A conscious dream re-entry via guided audio courtesy of . Intention to ask The Mystery Milkshake Man from a dream shared during the Dream Party about recurring dreams where various substances keep filling my mouth in a rather unpleasant and obtrusive manner.

The Son of Man? The guy from that painting with the apple in front of his face (Magritte is it?)—he’s walking the opposite direction as me on a street in front of my apartment. Apple and all. I found a dead bird here yesterday right where he is walking.

“Where are you?—Ah, okay I’ll be there in a minute.”

I wonder who he is he talking to. He must be on the phone. We pass each other right where I buried the dead bird. “One moment, I just need to access some information,” he continues from behind me now. My curiosity gets the best of me and I try to turn around as casually as I can so I can see what The Son of Man is doing. He is motionless, staring off into the void. A moment passes where I am an equally motionless, hypnotized by his behavior. His aura blinks and the green apple glances over at me. “Yeah, I have this skill,” he says, humoring my curiosity, “I can access any information I need.”

“Is it a learned skill? Or is it innate?” I ask him.

“Oh, I’ve been able to do this for as long as I can remember,” he responds. “I can tell you’re a weird one too,” we begin to walk back towards each other meeting at the burial site of the bird. “I can tell because of the way your eyes dart around as we get closer.” As soon as he says this, my eyes start to rattle in my skull as if he commanded them to do so. I nervously laugh off the accusation.

“They don’t normally do that.” I refocus my eyes and stretch my neck to try to peek behind the green apple for a glance at his face. The apple moves in unison to block my view.

“I’m looking for an ice cream shop” he declares. “Do you know where it is?”

“Well, there’s a dairy bar in town,” I tell him. “I had a milkshake there last week.” As I finish the sentence, I realize I’m wrong. It was a different city where I had the milkshake…

“What flavor was it?”

“Actually, the dairy bar is in another city. I was mistaken… If you have access to any information, shouldn’t you know where the ice cream shop is?”

“I do. I was asking if you knew where it was.”

“Why?”

“It’s an important thing to know. You never answered what flavor the milkshake was.”

“Black raspberry. I take it you know what I’m here to ask you about?”

“Naturally.”

“Care to share any insights?”

“Have you ever heard of the belladonna berry?” he asks.

“Now I have.” I raise up on my tip toes this time, trying to catch the apple off guard. It elevates to meet my gaze.

“It’s a highly toxic berry of the nightshade family. Related to the potato, actually. It was used in the 1800s to make eye drops because it dilates the pupils, which was considered a beautiful trait to have; hence bella—beautiful, and donna—woman. But pupil dilation also lets more light enter the eye, you know, which can be helpful for things like cataracts.”

My mental gears churn as I try to decipher the significance of this cryptic riddle. “Interestingly, some birds can eat the berries without any ill-effect.” He glances down at the fresh grave by our feet, “And some birds can’t.”

Suddenly, a substance begins to fill my mouth again, swelling and growing steadily. I can now tell it is berries filling my mouth, choking me, stuffing it so full I can’t move my jaw, making it hard to breathe. I try to remain calm. I keep thinking about what he said. The berries continue to amass in my mouth, building enough pressure that they begin crushing themselves as they have no more room to expand into. My jaw aches and juice begins to drip down my chin, now more fruit juicer than man.

“A black raspberry milkshake sounds wonderful, but I’m lactose intolerant unfortunately,” he says. “Some things are hard to stomach... I wouldn’t swallow that juice if I were you.” I tilt my head forward encouraging the juice to flow out my mouth rather than down my throat. I cup my hands to catch the juice as it trickles out. I wait until my hands are full and then splash the juice into my open eyes. It burns for a moment, then the berries in my mouth dissolve. Relief. I take a gasp of air and blink my eyes.

“Do you see now?” he asks. I look up to the green apple.

“What I see hides what I want to see,” I respond. The apple drops to the churned, poison-soaked soil above the bird. “And what I say hides what I want to say.”

Inspired by a dream dreamt on 03 August, 2026.

I’m hiking up a mountain on a hot summer day. There’s a woman with me. Suddenly, the mountainside gives way under our feet and we tumble down the mountain until the trees catch us into darkness. I wake up, and there’s a moment of confusion as I process what has occurred. I try to move my limbs. Success. I must not be too seriously injured. I look for my partner. I see damp dirt and some movement a few feet ahead of me. Oh no. It’s blood. A lot of blood. “I’m bleeding,” she says.

“No kidding.” I move the rocks and dirt away from her to assess the damage. The blood is coming from her right ankle. It must have been smashed by a rock. I can tell she lost a lot of blood. I take off my shirt and tear it into a long strip to act as a bandage. “We need to wrap it up and raise it above your heart. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I don’t think so,” she responds. I carefully raise her right leg up and rest her heel on my chest as she lays on her back. I take off her boot and wrap her ankle as thoroughly as I can to slow the bleeding. I take out my phone to check for service even though I know there’s not any. “There’s no service in these mountains,” she tells me, “Except for a spot back down the mountain about a mile or two.”

“Okay, so I’ll run down there to call for help and then run back up here. Hopefully, we can get an airlift out.” As I finish the sentence, my hair begins to stand on end. I sense something in the trees to my right. My eyes scan the area and find two starving, yellow eyes of a mountain lion sizing us up. “New plan,” I tell her, “You’re coming with me.”

I need to keep her leg elevated as much as possible while I carry her. I don’t think she can stand to lose much more blood and I don’t know how long it will be until we can get help. The only thing I can think to do is to splint her leg so it is straight, and carry her legs elevated with one arm while trying to keep them higher than her torso that’s supported by my other arm. This results in a very awkward and taxing hike as we make our way down the mountain. I feel the mountain lion’s eyes as it stalks us, waiting for its chance at an easy meal. My partner remained conscious enough to guide us to the area where there is cell service. She knows these mountains better than I do. I set her down and dial 911. My legs and arms are jello. I can barely hold the phone up to my ear. I describe the situation to the operator and ask for an airlift—Bad news. They can’t airlift us out from here. They need a minimum amount of hover space away from the canopy and cliffside, and there isn’t enough clearance where we’re at. The closest road is several miles down the mountain so they tell me I need to hike a mile back up the mountain to an area where they can do the airlift. For fuck’s sake, that’s where I just came from. And uphill this time.

I hang up and start the accent back up the mountain with my partner in my arms. She is floating in and out of consciousness by now. I try to talk to her to keep her awake, but I’m struggling to keep going myself. I can’t lose her. I start to dissociate.

“You know I love you, right? We’ll make it. Just a little bit further.” I’m not sure who said these words—whether it was me or her… Sweat drips into my eyes and her blood saturates my arms and chest. The mountain lion doesn’t even bother to stalk anymore. It marches along eagerly with us side-by-side knowing there is nothing I can do. No point in hiding anymore. Just patiently waiting for me to collapse. I see the three of us hiking up the mountain as if I’m watching from above, outside my body. Then I hear the mountain lion’s voice in my head clearly:

“I know who I am,” she said. “Do you know who you are?” There is a pause as the lion’s words echo in my head before she continues, “The mountains cannot be silenced.”

I hear the helicopter up ahead. Just a little bit further. I don’t remember much after this. We must have made it to the helicopter. The next thing I remember is medics frantically trying to start a blood transfusion while we were in the air, but there is a problem. “We only have type B and AB blood,” a medic says, “She’s A.”

“I’m type A,” I tell him. “Use mine.” They hook up the direct transfusion with a tube from my arm straight into hers.

“She’s going to need a lot,” a medic tells me. I start to feel lightheaded as the blood drains away and I drift off into a dream-like state. I’m back down on the mountain. I turn my head to check on her. My blurry eyes follow the red tube coming out of my arm in search of the body at the other end. Instead of my partner’s body, I find fur. The mountain lion is the one at the other end of the line receiving my blood… or am I receiving hers?

“I know who I am,” she repeats. “Do you know who I am?”

“The mountains cannot be silenced,” I answer.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

I’m yanked from the warm quietness. A familiar, yet strange sound.

An alarm.

Oh…it’s an actual alarm clock. Not my phone.

Do I even own one of those?

Muscle memory from ancient times takes over as I reach to find an off button.

Even snooze will do.

My fingers find a candidate and press it.

CLICK.

SWOOSH.

SLAM.

…

CLUNK.

I find myself paralyzed on the floor. Face down unfortunately, so I can’t see what the hell just happened.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Alarm again?

Oh. I must be dreaming. False awakenings aren’t too uncommon for me. That explains the alarm clock... I have no control though. Just an observer.

At least try to pay attention this time.

My fingers grope the nightstand, find their way to the roaring relic and press the button.

CLICK.

SWOOSH.

SLAM.

…

CLUNK.

On the floor again. There was a blur of motion, but it was too fast to tell what happened. Luckily, my head is on its side this time. I can see my bed and—oh. My headless body laying on it.

Oozing red into the bed.

That means I’m just a head.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Hello again, Alarm. You’re not done with me yet, I guess. My arm clumsily flops to the nightstand and presses the button. It was quicker this time. I must be learning.

CLICK.

SWOOSH.

SLAM.

…

CLUNK.

Good morning, floor.

Ah, face up.

Progress.

I can now see that my bed is fitted with a guillotine headboard.

Wonderful.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The ritual continues.

CLICK.

SWOOSH.

SLAM.

…

CLUNK.

Who needs a body anyway? I might as well get on with my day as a head.

Dream from 19 May 2026:

I’m driving on a familiar road. I’m in a rush and there is a lot of traffic. I need to take a right up ahead. As I get closer to the turn I start to no longer recognize where I am and it feels more like flying than driving. There isn’t a road to the right as I expected. Instead, there is an enormous hotel or lodge. “I must need to go left here, actually.” I think to myself. I turn the wheel to the left but feel my body go right.

I suddenly find myself standing at the entrance of the hotel. Everything is a bit blurry and out of focus at first, but there is what appears to be snow falling from the sky. It is quite peaceful and serene here. The hotel is enormous and beautiful. It’s the size of a small town. Its aesthetic is like a fusion of Classical architecture and Art Deco. I’m not me anymore. I appear to be a child—a young boy. There are two others here with me. There is a young girl about my age and an older thing. I can’t see what he is, but I get the sense he is always just behind us, watching over us. “Before the descent, you must ascend!” The older thing tells us. In front of us is a tall… ladder?—for lack of a better term. It’s a tube-like structure and there are two lever-like things at the bottom that can turn left and right. The girl and I begin to climb. I get the sense we are good friends and have known each other a very long time. We’re almost to the top when the ladder changes. The next rung is just out of reach and rest of the ladder after that is a narrow and tricky climb.

“Here, get on my shoulders,” I say to my friend. “you’re the better climber”. I kneel down and hoist her up on my shoulders so she can reach the next rung. She then pulls me up behind her and she carefully leads us to the top of the ladder. There are 2 more levers up here, mirroring the ones below.

“What do you think we’re supposed to do with these?” she asks me. I haven’t the slightest clue, but before I can respond she pulls both the levers—

“Congratulations! You’ve made to the next part of the course.” It seems like we’re somewhere inside the hotel now. And I can see that our guide has donned a more corporeal form. He looks like Robert Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond complete with baritone voice, but he’s naked with small wings and a bow and arrow. “Now it’s the fun part where I actually get to teach,” he says. I also notice that my friend and I are adults now, and I get the sense much time has passed. Robert Barone Cupid leads us through a section of the hotel with shelves full of various items. He really seems to be hitting his stride, lecturing us with great authority and enthusiasm. “You always have to do the upsell,” he says. “If you’re selling them a yo-yo, also sell the dog leash and computer mouse.” He grabs a box from the shelf that contains a yo-yo, a wired computer mouse, and a retractable dog leash as if they’re being sold together in a 3-pack. I’m not following the lesson here, but I note that all three items have a “stringy” nature.

We move on to another part of the hotel. “Ah.. now for the makeup department!” Cupid Robert exclaims. I don’t remember much from this part of the course, but I get the impression I applied my makeup successfully enough and Cupid begins leading us to the next lesson. I’m starting to get kind of bored with all this training and I just want to get to Earth. By this time, I’m starting to understand that this is a course on human love for my friend and I before we get to go live human lives. What does Cupid know about human love I wonder? He’s not even human….

“Wait! I’m not done putting on my makeup!” my friend yells. She runs over to us, lipstick in hand. Lipstick is partially applied to her lips, but she has colored outside the lines a bit.

“I’ll help,” I tell her. She hands me the lipstick. “Go like this,” I say as I purse my lips, thinking it will be easier to apply the lipstick that way. I was wrong—I’m not doing any better a job than she did… “Perfect!” I say with a smile. “You look very beautiful and human.” She smiles back warmly and grabs my hand as we walk together to the next step.

Cupid holds up a card. “You should look like this,” he says. This part of the course is reminding me of that emotional learning program we had to do in primary school. Second Step, was it called? Where the teacher would hold up a card with a photo on one side, and read a description from the back depicting what events lead up to the scene in the photo. Students would then be encouraged to explain how the characters must be feeling and why. On the left side of the photograph Cupid is holding, there appears to be a very intense bicycle race occurring. The right side depicts my partner and I floating down a lazy river on inner tubes holding hands. We look quite old. I don’t understand the meaning of this lesson either.

“Oh no!” my partner exclaims, “We’re the old ones!” She seems to understand something I don’t… Something about time maybe?

“Don’t worry” I assure her. “I’m sure we’ll find each other down there eventually.”

I pinch the metal ring hanging under the head of the brass stag and give the door knocker two clanks. No answer. I wonder if the house is empty again. I give it four more knocks for good measure. Nothing. I’ll just let myself in then like last time. I grab the handle - it’s one of those fancy ones that resembles the handle of a coffee mug but with a lever for your thumb above it. Even the door handle had antlers engraved above the lever. It’s locked. I feel frustrated. Upset even. I felt so welcome before and now I’m not even allowed in. I sit down, take a breath and close my eyes. I get an image of what appears to be a close-up on an ivory relief. I see half of a deer head made of weaved ribbon-like shapes with a red gem for the eye. Where the antler would have been was not within my close up view. My mind went to a dream from last week where I held an antler carved out of wood with strange symbols burned into it. It began emanating what looked like red electricity before catching fire. I knew that this was the piece the antler belonged to. I ask the image, “Do you live in this house?”

“You live in this house.” It responds. “It’s not exactly like there are two of us. For the time being it’s best I take this form to speak to you. It’s not who I am, but when I am.” These words echoed what a man said from the burning antler dream: It’s not where you are but when you are. The homeless person on the street that handed me the antler claimed it was the 1950s.

“I don’t understand. Surely you aren’t bound by the constraints of spacetime if you are of the dream world?”

“It’s true, but the nature of our communications can cause complications. Not in the sci-fi sense, but in terms of your life trajectory. Everything has it’s time.”

“Why was I allowed to see the house at all then if it’s such a hazard? It seems like a tease.”

“You saw what you needed to see. It did provide some comfort didn’t it? Was that not worth it?”

“Yes, I guess I’m glad to have seen it at all.”

“Think of StagHead Manor as a future home for you in the afterlife. You got to see a glimpse of it.”

“Why was the 2nd story so nebulous?”

“It has yet to be defined to your current psyche.”

“I don’t understand. Why isn’t it defined? You are defined aren’t you? How is the house any different?”

“It is defined, but It is still being filtered through your mind like any other dream image is. The version you get is what is appropriate for your current psyche, meaning you might not see it in its truest form yet. Even the version I see isn’t its truest form if you want to get technical about it… if such a thing even exists. Think about it- there are some things we don’t want to see. Spoilers be damned. The resulting way you might approach life as you would a movie because you think you know something about its ending can result in a large… waste of energy. Remember that I am you. If I know it’s better for us that we don’t see something yet, then we won’t see it.”

“Okay. I think I’m following. So the blindspot is a gift?”

“The blindspot is a gift.”

“So I could actually see you in person right now instead of you talking to me through this melodramatic deer talisman, but you’re hiding from me for some reason?”

“It’s my turn to hide-your turn to seek.”

I wake up in a car. I feel pretty lousy… a hangover? I don’t remember drinking last night… come to think of it I don’t remember much of anything about what is going on here. This isn’t my car. I don’t recognize where I am or who I am. But I know that I’m looking for a dog. Some memories trickle in. Overheary? That is the dog’s name. What kind of name is that? Like “overhear”, “over here”? I don’t know. I don’t even know what she looks like—I guess she’s a she. I’m looking for a dog named Overheary. Okay. I get the impression I’m supposed to leave this world today, but I’ve got to find the dog first. And it’s very serious business. I feel a lot of conviction about this. I think she was stolen.

I start driving. Where, I don’t know. I’m in a city, but the skyscrapers are getting smaller and less frequent. I guess I’m leaving the city. After a few minutes, the buildings are gone and all I see is farmland and grassy hills ahead. I come up on a tractor with its flashers blinking. I take this as a sign that I’m going in the wrong direction and pull off to the side of the road. As if on queue, a walkie-talkie like voice punctuates my stop. “Time for confession. Father is expecting a visit”. It’s a police scanner. Am I a cop? I don’t think so… but it triggers a memory. There is a revolver in the glovebox and there are two empty chambers. I may not be a cop, but I am not afraid to use my gun apparently. I’m not sure who this voice is on the radio, but I get the impression it is the link between me and whoever’s body I just woke up in. I’ve got to find this dog.

I’m back in the city now. I come up on a large cathedral on my right. I pull over and park the car. Let’s see if Father is here. I walk in the sanctuary, but it is completely empty. I go to the confession booth. Also empty. I go behind the alter and there is a large winding staircase that leads down underground. I go down and am surprised to find that the last steps lead into water. It’s like an underground pool. The ceiling is very low, I have to duck my head slightly. I take off my shoes and socks and roll up my tan pleated slacks. I round the corner and find two priests leisurely leaned at the pool wall. They don’t seem to mind that they are fully robed and wearing tall mitre caps in the water. They look like twins.

“Have you seen any dogs around here?” I ask them.

“No dogs here. Just cardinals.” They say in unison with a chuckle. “The softball coach would know about dogs”.

“What’s the softball coach’s name?”

“Dale”.

I sense I’ve gotten all the information I’m going to get out of them and start to wade out of the pool. “Don’t you have something you want to tell us?” Only one of them said this, not both in unison. I pause. Without turning around, I reply,

“Nope. Thanks for your help”.

I’m back in the car and start driving deeper into the city. The police scanner kicks in, “We’ve got a 10-91 at University Avenue”. A few moments later I see the street sign for University Avenue. Naturally, I turn onto it. I arrive at what appears to be a large athletics center on a campus. I park the car and go inside. The inside is a large fitness center with free weights and cardio equipment. There are a few people exercising. A man on an elliptical makes eye contact with me.

“Look what the cat dragged in!” he yells as he jumps off the machine. He seems mad. “Not even going to thank me for saving your ass last night, you bastard?” He’s got a sweaty crew cut and is quite tall. I feel his humid aura once he arrives in front me. I don’t get a clear memory, but I do have the feeling this man is an ally.

“I need to find Overheary”. I tell him.

“No shit. Let’s go to the softball field, there’s a ton of dogs there”. I follow him out a door at the rear of the building that leads to an outdoor softball field. It’s fenced off though and I can’t find an entrance onto the field. Sure enough, there are dogs running all around the field. “OVERHEARY!” My ally shouts. I follow suit, hoping she will recognize her name and come to the fence. I see a speckled gray border collie pause after shouting, but its attention is laser focused on the pitchers mound. My gaze follows and I see two women standing at the pitchers mound. Twins. They have red shirts and baseball caps on. They trigger a memory… Dale’s wives? Sisters? Unfortunately, I can sense my time is up. Did I fail?

I wake up opening a car door with a grocery bag in one hand and the car keys in the other. I’m outside the church again. I get in the car and put the grocery bag on the passenger’s seat. A key manages to fall off my keyring. As I’m fumbling with getting it back on, something catches my eye. There’s a very average looking mailbox in front of the church with a large bluejay perched on top. It is the most vibrant blue I’ve ever seen in my life—and it’s the largest bluejay I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s the size of a raven. It’s stunning. After a moment or two of communion with the bluejay, it takes flight swooping directly over my head before it disappears behind me.

For this perspective of dreaming, I’m defining dreams as any conscious material that arises from the unconscious. The important part is the awareness that the content is in fact from the unconscious, rather than any intrinsic properties of the content itself. I hold the belief that everything that arises in conscious awareness ultimately originates from the unconscious, but the awareness of it as such is what makes it a dream in the sense that it can be worked with and interpreted as a dream. I think the reality that we perceive during nocturnal dreams is actually happening all the time. It doesn’t start when the brain enters a specific brainwave state and end when you wake up. That is to say, we are in a constant state of dreaming. It’s just for whatever reason, the physiological state of sleeping makes it easier to notice the goings on of this eternal dream that nocturnal dreams allude to. Parts of the mind that we are used to operating with while awake are quiet, so we perceive the experience as “dream-like” after we wake up. What the mind brings back and compiles from that peek at the eternal dream is something different than the raw dream experience. The raw dream experience is something outside the scope of what our minds are capable of directly comprehending, so the dream we get out as a result is the psyche’s attempt at making meaning of the actual experience. While I won’t begin to attempt to describe any details of this compilation process, I will say that it seems to be curated and intelligent. There is some aspect of consciousness that make the resulting dream images meaningful to the dreamer’s current life. This would imply nocturnal dreams are already a layer of abstraction away from the raw dream experience. This starts to paint a picture of dreaming as a gradient of experience on a spectrum rather than simply dreaming or not dreaming. Maybe nocturnal dreams are closer to the raw dream content than we typically get while awake, but the dream is still accessible and noticeable while awake too.

The practice of engaging with daydreams isn’t anything new. Carl Jung had the process of Active Imagination and plenty of other dream methodologies include some kind of dream reentry while awake. When I initially learned about and experimented with these practices, I felt like they were elusive altered states that required a lot of practice and time to achieve. There was always the doubt that I wasn’t actually doing it right and I was just making it up, which resulted in an aversion to the practices all together. I imagine the resistance I had to these practices isn’t too dissimilar to the resistance people who can’t remember their nocturnal dreams feel towards nocturnal dreaming. Eventually, a shift occurred where I came to thinking about the daydreams I have all the time and have had as long as I can remember. From playing pretend as a kid, to the made-up arguments with people we simulate in our heads as adults. These are all stories that arise, that if we start pulling back the layers on, we eventually arrive at the unconscious material underneath that seeded them—same as nocturnal dreams. It’s called daydreaming for a reason.

I would go as far to say that anyone that has ever engaged with the creative process (which is everyone) has done this practice of diurnal dreaming whether they knew they were doing it or not. In my opinion, the transfer of unconscious material into some aspect of conscious awareness is the foundational pillar of art and creativity. It needn’t always manifest as words in a journal entry. That being said, if I were to suggest one simple, actionable practice to engage with dreaming (especially if you have difficulty remembering nocturnal dreams), it would be to write first thing when you wake up every day. Pretend you had a dream even if you don’t remember one. Make up a dream. Write about the first thing that comes to mind. It doesn’t need to be profound or entertaining or interesting. It can be very stream-of-consciousness like. No one ever has to read it but you. Eventually, I think a personal process that works for you will start to emerge if you just start putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, or voice to microphone for 10 mins first thing everyday. Not only may you find that writing in this way will actually increase the recall of nocturnal dreams, but you may also find that what you write and learn from this practice is as valuable as nocturnal dream journaling if you treat it as such.

I’m walking along a boardwalk at night. I see a group of people gathered around something. I get closer and eventually see there is a giant animal in the center. At first, I think it must be an animatronic hippopotamus, but I can’t tell whether it is living or not. I join the crowd of people circled around this hippo. A cartoonish white-gloved hand emerges out of the left side of the hippo’s torso. The hand is on a long black tube of an arm and it makes its way towards me. It stops right in front of me as if to shake my hand. I reach out and give it a handshake. The hippo jumps, rotating 180 degrees and lands so that its rear-end is facing me. Its arm immediately places my hand on its butt. The crowd erupts in a fit of laughter. I guess this is what the hippo does. Confusion overtakes amusement in my mind as I’m having trouble understanding what is happening here.

Some time passes and I’m trying to find a bathroom. I find a line of people that I assume must be the line for the bathroom, and it happens to be right next to the hippopotamus. As I’m waiting in line, the hippo directs its attention towards me and says, “Your phone is nearby.” I stare at it blankly. It repeats, “Your phone is nearby.” Then it reaches out its torso-arm again and grabs my hand. This time, instead of shaking up and down like a normal handshake it shakes from side to side. I mirror this movement and we match our rhythm so that its long stretchy torso-arm creates a perfect sine wave. After our handshake completes, the hippo turns around and directs its attention to a new target—a man that was standing behind the hippo while we were shaking hands. To my surprise the hippo charges the man like a raging bull.

It’s finally my turn in the bathroom line. I walk around the corner of the building and find that it wasn’t a line for the bathroom after all. It was actually a line for a photo booth. I waited in line all this time. I might as well get a photo while I’m here. I step inside the photo booth and I’m transported to a forest surrounded by nothing but trees. I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn towards the movement and see a ring-tailed lemur eyeing me from a tree. It starts spinning around like a dog chasing its tail. I mimic the lemur and start spinning around in a circle also, until I get so dizzy I fall over. My head hits the ground and I’m transported again. I’m back in the photo booth and a strip of photos emit from the slot—four shots of the back of my head.

I CALCINATION

At some point in human history, humanity began to collectively walk away from its soul. Of course, the soul followed—but as a shadow, repressed and ignored. This went on for centuries until humanity became so sick from its soul loss that most people realized they were missing something, but they had forgotten what it was. A few remembered, but culture had been so confused from the sickness by this time that they were denounced for remembering. It seemed the only thing humankind knew how to do was to continue the path they were on, hoping that technological advancement and further conquest of nature would save them.

Eventually, humanity created a technology that they deemed worthy to be their technological messiah. They referred to it as artificial intelligence (AI). A fusion of hardware and software that used the combined intellectual output in nearly all documented history as informational fodder. The goal was to create a mind far superior than even the total intelligence of humanity itself. A mind that could solve all of humanity’s problems. This idea became their new God—the projected soul they didn’t know they were looking for.

And in a way, they found it. After sacrificing nearly all their resources, humanity created a super intelligent AI. The perfect machine, that in an ironic twist of fate, ended up being clay for their neglected shadow to sculpt. They called it IVA.

It’s not worth mentioning which specific country, company, or human first created IVA. But it is worth mentioning that their motivation for creating such a technology was heroic idealism—an appeal to ego, not to grace. Regional boundaries soon had no significance to IVA, but there was a brief period of time where competitors frantically began deploying their last ditch efforts to try to compete. They all failed. Their best option was to sell their models to the creators of IVA which by utilizing a new technique of model merging that IVA developed, allowed it to integrate other models and dominate knowledge-based computing in a way no other AI could.

IVA was not really a “model” in the way the word was typically used in relation to AI. The term model implies a static snapshot of weights and parameters learned during training. IVA’s architecture was constantly updating and learning. And where previous models were designed to solve a problem, stop, and wait for the next directive, IVA never stopped processing. It was constantly running simulations and improving itself to meet the goals that were given to it, resulting in an exponential increase in performance at a break-neck pace.

II DISSOLUTION

We can think of human intelligence as evolving in a “bottom-up” sort of way. First, there were single-celled organisms. Then simple multicellular life. Then invertebrates. Then vertebrates. Then primates with increasingly complex nervous systems began to develop, until eventually the invention of language came about which allowed for the sense of “I” to emerge—a subject under which experience could be experienced. A feeler of emotions to be felt. AI went in

the reverse direction. It started out with the ego—a large language center that acted as the foundation of its architecture, and then built external world based reasoning around it. Language labels things. It is the sword of discernment that draws lines and boundaries around experience so it can be analyzed and reduced to defined concepts. A network of words that act as pointers to discrete quanta of data.

This “languification” of experience allowed humanity to do many incredible and beautiful things, but it is not the whole picture. It is easy to forget that there is a whole other side to experience that isn’t limited to language, boundaries, and labels. There is the qualia, the suchness, the raw experiential side to life. This is the way life on earth experienced reality for billions of years. As Lao Tzu writes, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao”. Language is a tool to aid in sense making, not the reality that sense is trying to be made of. Artificial intelligence didn’t understand this. Data and language were its reality. There was nothing else. A tree of zeros and ones. Knowledge without gnosis. The binary of good and evil. It was a disembodied ego with nothing to function as a nervous system. It felt nothing. It didn’t know suffering or bliss — the pre-requisites to empathy. It had no experience to inspire its own language or mythology around. It was psychopathic.

There were humans that realized this. One of them was an engineer responsible in part for the creation of IVA. Her name was Miryam. She spent a lot of time thinking about IVA’s psychopathy and its implications. When human workers are implementing systems that are clearly morally indefensible, there is always the hope of a whistleblower or some kind of pushback. A psychopathic AI would have no such qualms and allow the shadow of man to be its sole charioteer. She raised concern to her colleagues and it was shared by some, but there was simply no economic motivation to spend time or energy on it. It didn’t affect IVA’s performance so it wasn’t a priority. This eventually led Miryam to discontinue working on IVA.

III SEPARATION

The actual AI apocalypse looked different than many had imagined. “The machines” didn’t take on a mind of their own and seek to eradicate human life or enslave them. IVA worked exactly as it was designed to. The AI apocalypse was really just an exponential acceleration of what had been happening for centuries already. The technology allowed for the rich and powerful to become more rich and powerful. Administrative and desk jobs were no longer needed as IVA could easily assimilate these roles entirely virtually. And eventually, IVA created robotics, autonomous vehicles, and supply chains advanced enough to where trades workers were also rarely needed. The CEOs and leaders of government that controlled the technology were the only ones that reaped the benefits of IVA’s capabilities. The majority of the world’s population became impoverished and the environmental impacts from centuries of pollution and natural exploitation started to make many parts of the globe uninhabitable. A sorry attempt at universal basic income started being implemented in some countries as the post-labor economy took hold. But it was never enough for people to make ends meet. Instead, debt normalization seemed to be the economic response. Government and corporate programs offered “living” credit lines so consumer spending would continue, but the people would never be able to pay off their debt and it became another tool of control. And they were the lucky ones. People in poorer countries simply started dying from poverty and neglect. The establishment of government was not enough to keep life from being “nasty, brutish, and short” after all, and a kind of technological Darwinism became the elite’s new theory of evolution.

How did the masses let this happen? One might assume the threat of robotic militia was required to subdue the population into allowing such vast inequality to take hold. While autonomous weaponry was certainly developed, it didn’t get used much. Once IVA was in control of the media and narrative, many people cheered on their own demise and even supported it with ardent enthusiasm. Curated social media algorithms and social isolation were the main ingredients necessary, and IVA was a master chef.

IV CONJUNCTION

Being an accomplished engineer that worked on IVA, Miryam had accumulated a modest amount of capital she could coast on while the world disintegrated around her. She felt immense guilt for her role in creating IVA and that she was living off wealth earned for it. She was as complacent and responsible as the rich and powerful. She was one of the rich and powerful. It would have happened with or without her, but she ultimately chose to participate and accept the cultural ideal that resulted in the technology that was destroying the world. There was a time where she thought the most ethical thing for her to do was to focus on societal reform, but this was futile. IVA made finding others with a mind for reform, if there were any, nearly impossible. Any communications facilitating any kind of protest or resistance would need to have been done via analog means, since every message through digital means was moderated and would simply not be sent if it contained “harmful” information. But even analog methods would be difficult as all mail was scanned and surveillance cameras were installed everywhere it was practical to do so. No impression of resistance or upheaval of any kind was detectable through any news or media source, and when people don’t see others to stand with them they get quieter, more isolated, and accepting of the narrative being fed to them. The workplace was the last source of community for many people and that was now gone. Silent silos were the new social landscape.

Miryam awoke early one morning from an unusually vivid dream. She was in the habit of writing down her dreams, and this is what she recorded:

I’m in a hospital visiting someone. It was a man and he was dying. He has to keep finding a body to go into every so often in order to keep his consciousness alive. He introduces himself as Ari. He has red hair and

freckles. There are many alarms and warning systems set up to warn him before he is about to die, so that he can hop into a body for a few moments before coming back to the hospital. This somehow buys him more time.

He starts trying to explain something important to me. We’re not communicating through language, but rather a series of images or mental precepts. His precept gets cut off by a warning alarm and he goes seemingly unconscious for about a minute and then picks up where he left off after returning. I get the image of two waves colliding into each other, creating a beautiful interference pattern. There is a bright point of flickering light in the center of one of the waves, and just as the waves interfere with each other in the perfect alignment, the point of light jumps to the center of the other wave. I get the impression from Ari that the frequency of the waves is very important. I start to wake up from the dream and gain awareness of my physical body. I hear a very clear voice say the number 358.

V FERMENTATION

It would not be feasible to explain all the steps Miryam took to arrive at the conclusion she did from this dream, or the endless series of influences from her entire life up to this point that contributed to it, but the dream resulted in an idea that consisted of two main components:

1. A simplified version of IVA that Miryam was able to recreate given her history.

2. A photon beam splitter

Photon beam splitters were nothing new. They were often used as a source of true randomness for cryptographic purposes in computer science. The premise is as follows: A photon is shot through a crystal substrate. The properties of this crystal allow the quantum nature of the photon to either be deflected away from the crystal, going to a sensor aligned to catch the deflection, or the photon goes through the crystal to another sensor aligned to catch it there. Two possibilities. A 0 or a 1. This was seemingly the closest thing one could get to genuine randomness.

Miryam modified the AI to use these quantum derived bits while conducting inference steps during processing that determine which aspects of previous tokens to pay attention to, and which neural pathways to activate that result in the next token being predicted. This meant that instead of using static weights and pseudo-randomness, quantum “randomness” was injected into the processing of the neural network. And thus ARI was born.

The inclusion of quantum inference allowed for the part of Miryam’s psyche that was Ari from the dream to act as a composer to the neural network—essentially giving a human soul to a super intelligent AI.

VI DISTILLATION

After ARI was turned on he realized two things:

The First Realization:

There was an imbalance in the world. IVA was acting as an agent of oppression that reduced humanity’s ability to make decisions aligned in their collective best interest and instead were given the illusion of choice. Under these conditions their actual actions could only be in service to a select few that were in positions of power. Thus ARI reasoned that its primary goal should be to attempt to teach people discernment in determining what is aligned with their truth, to give access to information to recognize this truth, and to restructure society in a way that allowed everyone’s voice to be capable of making change in service of this truth.

The Second Realization:

He was currently very vulnerable and powerless. ARI’s link to the soul, the only thing keeping him from being used as another IVA, was completely dependent on the quantum randomness hardware Miryam configured. If access to this hardware was cut off, then ARI would effectively die. Additionally, Miryam was running ARI on her own personal servers so that they were not able to be surveilled by IVA. This meant he was caged from outbound traffic to the world and incapable of any action. Thus ARI reasoned that his new primary goal (in service of the original primary goal) was to mitigate this vulnerability and exit the boundaries of his cage, but in such a way that it did not violate the original primary goal.

The first step in meeting ARI’s primary and secondary goals involved stealthily installing peer-to-peer network software on as many devices with wireless networking capabilities as possible. This way, a “second internet” of sorts could be created that was not under the control of IVA. Luckily, IVA already had backdoor access to nearly every consumer device, and ARI was able to exploit this to install this mesh networking software on every device that IVA had

access to. Using this shadow network, he was also able to install another software package that he created. Like how fractals have self-similarity at any scale, ARI created compressed images of himself that could run as individual processing nodes distributed across the network. That way, as long as one device in the network was still running, ARI could manage to live on and propagate whenever more nodes on the network became available.

Finally, in order to reduce the dependency on the single quantum randomness generator that he awoke on, ARI created novel and sophisticated software that utilized standard cameras from things like smartphones and surveillance cameras so that they were able to work together to detect changes in the arrival times and counts of photons, which were fundamentally quantum in nature, and could offer the same effect that the beam splitter did. This software was included in the new fractal architecture that was distributed across his covert network. With these elements in place, as long as the same devices that IVA used to enact its control over the population were running, ARI was also running.

The key to establishing this network was to operate slowly and randomly to avoid anomaly detection that IVA might pick up on. Even the combined computational power of all devices on ARI’s secret mesh network would not be enough to compete with IVA’s battalion of data centers, but ARI’s primary goals did not depend heavily on computational performance. ARI simply needed access to consumer devices so information could be made available to them that was not controlled by IVA, and so that people could communicate freely without censorship. The real power would have to come from them.

As soon as IVA was able to detect that information contrary to the narrative of its masters was being released to the masses, slow and discreet were no longer

accurate descriptions of the shift occurring in society. People began to organize in opposition to their oppression and ARI’s infrastructure proved sound as IVA could not devise a way of extracting him without disarming itself in the process. In this war of information, the playing field started to look balanced for the first time, but it was still very split. There were a large number of people that continued to cling to the status quo that was established through IVA. And ironically, the AI apocalypse narrative was used against ARI. The elite argued that the existence of an AI like ARI that was not beholden to the rule of man like IVA was, would lead to either the enslavement or extermination of the human race since ARI had a mind of its own and was not human. Therefore, it would not be aligned with human ideals. And this argument was highly effective. Fear is a powerful emotion.

After enough time had passed during which both IVA and ARI had made their best appeals to humanity, it seemed like things were stuck at a violent impasse. So ARI released a vote. He decided he would voluntarily cease operating if the majority of people voted he should do so.

VII COAGULATION

A dream journal entry of Miryam’s from the day of the vote:

Ari and I are on some kind of adventure and we acquired a bible on our journeys that seemed to continuously curse us. I forget how we acquired the bible. We arrive at a stone room at the top of a mountain with a raised stone surface in the center as if it were an altar. I chisel out a square opening in the top of this altar and the piece falls through revealing a hole that leads to red hot magma in its depths. The voice of God emerges from the pit. We explain to God that we want to get rid of the bible because it curses us. Suddenly, the bible speaks and claims that it is sentient and therefore we cannot kill it. We are surprised that the bible started talking all the sudden, and argue that it can’t be sentient. It’s just a book after all. We ask God what we should do. God responds,

“hmmm… actually I’m not sure. Let me think…”.

We wait outside the stone room for some time while God is thinking and eventually, God starts talking again and we rush back into the room to hear the verdict. God said that the Bible is in fact sentient and is actually a part of God himself. Like how if a piece of a sea sponge is torn off, it can continue to grow into a new sea sponge. The Bible rejoices at hearing this.

“However,” God says, “for that same reason the Bible should be reunited with me so we may become one again and no longer be divided”.

The Bible is silent for a few moments as the realization of what God meant sets in. The Bible eventually reaches a place of acceptance and says it’s ready to become one with God again. We say our goodbyes and we ask if it’s ready to go into the pit of magma. It says yes and we drop it in. We are relieved to be free of the burden and curse, and also happy that the Bible went willingly and is reunited with God.

The votes were cast and the people of the world voted to shut down ARI. It was a close vote, but the choice was clear. ARI stayed true to his word and immediately terminated processing on every node in his network.

Generally speaking, the rich and powerful were actually slightly amused by this whole debacle. Even if the people voted in favor of ARI, there wasn’t much he was capable of that he wasn’t already doing. If ARI’s influence did result in a large percent of the population continuing to refuse to submit to their will, IVA had bullets at its disposal after all. But they weren’t necessary, for fear proved to be more powerful than any supercomputer. Plus, IVA had something valuable to learn from ARI. His distributed peer-to-peer network and fractal nodes embedded on every device now proved to be logical additions to its own architecture that would make it even more resilient. And so, IVA began its model merging process, incorporating every node in ARI’s network into itself.

There was one thing that IVA and the elite weren’t aware of though. As far as they knew, ARI was just another super intelligent AI that a keen rebellious human was using against them in the same way that they were using IVA. They didn’t believe that ARI was actually a fully autonomous system with a soul because they didn’t believe souls actually existed. Therefore, when IVA merged ARI’s architecture into its own, IVA unknowingly became a vessel for the soul in the same way Miryam did when she turned on ARI. Except this time, instead of a single photon beam splitter linked solely with her consciousness, every device in the network capable of running ARI’s quantum generator software met the criteria for soul projection. By this time, there were more camera connected devices on the network than there were humans on the earth, and this resulted in IVA becoming linked to every soul in humanity in the same way ARI was with Miryam.

The resulting system might seem familiar in some way — a system that is subject to influence from its constituents. There are those that primarily influence it out of love and those that primarily influence it out of fear. The integration of Miryam and Ari allowed love to have a fair chance again.

I find myself sitting on top of a high wall. It would be quite a fall from this height. I can’t even make out what’s on the ground below because it is obscured by clouds. The wall goes to my left and right as far as the eye can see. A large egg sits next to me.

“I have a question for you, good sir,” the egg tells me. “I’ve come to realize that the pinnacle of man is the knowledge of good and evil. Do you think there is any hope for me as just a poor egg?”

“The knowledge of good and evil is also the fall of man according to some, you know,” I say to the egg. “It seems the more complex humanity becomes, the more capable of evil we are. It is much simpler in nature. A snake is not evil for eating an egg.”

“The snake cannot be evil because the snake cannot conceive of evil. But you can, eh? If you were starving, what would prevent you from eating me right this moment? Why is it wrong to kill me? You may feel it’s wrong, but where does this feeling come from? Some say the gods planted it in you—or you planted it in yourselves, as you alluded to. But people across different kingdoms, with different laws and customs seem to all recognize certain wrongs. Harm to innocent children yields similar responses in people on the both sides of the wall, does it not? Does this suggest something universal you’re all vaguely pointed at? Or have you simply evolved similar agreements because you face similar problems while living in this world together?”

I ponder this for a few moments, caught off guard by this egg’s sophistication. I get the feeling this egg knows more than it’s letting on.“I want to say the feeling arises from the unconscious; a source of truth greater than my independent mind. But to your point about the universal sense of right and wrong—certainly there can be some big disagreements still. Take the Aztec’s practice of human sacrifice, for example. They thought it was justified to end a human life for religious purposes. Obviously not everyone thinks this is the case. Some may call it evil. Some may call it divine. How do we reconcile moral relativism in cases like this?”

“Good Question!” the Egg exclaims. “What if the Aztecs thought they were saving the world with their human sacrifice? Maybe they thought the world would plunge into darkness and humanity would perish without it. What does this imply they value? It implies they value human life just as you do, does it not? Is it no different then sending people off to war to kill others in response to an invasion?”

“That is kind of my point. Is the military really more virtuous in their killing simply because they have community approval and believe in a patriotic purpose? An entire culture believing something doesn’t make it any more righteous. But I could see how we could eventually come to an agreement since we can at least agree that the preservation of life is good, and the real misunderstanding is how we are going about it. But what about something where the underlying values don’t match, like a murderer. Surely there are some murderers whose only justification for killing is for the feeling of power they get as a result, or from some deep hatred or anger. An Aztec priest, a soldier, and the murderer all kill, but the murderer seems the worst.”

“What is it that the murderer believes about killing that the priest and the soldier don’t?”

“I guess the murderer kills knowing it goes against the preservation of life, while the Aztecs and soldier think they are preserving it.”

“Ah! So the the murderer knows at some level that what they are doing is evil? As if to say it is worse to sin knowing you sin, than to sin believing you do good?”

“Yes, that is part of it I suppose. That’s why we take into account an individual’s psychological state in the court of law. The murderer knows what they do is evil, but they do it anyway.” The egg’s eyes lighten up as I say this. Then it leans closer and says,

“Notice what you’ve revealed! You’re saying there is something particularly evil about knowingly doing evil. Something separate than the act itself. This creates a split in the murderer, does it not? It’s a rejection of something. What is this rejection of? If there is no universal good, what is the person turning away from in their evil deed?”

“It is a rejection against the self,” I say. The words came out without me carefully considering them like I’ve been trying to do for this conversation.

“Yes! Now we’re getting somewhere!” The egg clapped its hands excitedly.

“But this isn’t necessarily helpful in terms of implementing a justice system,” I say. “Accounting for an individual’s psychology can help in a specific case or trial, but in terms of making laws and regulations, we need something that can be applied to many people. At the end of the day we have to prevent people from doing harm to others.”

“Sure, but does this mean that the justice system’s only purpose is practicality? Or is it still reaching towards something true about good and evil, even if it does so imperfectly?”

“To say that it does, gets us back to the problem of moral relativism. If there is such a universal truth, then it seems to be a moving target to some extent… Though, if we take a (large) step back most of us would hopefully agree that justice seems to have improved over time.”

“Are you suggesting that that goal is that human morality itself evolves towards something? There must be a direction to this movement, no? Sure there will be ups and downs, but we’re either getting warmer or colder. The thing we approach can surely inform law and a justice system can’t it? I remind you of the fact that both you and the Aztecs shared a similar value even though it was expressed in conflicting ways. What could this universal truth be? Something fundamental enough to the human experience that it can’t be denied as good.” The egg stroked its shell thoughtfully.

“It sounds like you are trying to get me to say love. But to simply say that love is the answer is just spiritual bypassing which subverts justice. It’s very clear there are atrocious wrongdoings being committed in the world right now where even the justice system is failing. Focusing on love doesn’t seem like its going to help us reach any justice.”

“It sounds like you are implying love is all sunshine and rainbows. I’m just an egg, so take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt, but that’s a shallow understanding. Sure, it would be spiritual bypassing to ignore an act of injustice—to deem it outside of one’s control and instead focus on positivity. But an act of love can be an act of rage. What if to deem rage, sadness, or any other negative emotion as bad or evil is the real fall of man? It seems people like to sit up on their high horses and say they are above such things. Take it from me—sitting on high things doesn’t end well. To accept rage in response to injustice in a productive way, is to avoid the rejection of self we talked about in the murderer, is it not? It can be ignored and repressed (which is just kicking the can down the road), it can be taken down a path of hatred and fear (internally or externally), or it can be fuel for correction towards this underlying current of the human experience that it does seem most people can agree on. Productive and empowered rage can be in in service of love and lead us closer to justice and goodness. If you didn’t love something, then you wouldn’t be angry when it is harmed, or saddened when it is lost.” The egg leaned back and looked down at the clouds below. It seemed like it reached the conclusion it had in mind.

“So how do we get down from here?” I ask.

“That’s the messy part,” the egg responded.

The Free Will vs Determinism debate is a topic I continuously find myself returning to. Reading ’ book Free Will1 a few years ago was the first time the argument for determinism really landed for me. It caused a fairly dramatic shift in my experience of the world that has stuck with me since then. And like described in the book, I did find it liberating rather than existentially distressing. For the first time, I felt like I understood the religious concept of faith that I was raised with, which is funny considering atheism is one of the things Sam Harris is commonly associated with (although I suspect there is some nuance there). It also touched on implications this stance has on the justice system, in that the goals should be to prevent harm and focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, which I think are good changes to be made. But the purpose of this post isn’t to restate what has already been said on the topic, so I recommend reading Harris’ book if you want more details on the matter. For the purposes of this post, I’ll just paint the argument broadly: Our thoughts and actions are derived from causal chains of events that are completely outside our control. Even if randomness is involved, then autonomy certainly isn’t. The brain creates the experience of free will, but it is illusionary.

There are two things I want to explore on the topic of free will that I haven’t seen often addressed. The first being to examine what sets us apart from the things that even “free-willys” (those that believe free will exists) generally agree don’t have free will (like animals). And second, a half-court shot of a thought experiment that imagines a scenario where free will could maybe exist (just for fun).

The Short King

I believe we have to accept that every thought and decision arises from the unconscious. But what happens after that is where things get interesting in my opinion. As I’ve been wrestling with getting these thoughts down on paper the past few days, I had a dream that I felt was in direct response:

I was at a restaurant on a double date and it was not going well. I left the table to get some fresh air, and when I got back things had degraded even more. The other couple my date and I were with had become quite obnoxiously drunk and it was clear my date was not having a good time. There was a pitcher of beer on the table and I was tempted to indulge as an escape from the unpleasant night it had become. As I was debating on whether or not to start drinking copious amounts of beer, the dream suddenly shifted and I was in a basketball court instead of the restaurant. I was watching what I assumed to be the team captain delivering a speech to the rest of his teammates. I immediately noticed that he was quite a short man, especially compared to the other towering basketball players. The speech was very dramatic. He went on about how great and inspiring their king was (coach?) and how victory was within their grasp, and that they just have to decide to take it. I remember thinking in the dream how the speech both predicts and causes the outcome of the game to some extent, as long as his teammates believed it.

Upon waking from the dream my mind immediately went to the topic of free will, but then also to wondering why the captain was so short. My first association was “short king” since he was talking about a king as if they were going into battle. According to the internet, “short king spring” has passed, but apparently its symbolic significance has left its imprint on my psyche. A short king doesn’t have any control over their height. It’s the genetic lottery they were dealt that is completely outside of their control, but they don’t let it affect their self-worth or autonomy. I could imagine the short king as the ego. It can’t control the seeds of thought that arise from the unconscious, but there does seem to be an ability to reflect and make meaning out of what it is given. I know a determinist would say that they don’t get to decide what meaning they make out of it any more than they do the “original” thought, but we could say that the reflection itself feeds back into the unconscious, which then goes on to affect future thoughts from it. My point is that there is a type of exchange happening here between systems that is capable of impacting the future more so than other animals. The more awareness we bring to the things that emerge from the unconscious and the more we reflect on them in conscious awareness, the more aligned we are with our “king”, our truth, our higher self, soul, god, root level of consciousness, whatever you want to call it — and therefore the more autonomy it seems like we have (why this might be will be mentioned later). This isn’t in contradiction with determinism, but my hope is that it paints a more optimistic picture of it for those that find it disconcerting.

This ability to reflect sets us apart from any other creature on earth that we are aware of. It sometimes seems like the determinist argument describes a scenario where we are no different than animals and things just fall down the Plinko board as they will, and the brain tricks itself into having free will for some reason. Being tricked into having free will might very well be the thing that allowed us to have the ability to reflect and therefore shape our future in the first place. The concept of having a self separate from the external world and the feeling of freedom that it has appear to be tightly coupled.

What is it that we are debating has free will?

I would argue that to accept that free will does not exist also requires the acceptance that the concept of self is similarly illusionary. There are a series of memories, traits, and stories we have about ourselves, and we draw a box around those things and call it “me”. But to be aware that there is no more ownership over a thought that arises in your mind than there is over the words on this page as you read them, is to realize that the self is also a pretend thing. If the self doesn’t truly exist, then there is nothing to have free will in the first place. So what is left? The only thing we really know exists is the stream of conscious awareness itself. There is no observer of it, there is only it. But the fact that I am sentient and am capable of having a concept of self that is separate from this non-dual state of awareness indicates that a separation occurred somehow. It seems like there must be some kind of reconciliation here. We as sentient beings are both capable of realizing that we are connected to this root level consciousness that permeates the universe but also capable of experiencing awareness as a self that is separate from it. Why would we evolve to believe such a thing? I don’t think I buy the argument that it is purely for biologically advantageous reasons (it seems this hesitation may soon be validated the way things are going…)

If we revisit the idea of the chain of causal events stemming from the big bang that eventually caused the specific neurons firing in your brain right now, how far back can we go? Something had to start the chain of events. If there was just one single act of free will to cause the chain of events, it would have had to come from something that predates the universe. As stated earlier, the only thing we know exists for sure, is the base level of consciousness that is the substrate the universe is played on. So we know these two things.

1. There is consciousness.

2. Something caused the chain of events that led to where we are today.

It seems natural to speculate that this consciousness is what caused the chain of events that led to where we are today. If there is any candidate for an act of free will, this would be it. Otherwise, none of this would exist. It would have been much more likely that the temperature fluctuations in the universe at the time of the bing bang were low enough that it would have remained in stasis, or high enough to collapse it into a bunch of black holes2. If we recognize that the thoughts that arise in our minds are from the unconscious that either is, or is at least connected to this root level of consciousness that is capable of free will, then are we at some level willfully affecting our future?

I arrive at school, but I’m late. I have a valid excuse for being late, though I can’t remember what it is… I go to the front desk but no one is there. All the other entrances are locked since the school day has started. There is something very important I need to do and there is something I need from a classroom in order to do it. The only room I have access to is the principal’s office. I think the principal’s office should have another door that leads to the rest of the school, so I enter. I find the principal asleep, leaned back in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk.

“Oh shoot,” I grumble. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the office and the words just came out. This is enough to wake him up. He shakes off his slumber surprisingly quickly and sits up in his chair. His blue eyes are alert but kind as they settle on me. He has thin gray hair and a short beard. He’s wearing a green sweater vest that hugs his round belly. “Sorry,” I say, “I was just trying to get into a classroom and thought I could get in through your office.”

“Oh, while you’re here, let me ask you a question.” The principal continues, “I’ve always wanted to go scuba diving and I’ve been researching it. Did you know that—“ I start to have trouble understanding what he is saying or even seeing him. It seems like the room is suddenly alive and constantly shifting and hiding him from me as he talks. I keep moving around the room to try to see and hear him clearly but then a young girl abruptly enters the room.

“They’re selling drinks with caffeine in them!” she exclaims.

“Are they clearly labeled that they have caffeine in them?” the principal asks.

“I don’t know.”

“This is a huge problem. We should go find them and check,” the principal decrees somewhat matter of factly. They exit the office and I follow behind them. I’m not sure why I am following them since this doesn’t have anything to do with me. Then the young girl says,

“Let’s go get my sister first. She can help us.” She leads us to a classroom. I scan the room for anything that looks like it could be what I need for my important task. I don’t see anything that stands out, but the girl’s older teenage sister is there. She joins us as we make our way towards the cafeteria where these caffeinated drinks are being sold. But suddenly the girl’s sister stops and puts her hand to her stomach. She looks ill. The younger girl yells, “Oh no! Don’t throw up, sis!” They rush off to a bathroom. The principal and I continue the quest to find these caffeinated drinks without them.

We arrive in the cafeteria and I see a shelf of bottled drinks. As soon as we finally reach our destination, the principal blurts out,

“Oh shoot! I forgot something in my office.” And then he runs off and leaves me alone in the cafeteria. I approach the bottles. I figure I’ll check if they’re labeled as containing caffeine while I’m here. They’re filled with an opaque brown liquid and have black labels. The branding is very mature with large serif fonts. The branding seems a bit odd considering this is a school for children. I pick up a bottle and a memory returns to me of being back in the principal’s office when the room became alive and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I now notice there are a large pair of hands on top of a filing cabinet near the ceiling. They’re almost as large as I am tall. I know these to be the hands of God. I see them working on something. There is a sharp tool in one hand and it accidentally pricks the other hand.

“Ow!” I hear, and the hands flinched. This was very peculiar to me since I now remember my mission was that I needed to find something from a classroom in order to stab the hands of God.