Fever Dream

I sometimes have vivid dreams, cinematic, horrific and often inspirational dreams. Then three, maybe four times in my life I’ve had fever dreams and those are quite different!

This one left a mark:

I was in a huge room like a warehouse, it was a pitch black void but it wasn’t cold or scary. Hanging down from the darkness, were an uncountable amount of thin red threads, twinkling and swaying gently.

I reached up and gently pulled one.

Suddenly my mind was filled with all the knowledge about one particular subject, let’s say geology, it was like being in the Matrix. It was intense and then it was over.
The other end of the red thread fell slowly from the void, like it had detached from something I couldn’t see and then disappeared before touching the ground. That particular subject had been thoroughly, infinitely explored and then it vanished.

I reached up for another thread.

I did this all night in my near delusional state. It was like lucid dreaming and I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. I was exhausted.

But during this information absorption, (That I absolutely did not retain) I came to a conclusion about a question I’ve wondered about for most of my life:

What is the universe doing?

Humans usually centre themselves when it comes to existential crises, and yes, I do that too. But my bigger concern/question has always been ‘what is the function of the universe?’

We will never know and I quite like that. We will never have all the answers and I find that strangely comforting. There are things beyond our knowing and that’s as good as magic or proof of the supernatural in my opinion.

Existence is magic.

So, my conclusion based on my fever dream is that the universe is simply expressing/exploring every iteration of everything. Then once it’s complete, it will cease to exist.

Like running a computer program. One function, one task to perform and then it can shut down. It just so happens that the task is incomprehensibly huge and our human brains can’t actually grasp the concept.

Flowers for example. The universe is generating every, possible iteration of flower it can. Infinite daisy variations for starters and that’s just one variety of flower on Earth alone.

I don’t know if expressing infinite diversity is even achievable! It feels impossible to my brain, but the universe doesn’t think like we do, it’s just methodically performing the task, unbothered by human measures of time and our understanding of what is possible.

So what does this mean?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing, but I like the idea that the universe is more like computer code performing a task rather than being organised by an omnipotent deity with a ‘plan’ that treats life so cheaply. The coldness makes more sense if you believe the former.

Add the multiverse to the equation and we’re all basically immortal.

I can live with that.

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