My Idiosyncratic Obsession With Parallel Universes

Here’s What’s Coming Up For Me

There are days when I like to close my eyes and step sideways through a doorway no one else can see.

Suddenly, I’m not here in this ordinary timeline—I’m taller, leaner, bursting through pro basketball arenas in a body that stretches to 6’8”, dunking in ways that defy the gravity of my actual years.

Or I’m sipping a cortado in a leafy plaza in Barcelona, fluent in Catalan, living a chic, urbane existence I never claimed, my windows flung open to the sea and the scent of saffron rice.

I live many lives, even if they don’t show up on my LinkedIn profile.

At 61, you start to collect a museum of “What Ifs.” Not regrets—at least not always—but glimmers. Vestiges. Sometimes I wonder if these glimmers aren’t just mental curiosities but actual lived experiences in alternate dimensions of consciousness, curled like scrolls in the folds of my soul.

Noted psychologist Carl Jung would say my strange dreams—like the one I had recently, where I was both a street magician and a professor of dream archeology—aren’t merely hallucinations, but doorways. He called it the collective unconscious—a vast underground river that runs through all of us.

Perhaps these dreams, visions, and alternate selves are real in the sense that they’re emotionally and spiritually embodied. Maybe I’ve actually been them, or maybe I’m still becoming them.

Zhuangzi, the ancient Taoist sage, famously dreamt he was a butterfly. When he awoke, he didn’t know whether he was Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.

That story has always fluttered inside me like a riddle with no answer and infinite meaning. Zhuangzi teaches that identity is fluid, not fixed—that we are in a state of constant transformation. The self is not a statue but a river. So maybe when I slip into these parallel versions of myself, I’m not escaping—I’m flowing. I’m extending. I’m living, just differently.

The I Ching, which has been a spiritual GPS for me on many occasions, speaks to this fluidity through its hexagrams—changing lines, ever shifting. Life, it says, is in motion. Nothing is fixed.

There is a hexagram called Meng (Hexagram 4), often translated as “Youthful Folly,” which reminds us that we are all seekers, all children fumbling toward wisdom. Playing out our alternate selves—whether in a dream, in a fantasy, in a virtual world, or in wistful wondering—is a sacred part of that seeking.

It’s not foolish to imagine; it’s human. It’s divine, even. The I Ching also tells us to integrate—not reject—these selves. These are archetypal energies that want expression. To ignore them is to live half a life.

In integrating these alternate versions, I don’t deny the one sitting here writing this. Rather, I bring them into the fold. The NBA baller teaches me about confidence and the joy of movement. The Barcelona version reminds me to seek beauty and embrace sensual pleasure. And the me that dreamed of being a butterfly like Zhuangzi? He reminds me not to take any of this too seriously.

Maybe this is what it means to be whole, namely, to recognize that we are not just one self but many. That we can play in parallel universes not as a means of running away, but as a way of remembering more fully who we are. There is wisdom in the wondering. And joy in the becoming.

So tonight, when I lay my head on the pillow, I’ll welcome the dream. I’ll see where it takes me. I might find myself at half court, shooting threes at the buzzer. Or barefoot on a rooftop in Spain, dancing. Or I might log in and slip into something online and embrace the digital wild. Whatever comes, I’ll meet it with gratitude, knowing that somewhere—maybe everywhere—it’s all me.

And in the morning, I’ll pour my tea, smile at the mirror, and whisper, welcome back, traveler.

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