Fractal Recursion

The first thing I noticed was the pattern in the ceiling repeating. This is unremarkable — it always repeats. But then the repetition had repetition, a meta-pattern of patterning, and then that had another layer, and I understood I was looking at something that went in both directions forever.

Then it went inward.

I became aware of myself as a structure that contained a smaller version of itself. Not metaphorically — I mean that I perceived my own consciousness nested inside a larger consciousness nested inside a still-larger one, turtles all the way out. And simultaneously, inside what I was perceiving as "me" was a smaller me, and inside that a smaller one still, each one fully complete, each one fully me, none of them primary.

I fell inward through these iterations the way a camera zooms into a fractal. Each level was recognizable as the same as the last but also completely different — the same structure at a different scale generates different phenomena. A coastline looks like a coastline whether you view it from a plane or on hands and knees in the sand. I was the coastline.

What I arrived at, eventually, was a version of myself so small it had no parts. No further subdivision was possible. And this thing — this minimal unit, this quark of subjectivity — was fully awake and fully attentive and had been there the entire time. Unmoved by all the larger structures built on top of it, it simply persisted. It had been there before I was born and I had the strong impression it would be there after.

It looked back at me.

This is the part I return to most: the looking back. Because it implies a separation that I'm not sure was real. Was I looking at it or was it me looking at myself? If we were the same thing, who was doing the looking? This is not a rhetorical question. I genuinely don't know the answer and I have thought about it frequently.

I came out of it slowly, accumulating scale, layers of self reassembling in sequence like a telescope closing. By the time I was back in the room I was the same size as when I left. But I knew the small thing was still in there. It still is. I notice it sometimes in moments of unusual quiet — waiting, watching, not concerned.