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So-called ‘shifters’ say they can travel to parallel worlds using their minds alone.

In 2020, as Covid-19 swept the globe and people were confined to their homes, the trend took off on TikTok. That’s when Kristin, from Canada, discovered the phenomenon. She describes the first ‘shift’ she experienced, in a 19th-century British country mansion:

“I laid down in my bed. I listened to some music. Calmed myself down. When I woke up, I felt wind on my face and I remember thinking, ‘I didn't leave the window open. This is strange.’ I got up from the bed that I was in and I remember just losing my mind – I was there.”

“I remember looking at my hands, pinching myself and thinking, ‘Did I actually shift?’”

What techniques do shifters use?

While millions of people worldwide have watched and shared content around reality shifting, far fewer claim to have actually managed it.

A popular technique is to use ‘scripting’, where hopeful shifters write down a thorough description of the world they want to travel to. They then mentally rehearse those details before trying to make the leap.

Kristin says: “I described each bedroom – what the theme would be, who would inhabit it, and what would be going on in there.” She then lay down and thought of all those things while repeating the phrase ‘I'm going to shift’. “I passed out doing that,” she says.

Kristin claims that when she came round, she was in the world she had imagined. “It was the exact type of bed in the exact bedroom that I scripted… and then I found the servants and the butler that I had scripted and I was like, ‘Wow.’ I had actually made it.”

But what’s actually happening?

Matthew Syed is sceptical about the paranormal implications of reality shifting. But there are other explanations for the experiences shifters have.

Professor Emeritus Eli Somer from Haifa University in Israel is a clinical psychologist who’s researched the phenomenon. He compares reality shifting to a psychological condition called ‘maladaptive daydreaming’, in which people experience “spontaneously triggered, excessive, vivid daydreams that interfere with daily functioning”.

The difference with shifting is that it’s more than daydreaming. People believe they’re genuinely transported to a parallel reality, and this is something they actively seek.

Somer thinks the experience of reality shifting is brought on by a kind of self-hypnosis, “which creates this illusion of being in a different world.”

Why is the idea of shifting so popular?

Matthew Syed thinks that a “sense of control over the self, the narrative of their lives” is a key part of what makes the concept of reality shifting appeal to people.

Professor Somer says shifting’s emergence during the pandemic wasn’t a coincidence. “What better way to feel free, when you're confined to your room, to create your freedom inside your mind.” Somer explains how shifting can help people by offering the chance to “rehearse new experiences of the self to create corrective emotional experiences that later help them”. He says others use reality shifting as “a way to relieve stress, to avoid difficult emotions. But like any form of avoidance, it can become harmful if it's the only way someone copes.”

For Kristin, shifting gives her a chance to practice skills and build confidence. In her aristocratic world, she says, “I did learn how to manage people, and I did learn how to talk to people and be very diplomatic. I have used [those skills] in day-to-day life here, and it's been very beneficial.”

And what exactly is reality anyway?

Neuroscientist Professor Anil Seth from Sussex University believes our experience of reality is like a series of controlled hallucinations. It’s something that our brain creates based on the information it receives through the senses.

“These electrical signals, they don't have colours, they don't have shapes, they're indirectly related to what's out there,” Seth explains. “The brain has to combine these ambiguous sensory signals with some sort of prior expectation about what's going on, and come up with a kind of best guess about what's out there… So we actively construct the worlds that we experience.”

He says that evolution also shapes the way we perceive reality, so that it’s based on what’s most advantageous for our survival. “Very different species, from mosquitoes to mice to elephants, would have very different experiences of the same world. And for each species, the way they experience the world will be adaptive for them.”

Do multiple realities exist at once?

Reality shifters don’t believe it’s all in their minds. For them, infinite realities exist at once, and they’re shifting their consciousness from one to another.

The multiverse is a popular theme in Hollywood blockbusters such as the Matrix and Marvel movies. The idea originated thousands of years ago – with references going back as far as ancient Greece – and was first formally proposed by physicist Hugh Everett back in 1957.

It's worth noting that there's no concrete evidence for this multiverse theory. Ulf Danielsson, a professor of theoretical physics at Uppsala University in Sweden, explains: “Hugh Everett came up with a proposal that several different world histories develop. So that means that you and me, we are existing in zillions of different copies where things went in a different way. And of course, it also leads to philosophical discussions about what is real and what is not. That's one way of interpreting quantum mechanics.”

Quantum mechanics? OK, let’s go there…

This incredibly complex branch of physics involves tiny particles like electrons and quarks. Scientists have discovered they do some really weird things – which raise questions about the nature of reality.

Matthew Syed explains: “We now know that subatomic particles exist not in one place, but in multiple places at the same time, at least until we look at them. In the quantum realm, observation plays a crucial role in shaping what is real.”

Syed reflects that at the quantum level, “Things are one way until we look at them, then they become something else entirely. I find that completely mindblowing, and it's a stunning rebuke to those who say that reality is fixed or self-evident. Indeed, it challenges our understanding of reality itself.”

He concludes: “So, what does all this say about reality shifting? Well, whether or not you believe the philosophical claims made on its behalf, the questions that it raises are still intriguing.”