The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we CAN imagine
- J.B.S. Haldane
Intriguing anomalies are everywhere. If you keep your eyes open, you can notice them every day. Synchronicities, events that seem to defy explanation, dreams that come true - these are a few of the little (or sometimes not so little) events that remind us there is more to reality than we understand.
A few days ago during a meditation
circle, we noticed an interesting little mystery. The circle was led by a friend of mine, a
psychologist who also teaches meditation, mindfulness, etc. Prior to the start of the circle, she had a background music CD playing. Then, during the meditation itself, she played a guided imagery recording of a lake with a sunset, waves on the shore, etc. - with trance music in the background. She began the meditation by ringing a
small pair of finger bells before starting the CD. At that point, she set them down on the table, started the CD and
we began the meditation.
After a few minutes the guided imagery was concluded and she turned off the CD. I found the moment to be one of unusually deep meditation, but soon it was time to
come back to the physical world. We heard the "ding" of the bell once again as our eyes opened. Everything was
great except there was one little mystery - she wasn't holding the bells. They were still sitting on the table, motionless and silent.
Curious, we checked a number of possibilities. The CD player was indeed off. I don't think anyone else had their cell
phones on, or had ring tones that sounded like these particular bells (I do have a
meditation timer on my cell phone with a chime that sounds somewhat similar, but not identical). Furthermore, the second dinging sound definitely came from the same location as the first. So it remains an open question - where did the bell sound come from? Who rang the bell?
I love
these little anomalies - not quite miracles, not quite magic, not quite explainable within our rational understanding of the world. Yet they happen. To me, they suggest that there is simply more to the fabric of reality than we understand.
Some time ago, when I was interviewing an experiencer (I will call her Sarah), she told me the story of when she and a friend/coworker (whom I will call Nancy) were staying in a hotel during a business trip. The hotel was reputed to be haunted and the "extra resident" had a reputation of being protective of female guests. But he was also a bit of a prankster.
While Sarah was in the shower, her roommate stepped out to take care of some errands. A few moments later, as Sarah was stepping out of the shower, she heard movement just outside the bathroom door. She assumed Nancy had returned, and said something through the bathroom door. There was no response. A short time afterward, when she emerged from the bathroom, she found no one else present. For a moment, she assumed Nancy had simply stopped back to pick up something she had forgotten. But then she noticed the door - the chain lock had been set.
A few moments of thought will clarify that this is truly an anomaly. While no one else was present, and Sarah was in the shower, Nancy had left. Yet one cannot lock a chain lock from the outside. It can only be locked from the inside. So - who locked the chain lock?
Other anomalies abound, and I suspect many of us have our own stories. As I interview experiencers and their families, I often ask if they have had any other unusual events in their lives, or their family history. I am often rewarded with accounts of fascinating synchronicities, precognitions, or other anomalies. In The Cosmic Bridge, I talk about some of these reality anomalies and include a story of how "Evelyn," during the return stages of one abduction event, watched the UFO depart from in front of her home. She distinctly recalled the window being open slightly as she watched the object rise out of sight. Yet, when I looked at the window, I found it did not open or close. It was a solid pane of glass.
What do events like these tell us about the reality we live in? Assuming there is not some as-yet-overlooked explanation short of the extraordinary, they suggest our world has aspects to it that somehow defy logical explanation. Who rang the bell in our meditation circle? Was there some reality overlay in which the bell was both rung and not rung? Was there some interaction between the physical and metaphysical world that allowed a dream-like event (or sound) to occur? What allowed a window to be both opened and fixed shut, or a chain lock to be both put into place and not put into place?
In the theories of Carl Jung, there is a continuity between the purely physical and the purely mental world - what he called a psychoidal reality. In quantum physics, when a measurement occurs a choice is made between different possible quantum states. Thus one or another potential path through space-time is chosen while others are not. The paths not chosen are known as the counterfactuals.
In the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics, when a choice is made, the universe actually divides into separate and distinct timelines, one in which the particular choice is made and other worlds we do not perceive in which a different choice occurred. And thus we can ask, could there be some interaction between these worlds? Could some form of meta-reality still be connecting the possible universes? These all suggest deeper, intriguing layers to the fabric of reality.
Little mysteries are one of the truly fun aspects of anomaly research. Beyond dealing with the sometimes-frightening accounts of alien abduction and their attendant post-traumatic effects, I find it both fascinating and pleasant to notice these little anomalies. They stretch and tear at our reality. They prompt us to question our standard (post)Newtonian view of the world and our belief in rational cause and effect. They make us ask whether there is more to our universe than we do (or even can) understand - and they force us to ask ultimate questions like....
"Who rang the bell?"
