A Dark Universe – Perry Lake

I write horror stories.  I’ve written book series about Count Dracula, the monster of Frankenstein, the ghouls Hugo and Edgar, and I have plans for quite a few more tales of the macabre.  Many of the stories awaiting publication are ghost stories.  As each of these series is based on one or more famous monster, it should be obvious that I have an interest in the classic literature of horror.

You might be surprised to know that I also have an interest in physics.  For me, horror and physics are tightly intertwined.  After all, which is scarier, a ghost floating around a cemetery or the inevitable collapse of all existence?  At least the ghost story holds out the promise of survival.

Of late, I’ve been looking deeply into physics, partly as material for future stories, but also because the subject itself interests me.  After all, physics speaks to where we came from and where we are going.  And, I believe, it speaks of what lies beyond.

The material universe is the universe that we commonly see and experience.  It consists of time/space, energy, electromagnetism, gravity, and mass. This material universe came into existence more than 13 billion years ago in an event known as the big bang. This universe is finite, both spatially and temporally.  According to the best predictions, the material universe will eventually fade out and disappear in approximately 100 billion years.

Thus everything that has existed and everything that has been accomplished will cease to exist.  Nothing that has been achieved will survive.

As human beings are a part of the material universe, we cannot surpass the universe.  We too are finite.  When the universe dies, we die—if not long before.  Ultimately, our physical bodies, indeed, even the very protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up all the atoms in the universe will some day collapse. We leave nothing behind, not even a memory.  We’re done. Thank you and goodnight.

Or are we done?

Cutting-edge physics is now telling us something different.  The big bang theory, while not refuted, is also not the complete story.  The earlier steady state model of the universe, while clearly out-of-date, has been somewhat revived.

Cutting-edge physics—as well as ancient Egyptian and Hindu metaphysics—now tell us that the true universe has always existed and always will exist.  The material universe is only one of many fluctuations that have occurred within the dark universe.  The material universe is coexistent within the dark universe—it’s just smaller.  Even without a material universe, the dark universe has always existed.  And it has always contained dark energy and possibly dark matter.  We only call these things “dark” only because they are hidden from our sight in the material universe.

Dark energy is everywhere in the true universe, including the material universe.  Curiously, as space expands, each cubic centimeter of space contains the same amount of dark energy.  It is everywhere.

Dark energy, being part of the dark universe in which it exists, shares its properties—it is infinite and immortal. We do not need to look for dark energy in outer space or the laboratory.  It is within us.  It has always been within us.

Yes, some day our physical bodies, even our atoms will fade into nothingness.  But the dark energy that is a part of every object and every living creature in the universe will continue to exist forever, long after we physically die and long after the material universe has faded from existence.

Some small portion of what we are now will survive.

This is not what could be; this is what must be.

I cannot prove, incontrovertibly, that the surviving dark energy that remains of us constitutes a soul, a spirit, or a consciousness.  I cannot prove that the dark consciousness isreincarnated into new, material bodies. But neither can anyone on Earth can disprove it.  For me, that qualifies as a reasonable hopethat some aspect of human consciousness survives.

The opposite idea, the idea that when our bodies die, we simply wink out of existence . . .  That’s just too horrific for me.

Recommended Articles:

Ghosts & Ghouls: Ghouls Amongst Us, Book 1 – a Review

Michael Bray – From Fiction to Reality: A Year Spent With a Paranormal Investigation Team

LC Champlin – Truth is Stranger Than Fiction: Using History and Real-Life Events in Fiction