The Myth of Michaelphus

While traveling one wintery evening across the highlands of western Pennsylvania, I asked Michael what he had learned in school that day. Seemingly ignoring the question, he started to describe the wondrous sight of a snowflake caught on your mitten during recess. Renée wisely explained, "You know, Michael, no two snowflakes are alike. Despite their size, each is unique." Michael lifted his right hand to his nodding head, paused for a second, and said, "Well, when you think about it, no any two things are alike."

It was at this moment that our visual modality started to disintegrate. What had appeared to be a car started dissolving into individual parts—no, not parts, not even particles—I can't describe it, but each was unique. I could see our epidermal layers break into individual cells, which dissolved into protein molecules, then atoms and quarks, bosons, leptons and strange charms. I spotted a Higgs…briefly. Similarly, concepts such as gravity, Coulomb's law, and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle disappeared. Even the mathematics faded away. There remained nothing but individual essence (and existence, of course) and each was unique. And yet the universe was still there, intact, and functioning. We were still driving along a sparsely populated, well constructed road.

So, it wasn't just the modality of the visual. All modality disappeared. Substantive, conceptual, temporal. Why? I can only guess that Michael's statement simultaneously triggered something in our brains that allowed us to drop all learned forms and relationships, and let us 'see' the universe as simple essence rather than all the patterns we have learned since birth. We were able to experience the innate essence of existence and that overpowered all of our learned sensations.

You may think it was an inspirational or even a so-called religious experience, but, for me, it was just the opposite. It was horrifying. Perhaps that is how the divine perceive the universe, but it also is how a brainless, heartless particle perceives it. I was the first to yank out of the vision. Perhaps my more familiarity with our world made the non modal one more terrifying for me. I much prefer struggling to feebly understand the universe than to experience its essence.

Renée seemed to be having fun with the experience, toying with bits of the universe. Yet ultimately she found little with which to relate, and returned to the 'real' world. Michael stayed the longest. He worried me a bit as he had the least amount of time in the world we are born into. He seemed to be contemplating the experience, but this was not true as there was no thinking during the vision. We were brainless. But he did seem to be soaking it up.

Finally, he matter-of-factly came back. "That was weird," is all he said.
"You're weird," said Renée who was already organizing an alphabet game.
"Are you all right?" I later asked Michael.
"Yeah, …but I miss my mom and dad."