Nonlinear Time

Donna Lynn
Feb 16, 2017
3 min read

I watched Arrival last weekend and was pleasantly surprised in more ways than one. First it portrays aliens as alien. They don't look like us, they don't communicate like us, they don't think like us. This has been my experience as well, unlike many sci-fi shows in which aliens are basically glorified humans. Second, Arrival addressed the intense fear one feels when going aboard an alien craft and preparing to encounter alien beings. Finally though, and what struck me most, was when protagonist Louise calmly explained that the aliens don't experience time the same way we do. I've been saying that for years! That is exactly what the aliens have told me!

So yet again I have confirmation that what I'm hearing from my alien friends is experienced by at least one other person. It helps immensely for me to receive confirmation and know I'm not entirely alone with it.

The aliens explained to me several years ago that they don't experience time the same way we do. We measure time as we do based on Earth's 24-hour rotation on its axis and 365-day rotation around the sun; therefore no other planet would know time in the same way that we do, even within our own solar system. So how much different would it be for a being from another solar system? Another galaxy? Another universe?

Arrival tells us the aliens experience nonlinear time. This is exactly what I explain in the Introduction of From Fear to Love, My Private Journey; my book doesn't have a beginning, middle, or end like a "normal" story because the aliens don't work that way. Now that Arrival is out but my book isn't yet, will people assume that I copied the idea, even though it was given to me years ago, written years ago, and accepted by my publisher over a year ago? The timing of the movie coming out shortly before my book is ironic. Timing. Time. This is an example of alien humor.

I used the phrase "naked and afraid" to explain the utter helplessness I felt when taken by the aliens before I made friends with them. Years later a TV show came out with that very name. At the time I was happy because it was a confirmation for me. True, that TV show has nothing to do with aliens, but it was a personal confirmation message for me, as most of them are.

"A dream within a dream" is yet another concept I had given to me years ago. I've experienced dreams within dreams all my life, but that is probably not uncommon, so hopefully people won't think I took that idea from Inception.

Now that my work is going public I had fears of people thinking I was some kind of lunatic plagiarist. I discussed this with my editor, Debbie, and she assured me that they would not and might, in fact, see it as confirmation much as I do. I certainly hope so. I'm sure there are some who will see me as a lunatic and I accept that; I just don't want to be thought of as a thief.

Considering the aliens work in a spiral fashion, my hope is that more of the concepts that were given to me by them and described in my book will show themselves after publication, so that others might recognize and accept such confirmations as a small piece of the universal puzzle.