unreality bites

unreality bites

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unreality bites
unreality bites
In two minds

In two minds

Block universe theory, 'exaggerated self-consciousness' ... & me.

Ellen Burney's avatar
Ellen Burney
Mar 22, 2023
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unreality bites
unreality bites
In two minds
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Just once, I saw my body asleep from above. A few seconds, then awake. Where had I been? Everyday my body is restrictive. Carrying my mind, sewn into my head. Locked in. I can’t understand this. At night it mingles with other minds. No personal space, just travelling through time and curling up next to others. I have dreams about souls being forever.


When I’m not a health and beauty writer, I write science for a New York foresight consultancy. I’m a very good science writer apparently, making complex subjects more digestible with words that feel easy on the eye. Today, I’ve been stringing together abiogenesis and technosignatures. Last night, watching Fleishman Is in Trouble, I was taken by The Block Universe theory.

‘It’s this idea that, like, all of life is happening at the same time,’ Toby Fleishman tells his son. ‘Like, all points of existence are, I don’t know, occurring simultaneously. So it means that like, your past and present and future, are all happening, like all at once.’

Another wild idea is that I made up my psychosis in 2013. I interviewed a designer over breakfast the week after my hospital visit and filed my copy to Vogue. You must be stupid to believe her, someone said, when she’s writing for X, blah and Z. You possibly think that too.

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