Not long ago, I came across a story from a young woman. She described an experience that could send shivers down your spine: an accident that should have been fatal, a moment of darkness or confusion, and then, suddenly, finding herself okay, unharmed, but with the unsettling feeling that something subtle had shifted around her. She called it “quantum immortality.” Her account resonated with me so deeply that I felt almost compelled to dust off my own experiences—those times when logic shattered, and I sensed I’d dodged a bullet that had my name on it, not by luck, but by… something else.
What truly happens in those borderline moments? Is it possible that our consciousness, in a way we don’t yet understand, finds an escape route, a way to continue when the physical body hits a dead end? This question has led me down fascinating paths, to dive into ideas that, yes, sound like science fiction, but are increasingly whispered about, shared in corners of the internet, and explored at the very edge of the known.
One of these ideas is that our reality might not be as solid and definitive as we perceive it. What if what we experience is a kind of “construct,” an incredibly detailed flow of information? In this framework, even grand cosmic mysteries like dark matter—that enormous portion of the universe we can’t see or touch, yet whose gravity shapes galaxies—become canvases for speculation. Some dare to imagine it not as exotic particles, but as part of a vast “infrastructure” that sustains and processes the information of our existence.
And this is where things get even stranger because quantum physics itself shows us that, at tiny scales, reality behaves in ways that defy common sense. The famous double-slit experiment teaches us that particles can be particles or waves, and that the simple act of “observing” them seems to force them to “decide.” It’s as if our consciousness, by focusing, plays a role in how reality manifests. Could it be that, on a fundamental level, we are constantly “selecting” or “pruning” our own timeline from a sea of possibilities? And then there’s quantum entanglement: particles that remain instantaneously connected, no matter the distance, as if linked by invisible threads in an underlying web that spans everything.
These aren’t just abstract musings. There are accounts out there, sometimes raw and direct, from people who swear they’ve crossed the threshold not once, but multiple times. I recently read a guy on Reddit who told his story with some rather colorful language, almost tragicomic: “Bro I’m pretty sure I died over 5 times. Every time it happened, shit changed so much. Last time was when I was out of state. I’m pretty sure that lady ran me over with her car, there’s no way I fucking dodged that. Shit is wild af.” Beyond the anecdote, what strikes me is that phrase: “shit changed so much.” It’s a sensation others also report: that of returning to a reality that is almost identical, but with subtle details that have varied, as if you’d landed in a slightly different version of your own life.
And it’s at this point, amidst tales of “jumps” and the feeling of a malleable reality, that an image arises which I’ve found mentioned more than once in connection with these borderline experiences: the vision of a giant “Wheel.” Sometimes described as an immense millstone, other times more abstractly, but the idea of a vast, circular, moving structure seems to be a recurring element for some in those moments of transition or revelation. What could this Wheel mean? Is it a hallucination born of shock, a universal archetype emerging from the unconscious, or perhaps a symbolic representation of something deeper?
For me, this image of “The Wheel” instantly lit a spark, connecting with one of the most potent, enigmatic, and visually stunning visions from ancient texts: the wheels of the prophet Ezekiel, described in the Bible. I remember reading that passage and being awestruck by its strangeness. Ezekiel speaks of wheels that are “like a wheel within a wheel,” with rims “high and awesome, and full of eyes all around.” They move in any direction without needing to turn on an axle, and their movement is intrinsically linked to the “spirit” of celestial living creatures. They are, in essence, a divine, incomprehensible, and majestic mechanism.
Could it be that, faced with the ineffable nature of an experience suggesting the transcendence of death or a “jump” between realities, our minds turn to these profound archetypes to try and give it shape and meaning? Ezekiel’s vision, with its complexity, its omnidirectional movement, and its connection to the divine, seems a perfect candidate to symbolize a transition through different planes of existence or the very mechanics of a multifaceted universe. Perhaps that “Wheel” some people see is a modern, personal interpretation of that same perception of a cosmic machinery operating according to laws we are only just beginning to glimpse.
Returning to the beginning—to that young woman, to my own experiences, to the fragmented accounts one finds… I don’t have definitive answers. Current science, with all its rigor, cannot yet validate quantum immortality nor fully explain the nature of consciousness or these anomalous experiences. But the convergence of these ideas—the most speculative theoretical physics, accumulating personal testimonies, and the echo of ancient symbolisms that seem to describe the indescribable—opens up a fascinating space for reflection.
Perhaps we are witnessing glimpses of a reality far more plastic, participatory, and strange than our everyday lives let on. Maybe those moments when we feel we “died and carried on” are not just glitches in our perception, but brief peeks through the veil, at a much larger mechanism, where a cosmic Wheel, full of eyes and possibilities, keeps on turning.
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