I have spent the past couple of days talking about my upcoming book The Revisionists as well as looking back at my novel The Man From Taured. Both of these books deal with the idea of a multiverse. What's a multiverse? It's the concept that time and space may exist on many parallel levels and there may be alternate realities or dimensions.
You've likely seen this concept in many books, comic books, stories and movies. Heck, just watching the Arrowverse shows you know there's an Earth 1, 2, 3, and on and on. However, this concept his not entirely ridiculous and there are actual scientists out there who study and consider the concept of multiple dimensions. The last paper written and published by Stephen Hawking looked at the multiverse.
If you want to look in more detail about alternate realities and dimensions, you should really check out this article where actual scientific people explain it in much more scientific terms than I can.
There are a few concepts of the multiverse such as:
Parallel dimensions - this is the concept you may have heard discussed in the first season of True Detective when Matthew McConaughey's character talked about time being a "flat circle." This idea, in the easiest terms I can understand and try to convey, is that time extends outward in a big, flat, wide circle infinitely. This means there are potentially infinite numbers of realities and time and space creates the same universes over and over again. Thus, there's another you, the person across from you, the guy next to you and your wife, kids, etc.
Alternate realities - this is the idea there may be other dimensions all around us. Perhaps they just vibrate at different frequencies, but maybe there's a way to manipulate those frequencies to see into or venture into those alternate dimensions. These alternate dimensions may not be just like our's. They may be close, but different. Perhaps there are ghosts, demons, aliens, cryptids and other phenomenon we would call supernatural. Perhaps, just perhaps, there are times when these beings can slip through weak spots in their dimension and end up in our own.
Alternate realities based on our decisions - this is a great idea for fiction, but the concept came about in the thought exercise known as Schrodinger's Cat. The concept is each and every decision we make determines our reality, but it also creates and alternate reality where the other decision is made. Those other dimensions continue to exist and continue to branch out. Thus, each of us is surrounded by a seemingly infinite number of alternate realities.
The Man From Taured
The urban legend says a man walked into an airport once. He looked normal. He had a passport and said he was from a country called Taured. When the customs people were baffled, they took him aside and asked him to point to his country on a map. He pointed to an area which, in our dimension, was part of Spain. He had no clue why Taured was not there as, in his world, it was an ancient country which had been around for centuries. Then, suddenly, he vanished.
I fell in love with this concept and decided exploring this was worth a full novel. However, I felt the story of the man himself was just the start. Exploring the multiverse was the real story. What if the man himself was an accident, brought into our dimension because someone else was tinkering with the multiverse.
The Revisionists
This concept toys with the idea of there being multiple versions of our current reality. If you turned left and fell into a hole and broke your leg, there might be a reality where you turned right and had a great day. If you had the technology to do so, would you change that day? Would you find the alternate reality where you had a great day, didn't break your leg, and made a multi-billion dollar deal instead? If you did, what would happen to the people who were involved in helping you set your leg, recover from your injury. Maybe you met a nurse with whom you fell in love and married, but now you never do meet her?
What if the technology existed to actually create the Mandela Effect? What if the strange things, the false memories people have about non-existent Sinbad genie movies, different Ford and Volkswagen logos, or children's books were because someone was experimenting with those alterations right now? How far could they go and what damage would it do to the future? Now, what if a man who was mentally unstable had this technology?
A belief system
For me, the idea of alternate realities is far more interesting and encouraging than anything religion spouts. Then again, what would heaven, hell or limbo be if not an alternate dimension? Perhaps the thing which keeps us here is our bodies and the fact our mind limits what we can see. When we die, all of the energy which comprises our body might be free and could perhaps float freely from one reality, one dimension, to the other?
I have no proof of this. No one does. It's all theory, but so is religion. So is the idea of god, the devil, demons or ghosts. I just know our perceptions are limited in our current state. If we could get rid of our limitations maybe we'd be free...or maybe we'd go insane.
Pre-order The Revisionists at Amazon. You can buy the Kindle edition for just 99 cents. The book will be released March 19, 2019.