The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the gorgeous nougaty center of CERN, ramped up to record speeds starting July 5th. And while there is an awful lot of words coming out from CERN headquarters like “proton beams,” “electronvolts,” and “femtobarns,” a lot of people have been speculating that the whole thing is just one big game of “how big can we make a black hole.”
According to a number of concerned users on TikTok (and around the interwebs), this is all a part of a giant conspiracy to rip open doorways to different dimensions. It’s not a new idea, for sure, but it’s becoming much more likely as CERN rams 13.6 trillion electronvolts through the LHC over the next four years.
This got us thinking: instead of imagining the worst case scenario (lizard men, very angry Greys, aggressive space squids), what if we took a moment to imagine the BEST dimensions that our space-time crowbar can break into?
6 Alternate Realities We Wish that CERN Would Open Up, Already
- The One Where Animals Talk
How many times have you sat with your dog, looking into his adorable face, and just wondered what the heck he was thinking about? Don’t lie. You know it’s more than one. Granted, the odds of most dogs having a constant stream of food- and toy-related babble is likely. Still, what about all those other cool animals who probably are smarter than us? Considering that they know how to run away, throw dead fish at people, and (apparently) wave at people they like, I bet they have a lot of very important things to say about how much humans suck.
2. The One Where We’ve Invented Time Travel
Are you into hoverboards, flying cards, and rigging betting pools because you have an awesome sports almanac? This is the alternate reality for you. Well, it really depends on your understanding of the space-time continuum and whether you believe that the current timeline can be altered or if you necessitate opening up a new dimension every time you change the past…But, we digress. The bottom line is that is would be super cool to move through time, even if you believe (like we do), that you wouldn’t be able to alter the past. Of course, it might not be 100% comfortable. Seeing the Beatles play live? Totally worth a bad case of the Time Bends.
3. The One Where Everything is Made Out of Candy
Imagine a place where clouds are made of cotton candy, rain is made out of Sprite, and the grass is made of Sour Patch Straws. You drive your Donut Car to work which runs on high fructose corn syrup and emits the smell of caramel. It snows ice cream and you swim in rivers of soda. The best part? You don’t have teeth and your body is unable to digest sucrose, so you never get fat. Also, you’re so, so high.
4. The One Where Money Doesn’t Exist
Money is just really awful, so in this version of reality we’ve decided to stop messing with it altogether. In its place? A lot of bartering, universal income, and everything smells like patchouli. Did aliens bring that? Nah. Just our hippie overlords. They’re militantly chill, y’all. But it’s cool because everyone has food and a place to sleep. Okay, so every once in a while a creature from beneath the earth harvests us for meat. But also, no taxes. #winning
5. The One Where Fictional Characters Live
This is the dimension where Harry Potter and Gandalf are in a crappy synth band together, the Scarlet Witch has a cooking show, and Mary Poppins runs a small preschool in upstate New York. This is where they all just hang out, being normal people, and not really knowing that in other dimensions, they are kind of big deals. This dimension is controlled by a joint strike force that includes a number of trademarked superheroes, every Morgan Freeman character ever, and Perry the Platypus.
6. The One Where People Are Just Nice
As hard as it may be to believe, there is actually a dimension where everyone just likes being nice to each other. There is a lot of door holding, grocery buying, and active listening. People give each other the benefit of the doubt and don’t take other peoples’ attitudes and actions personally. There is not just kindness, but an inability to become offended. Because everyone realizes that 1) everyone is walking their own path that can’t really be compared to their own and 2) people are really just trying their best to find happiness, security, and love. The secret is, of course, it doesn’t take a Large Hadron Collider to open the door to this universe. It just takes someone like you doing something a little bit kind right now.
Go out, there and start smashing atoms with your heart. Who knows? You may be the key to opening up the best dimension yet.
Willow Dawn Becker is an author, voice personality, marketing maven, and entrepreneur. She co-founded Weird Little Worlds Press in 2020 despite a raging pandemic and huge personal losses. Her work can be found at Black Fox Literary Magazine and Space and Time Magazine. She lives in Utah with her family and pug-huahua, Indiana Bones.
