“nothing except the impossible shall occur.”
e e cummings
Part 3 of the Transcendence Series
Fever Dream
On a lazy afternoon in June 2003, in Bangalore, India, a 16-year old me fell asleep in the living room of my aunt’s house where I was spending the summer break. It had been a humid day, muggy and sticky, but there were hints of distant rumble and the smell of Earth and rain had just reached my eager nose.
From where I lay I could see through the mesh of the porch door, through the large metal grill of the main gate, and see a patch of dark road as it baked in the afternoon sun. I could see heatwaves rising from it, distorting my vision, lulling me into a sweaty, midday nap.
I don’t know when I fell asleep but I woke up only moments later, in the same humid room, but into what felt like a dream and yet utterly real, more real than anything I have ever felt. I focused again at the road through the grill through the mosquito door, at the waves of heat melting the air, and with a sharp and sudden snap the house I was in disappeared.
I found myself outside, on an empty square of land where once the house stood, and now the entire length of the road was visible to me, along with all the houses in the neighborhood, the ones to my right and left.
Disoriented, I looked at the houses and snap, they disappeared, the whole street and neighborhood empty now, just rows and rows of roads and trees and empty squares where once houses stood. It looked like how it had once been, an empty subdivision, waiting for houses and homes and families. The trees swayed in the breeze, when with another loud snap, the trees and the roads disappeared, the whole world flat and empty from horizon to horizon, with nothing blocking my view of the slightly curving planet, solid, huge, comforting.
But as soon as I thought of the planet, the whole damned thing disappeared, right from beneath my feet, and I suddenly found myself yanked into space! My stomach turned with vertigo, my hands flailing in the empty vacuum, my feet suspended, seeking the earth, and sunlight pouring unfiltered into my eyes.
What. The. Hell.
This had all happened so fast that I didn’t even have the time yet to react or be afraid. My whole world was rapidly disintegrating. I took a deep breath (I think I did; what’s there to breathe?) and glanced around – the moon whizzed past, a blur of grey and white.
Snap, the moon disappeared and when I tried to avoid looking at the sun again, the sun snapped out of existence.
Then there I stood in the vast expanse of the universe, alone, adrift, surrounded by cosmic wonders. With the sun and the moon gone, an ocean of stars filled every inch of my vision. Their brilliance stretched out infinitely, creating a mesmerizing tapestry of light and mystery.
Some stars were close, their twinkling glow casting an imagined warmth upon my face. Others were far, mere specks of distant light that had traveled unimaginable distances to reach my eyes.
As soon as I observed the stars though, a loud snap reverberated through the cosmos. It was as if a giant switch had been flicked off, extinguishing every glimmer of starlight. The entire expanse – all of creation – filled with galaxies and nebulae, vanished without a trace. All the points of lights, from the grandest supernovas to the tiniest twinkling stars, dissolved into the void, taking every last photon with them.
Darkness fell upon me like a force of nature.
I hung in the silence of this blackened universe. My eyes could have been painted black. A vast, infinite universe, with nothing in it but me and a lot of space. Instinctively, I looked down at my hands, but couldn’t see them or my body, but I knew they were still there.
But as soon as I attempted to examine my body, something peculiar occurred. A subtle shift, almost imperceptible, reverberated through the void. It was as if an invisible force was remolding the very fabric of my being. Suddenly, with an audible snap, my body evaporated.
Now, I found myself in a limbo, bereft of physical form. I could no longer discern the boundaries of my own being with the rest of empty space. I was a disembodied thought, floating aimlessly through intangible space. Without a solid anchor, I drifted like a ship lost at sea, yet paradoxically, I felt a profound connection to the universe beyond.
I was a shadow in the night.
In this weightless state, I became acutely aware of the dance of my thoughts. There was nothing else to think about, to feel, to latch onto. They swirled and intertwined, weaving a painting of emotions and reflections upon the black canvas of my existence. Time, once a tangible concept, seemed to lose all meaning as my consciousness expanded and contracted within the void.
It was in this surreal state that I grappled with the fundamental questions of existence. Who was I, stripped of my physical form? What was the purpose of this disembodied existence? Was there a greater meaning to be discovered in this ethereal realm?
As I considered my existence in this ephemeral state, I couldn’t help but marvel at the philosophical ramifications it presented. Without a physical body to anchor me to the material world, I questioned the very essence of what it means to exist. Was existence solely dependent on the tangible, the corporeal? Or could it transcend the limitations of flesh and bones?
Deep within the recesses of my consciousness, I contemplated Descartes and his exhortation – “I think, therefore I am!” Was this axiom enough to validate my existence, even in the absence of a tangible form? Could the power of thought, the ability to reason and contemplate, serve as proof of my existence and make me tangible?
In the midst of this discombobulating journey through the realms of metaphysics, I clung to the notion that my capacity to think was the proof that I was still, somehow, alive. Yet, even as I grappled with these thoughts, the nagging worry lingered, and to to avoid them, I turned my attention outward, towards the cosmos that stretched before me.
And what unlimited, unending Space. But without the ability for me to sense or see anything, Space could have been infinite or just as large as my disembodied form. Its apparent size made no difference. But as soon as I studied it, Space shrank back with a huge, world-ending snap!, becoming as tiny as I was, covering what was left of me like shrink wrap.
But I was mere thought – so I was as large as Space and Space became as large as me. Fourteen billion years of expansion, of atoms, molecules, gas, nebulae, and black holes, of minerals, water, hydrogen and carbon, of Time, strings, dimensions, gravity, and light, all of that disappeared with a gigantic snap that nobody heard and collapsed into a single, one-dimensional point around the last itsy-bitsy piece of me.
I could sense that time was running out, that very little time remained. And that had to be true because very little Space remained. I had to fix things. I had to find a way to turn things back to the way they were, but I needed a body first, I needed to stop thinking and take action… Snap.
…
“Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?”
Gottfried Leibniz
…
The ability to think disappeared.
A deep silence pervaded that tiniest encapsulation of Space, the smallest abstraction of an identity. What was left was the last of the ‘I’-ness. Nothing remained of it, not the ability of observation, of decision, elation or emotion. There was neither remorse nor regret, but only one final truth – a cosmic force – the sheer need to exist, and to continue to exist. Nothing remained but that ultimate, involuntary desire.
It floated. Time trickled to nothing, and Space took up the same space it did. They coexisted, for however long infinity takes in a Space of that size. Deeply, innately, intuitively, thoughtlessly, it knew it had one last snap. It held one final card. It could use it to end itself, to end it’s claustrophobic existence, and disappear forever into God knows what!
Or, it could use it to delete Space itself, the singular reason for something to be instead of a whole lot of nothing, the ultimate stage where all of reality unfolds, the very foundation of all existence.
Without Space, where would anything be?
What would it stand on?
.
.
.
Snap!
An excerpt from Very Mysterious, which seems apt here.
*Being* is the lingering scent of a rose,
The juice of poetry in exquisite prose,
The music wafting over finger-plucked strings,
The cognition of joy and suffering.
Being is suffocating.
Being is bliss.
Being is.
And non-being?
Non-being cannot be described: it can only be talked about in terms of being.
By not being, a thing can
Be everywhere,
Be everything but
Be.
By Being, one is limited,
Confined, but only
By Being,
Can it also
Not-Be.
नासदासीन्नो सदासीत्तदानीं
नासीद्रजो नो व्योमा परो यत् |
Then even nothingness was not, nor existence,
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?
Nasadiya Suktam, Rig Veda 10:129
Aftermath
I have no explanation for this event, and it took me a long time before I could share it with anyone. It shaped me deeply and continues to mould me. I am grateful for it, as it granted to me at a very young age a cosmic perspective, an ability to remove myself from all the mundane pain and grief life offers in the normal routine of living. I am able to easily recall that the ‘stage is too big for the drama’, and have access to this easy respite during stressful periods of my life. It is not an escape mechanism, but an umbrella that I borrow from time to time to weather certain storms.
It also invokes the greatest curiosities in me! In my own conversations with myself, I call this experience the ‘cul-de-sac’ of the mind. There is no way forward in this thought experiment, as one essentially negates existence itself. Every time I re-trigger these subtractions in my head, I reach the same dead end, the same concrete wall.
And I cannot wait to find out what lies beyond it.
I am also extremely curious about your own decision at that climatic moment of final choice: what would be your final subtraction? Would you choose to snap yourself out, or the universe? Do you think there is a difference?
Please share your thoughts and perspectives in the comments below.
Further reading for the curious souls
As you might imagine, this event shook me greatly. I was just sixteen, and had no explanation for it, and I sought one with intensity. Why had it happened to me? What did it mean? My search led me to interesting places and strange alleys, some intriguing, some dangerous.
It took me a long time to find similar experiences in literature. One that stood out was the concept of ‘neti neti‘ from the Upanishads, and I remember shivering when I first stumbled upon it. Neti neti is an ‘analytical meditation’ that is used to better understand our reality.
This discovery felt like validation, but pulled the experience from the realms of the mystical and the religious to the logical and spiritual.
Other concepts from around the world that add weight to this experience are Sunyata, in Buddhism, and Fana, in Sufism. In Western Philosophy, there is Husserl’s epoche, which is outside my current means of understanding.
Rohit Nalluri 
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