Chapter 104: Let There Be Light

Sunday, April 24, 2005

We'd gone to sleep about 11:30, and I woke at 4 o'clock, so about four and half hours sleep. My first problem was figuring out what to do for three or so hours.

Get a snack obviously, but what to do after that? Schoolwork, I decided. My basic study plan had been to do my college work in the wee small hours and school stuff in the afternoons. Unfortunately (with tongue firmly in cheek, and elsewhere) Julia had recently been 'making' me have sex every afternoon. Doing two grades at once means a lot of material that needs to be worked through. I do most of it during class because I can split my attention so easily, but some of it needs to be done at home. I had a few days' worth of accumulated work now, so I decided to carry it down to the living room to work on it there.

The next problem was the total absence of light; it was PITCH black in here. So dark I couldn't tell whether my eyes were open or not. There was no light at all coming in through the window because Mom or Dad had sealed the drapes for security reasons, as we didn't want any neighborhood Peeping Tom seeing Carol and me in the same bedroom. Even if we weren't having sex, just our being in the same bed would be bad enough. If there were any Peepers in the neighborhood, it was very easy to imagine them trying to catch a glimpse of Carol, so they posed a significant danger.

On the wall above where the two single beds used to be are two small lights, with light switches just under them. We'd had them on last night, but I hadn't paid enough attention to the switches' locations relative to the bed to be able to easily find them now. I didn't want to get up in the dark either, for several reasons: there was stuff scattered around the floor, I was in a room I was not used to navigating in the dark, and I needed light to find my 11th grade notes. I always center myself the moment I wake, so I knew from proximity that the girls were asleep, and I didn't want to wake them with my stumbling around. Nor did I want to break my neck stumbling over a bag of clothes.

My total lack of genius causing me to forget the rubbers for Carol last night meant I was going to let her sleep undisturbed, so I thought about climbing out of the bed over Julia. The trouble was that she was on my left, which took me away from the door, making it even harder and more perilous (there was quite a lot of stuff on the floor) for me to find my way.

I decided to make the necessary effort to try to find a light switch for one of the small 'bedside' lights (actually they're above the bed, rather than beside it, but you get the idea). I knew the switches were immediately below the lights, so I tried to visualize where the lights had been relative to my being in the middle of the bed last night. I closed my eyes to help me visualize, which amused me since it was pitch black. At the same time the visualization recalled the memory of where the light was coming from last night, I felt a mental twitch very similar to the feeling I get when I create a TK-point. I opened my eyes in surprise, and there was light!

I momentarily thought the bedside light had come on, but I could see the real light a few inches away from a little floating blob of light. The new blob MUST be my creation! I was sure it was, because I could sense it in my mind, the same way I can sense where my TK-fingertips are. WOW! In the same way as I could tell which one of my minds 'owned' TK-fingertips, I could tell that #2 owned the blob.

It was about the same size as the real lightbulb, but floating a few inches out from the wall, unconnected to anything. In terms of my being on target for knowing where the real light was, I wasn't very good. My light ball was ten inches to the side of the real light, a little too far away from the wall, and too low by about two feet, the latter deviation probably because I'd visualized where it was when I'd been on my hands and knees on the bed, rather than lying flat as I was now. Appalling inaccuracy aside, this was otherwise AWESOME!

#4: <Well done #2!>

#2: <Fingertips can move, so let's try ... Yep.>

Moving the blob of light was as easy as TK-fingertips. When they aren't carrying anything, TK-fingertips can move as fast as my eyeballs can track, and I quickly found out that so could this, so the light was probably massless. Which I guess made some sort of sense because photons are massless (sort of, but that statement is accurate enough in this situation). It was reasonable of me to think that I was moving photons around rather than an emitting device - which would have mass - because the blob of light was transparent and I could see the wall through it. It seemed to be made of NOTHING except glowing air, so I appeared to be creating light out of nothing, similar to how I create physical force out of nothing with my TK, and I can run without using any of my own energy, so therefore must be obtaining energy out of nothing. "Out of nothing" was presumably from ki in some way, but God knows how, because I sure as heck didn't.

I had a thought that the size of the blob being the same as the real lightbulb was the result of my visualization, and I knew my TK-fingertips could change size, so I tried increasing the size of this. I was immediately successful. Surprisingly, its output didn't increase with its size. The blob's maximum diameter was about six feet. Next I shrunk it to find its minimum size, if any. I was again surprised when, once the blob was very small, making it yet smaller did reduce its output. It got smaller and dimmer until it was barely visible. It might have been possible to get it smaller yet, but I wasn't quite ready to risk it 'going out' on me.

For the lack of a better default size, I returned it to the original size, which also returned it to its original output level. Then I tried to make it brighter without changing its size, which was immediately successful. I cranked up the brightness until I worried about waking the girls. I moved the blob down to the end of the bed and held the sheet up so it was between their faces and the blob, blocking the light from shining directly on their eyes. I resumed turning up the blob's output. It maxed out at what seemed to me to be the equivalent of a couple dozen bedside lightbulbs' worth. I made it larger and then tried to make it yet brighter, but the output didn't change. While still at its maximum output, I shrunk it. This time it started dimming while it was considerably larger than the last time it'd dimmed.

The above brightness comparisons were hard to measure because eyes adapt to brighter lights by narrowing their pupils to equalize the light input to the eyes, but they do it slowly enough that I thought the above description to be reasonably accurate. As best I could judge, the blobs had quite a decent maximum output level, except that very small blobs - below half an inch in diameter - had their maximum reduced, presumably because they (or I?) couldn't output the full amount inside a tiny volume because it would've required too high an energy density.

I tried changing the shape. A six-foot glowing blob, if narrowed, would make an AWESOME ghost! Unfortunately I had very little shape control, about as little as I could change the shape of TK-fingertips. All I could do was 'stretch' the sphere so the longest axis was about 25% longer than the shortest. I could also 'square' the whole thing a little, but it was still as close to spherical as made no real difference. I tried repeating these shape changes with a few different starting sizes and brightnesses, but the results were the same, so no luck with that.

I remembered the feeling of the first creation, and tried again. And then there were two! Piece of cake.

Some more playing around led me to judge that each of my minds could create a total output of light, whether it was one or more blobs didn't matter, just the brightness. Different blobs could be different sizes, as could TK-fingertips. There was a maximum number of blobs, the same number as for my TK-fingertips, four per mind. One mind has to be centered, so twelve in total. Canceling a light blob was almost identical to canceling a fingertip, simply a relaxing of the concentration required to keep it active. Now that I was confident of being able to create them, I did a test I'd delayed: I dimmed a blob all the way down to zero output. It was totally invisible, but still existed because I could proximity sense it. I turned it up, and that worked fine.

[By the way, usually a few times a day we would practice remaining centered but letting the mind that was on duty participate (what we called "Active Centering"), rather than ignoring everything ("Inactive Centering"). We were getting better at holding active center for longer, depending on the amount of distraction going on at the time, but the improvement was slow. With Active Centering we could create a maximum of sixteen blobs - we briefly tested that now.]

The blobs radiated light in all directions equally, and I couldn't get that to change.

I suddenly remembered that lightbulbs also produce heat, so maybe these blobs do too. I canceled all but one blob, which I moved near my outstretched hand. I couldn't feel any heat. I VERY cautiously moved my hand slowly toward contact, not feeling heat at any stage. Just before I made contact, I had the smart idea of poking it with a TK-fingertip instead, in case it 'ate' whatever touched it. I had no problem creating a TK-fingertip, nor in moving it into contact. In fact, right through contact, with the fingertip never feeling anything. Nor was there any visual or audible change. I moved the fingertip around, into and through the blob, but there was no interaction.

I canceled the TK-fingertip and went back to using my own. My real fingertip felt absolutely nothing new as it made contact. I moved my finger even farther into the blob, still feeling nothing. As far as my finger could tell, the light blob wasn't there. All that was happening was that my finger was well lit, just like being next to a lightbulb but without any heat. The blobs appeared to be pure light. I moved my hand into the blob, and there was no sensation at all.

I held my hand stationary, and moved the blob completely through it. My hand might as well not have been there. I made the blob about an eighth of an inch in diameter. I moved it through my hand, and saw my skin start to glow as it was about to come out. THAT was freaky!

In my experimentation soon after I'd discovered TK-fingertips, I'd learned they couldn't operate in areas that I couldn't see, but light blobs seemed different. There were obvious similarities between blobs and TK-fingertips, but they were certainly different in being able to pass through my body! I had a feeling fingertips and light blobs were somehow different manifestations of the same thing, differing only in what form of energy they were: mechanical force versus light.

Rather than moving a blob through my hand, I tried creating one inside my hand, close enough to the surface for it to shine through. It was easy. I'd pretty much confirmed that blobs were ONLY light. Certainly no physical presence, as the apparently massless TK-fingertips had.

Can I have twelve fingertips AND twelve light blobs, or twelve in total? In less time than it took you to read that question, I found the answer was: twelve in total. That was more evidence that they're related in some way. They both appeared in my proximity sense, so they were presumably ki related too, whatever ki is.

If I can create light energy, can I create heat energy? I closed my eyes and visualized a GENTLE heat-radiating blob in front of my very outstretched hand, ready to be rapidly pulled back should the heat be too hot. I imagined what a candle would feel like from a couple of inches away. I imagined the source as a sphere, as that seemed most likely to be correct.

I felt something happen mentally, and felt a tiny amount of warmth. It was as easy to create as a TK-fingertip or light blob. In fact, it was almost identical to creating a light blob, but it was a LOT harder to experiment with as it was invisible. I had to create a light blob to check the heat blob's lack of visibility, which confirmed that it didn't have any. Then I carefully moved my hand around to check that the size and location of the heat blob in my proximity sense correlated with reality.

I tried moving the heat blob. That was as easy as expected. No way was I going to pass this one through my hand though! I created a second one, and felt the heat radiate onto my hand from two directions. I canceled one of them. I can't accidentally leave a heat blob 'lying around', as they all take a little concentration to maintain, but I'd much rather play safe with heat by canceling them when not immediately needed.

I tried slowly increasing the heat output. It didn't increase by much before it reached its maximum, which was something that I almost felt good about. Intellectually speaking, the greater the range of my ability the better, but not being able to accidentally burn down the house was emotionally appealing.

Then I wondered how hot it'd be closer to the source. I floated the heat blob toward my hand. I accidentally did it FAR too fast for my hand's liking - yikes! I didn't burn myself, but I gave myself a fright before I canceled the blob. Too late I realized that the heat hitting my hand would rise on an inverse square function; in other words, QUICKLY. I recreated a maximum output heat blob and tried again, moving my hand cautiously closer. It started getting uncomfortably hot, but only when I was pretty close.

Imagining how hot it would have been if I'd brought it into contact, I decided that it probably wouldn't set fire to paper. That experiment could wait for a somewhat safer setup than lying in bed with two sleeping girls.

[[Incandescent bulbs (the traditional household lightbulb) are about 5% efficient, i.e., 5% of the power input is converted to light, with 95% going to heat (which is hardly ideal in a LIGHT bulb!). My light output maxed out at 20 to 30 bulbs' worth of light. So my heat max was about 1 to 1.5 times as much heat as a single bulb produced, that being the same amount of energy. I was using the bedside light as my standard, so a blob's heat output was probably less than that emitted by one normal-sized lightbulb. It was puny, but so was TK.]]

There was only one more thing I wanted to try with heat, which was to try to create a blob that was both a light blob AND a heat blob. What came into existence was a light blob that did not radiate any heat at all. I tried again with the light output very dim, and the heat output quite high. I just got a dim light blob.

When I adjust a tunable parameter (e.g., the size of a blob) I simply visualized it changing in the desired direction. To be incorrectly anthropomorphic, I don't just tell a blob "get bigger", because it doesn't know how much bigger to get. I have to instruct it more specifically. It's very easy, requiring neither intense concentration nor much imagination. As easy as thinking, "Double in diameter," although thinking precisely that wouldn't work because I have to imagine my proximity 'image' of the blob changing. Usually I visualize these changes occurring as a rapid transition, such as the blob growing from the original to the target size in whatever time period I visualize it occurring in, probably less than half a second. As I got more comfortable with blobs, I stopped using these transitions, instead just imagining the final size (or other parameter) that I wanted. As far as I could tell, the blob would change instantly from the 'before' to the 'after' configuration, regardless of what tunable parameter was changing (e.g., size, brightness, heat). All of which is a long-winded way of saying that if I visualize changes to a blob's or fingertip's tunable parameter, then it happens. Why reality does what any of my minds visualizes, in these specific ways, I have NO IDEA, but it does. [[I know now, and it will become apparent later.]]

I remembered from Physics that heat and light are the same thing, with heat (I think just radiant heat) simply being light of a different frequency, called infrared light. Heat is on the non-visible side of red, so I tried visualizing the light from a light blob transitioning from the yellow they all get created at (much the same color as the wall light in this room), toward red. The blob immediately got redder. Cool (actually, it was scientifically more accurate to say "Warmer"). I quickly tried other colors: green, blue, orange. The blob matched me. I visualized white, and it ignored me ("Bad Blob!").

I wasn't surprised though, as it appeared that blobs can only radiate a single frequency and white light is a combination of frequencies. Red, green and blue is what we mostly use to create white light, although other combinations work too. I went back to red, then tried shifting it toward the infrared. I couldn't "visualize" that, as infrared is invisible, but that was a non-problem because I've used the word "visualize" here when I could have equally used "imagine" or "intend". Anyway, I INTENDED the light blob to shift redward and to keep going, and I soon felt some warmth coming from it. That was enough for me, so I canceled it. I knew infrared was next to red, but I also knew there were other frequencies somewhere around that I wanted NOTHING to do with, such as microwave, X-rays, and Gamma rays. NO THANKS! I could hurt my hand with heat, so I VERY MUCH didn't want bombard my body with that much microwave or X-ray radiation. I knew almost nothing about that stuff; just enough to be afraid of it.

Presumably I could even create TV Blobs, by radiating on a frequency used for TV. They'd just be a fixed frequency (not an actual program, so my own Playboy Channel wasn't possible, unfortunately. Although probably fortunately, if #4 was in charge of a 'broadcast'). I didn't know nearly enough about how TV was broadcast to know what effect having a single frequency blob transmitting near a TV antenna would do to its reception. I wasn't going to experiment either, because I was afraid of radiating strange frequencies.

I had answered my question about why I couldn't create a combined light and heat blob. The blobs took requests, but only performed one frequency at a time, thank you.

#4: <I wonder if we can order it to do salmon?>

No one else wondered that, so #4 just laughed.

I created three light blobs: red, green and blue, and slid them together. Hey presto! White light. It had a slight bluish tinge, presumably because I didn't have the frequencies correct, but I turned down the brightness of the blue light a little, and the white improved in purity. After a little playing around, I had what seemed a very good white, so I separated the three blobs and tried to memorize their look. I canceled them, recreated them, and merged them again. A nice white light resulted, good. I canceled them again, then tried creating all three at the same location. I can't do that with fingertips, but it was just as easy as usual with light blobs. It looked like I'd created a white light blob.

I should be able to create a combined light and heat blob. I tried it, and it worked fine. That'd be a good way to mark where a heat blob was, in case I used heat blobs in the future when Julia and Carol were moving around the room.

#4: <If we can create mechanical energy, and electromagnetic energy, we might be able to create electricity too.>

#2: <NO WAY am I sticking my finger in the air so you can shock it. I'm not even going to let you do it with your finger! Electric shock could kill us, and we've already died the perfect number of times.>

#4: <Yeah, I know. About the shock risk, I mean, although you're right about our life being good. I wondered about powering a lightbulb as a test, but I've got no idea how to visualize the right voltage. The right frequency of alternating current would be VAGUELY imaginable, because I know what Hertz are, although I wouldn't be surprised if we can only create DC, not AC. That's irrelevant though, because I haven't got a clue on how to visualize voltage. I don't even know what it is, let alone how to imagine 110 of them.>

#3: <When we do our Bachelor of Science, we have to do some non-Math courses. I believe some of them can be science courses. I think we should do some more Physics. We like physics anyway. What do you think?>

#4: <Good idea. Other than being able to cook our own popcorn without getting up from the TV, I can't think of any use for that stuff, but we might be able to if we learn a lot more about it.>

We called #1 off duty, and #2 went on, as we took #1 through what we'd learned.

[The mind that's on duty tries to ignore everything that's going on, but he does have some idea because it's not as if we block the sensory input to our brain. (Because of the improved control we have over our body, we might be able to block the senses, but they feed into our brain which we share, so we thought it'd leave all of our minds blind, deaf, etc. We were good enough at retaining center that we didn't need to experiment with blinding ourself.) The on-duty mind could be accurately described as "non-thinking". Things would happen to our body and the other three minds, but the mind on duty would stay as unthinking as possible. It's very hard but we get a LOT of practice, and we rotate about every hour so it's not too bad. So #1 had sort of seen what we were doing, but in such a way that he ignored it at the time. Having seen it once, it was reasonably quick and easy to take him through the highlights. One reason the duty mind can maintain center without getting distracted is because he knows he'll be brought up to date soon.]

Once #1 was up to date, #3: <I was thinking about how we initially created the light and heat blobs, by closing our eyes and visualizing them. We shouldn't have been able to create them with our eyes closed. We have to see our TK-points when they're outside our proximity range. At least, we USED to have to see our TK-points. Let's test that.>

First we checked the baseline. We closed our eyes and created a TK-point a few inches in front of our face. We didn't even have to open our eyes, not that there was anything to see even if there had been any light; TK-fingertips being invisible. Then we repeated the experiment, but with the TK-point being created five feet in front of our face. That also worked. It shouldn't have, according to our prior experiences, but it had. We made doubly sure we weren't deluding ourself by creating a light blob to witness our using the TK-fingertip to nudge something across the room. Next we tried creating a new TK-point outside of our proximity range, and inside the closet. That failed. Our ability to create TK-points outside our proximity range had improved somewhat, but not totally.

We did some more experimentation with fingertips, and confirmed that the line of sight restriction was now less restrictive, both within and beyond my proximity range. Beyond my proximity range I used to have an almost total line-of-sight restriction (not quite totally, because inside the front hem of a skirt was doable). Previously, virtually any location I couldn't see was deadly for TK-fingertips, but now that was much less the case. If I had a very good idea where the out-of-sight location was, then I could create a fingertip there or move a fingertip through that area without it canceling on me. But I still couldn't achieve my dream of sending some fingertips to the kitchen to get me a cookie.

Within my proximity range, the previously partial line-of-sight restriction seemed to have gone away entirely. I could create or send fingertips anywhere within my proximity range and they wouldn't cancel. Under the bedclothes and under the bed both worked, whereas they wouldn't have before. As far as I could determine now, fingertips continued to exist anywhere at all within my proximity range, except the usual restriction that they couldn't overlap with matter. I decided the improvement was because I'd gotten better at using my proximity sense, which I guess wasn't surprising given that I use it twenty hours a day. That explanation also explains the improvement beyond my three-foot proximity range, because ki-effects - which now included light blobs - do appear in that sense beyond three feet. I didn't know how I could sense things beyond that sense's range, but I could.

My proximity sense is like a 3D radar screen, with a 500-foot range, that being the maximum distance I can sense and use my ki-effects. From the center of the screen, for three feet in all directions from my center, my proximity sense picks up all ki, whether from me or from someone else. Beyond three feet I can only sense my own special ki-effects (TK-points and now blobs, but not my body's own ki). It's as if those special ki-effects radiate so much of their own ki that they appear on my screen, despite my own internal radar station not having enough transmission power to pick up anything beyond three feet.

[[The 3D radar screen is a good metaphor to describe what I sense, but it explains the range issue poorly because the reality is the other way around. Proximity picks up my and other people's ki when they are near me because that ki is being radiated. The far effects - a remote TK-fingertip for example - radiate no ki at all. Far effects are detectable because they don't transmit anything through normal space. They send their messages directly to my brain, a process that includes the effect of their telling my proximity sense, "Yoo hoo, I'm over here."]]

#4: <So when we woke up, we probably could have created some TK-fingertips and rubbed them along the wall, until we'd found the light switches. We didn't have to go to all the bother of discovering light blobs.>

#2: <Yeah, what a waste of time that was! Shall we wake the girls and give them a surprise?>

#2: <Now, or shall we do some study first? If we show them this, they won't get back to sleep again, and we won't get any studying done either. And we can't pass the time by doing what I'd like to do because we'd make too much noise and wake everyone else in the house.>

#3: <We might wake the others even without having sex, because Carol or Julia could scream when we show them our new ability.>

#2: <We'll warn them not to, but you're right that girls can get all girly anyway. Let's minimize the scary nature of the blobs as much as possible when we show them. I don't want to shock them too much, the way we nearly screwed up showing our TK to Julia.>

Even though I was eager to demonstrate my new ability to my wives, I decided to wait, in part because I did have a heap of studying to do. So now I had to climb out of bed. I was tempted to light my way with a dim blob, as it'd be easier on Julia's eyes if my clambering woke her. I could put it down at floor level, out of her direct sight, and she'd probably be too tired to notice something funny was going on. "Probably" was the key word though. I didn't want to risk it.

To see whether I could, I created some TK-fingertips in the dark, then ran them along the wall until I felt the light switch. I had a good idea where it was now, but it was still a good test. I turned it on, then crab-climbed over top of Julia. Both girls were still asleep (all my experimentation had been totally silent, and I'd shielded the girls' eyes reasonably well during the brief periods when the room had got fairly bright. Julia roused a little, mumbled, rolled over and hugged my arm mid-crab, which was inconvenient. I managed to stand on the floor and disentangle her hands from my arm. I started dressing. It'd be cold in the living room, and my heat blobs were far too weak to warm my whole body.

#2: <I figure we could create a six-foot diameter heat blob, at a low setting, and move it so we were inside it. That'd keep us a little bit warm, maybe a degree or two.>

#4: <You're probably right, but let's try that out on Princess first?> Princess was literally a spoiled little bitch, one of the neighborhood dogs. A yappy, nuisance of a poodle.

#2: <Good idea. With any luck it'll cook the little bitch, but I shouldn't think so. A heat blob is a single frequency, and infrared is just heat. A small amount of heat isn't going to have any bad effects. We get that from sunlight anyway, and this would be even safer as there's no ultraviolet in it. It'd be no different than having a bar heater shining at us, only far more evenly applied.>

#3: <What about if some of our internal organs are sensitive to heat? Normally our skin absorbs it, but if we're inside a blob, we're going to get the heat everywhere.>

#2: <I shouldn't think that'd be a problem. People get high fevers that last for days, and I've not heard about organ damage unless it's a VERY high fever, and we're not going to make ourself anything like that hot.>

#4: <Maybe so, but it's still scary imagining heat being applied directly to our brain. I'd like our brain to remain uncooked.>

#2: <It'd be no different than having sunlight on our skull. We could also make the blob smaller, so it covered our body but not our head.>