My last week of college I was spending some late nights working on a paper and studying for finals. As a consequence, I wasn't getting much sleep. One morning, mid-week, I was walking across campus to my student job. The most direct route from my apartment to my job took me across several gravel parking lots, one of which was mostly empty. I recall taking one step to an unassuming space on the ground when it hit me.
I knew everything.
Not just the contents of all the encyclopedias in the world or all the events of recorded history - I knew the sum total of all collective consciousness of every sentient being in the universe.
The position of every partial of matter and every wave of energy.
The secrets to the very fabric of reality and the infinite dimensions that make it up.
One step later and it was all gone.
Needless to say, I nearly fell over. I was very shaken by the experience. To go from ordinary human knowledge to almost deity-like awareness and then back again was overwhelming.
On automatic I kept walking and eventually made it to work. I didn't need any caffeine to keep me going, the shock of knowledge was enough to counteract the sleepiness of my late nights.
Granted, I'm pretty sure it was a sleep-deprived hallucination, but it was still damn odd. And very vivid.
The next day, still sleep deprived, I walked to work again and crossed that same parking lot. Although I try to convince myself it was the same space, I'm certain it was only near where I had been the day before.
Then it happened again - incredible knowledge. But this time it was only partial. It was like all knowledge was a sphere and a huge chunk had been carved out of it. I still possessed all those 'types' of knowledge, but it was incomplete - I knew more than any one human has ever known, but not the entire package.
One step later and that was gone too.
I turned in my paper and took my last final later that day. A good night's sleep and it hasn't happened again.
But, I sometimes wonder.
What it I hadn't kept walking? What if I'd stopped right at that spot? Could I have held onto that knowledge for more than the moment? What would it have done to me?
The parking lot is now the construction site for a parking deck and a new building. Once it's done I think I might actually be able to reconstruct my route to work through that structure and maybe even find the spot again.
Since that time I've learned about something called the "akashic record"
Did I somehow ....nah. It was just a situation of college student in need of sleep.
Unless...
