While I had been told in my childhood by parents and some other 'elders' that there were 'worlds' overlaying and intertwining with 'ours', I had never came across to or observed any other with my own senses, even in imagination.
When I asked my father if he had observed any he claimed he hadn't, yet seemed full of confidence that these worlds existed. And, so how did he come about this assertion and confidence, was the next logical question which I put across to him. He claimed someone he'd forgotten told him, possibly one of his parents.
Then and there, I rested my case with him. I put same questions to my mother. She was taken aback, momentarily by the forthrightness of my bearing and simplicity of my words. Soon, she regained her motherly stance and expressions, replying that my father told her. She looked rather religiously innocent the way she spoke her defense of the matter she understood little of, obviously.
Well, end of story. End of intriguing searches, if fetal. What can a young mind do when faced with the brick wall erected by his parents? Brick wall of pure fancy devoid of understanding that cannot be further prodded with doubtful, clean mind. There wasn't any option than for the impressive, but highly doubtful and inquisitive in this case, mind to quit, if for the time being.
But, growing up and reading, I ran across writers who claimed that 'our' universe is actually embedded and part of several universes. They claimed there were beings and life activities more or less like what we experienced in our universe, in these other universes. They claimed further that these other universes were overlaying and intertwining with the known physical universe that we humans have reality of.
As for me, I hadn't observed any such convolution of universes. Unknown to me then, I could have written the writers, and asked the same questions I put across to my parents. But for some reasons, I didn't. I presumed they hadn't seen anything themselves. Knowing writers for their over exuberant imaginations, one can't put any outlandish creations beyond the depths of their creative faculties to enliven such fantasy.
I had no idea I was going to become a writer of outlandish, over exuberant imaginations myself. Possibly, it's a sort of punishment as I couldn't find any vocation that really makes me happy. Oh, I had several areas of life that I was an expert, in my own rights. But being really happy? Well, happiness, for me, lies in the arms of writing, imagination and facts driven, both.
Furthering my desire to know for a certain that none had observed this fantasy, I asked a few people whom I could share such wild words with without being taken as stupid or insane. Well, I wasn't taken as stupid (really) and insane (actually), but I received deafening and prolonged laughter harboring derision, ridicule and unbelievable-ness. This was the payment for my curiosity and desire to cage the shadowy turmoil that crept surreptitiously, attempting to gain access to the surface of my consciousness. If the shadowy turmoil that surged in the darkest, most silent and coldest recesses of my mind were to erupt loose to the surface, goodness knew what would become of the relationship between me and sanity.
Was I blind to what was taken as true or believable to my parents and the writers I had the fortune or misfortune to have read their works? Was I not calm, able, sensible or sensitive enough as those people who burdened my fancy with such unreal, unfathomable phenomena? Was I just being childish? Was I being a sucker for the fabulous and incredible, like most every child? Was I merely stupid to tend toward the likelihood of truth or factuality of the assertion that what wasn't obvious has reality?
Finally, I settled the trouble myself. It was one ordinary non-fabulous and non-incredible day, a day not unlike the ones previous to it or the ones which had passed after it. I just finished reading another fabulous book. And, as I stared into the nothingness of the space of my mind, without seeking for anything in specific, I dismissed all the non-provable, unreal, unlearneable and unteacheable wisdoms, truths, phenomena et al. as nonexistent and therefore not to be bothered with. I felt an instant relief. I felt like a man with three days old constipation who just discharged the terrific load from his bowel. I could have said I felt like a pregnant woman who just birthed a baby, but I lack any familiarity or feeling as to how these wondrously wonderful women feel. But, the constipated man, I had proof of my personal reality of.
This was over 10 years. I had gained the understanding of some knowable, real, actual and teachable truths, facts and phenomena. I had become able, certainly more than earlier, to separate the chaffs of knowledge et al. from the seeds and fruits. I had overcome childish, hesitant steps in clarifying my own thoughts and those of others. I could perceive some of what were not visible to the senses of most people. There exist truths, facts, phenomena et al. that are not readily real and visible to the senses of most people.
In my looking and learning, I ran across a discovery as to the sole reason for the inability of some people to be in possession of some obvious things that sat across their faces like a nose, and things that hang on their chests like the hunchback's front hump and so on. That discovery was this: fixed ideas made people unable to perceive that which they should that some others perceive. We could also term this strangely familiar phenomenon fixed belief, as well. A fixed idea or belief is an idea or belief that was there in the world around them, but was only perceived as recorded in their minds, as told to them by others. Most people don't look at the world directly. They looked at the world through the recordings in their minds.
This works as follows. A car was driven by a person. This person "looks" at the car, using the sense organs of his body. These sense organs feed the mind with the recordings in the environment. This man, then, had to consult the recordings in his mind to know that a white colored, Toyota RAV4 SUV, driven by a young woman who wore red dress and sunglasses drove by at a certain street, in a certain city, at a certain time, et al.
The trouble with this mode of perceiving is that the mind may confuse the image being recorded with some other image which may be similar or not, and offered this wrong image as what was 'seen'. The mind of a normal person, mind you, has a negative, evil brother. This evil brother always stores crazy, confused, painful and threatening images, real or imagined. And, this confusion is a primary reason for disagreements and arguments among people.
Primarily as a child grows, and subsequently into adulthood, his or her recordings are made by the words and actions of parents, teachers, media, government, friends, religious preachers and so on. These entities beat the ideas or beliefs of how the world is, how things are, how people are, how to behave or not, what will happen (usually a monstrous evil, excruciating painful, and awful endings) into the minds of the young (in body, at 'heart' and in mind; of poor learning and experience). Therefore, these young (in body, at 'heart' and in mind) people depended these recorded painful and dreadful incidents, lessons and warnings to 'see' and experience the world.
When one tells someone who is of the ilk of the young (in body, at 'heart' and in mind) that something sits across their face and it is a nose, they will look lost. Why do they look lost? They look lost because they have to look into their minds to see what you refer to. And then, it may come as a shock to you that they see a hand, rather than a nose which you see and pointed out, sitting across their face. A great example is the idea that there are 'black' or 'white' people in the world. Did you know that most people actually see actual 'black' and 'white' people, in pure perceptive fact? They lost the lesson, when told, that color-coding of humans was a political, racial and supremacists agenda of ancient period, mostly to plunder material resources and human assets without let.
Well, I was in this category, too. I am still in this category, on some subjects. It is a humanity-wide agonizing trauma, with foggy knowledge of, unsuspected and finely destructive. This crazy manner of thinking (yes, that's what we call it) had been and is still is the bane of humanity, and an architect of some of the malaises and misfortunes that befall us, as a singular race.
Some of the malaises and misfortunes that befall us, me, could be the reason why I couldn't perceive what my parents and some writers believed were right there: other worlds, beings and life activities overlaying and intertwined with the one I see. Oftentimes, just to add this; I doubted I actually was seeing the world around me. Probably or mostly, like most others, I was looking into my mind to perceive (see, smell, taste, touch, feel, hear et al.) those things I know (maybe an assumption) to be there.
Being curious is an art, like miniature painting art. It can soonest become an addiction, like pot or heroin. Once one learns the art of curiosity, one may not get an escape route out of it. Oh, we need to understand that one doesn't really learn the art of curiosity; it is natively intuitive to every human. What I meant by 'learn' is 'get used to'. I became engrossed with this art. It always delivers a return on the efforts, time and other resources invested. The returns might not be desirable, expected or wanted, but sure a return was imminent.
It was this art of curiosity, married to the escalation and intensification of the ability to actually perceive, learn, comprehend, and query everything, which caught me, as fishing net would, into the most incredibly impossible phenomena that I hereby induce myself to reveal.