One time, when I was tripping on a psychedelic, I unlocked a memory that is kinda like that but without the big lead in. It must have been a dream that was weird enough for my brain to record it but without any kind of reference point that probably would have never been recalled without the drugs.
But the memory was of hanging out with my friend at his old place and he wanted me to check out this David Blaine video (though it was the parody David Blaine that was messing with those two gay guys with the Cheez-its).
He’s doing some illusion that was cool on its own, but then it escapes the video frame and I realize this is something different, he’s not fucking with the people in the video, he’s fucking with the people watching the video. “Woah,” I say, and my friend replies with a knowing “yeah.”
Then it escapes the screen I’m watching it on and I can’t tell where the video ends and reality begins and then it hits me: my reality itself was just a part of this illusion (which has by then taken over my entire field of view). “Woah!” I say again with more emphasis. The “yeah” my friend replied with was dripping with finality. Then the memory just ends.
I didn’t know what to make of it when it came back to me. Or maybe it was made up in that moment. But even the memory alone was profound enough that I obsessed with it for a while. Reality can be weird in dreams but that’s the only time I can recall it actually breaking in a dream. The way his dream ended reminded me of that.
Though I have experienced something like that while awake. It was a salvia trip, actually with that same friend. Though in that one, our reality was folded into a single plane (like 2d surface) in a layer of planes that looked like a shelf of drawers made up of primary colours and basic shapes. Instant ego loss on that trip, too, so I had no points of reference. Then a voice (maybe my mom, maybe just a general idea of a mother figure) said it was time to go back, I said ok, and I became aware of the couch and room I had been sitting on and in the whole time.
Now I’m curious what would actually happen if a planet’s species dedicated themselves to making it happen, build a pyramid up to a geosynchronous orbit so you could theoretically throw something (or jump) and it’ll end up in a higher orbit.
The physics wouldn’t work, of course, but I’m curious exactly how things would go wrong and if there were engineering solutions available to get to the next big thing.
Like one thing is how tall can you get before the base encircles the planet (where trying to add more layers just makes the planet bigger and requires bringing in outside material, which means your geosync orbit gets farther).
Though as you add layers, the surface area increases, so your “pyramid” is actually getting wider as it gets taller, at least at the base.
Or if you can get really high without encircling the planet, how high can you go before affecting the centre of gravity? Could a large enough pyramid give the planet a wobble? Cause flooding on the near side and sea level drops on the far side? How high can you build a solid pyramid before the pressure of it all makes the lowest bricks get melty? Would it even matter or does the rest of the weight just hold it all in place? Or would a sufficiently large pyramid just explode because the sides would give out?
Assuming you had a perfectly strong material that could handle it, is it possible to build a tower to a geosynchronous orbit or will it keep moving away as you add mass to the tower? Would such a tower float in place if you kept building it out past that point and then detached it from the ground?