As I wrote recently, I’ve traveled to the future on two occasions recently. They weren’t particularly enjoyable trips, in no way similar to the warm “been-here-before” feeling journeys that trips to the recent past can be. I have to admit, for a long time, the feelings those trips to the past engendered were a reason I thought this whole thing could well be purely psychological, simple (if that’s possible) hallucinations. Let’s face it, for most of us, the past creates feelings of nostalgia. We remember the good things that happened, and forget the bad. There was a time when I thought my “trips” there were just fantasy.
Those theories ended when I started bringing things back from the past, and in one case, the future. Simple things, nothing that would be at all incriminating if my house were searched. Just things from sometime else. I’ll follow up on my future souvenir at another time, but will say that it was a strange event in its complete normality. Truly fascinating, but again, another time.
I think the good feelings a trip to the past creates are good because my past, for the most part, WAS very good. I’ve lived a fortunate and pretty happy life. I won’t say it’s been a life without challenges, but it’s been a happy one. I think if my life had been filled with tragedy and trauma, my trips to the past might be much darker than they are. In this, I believe I’m blessed.
But, I will say that a startling thing about time traveling to the past is how vivid it is. Even a creative right-brainer like myself apparently tends to dull the colors out when memories are stored in our brains. Everytime I’ve traveled more than a few months past-ward, I’m struck by just how vivid and colorful it all is. We tend to think of the past like photographs before digital cameras, and anything before the 50s we’ve almost entirely experienced as black and white. I think seeing 1933 Indiana in the flesh will be shocking, since I’ve seen so many pictures of that time, and of Belton specifically, rendered in the black and white photography available then.
Though it’s a very, very bad idea, I’m seriously considering adding a small digital camera to my TT go-bag.
