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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 marginally used term for what is predominantly considered to be a subjective sudden change in the perception of one's external physical, spacial, or temporal environment. There are very few published cases where a sudden reality change has been considered objectively real, and even those are considered to be controversial. A more popular term for these cases would be the term anomaly or paranormal. In most cases, however, the experience is considered to be a subjective hallucination stemming from the mental processes that allow us to experience external reality. Reality shift as a term, as opposed to anomaly, paranormal, or hallucination, has yet to gain the same widespread acceptance.

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[edit] Theoretical Perspective of Reality Shifts As Real

To believers in reality shifts as real, the term describes the appearance or disappearance of objects due to paranormal or preternatural forces, or as some say, due to synchronicity or coincidence. It is also claimed that reality shifts encompasses the transformation or transportation of objects, or a change in the way time is experienced. Believers describe reality shifts as any sudden, abrupt alteration of physical reality, the cause of which is debated amongst believers. American mathematician and computer scientist Rudy Rucker ascribes 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', while Michael Talbot, who wrote on the subject in several books, defines reality shifts as being radical alterations in the world, which include appearances and disappearances of entire groves of trees, all manner of miracles and psychokinetic events, and all manner of transmogrification of matter from one form into another in his book, The Holographic Universe, stating that "these incidents suggest that reality is, in a very real sense, a hologram, a construct."

Commonly reported reality shifts claimed by believers are the disappearance and reappearance of common items, such as wallets, socks, jewelry and keys. Cases of spontaneous remission of injuries and disease, synchronicity, and a wide range of psychokinetic events, such as spoon bending, have also been considered reality shifts by believers. Other commonly reported types of reality shifts, they say, include: a time loop in which the exact same sequence of events repeats, time overlaps in which a person interacts with someone from the past or future, great distances being covered in very short amounts of time, traffic lights and weather changing instantaneously in tandem with one's thoughts, spoon bending with one's thoughts, broken things being whole and fully functional without being repaired, empty containers being full without being refilled, materialization of things like money or food, lights being flipped on or off without switches being touched, and teleportation of objects from one location to another.

Retrocausality can be observed in what some believers claim as reality shifts in which the past appears to have been influenced by the present, and more than one past is recalled. An example of such a retrocausal reality shift, they say, is when a famous person is recalled to have died, yet is currently alive.

[edit] History of the Theory

The term 'shifts in reality' first appeared in print in Michael Talbot's 1991 book, The Holographic Universe, where Talbot expressed gratitude for having the ability to somehow catalyze these types of paranormal events, such as an experience he describes in which 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. Talbot's theory of the universe being holographic in nature provides one explanation for how it could be possible for such radical alterations to occur. <ref name=talbot1>Talbot, Michael (1991). The Holographic Universe. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 154-161. ISBN 006016381X.</ref>

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. <ref name=erlandson1>Erlandson, David, Edward L. Harris, Barbara L. Skipper, Steve D. Allen (1993). Doing Naturalistic Inquiry: A Guide to Methods. Sage Publications, 34. ISBN 0803949383.</ref> 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 of the ways that reality is experienced differently when individuals expand their consciousness, such as the documented cases of native runners, who could 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 reach an altered state of consciousness which allowed them to merge with and enter into animals, the earth and whatever else may be in between, changing physical reality in the process. <ref name=atwater1>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 1559723203.</ref>

A survey of 395 participants reported by Cynthia Sue Larson of the realityshifters.com web site in April 2000 reported that 95% of all survey respondents notice synchronicity and coincidence in their daily life; 86% noticed time slow down, stop, or speed up; and 78% find parking spaces when and where they need them most. Only 8% of the respondents have bent spoons or other metal, and 6% of respondents hadn't ever witnessed reality shifts. Of those who do notice reality shifts, the most common emotional reaction to witnessing the shifts are feelings of curiosity (62%) and excitement (45%), followed by feeling awestruck (37%), happy (33%), and confused (26%). A majority of the respondents feel that noticing reality shifts has changed their attitudes (59%), 55% feel that observing reality shifts has changed their beliefs, and 45% feel that both their attitudes and beliefs have changed as a result of witnessing reality shifts.

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." 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. <ref name=goldberg1>Goldberg, David, Michael C. Musheno, Lisa C. Bower (2001). Between Law and Order: Relocating Legal Studies. University of Minnesota Press, 4-16. ISBN 0816633800.</ref>

Mathematician and computer scientist Rudy Rucker's premise in his 2005 book, The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul is that everything is computation... and from this computational perspective, it is possible to consider thoughts and computations as all being the same. <ref name=rucker1>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 1560258985.</ref> Rucker presents a hypothetical situation in which he imagines that some pictures are changing a little bit as he writes about them in a way that is uniform across all spacetime, so when his picture changes, so do all the others, along with everyone's memories of the picture as reality shifts to a slightly different parallel sheet. Rucker concludes that he only notices at the instant the reality shift occurs, and even then can never be sure. Rucker's explanation that "We're living in a draft version of the universe -- and there is no final version. The revisions never stop," describes 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.

[edit] External Links

[edit] Reality shifts in Fiction


[edit] Reality shifts in Movies

[edit] See also

[edit] Paranormal

[edit] Scientific

[edit] Reality related

[edit] Healing

[edit] Notes and References

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