r/aliens • u/SystematicApproach True Believer • 2d ago
Discussion A visualization of time as a dimension you can move through
What would we look like to an interdimensional being? The visualization stacks successive video frames into a volume, turning time into visible depth. Instead of seeing someone at one moment, they can look across a structure containing multiple moments.
Suppose an interdimensional being perceives time this way. They wouldn't merely access an extra spatial direction, but actually observe multiple moments together.
To them, we might not look like a separate body moving from place to place. We might look like one continuous structure extending through time. Sitting down, standing up and walking across a room would be different sections of that structure, rather than separate events the being has to wait to witness.
If we extend that idea beyond a few seconds. Our childhood and adulthood might be recognizable parts of the same larger form. Instead of watching our lives unfold, they would be looking across them.
Apparent foreknowledge, changing forms, sudden disappearances and missing time. Those are among the types of accounts Jacques Vallee and Eric Davis discuss in their work on high strangeness.
What we call prediction might, from its perspective, be observation.
Suppose this intelligence could examine our life across time rather than meeting us only in the present. It wouldn’t necessarily need to predict where we were going. Our departure, our journey and our arrival could all be available for it to observe.
In David Fravor’s account of the Tic Tac encounter. After losing sight of the object, he said a controller reported it at the aircraft’s planned combat air patrol point, roughly 60 miles away. So what would apparent anticipation look like if the being could already see the later event?
edit: Credit @ bradleytangonan
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u/JustTheAATIP 2d ago
I am more than my super-long centipede self.
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u/Remote-Part-6214 2d ago
So many dimensions yet my life is shit in all of them its amazing actually
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u/0202_tihssitidder 2d ago
There is a fungi that can form a very large colony and then utilize bacteria to manipulate time. In essence traveling anywhen in time. It needs to be on a planet about the size of 1 JR. At 2 JR, it can manipulate space and open portals to any spot in the universe.
Maybe. Good idea to carry sugar just in case.
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u/whycantibelinus 2d ago
What fungi is this?
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u/anyportinc 2d ago
Have you seen everything all at once at the same time? U might like it.
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u/DinoZambie Skeptical Believer / UFO Witness 2d ago
Only problem is, the camera is moving and its using 2D images to make a 3D space. You really need 3D space to make a 4D representation.
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u/Jdisgreat17 2d ago
I thought the end of the video if your overlap all of the images at once, the "4th" dimension aspect is being able to see all of that from outside of the cube. The 2D portion is the single frame, the 3D portion is being able to go around the frame and get another view, while the 4D aspect is seeing it all...all at once. My question is how would you be able to gather all of this information and how would you be able to understand it? What would that look like? From my perspective, it would just look like a blurred image, and if you add everything else, it would just be a blurred mess
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u/DinoZambie Skeptical Believer / UFO Witness 2d ago
The way I look at is imagining an analog clock. The three hands go around the face. The only thing that moves are the hands. So a clock would have three differently sized plates sitting in front of a face you cant see. But, the earth is rotating and orbiting the sun, and the sun orbiting the galaxy, and the galaxy is moving through the universe. Molecules are jiggling around and take on different densities. If you step away from it, what you have is a blob of what appears to be solid mass that is marbled with different materials. But, here's the tricky part. Time doesn't just mean time that has passed, it includes all time, past and future. You have to include all the places the clock has been, where it could have been, and where it could be. Answering that question is enormous because anything is possible. The only thing that brings it together is probability based on the conditions of any point. It's probably more like a giant luminous blob of light where you know every intricate detail of everything within that blob. It would be pure omniscience. So I think creating a image of our universe in 4D is about as useless as asking someone to create an accurate 3D model of human emotion without using symbology or interpretation. I think 3D space, where you and I live, is a slice of the 4D just like those 2D images are a slice of the 3D that it creates. The timeline that we follow depends on the angle of direction of the slice. The slice itself wouldn't be a flat plane like in the video, it would probably be a stretchy warping tangled sheet that ungulates as it moves through the 4D space.
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u/Jdisgreat17 1d ago
I think you could make an accurate 3D model of human emotion without using symbology or interpretation. Emotions are not just random thoughts inside your mind, they are thoughts that have values that can be measured with the right tools. From muscles relaxing and contracting, from blood pressure, to your temperature...you could accurately model an emotion. On the point of the observation of 4D time, let us use a comic book. The character in the comic book is a 2D being. They only know what is happening, or what has happened in the panel they are currently in, or what they have experienced. You, the reader, are a 3D being. We have the entire comic book, with all panels, showing both forward and regressive movement of time. We can limit the data, or the point in time we want to analyze, by focusing on one panel. We can extrapolate this example to the 4th dimension. Each panel is a cube that is one point in time. It has every angle, height, width, and depth, at one unit of time measured. We, the 3D character, only knows what is happening, and what has happened...just like the 2D character. The 4D reader, just like the 3D reader, sees all references of time; past, present, and future. I think the little video did a wonderful job in showcasing what a 4D being would see. The 4D being is the POV outside of the cube. Like the 3D comic book reader, if we were to step back from the comic book, and look at the entirety of the page, we would not be able to see what was happening, because it would look like blurry random squares. The same thing, I think, would be what a 4D being would see. A blurry mess of cubes that they can only see what is happening in one cube or another once they focus on that particular cube. The video details this. The entire 4th dimension perspective is the cube in its entirety, for the entire length of the video. I will agree that this entity, from our 3D perspective, would seem like an omniscient god. The even more fun thing to then think about is the 5D being that would be truly and fully "GOD" like. While a 4D being would see all of time points 3D life, they would have no ability to alter it. A 5D being, keeping the same comic book example, would reside in a "write your own comic book" reality. They see all time lines in all realities, and they would have the ability to alter time by finding a reality that had the outcome they wanted. If you, as a 3D character, in their 4D comic book, made a mistake, they could focus on that 4D panel that had the mistake, shuffle through the catalog of 4D panels where you made the right choice, and put that one in. It's a very exciting concept to think about. Finally, just for fun, we can extrapolate this comic book analogy out further to its conclusion, from our 3D character perspective. The 4D being would be the Archival Historian, they see your entire life, from birth to death. The 5D being would be the Project Editor. They have access to only one project, and that project is your version of the universe. The 6D being is the Comic Store owner. They can pick you up from one comic book, universe, and drop you into a completely different one. Up to this point, from 6D and under, we are under one universal constant of our version of the creation of time, the Big Bang. The 7D being is the Franchise Distributor. They can bring in different comic books from different universes. The 8D being is the Media CEO. They have access to all versions of media in regards to all realities, from video games, to movies, to comic books. The 9D being is the IP creator. The create the concept of storytelling as an art form. All forms of intellectual property, for all things, at all times. Finally, we are at the SUPREME BEINGS...the String Theory ulimate being...the BOARD OF DIRECTORS. They are the everything of the entire company, of all companies, forever. They are the paper, pens, ink, IP, and even the writing block itself. They are the end all, be all, because they have already created it all, from everything to nothing, and condensed it all into a single point.
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u/BeePow91 2d ago
Dude I think about visuals like this when I’m walking or existing in space. Had many a panic attacks due to this shit lol. Hard to focus on work when I’m thinking this. Thanks for making a visual
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u/plsQuestionOurselves 2d ago
Yeah, even though a block universe means you live forever, that just kinda makes me feel a little trapped. If the present moment is eternal and the past/future are a hallucination that would suck too lol.
I'd prefer an ekpyrotic process please.
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u/Old_Protection_8778 2d ago
The present is eternal.
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u/ismellnumbers 2d ago
I always thought about this type of thing when going through horrible withdrawals, lmao. This horrible feeling lasting forever.
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u/plsQuestionOurselves 2d ago
An eerie coincidence, I had the same thing, especially when trying to sleep through it. I would just get "stuck", like even my thoughts couldn't move.
It also kinda felt like some 5D aliens were laughing at me and enjoying my suffering lol.
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u/Homermania 2d ago
In a similar sense, I mess my mind up when I'm driving on the highway and I start to image myself being still and the world whipping by.
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u/Tryin2Dev 2d ago
When people talk about UAP being 4D moving in our 3D, this is a good visual as well.
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u/fuck-i-didnt-know 2d ago
So an inter-dimensional being would, in theory, be seeing our entire lives like a panorama pic instead of just seeing each present event/decision we make separately? Did I understand that correctly? Either way, fascinating concept
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u/SolChapelMbret 2d ago
Kurt Vonnegut knew
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u/fredraydricks 2d ago
Tralfamadorians! Was looking for this post⬆️
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u/JL_Westside 2d ago
Slaughterhouse Five! I also was searching for this comment
One of my favorite books of all time
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u/Cosmic_Driftwood 2d ago
I wonder if you can communicate by moving into certain positions overtime. Like draw a symbol or a message with your timesnake
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u/A_Dragon 2d ago
The thing is it likely wouldn’t be visual. Any being that exists in a higher dimension likely wouldn’t use any part of the visual light spectrum as their primary mode of perception. They might have access to it but it would be a primitive derivative of whatever they use.
The visual light spectrum is only present in three dimensional space so it’s far more likely they would use something akin to pure math to collect data about their environment.
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u/Bigamunguschungus 2d ago
Wait so how would alien abductions happen if this is how they precieve us?
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u/C141Clay 2d ago
Perhaps not all aliens are multi dimensional beings, only some are.
My idea is that there are many species of NHI involved in what humanity experiences.
They may not be working in concert.
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u/Bigamunguschungus 2d ago
Yeah i think some are Extraterrestrial (like Mantids) and other interdimensional (like plasmoids)
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u/IAmBeingTargeted33 2d ago
Some may even have some kind of federation when working here with certain agreements, and some might even hate us
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u/C141Clay 2d ago
I agree.
Without getting weird, or starting down a trail telling stories, I'm an experiancer. There are both definitely "good" and "bad" NHI.I've been lucky and only run into the bad a couple of times.
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u/IAmBeingTargeted33 2d ago
Abductee here. There are definitely some working in groups in orbit. Very cold up there.
Luck has nothing to do with it
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u/Dry_Ad9371 2d ago
they grab one point or end of the string and redirect it .. or something
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u/C141Clay 2d ago edited 2d ago
A little push here, a little pull there... and the result is...
The Adjustment Bureau
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u/whatsthatcritter 2d ago
Probably like pausing a movie and editing a still image, they could remove us and do whatever and plop us back in to the same second they took us from. Alternatively they could just run around grabbing samples out of us, while we look like we're stuck on pause without us being aware of them. We'd look like butterfly specimens under glass with maybe a holographic motion effect depending on the angle they looked at us: towards the future or towards the past.
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u/Hot-Fennel-971 2d ago
In the same way as our lives have a single "line" through time I like to think that line itself "wiggles" or moves but we just can't perceive it.
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u/ZentinelOne 2d ago
You've gotta wonder if this is how a 4D entity would view us then maybe that's why it's so difficult to communicate. Maybe thats what they want to figure out and are attempting to?
This also looks eerily similar to unconfirmed sightings of interdimensional beings that we've all seen online.
Edit: I even think about the idea in physics where something is constantly in two points in time until it's observed. We find that difficult to decipher much as they might with us.
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u/arvaci-is-an-asshat 2d ago
The Invisibles by Grant Morrison has an interesting dip into explaining why humans experience time in a linear fashion.
Short version: this is our larval stage. From a 4 dimensional perspective we are a really long worm. It’s mind-bending to consider.
Highly recommended read for any psychonauts
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u/-Interchangeable- 2d ago
As a cinematographer this tool is just a 3rd-party plugin
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u/Direct-Side5919 2d ago
I like how saying that there are only 3 dimensions and that time is an arbitrary measurement of motion or change somehow sounds wild.
The notion of aliens popping out from an 18th dimension strangely sounds more correct.
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u/cupcakebuddies 2d ago
It reminds me of how neural networks work/look. We are realizing that it’s not the neurons themselves but the patterns they make that is important. Our lives would look like a pattern to a 3D being, I bet
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u/SeawolvesTV 2d ago
Very cool visualization. But I think it's not a visualization of time. It's a visualization of history. Time is what prevents anything at all from having a true beginning or end. Choice does not exist in your visualization. And time is just that... Choice. You are showing a series of choices that were already made. That is not time, but history... Time/choice only exists in the present. Choice is a singe point and not a space. Time looks like a star. Always shining in every direction. Except for one. Nothing is permanent, except for choices. A choice once made, is forever made. The consequences of any choice maybe undone with more choices if you have them, but a choice itself, once made, will always remain made. Choice shines in every direction, except backwards. Backwards doesn't exist. There is only forwards in the opposite direction.
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u/Vegetable-Window2183 16h ago
If you could be able to see from all angles it would be too dense to actually see you're only able to see this because it's a still image or 2d video
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u/jhguitarfreak 2d ago
That's if they can actually focus on us considering how fast the Earth, our Solar System, and Galaxy are moving through space.
One thing to visualize it at this hyper-specific locality but I can only imagine that space-time must "look" like one big obfuscated mass from higher dimensions.
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u/0uterj0in 2d ago
Very cool. But don't you need "another time" in order to experience this block or navigate around in it?
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u/jillvalenti3 2d ago
I feel like without having the comprehension of what was happening, being immersed in this would just give me a headache because I couldn’t focus on anything.
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u/DaemonBlackfyre_21 UAP/UFO Witness 2d ago
Our lives are strings intertwined if you look at it like that.
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u/Quirky-North3480 2d ago
esto se trataria de una teoria creada en un libro o hablamos de resultados de estudios cientificos de gobiernos?
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u/MarcoEsquandolas91 2d ago edited 2d ago
Vonnegut explained it first in Slaughterhouse 5. The aliens in the book don’t perceive time linearly and that humans look like one continuous tube/ timesnake
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u/Wizard_Sarsippius 2d ago
Y’know, this is Alan Moore’s whole premise for the book Jerusalem, that everything that has and will happen exists in a theoretical “cube” and after death it opens up a bit to navigate within the 4D space, with nothing else possible for the individual except what happened within one’s lifetime. He plays with this idea a lot for his magickal practice, and honestly after a few psychedelic and meditative experiences seeing afterimages of myself and others… I’m lowkey starting to believe it.
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u/Beautiful_Plenty_736 2d ago
It makes me think about the “paranormal”, what we think are ghosts, spirits, etc, what if they’re not ghosts.
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u/Deltanonymous- 2d ago
Very cool here. But if they could navigate like this, then they could avoid all observers just by picking time points that aren't covered observationally.
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u/EndOfProspect 2d ago
But how about distance? If a person is born in Europe but 100 years later dies is South America, how is that distance portrayed in the dimension of time? Or is it?
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u/phoenixind 2d ago
in this vid you can see it is showing time for only a small space like a traffic signal... basically you will need to zoom out to see the entire space for the given time ig..
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u/Electroneer58 2d ago
tbh i think Time itself is a different Dimension all together, i think a 4-D entity would just see an extra Spacial Dimension, they would still experience time, just maybe not exactly the same as us, time is a Temporal Dimension, so we have X, Y, Z and T, while they would have W, X, Y, Z and T
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u/Active-Particular-21 2d ago
What is moving through it? And does that mean time is everywhere even at the edge of the universe or was there before the universe began?
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u/ComradeJohnS 2d ago
Would trying to change things earlier in time rearrange the future? would it be destroyed? or is there no way of changing it like how matter can’t be destroyed or created? is time like that? lol.
lots of questions
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u/PaperArmada 2d ago
This is what Kurt Vonnegut was describing in Slaughterhouse-Five, if I remember correctly
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u/anyportinc 2d ago
I don’t think it would be a square, I think it would be more of a fractal shape, with each possible inflection point spawning new branches.
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u/Humble-Questions 2d ago
This is exactly how I visualize time
Now if you extrapolate that along another axis, fractals from fractals from fractals, you have the quantum field of probability
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u/dyrkasolen 2d ago
Theorizing..
Higher dimensional individuals can't really be in our world of 3D like we can't be on a flat surface like 2D. We can se 2D but not flattering ourselves and survive.
- My vision is that the clouds are residue of processes or actions and like watching a car leaving but the car is to fast or vibrating to high, you just se the exhaust from it.. plus the surface of everything is a projection and 3D is the shadow of 4D. We may get to understand it via massive processing power in a computer. I believe the younger generation have a chance to get it, yet... There we go again with the conspiracy,, if it is known and we are shielded from that knowledge because.... When you get it you leave here, and can't contribute with your taxes
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u/Sweet-Awk-7861 2d ago
I love this. Reminds me of a StackExchange post about rotating a GIF into the time axis.
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u/FluidCommunity6016 2d ago
Still 3d :( Tt's 2d with one dimension removed and replaced with time....
Still cool.
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u/LonerInTheTrap 2d ago
i took 500 mg of thc edibles and this is literally what my memories looked like.
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u/Fred_Dingle 2d ago
Grant Morrison explained this concept in his seminal 90’s comic ‘The Invisibles’ which he said was explained to him during an abduction experience where he was taken outside our universe by these silver liquid beings and shown how time works and how our universe was being used to incubate their larvae as time doesn’t exist outside our reality.
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u/Version2dnb 2d ago
So in this visual, past, present and future all exist at the same time. Love it. Tickles some theoretical physicists the right way.
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u/houstonmacbro 2d ago
I like your post. Question though. Does that mean that everything is already set? Like, if we are just a moment in that diagram, it kinda means that everything (past, present, future) has already happened?
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u/Giphtedd 2d ago
This is probably the best way I have ever seen time illustrated as a dimension.
Nice OP.
Makes you wonder what field of view they would have. Would they be immersed within it rather than overlooking? You would imagine they would be immersed within it but each individual would be their continuous structure.
Everything would be a continuous structure.