Time.

"Huxleyian parallel life-times. " Maybe I'm not so bad at fiction as I thought - but inadvertently. Huxley and J.B.Priestley were interested in time and the theories of John William Dunne. Their work reflects that - especially Priestley's - but Dunne's theory had nothing to do with parallel lifetimes. He posited that linear time is an illusion brought about by human consciousness and that past present and future are in fact simultaneous, explaining pre-cognitive dreams and the 'deja vue' experience.

I'm now on a quest to discover where I picked up the idea of parallel universes. It is a concept I have held pre- Philip Pullman and as I completely doubt my ability to have had an original thought I must have got it from somewhere. Quantum mechanics, about which I have read in popularised versions, picking out the few bits I could grasp? William James? Unlikely. Science Fiction - more likely, but I usually have to know there is a credible source or mind behind an idea before I adopt it as my own. Diana Wynne Jones uses it in her Chrestomanci stories. The interesting fact is that it does seem to be in common consciousness.

I have a theory (which obviously is not original) that when human consciousness happens upon an idea, a concept, or a form, if the concept or form has not existed before it comes into existence in that moment. The creation of a 'ghost' in the Philadelphia experiment' at least partially bears this out. The Hundredth Monkey story that originated with Lyall Watson and Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory have been discredited but still.... they have an appeal and make a sort of sense. What's existence all about if we can't take the bits we like and create our own reality from it?