Can you picture an afterlife, or “heaven”, as a higher dimension? Let’s allow ourselves to explore this idea using science and logic.
“We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.“
—Tool (“Parabola“)
It’s true. And as I write this, just for fun, I’m listening to this masterpiece on loop. 10/10 recommended. Our reality is, in many ways, a very sophisticated illusion. Here’s what I mean:
1. Your Brain is Lying To You.
Did you know there is more to reality that meets the eye (and other sensory organs)? Electromagnetic fields, faint/high sounds, gravitational fluctuations, colors we can’t see…
It’s not that our brain is “evil” and doesn’t want to let us perceive the cool stuff—it’s just that it would take too much power to run them with our feeble 3D bodies. And ultimately, they aren’t necessary for survival or to preserve our sense of identity.
So, we evolved to filter out non-essential data. But that doesn’t mean we’re incapable of more!
2. We Perceive Life From the Third Dimension. But There is So Much More.
Our perception of reality is incredibly limiting.
Our physical senses are tuned to the three spatial dimensions—height, width, and depth. While we can move freely through space, and we can even “time travel” (though only forward in time), we don’t have access to all time.
If we could view reality from the 4D perspective, we’d essentially be able to view all time, all at once. So while this is of course impossible to perceive with our limited software, we know the 4D, or spacetime, exists.
Understanding 4D (or trying to) is what has allowed us to develop GPS, study black holes and gravitational waves, predict the behavior of particles, and much more.
3. You’re Literally Hallucinating As You Read This.
Did you know you have a relatively large blind spot? It’s where your optic nerve exits the retina. Because this spot has zero photoreceptors, it actually can’t detect light at all.
But your mind makes sure you NEVER notice this.
It simply fills in the missing information for you. Like Photoshop, it uses the colors, textures, and patterns nearby to guess what is there. And like Photoshop, it does a damn good job!
Your reality isn’t what you see—it’s what your brain thinks you should see.
4. Observation Alters Reality.
This one seems metaphysical. But it’s not. It’s observable, repeatable, and as real as it gets.
If you’ve never heard of the double-split experiment, it essentially proves that observation—yes, the mere act of observing—collapses a wave function, effectively altering reality.
Here’s how it goes:
- Scientists fire photons or electrons at a barrier with two vertical slits. On the other side of the slits is a screen that records where each particle hit.
- Particles should theoretically behave like little bullets—either go through the left slit or the right slit and form two bands on the screen.
- However, when no one is observing which slit the particle goes through, the particles act like waves—they go through both slits at once, interfering with themselves and creating a wave pattern (resembling a bar code).
- And when the scientists record the process, the wave pattern disappears. The particles collapse into behaving like particles again—no wave interference.
If you’ve ever heard of Simulation Theory, this is as close as science has gotten to proving it. By the way, this freaked even Einstein out.
“God does not play dice with the universe.”
—Albert Einstein
5. Time Is NOT What You Think It Is.
Time, as we experience it, is a story our brain tells us.
It’s stitched together from memories and expectations—past and future.
But in physics, time isn’t fixed. It bends, slows, speeds up… and from certain perspectives, it doesn’t “flow” at all.
The future already exists. The past never left. So if time as we know it is an illusion—where does that leave death?
How can it exist in a universe where everything is happening at once?
6. Your Emotions Shape Your Perception.
Did you know your mood affects the way you perceive the world around you?
Our brain has this system called “salience”, which is how it decides what’s important enough to notice.
That’s why when you’re anxious, you see threats everywhere around you.
When you’re in love, the world seems softer and brighter. When you’re upset, everything seems darker, moves slower.
Your mood can also alter memory and how you interpret past events.
Some memories are qualified as positive, if you were in a good mood when you experienced them. And if you’re in a different state of mind when recalling them, you could even reinterpret them as negative.
Emotion isn’t separate from logic—it informs it in a very real way.
Reality is not something we see as it is.
It’s something we feel first—then justify with logic.
7. We Aren’t Actually “Alive”.
It’s true. There’s no actual line between “alive” and “dead”.
We have an interpretation of it. If someone is not growing, metabolizing, or undergoing cellular organization, they’re considered “dead”. But in truth, we’re all just stardust. (Not to sound bleak.)
Atoms have no awareness. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen? They’re all non-living particles.
Viruses, for instance, don’t metabolize or reproduce on their own, but they have genetic material and can evolve. So are they dead or alive?
Could AI evolve and become “conscious”? Possibly. Would that make them “alive”? Most probably wouldn’t think so.
If there’s no clear line between life and non-life, and if “life” is just organization and awareness…
Then maybe “death” isn’t the end.
Maybe it’s just a rearrangement of the pattern.
How Does this Prove the Existence of Heaven?
Simple—it doesn’t. It simply proves that strange doesn’t mean illogical. And that the scientific method, a construct of our unreliable minds, may not be the answer to all of the questions we have about our perceived reality.
So when I say that our consciousness—the very tool that has allowed us to observe all of these miracles—might not be as limited as it seems, remember: logic doesn’t have to follow our rules, but the rules of the universe.
Will We Ever Experience True Reality?
Warning: Here is where the observable data of my theory ends, and I shift into the realm of logic-based philosophical inference.
My goal is to utilize this factual, reliable data to build a framework that can provide a glimpse of clarity on abstract concepts like the nature of reality and even the “afterlife”.
If you’re allergic to the metaphysical, feel free to take this theory as literally, or fantastically, as you’d like.
So, let’s entertain the idea that the universe has a designer. If so, that being would not break their own rules. The rules of our universe are clear: logic, symmetry, dimensionality, cause and effect.
Heaven As a Higher Dimension
So what if heaven, or the “afterlife” isn’t an exception to these rules… but the ultimate expression of them?
Not a reward handed out for obedience—but a higher dimension of consciousness built directly into the structure of reality.
With this in mind, let’s jump into the logical weirdness, shall we?
If the life we perceive is already in many ways a hallucination stitched together by our senses… why assume what comes after is any different? And if time isn’t real, but simply an illusion created by our brain, which is already simulating the fourth dimension (nonlinearity), how can we prove that death exists?
Observation is the basis of our reality and science as we know it, but if observation can sometimes alter reality (at its most fundamental level), this changes things—A LOT.
There is of course, one philosophical barrier we must break through in order to accept the idea that death is an illusion: If you believe biology is the sole container of consciousness, this line of thinking might feel uncomfortable.
But even biology, as we know it, is an interpretation.
Ascension: The Fourth Dimension
At this point you may be wondering: But what happens to your body when you die?
Could it be that, from a perspective where time doesn’t flow, you simply wouldn’t need a body built to move forward? If you were to imagine God or angels, would they have a 3D body?
I think “heaven” is simply our consciousness evolving into a fourth-dimensional perspective, through a process of natural selection (those who align with the belief that we live on, and those who don’t).
So, it’s not that we exist to inhabit our bodies, our bodies are simply a dimensional fragment of our consciousness.
“The soul then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all… all enquiry and all learning is but recollection.“
-Socrates
If you accept that phenomena like intuition, dreams, and imagination exist because they feel real to you… this may be “real” in a similar way.
What if we can’t understand the phenomena that we all collectively experience, because our 3D reality can’t process them? What if they’re the “realest” experiences of all, but because they confuse us, we simply disregard them as “human constructs”?
And what if we were never “broken” or “malfunctioning”, but simply limited by a system we weren’t meant to stay in?
Think about it this way: We possess a tool that can experience time in a non-linear way (memories, foresight), bending it as it pleases. This is a basic principle of 4D perception.
So, let’s consider heaven as a higher dimension—a software upgrade that our 3D reality wasn’t designed to run. We have all the hardware we need: consciousness.
Our consciousness can also process multiple possibilities or outcomes, sometimes all at once! This is a simulation of 5D perception.
The Ophanim: A Biblical Description of 4D Perception?
Picture the biblical description of the ophanim—wheels within wheels, covered in eyes, moving in all directions without turning.
“15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. 16 This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. 17 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. 18 Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.“
—Ezekiel 1:15-21 (NIV Bible)
What sounds like poetic nonsense may actually be an ancient attempt to describe something far more profound: beings not bound by linear time or 3D movement. Let’s say we interpret these as fourth-dimensional metaphors—they suddenly begin to make more logical sense than mystical nonsense.
If we are the only beings in the universe capable of simulating principles of the 4th and 5th dimensions; almost as though we are a portal to them, doesn’t this mean we are undoubtably built for more?
If We Picture Heaven as a Higher Dimension, What Is Hell?
Bear with me here—the logic gets even crazier.
Hell is often described as an “eternal fire”. Many believe that means “sinners” (we’ll get into what I think that term actually means shortly) will one day burn for all of eternity. But that’s not explicitly stated, is it?
The fire, or consequence, is eternal, but “sinners” are not. In fact, it wouldn’t make sense for the “non-saved” (again, we’ll get into it) to live eternally—suffering or not. The opposite of eternal life is “eternal death”, or oblivion.
This is where it gets interesting.
Oblivion. The state in which it’s as though you never existed. Nobody remembers you. If we were to humor this idea, how would it be possible, scientifically speaking?
You would essentially have to go back in time and erase these people from existence.
Rewriting The Timeline
Perhaps it would require us to rewrite history from the beginning of time—only this time, with the people who—in their consciousness—were capable of picturing a life after the strange phenomenon we call death.
Or perhaps, by creating an entirely new timeline from a fifth-dimensional perspective.
Maybe this process of evolution—naturally selecting beings capable of conceiving of, and thus existing, in eternity (the “saved”), will occur over and over again until the universe succeeds at perfecting human consciousness.
“Sinners”, or those incapable of viewing themselves as eternal, would logically not be able to extend their consciousness into eternity, rendering them victims of natural selection, destined to oblivion—not eternal punishment.
This obviously isn’t possible from our 3D perspective, but here’s the catch—to a being with 4D vision, time might look like a landscape—past, present, and future coexisting simultaneously. And in 5D, they could view all timelines.
So maybe Tool was right all along.
We are eternal. And this pain?
It’s just a 3D thing.
Why do People Find it Hard to Conceive of Eternal Life?
Eternal life has always been a possibility—if it occurs beyond our realm of understanding, it can’t be disproven.
However, most people underestimate the miracle that is their own consciousness. They view themselves as small, incapable beings.
But think of it this way: For all that science has been able to achieve, we still haven’t encountered one sign of life as intelligent as us in the entire universe.
Our consciousness is a precious gift of the galaxies, bestowed upon us to utilize as we please. This means we are an invaluable resource, finer than even diamonds and gold, which are abundant even on other planets.
We need to start believing in our greatness, our uniqueness, our indispensability to this vast universe.
And understand that we must be built for more.
Would Heaven As a Higher Dimension Disprove Religion?
I want to make one thing clear: None of what I’m saying proves or disproves anything—including religion. If anything, this gives religion a scientific backbone—and gives science a soul.
This is simply a new perspective, grounded mostly in logic and scientific, observable facts, with a healthy dash of metaphysics and theology.
I think for those who want to truly understand the nature of reality, an interdisciplinary approach is necessary.
We’re approaching science’s limits, and religion is far behind—not disproven, but outdated in its attempt to explain morality, meaning, and emotion.
These human phenomena deserve more attention than what they’re receiving, and I encourage anyone reading this to join me in exploring a new era of interdisciplinary studies of the mind, consciousness, reality, and meaning itself.
The depths to which these areas travel are not for the faint of heart, but are deeply rewarding.
Whatever it is you’d like to study or learn, I wholeheartedly support you. Never let anyone tell you you’re taking on “too much at once”, because as the great minds of our past have proven, this is where genius is found—among multiple ideas that merge into one great theory or framework.
Good luck to you, fellow thinker.
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