[Early December]

[ghostharasser]

If I had a nickel for every time I've woken up at the end of the month with a full set of memories from another version of me that's just a little to the left


I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, I guess, but it's weird that it's happened twice.

Comments

[ghostharasser]

That's a good point. Whatever the difference is between him and me, I'm definitely me enough to live my own life. Knowing he's kicking around somewhere else won't take that from me.

[leggierissimo]

Exactly.

Have you ever talked to him?

[ghostharasser]

Not face-to-face, really his existence was just a theory of mine that I didn't think I'd ever have confirmed. I guess there's a chance this is all fabricated by the forest, but it felt real enough that I'm willing to believe he might be out there.

He did leave me notes in my journal, though. Kind of like a cross-dimension penpal.

[leggierissimo]

It's hard to say. I personally find it hard to believe there's a me out there that made the choice that my extra memories tell me I made, but who knows? Maybe he was desperate.

I guess it's harder to just pop through the barrier between worlds here. Though, it could just be that no one has been hit with something hard enough.

[ghostharasser]

Maybe! Without literally being them, it's hard to know for sure. Desperation can really make you do some crazy stuff.

Right. So, the theory I kind of have about it is ...if this was the forests doing and none of us actually left, then maybe the forest has some way of viewing these alternate timelines/dimensions and fabricated the memories based on that. Like painting along with a Bob Ross episode.

[leggierissimo]

Oh. I can do that.

1/2

[ghostharasser]

[ghostharasser]

Yeah, you know what? That's less surprising than I expected, given some of the stuff I know you can do.

[leggierissimo]

I knew I could count on you to understand.

Considering what the gods of this world seem to be capable of and how close those things tend to be to my own skill set, I wouldn't put it past him. The fact that your alternate's memories have merged with your own sort of indicates that. I've met one of my alternates face to face, and I don't have his memories of the things that make us different. But, in our situation, it was less meeting our alternate selves and more being our alternate selves. In cases where someone who has been officially dead for a while is returning to the land of the living, they need to have memories of their life still being lived all that time crafted for them and the people around them, and that means taking a peek at parallel universes for inspiration. Ergo, your theory holds a considerable amount of weight.

[ghostharasser]

[This is why its always fun to talk to Josh. They can toss around some of the craziest stuff.]

Exactly, all of that. While it may not be physically that we were swapped out, we were "swapped out" mentally using some kind of reference to versions of us that have a real chance of being real.

So then, the question here is, how much of a Ship of Theseus situation is this? Is it real ENOUGH to say we were swapped out where it matters?

[leggierissimo]

[ Here, Joshua draws a face: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]

It's still called the Ship of Theseus, isn't it? They didn't rename the ship just because it was made from new materials.

Our real selves were masked by those alternate selves for a time. But, when our real selves rose back to the surface, it didn't push away the memories of those alternate selves. I'd say in this case it was less "swapped" and more "suppressed", considering we still hold on to those alternate memories. If it was a true swap, we would have lost those memories when we returned to our true selves.

[ghostharasser]

Yeah, that's a pretty solid theory, I think, because that also falls in line with the situation where I got the first set of Alternate memories. The details of the "swap" were different, but it definitely felt like once I was back, there was a sort of assimilation situation happening.

[Putting it that way actually reminds him of something deeply unpleasant so he thinks maybe they shouldn't dig too far into that statement.]

Anyway, I think the weirdest part of this particular instance was how the Forest managed to completely suppress my entire physiology. Other Me was totally human, so ...where the heck did all my weird squid blood go? It's a mystery that will haunt me.