L. Skipper, Steve D. Allen (1993). Doing Naturalistic Inquiry: A Guide to Methods. Sage Publications, 34. ISBN 0-8039-4938-3. 
  4. ^ Atwater, P.M.H. (1996). Future Memory: How Those Who "See the Future" Shed New Light on the Workings of the Human Mind. Birch Lane Press, 7-13. ISBN 1-55972-320-3. 
  5. ^ Goldberg, David; Michael C. Musheno, Lisa C. Bower (2001). Between Law and Order: Relocating Legal Studies. University of Minnesota Press, 4-16. ISBN 0-8166-3380-0. 
  6. ^ "Pseudoscientific - pretending to be scientific, falsely represented as being scientific", from the Oxford American Dictionary, published by the Oxford English Dictionary.
  7. ^ M. Arndt, et al., "Wave-particle duality of C60" Nature 401, 680-682 (1999)

[edit] External links

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