Updated March 12, 2008. Additional theory about what could be going on with memories relating to alternate lives, added to the end of the piece…
[ December 30, 2007 Note: Recently I was re-watching a downloaded episode of “Stargate SG-1” from season 3, called “Point of View,” original air date July 30, 1999 which deals with….parallel timelines/realities and alternate universes. It’s a repeating theme on the show actually, with several other episodes revolving around that concept. The world of SG-1 is clearly not the only way in which reality could have worked out for the characters, or for the people of Earth…and various episodes show the other possibilities that are out there. Very cool! But that particular episode basically says what I say here, almost word for word even. But the thing is, I don’t own a TV, and never watched this series until a year ago, during the winter of 2006-2007 when my boyfriend downloaded them from the ‘net and we began watching them on our computer. So, I swear I didn’t copy this from an SG-1 episode. ! The first time I ever pondered parallel timelines was when I was 17, in California, back in ’92, which I get into later on in this write up. Then again when I was 23-34….interestingly enough, somewhere between ’98 and ’99, roughly around the time when that SG-1 episode originally aired. But I purposely didn’t own a TV back then either, and so definitely had never watched it. In fact, I didn’t even hear of this series until 2001. I know what triggered me at 17 to ponder all of this, but I can’t recall anymore why I was thinking about it at 23. I just remember lying on the bed in a blank state, staring at the wall, pondering what I talk about here. It came from somewhere though, but where though, I don’t know. And it’s not from quantum physics books ;) as I never read any of those and didn’t encounter the term until 2001 as well. But I felt it was important to note this, as I don’t want people thinking I’m just copying some sci-fi TV show. So, with that said……….]
For every choice you make in life, there exists the choice you didn’t make, or the road not taken. But you actually did take it — on what’s known as another timeline. Do I quit my job? Or do I stay? Do I move here, or do I move there?…Or not move at all? Do I hook up with so-and-so? Or stay single?…Or choose him/her over there instead? Each and every choice creates a fork in the road, down to whether you chose to wear one shirt to work or another. Some timelines are so closely identical with such insignificant divergences that they pretty much blend together. Others are based on choices that are so vastly polarizing and far reaching that it’s a complete branching, and formulates a new version of yourself you could almost say. On some level, you wind up living out all the possible choices available to you in any given situation. But since you can’t be in two places at the same time — or ten million places, or more — you experience each individual timeline as if it’s the only one. To experience them all simultaneously is too much for the human mind to handle.
The future with all its possibilities has already played itself out. It’s not “out there” in some far off future that hasn’t happened. It’s already happened. There is no time, and the past, present and future is happening simultaneously. If it wasn’t, then psychic people or those in a trance state wouldn’t be able to connect with people who are currently alive “in the past”, and people with intuitive abilities wouldn’t be able to glimpse future events via visions and premonition dreams. I figured this one out when I was about 17. I’d had several instances of glimpsing something before it happened, seeing it verbatim, down to the littlest detail, as if I had had peeked through a window into the future. Then the event would play itself out exactly as I’d seen. It occurred to me that in order for me to see something before it happens means….that it must have already happened.
So what does this say about the nature of free will, destiny, fate and how much power we have over our own lives? If events have already played themselves out then are we just going through life as a puppet that just thinks they are sovereign??? When we hop in our car and drive to the store, or pick up the phone to call a friend, or head to the beach on a whim because it’s a sunny day, are we really in control? What if you glimpsed an upcoming event, however mundane, via a vision, then you find yourself several hours later in the middle of it and everything is going down exactly as you foresaw….can you now change and alter what you do, what you say, and how the scenario goes in general?
Absolutely! Why? Because there is no one set future. There are multiple probable realities, all of which have played themselves out. When you have a premonition about a future event, you’re seeing the most likely outcome, based on if things keep going the way they’re currently going. That’s all. But it doesn’t mean it can’t be changed.
When you make a choice to either go along with reality as you foresaw it or take a different path, you’re selecting one of those realities and bringing it into the spotlight so to speak, and making it the highlighted reality. So to some extent we’re not exactly a puppet with no control over what we’re doing. We do have some leeway with our freewill. You could go to the store. Or you could stay home. You can quit your job, or you can keep going. You could pick up the phone and call your friend or go read a book instead. It’s up to you. All those possibilities have already played themselves out. It’s just a matter of which one you decide to choose and highlight and bring into the spotlight.
If you have the gift, and you’re able, you can tap into those other timelines and visit yourself, glimpsing how you turned out in other realities, where you made other choices and decisions. I’ve done it, accidentally, and it’s always been an interesting experience.
In my own life, my parents created a major, MAJOR “timeline divergence” when they decided to leave New York and move to Massachusetts. In retrospect it made no sense to do that. They were experiencing “marital issues” and I’m not sure whose idea it was to just up and completely leave the state they called home and completely start over in another state that neither had ever been to. But nevertheless, that’s what they did. So when I was two months old we moved to Westfield, Massachusetts. Both of my parents were born and raised in New York City, (my dad in Manhattan, my mom in Brooklyn) and both grew up in the city, and then later in small communities about an hour north of the city. Both their parental sets were born and raised in New York City. All their family resided in either New York City or in those small communities around the city. They were New Yorkers through and through, complete with the accents and the lingo / slang, attitude and food preferences.
But now. . . they were in Massachusetts. And later moved on to Connecticut. Then later to California, just my mom, brother and myself, after the divorce.
Does it mean though that there ceased to be an existence for them in New York? No. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. There was a timeline divergence, and one part of themselves lived out the choice where they remained in New York, while this other aspect of themselves went off to create a new world in Massachusetts, Connecticut and beyond. In fact, there is the timeline where my dad went through with becoming a New York City police officer. In this timeline he passed the test and was accepted, but changed his mind…then wound up leaving New York altogether. In the other he followed through, and I’m the daughter of a New York cop.
I had no understanding of this nature of reality growing up in Connecticut, yet was inexplicably connected to New York City. Partly what triggered it was a class trip to NYC in 6th grade, which I’ll always be thankful for, and also the fact that I had a couple of operations at the age of 12 and 13 that took place at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. The operations required pre and post op visits, along with the actual operations themselves, so provided a few opportunities for NYC visits that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. So those things provided the opportunity, but what was most telling was my reaction to NYC….to say I was “excited’ to be there is an absolute understatement. I had such butterflies in my stomach, such sheer giddy joy that’s indescribable, of which my 6th grade classmates didn’t seem to feel, and which my parents found amusing. It was the best place I’d ever been. On the 6th grade class trip we visited the World Trade Center. I took pictures looking up at the building and also from the rooftop. It was the most exciting thing I’d ever done. . . and I also immediately was struck with the idea of the buildings falling over. I didn’t envision them going down Las Vegas Hotel TNT style the way they actually did on 9/11, (due to being imploded from within…but I digress….) but I was struck with the idea of them falling over. I became obsessed (on a small scale) with the WTC’s each and every visit, collecting up postcards that had their image, and taking pics of them. What’s interesting is that I visited the Sears Tower while on a road trip in 1995 and felt nothing about it…and technically it was a taller structure, with an even better view, being that it’s on Lake Michigan. So it wasn’t the size of the buildings that affected me, it was something specific about the WTCs that I was tapping into.
On my last visit to NYC in 1994 I hung out the back of my dad’s car and took what would be my last picture of the WTCs, running obsessive thought loops in my mind about them falling over the entire time. Buildings of that size…going down??? The thought of how that would be on the ground as that happened….totally scary. Unimaginable. But I could feel it. Remember, the past, present and future is happening simultaneously.
There are so many telling things I could mention which show that parallel timeline link I’ve always had to NYC. Instead of getting into them all, I’ll just relay how, at the age of 26, while emailing with a friend named Julie and discussing places I’d like to move to, she suggested NYC. I’d never mentioned anything about New York to her…in fact, I don’t think she even knew I was born in New York….yet there she was, telling me I should move to NYC. Curious and “tipped off” to something weird happening I asked her why she thought NYC. Her response? “I don’t know. I just feel like you belong there.”
Julie had latent psychic skillz that would pop up from time to time. This was one of those times. She felt I “belonged” in NYC. Me, who had never mentioned New York even once. Now THAT was interesting!
And I have my one “memory.” It happened around this same period, when I was 26, and out of the blue I had a flash glimpse of myself entering a pizza parlor in what felt to me like Brooklyn. It was pretty vivid, and seemed to be live time. Like I temporarily jumped into another body, and was seeing / feeling everything in that one moment in time. It was night time, and I walked through the front doors, to the fluorescent lit pizza lit joint. It was tiny. More like a place where you pick up your pizza and take it with you, rather than eating it there. I can see the stainless steel counter tops, and most importantly, the two guys who worked there. The black haired Sicilian looking guy at the front counter, and the shorter, dark blond guy behind the counter making the pizzas. Both wore these white apron things. They both recognized me and I in turn knew them. There was pleasant mellow recognition. I could feel that I was a regular there.
It was just a moment in time. Nothing special. Just walking into my favorite pizza joint in what felt possibly like Brooklyn. If not, then it was Manhattan. I really REALLY dug that flash though, it meant a lot to me to spontaneously experience that from a completely different life in California. I also had to chuckle because of the fact that in this timeline, I’m always in pursuit of New York style pizza. And cannolis. Nothing else compares.
I get into all of this to illustrate the connections that can occur between two vastly different timelines. My family had a divergence when I was two months old, but the connection to NYC never ended. And I will say this: My connection to New York feels more real to me than this life ever did. This one has ALWAYS felt like a surreal dream…and for many years growing up in Connecticut, a surreal nightmare. It’s also interesting to note that my younger brother spent so much time trying to get to New York City. He was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Connecticut, California, then back to Connecticut. Yet there he was — always trying to get to NYC. At fourteen he ran away, with the goal of getting to NYC. Didn’t pan out. Then in highschool he was stealing cars with his friends and using them to take trips into NYC. Brooklyn, and New Rochelle. Trying to get back, is probably more like it. Even he felt it. Just like Julie felt that I “belonged” in NYC, he also felt that he belonged there. And as a consequence, he was always trying to leave “here” to get back “over there.”
The kicker is, I’m sure my New York self feels it’s the only self. It can’t even imagine that there’s “another me” out there, who turned out so different…and yet, still very similar in many ways. I’m sure she’s heard stories from Dad, occasionally mentioning that “You know, me and your mother considered leaving New York when you were a baby. We almost did, we were going to go to Massachusetts, but we didn’t. You could’ve been raised in Massachusetts. Think about that one…” And I do…and it’s a wild idea. ! And to be honest, I CAN’T imagine it. It’s too different. So I put it aside and go on my way. And New York is all I know.
So why the split then?? In this timeline my family totally fell apart, and many “negative” things happened. So WHY then? WHY would this timeline, which makes absolutely no sense when you think about it, be created in the first place? Why didn’t my parents just stay in New York where they belonged, where all of their family was, where they grew up?
Apparently there were lessons that could be gleaned “over here” that just couldn’t be gleaned “over there.” As negative as the MA — CT timeline was, it led to a set of life circumstances that probably was able to teach me more than my NY timeline ever could. But both timelines were equally valid though. And so both were allowed to happen. A branching occurred. A “side” timeline forked off which would allow for those experiences that couldn’t otherwise have happened. Kind of like getting two lives for the price of one. But that’s how it works, for everybody. More so if you’re somebody who moves around a lot and shuffles their life around on a frequent basis.
The more you move around in life and the less stagnant you are, then the more timelines you create for yourself. I do wonder about this actually — Nowadays, people move around more so than ever before in recent history. Job hopping, moving from place to place, relationship hopping, we live in a very mobile society, with more opportunity and choices than ever before — what effects does this have on the timelines we create for ourselves? ! It has to be pretty interesting. Things may even start to get a little “tangled.” I have a “me” that is still in New York, as well as the me right here right now in Virginia. But there’s also the me who stayed in Southern California. A me who moved up to the Bay area. A me who stayed in Portland Oregon. A me who’s still in south Florida. A me in Massachusetts. A me in Connecticut. And quite a few others beyond that. And quite a few me’s who’ve already died. I have “me’s” all over the country, quite literally, because that’s how much I’ve moved around in life. And having had more jobs in life than my age (31) that only adds to the confusion.
When one is split so many times in this way, does it have an effect on how “real” your life feels? Can this contribute to reality feeling dream-like and surreal? I know that’s how my life feels — is this one possible reason why?
What about the idea of crossing paths with the same person/people on different timelines, in different states? When and if you do, will you feel like you already know them? Will there be an instant connection? If you branch yourself off onto a new timeline, pulling you away from meeting somebody that you would’ve met on that timeline, will reality find a way to get you to cross paths anyway? That’s something interesting worth investigating I think. Look at the people in your life, (family aside) who’ve been meaningful to you. Looking back over your lives, are there any places/people/jobs/schools, etc. that you have in common? Some way where it’s plausible that you would have run into each other “over there” as well? In this highly mobile and connected society we live in, the chances are greatly increased that some of the people we connect with are people we may know in a parallel timeline, under revised circumstances.
If you’re somebody who believes in reincarnation, but reincarnation doesn’t seem to explain some of the quirks for why you’re drawn to certain places, or why you may feel connected to certain people that you meet, then parallel timelines is very useful explanation to consider. To me, it actually has more validity than reincarnation. I can see more personal proof for it, although I still do believe in reincarnation. I’ve always had this connection to NYC…but I don’t necessarily feel like I had a “past life” there or something…my connection isn’t to a New York in the distant past…it’s right now, in this time period, running concurrent with my own life. And as already illustrated, I have my own situation involving a clear “fork in the road” branching moment occurring with my family leaving New York when I was a baby. So for me, I tend to think this is the major explanation for what’s happening here.
Realizing the concept of parallel timelines and connecting to your alternate selves is like moving to a whole new level in the game. Reality doubles in size and suddenly becomes a much more interesting place to be. ! Especially if you thought you had it all figured out…only to find out that you didn’t even know the half of it, and the fun has only just begun. ;)
New Add On
Several months ago I was watching a video on YouTube of black urban girls and women doing double dutch jump rope in Central Park, NYC. According to the vid explanation these girls would do their jump roping thing during the summer in the Park in front of the spectator crowds. And in watching the vid I just felt mesmerized…getting the entire “feel” of the scene and wishing to be there. I could see myself as one of the spectators walking through the Park in the warm late afternoons and early evenings, the sound of the city all around, the people, the entire vibe of it all. It’s home to me on some other level. And being here in Virginia is just so horrendously…. wrong when I’m connected up to that other life, wherever/whatever it is. To the point where I can’t even believe I’m living here in this vague mundanity when I “should” be “over there.” So once again, I felt completely thrown for a loop with regards to my inexplicable connection to NYC, a place I’ve never lived, only visited. This feeling/connection was so strong in fact I went to lie down on my bed and try to meditate on it all. I knew without question there was a me who is there. I wanted to connect to that me, get some answers. And it was apparently working too, because I felt myself slipping into a trance state, in the beginning throws of connecting up to something….and right then my cat bursts into the room, doing her little squeaky meows, (her “trilling”) and decides to get up on the bed with me, having to be around me, right at that moment. So much for that. ;) I pet her and slipped out of the trance, and was never able to regain the moment again, even after she left about 15 minutes later. So close to seeing something and getting some answers……but something obviously didn’t want me to “go there.” ;) oh well.
So this led to a fascinating discussion about it all later on with my boyfriend, who for those who don’t know, runs a website on all things metaphysical and “matrix” related, as well as alternative science and some conspiracy. So if you’re going to be discussing “What in the frickity frack is going ON with this whole deal?!?” then he’s one of the best to do that with. The summary of what we brainstormed for over an hour, a conversation that gave me waves of chills, was the idea of over writing a previous timeline. Not a timeline splitting off, but rather, the higher self going back and rewriting it completely with a new version, to change the outcome of events. There was slightly more to it than that, but that’s the gist that I’m willing to talk about here. And suddenly the pieces fell into place. SO many random pieces of various aspects of my life that separately made no sense….but which all came together with this theory. That connection to NYC, the alternate self I’ve felt and glimpsed and who my friend Julie back in Cali even picked up on was most likely the original life that I had during the “first go around.” This reality just very well may be the overwritten version of a previous version. And it’s why it’s never felt fully real or right to me, and why I don’t belong. Total fish out of water, flopping around, lost. I probably had a whole life that I lived out “over there,” a very real life that I loved, which I’ve glimpsed in flashes and in dreams and in strange intuitive feelings, but it’s been over written and plowed under, and no, I don’t like it. !! There’s such a strong desire to be “over there” during those times when I feel connected up to it, yet at the same time I know that I couldn’t “get it back” and recapture it were I to just say, up and move to NYC tomorrow. It wouldn’t be the same version I feel connected up to. So it would have to be under the same context of the original version. Even a very psychic friend of mine didn’t deny that there was a NYC me out there. When I broached the subject about two years ago she prodded me to try to connect up to it, in particular, to see how my brother Joe turned out “over there” versus over here. I knew her enough to know that she wasn’t humoring me and trying to be supportive of some strange idea I had, but that she knew it to be true and was able to “see” it as well. At the time I wasn’t up for doing something like that, the entire thing scared me. I’ve gotten much braver since then, as evidenced by the attempt at trying to connect to it all during a recent trance meditation state, foiled by my kitty. ;)
Hypderdimensional manipulation. Time loops. Rewriting. Playing with reality and space time. But especially timeloops. In my “Deja Vus” section I talked about at least one so-called deja vu that was actually a timeloop memory. So if mini timeloops can happen, then what’s to say that all of one’s personal reality isn’t one giant “going back and over writing the old version” timeloop? Mini timeloops within bigger timeloops. I still believe in the concept of probable time lines that branch apart according to life choices, since I’ve witnessed this, but there’s more to the puzzle here. That’s only one part of it.
For those who aren’t even remotely familiar with these concepts, this is going to sound absolutely insane. And that’s okay. I’m not writing this for them. I’m putting this out there for the few who do know what I’m talking about…..
© 2006-2008
Carissa Conti