On the nature of this experience

Getting around to some more writing this weekend, and events over the past couple of months have further refined/confused what the TT experience is all about. I’ve received emails from 3 other possible TTers, as we’ve come to know ourselves, and our experiences are remarkably the same:

• Early experiences triggered by a traumatic event (ala The Time Traveler’s Wife)
• "Skipping ahead" events
• The small, incremental changes in the "present"

The third is what’s on my mind right now, since I’ve really noticed these lately. But I don’t think it’s what you’re thinking.

In many TT stories, the protagonist goes back in time, does some things, and when he returns to the present, finds that the current situation has changed, but in ways noticeable only to him. The Butterfly Effect and Back to the Future are good examples of this. My experience has been different from that. I’m starting to see various changes, but they’re changes that others have noticed, too. Furthermore, everyone who notices the changes has also seen the progression of tiny changes that are now reflected in small changes.

Three examples: My weight, physical condition and overall disposition (how’s THAT for minor changes?). Without going into detail that would get ahead of my telling the larger story, let’s just say that certain elements in my life today have been affected by what’s been going on before.

Here’s a theory that’s in development in my mind:

I’m starting to think that traveling in time may be more of a crossing of quantum boundaries than true timeline skipping. Some TT theorists believe that reality is continuously branching, based on every decision and/or action at the quantum level (smaller than the molecular or even atomic level), and that new universes are created at every branching. One "timeline" is merely a different branch and completely distinct from all the others. The Grandfather Paradox (you can’t go back in time and kill Grandpa because then you’d never be born and wouldn’t be able to travel back in time to kill your grandpa, which would mean you could be born…) is thereby handled and everybody’s happy.

So, if my experience is happening in a different series of branches, how are the changes manifesting here? Well, maybe it’s psychological – My experience is changing my outlook and the way I look at my life. Very possible.

Then again, there’s a nagging thought that maybe the barriers between the quantum realities aren’t that solid. My consciousness seems to be breaking through, after all. Maybe what happens in other realities  echoes in this one, and very subtle forces can be in play across the boundaries.

That’s my current thinking, anyway. And I know it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s why I’m working to get the story told.

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