1897 Time Travel & the TT presentation at the Fest

[Irishcoda]

My head is still spinning a little after Frank Borzellieri's presentation on time travel/parallel time.  I thought to put this post here because the we're on the 1897 storyline when Barnabas travels back to save David.

One thing I used to wonder was:  when Barnabas went back, why did he go back to his vampire body?  What if he'd gone back but his body remained chained in that coffin?  One explanation of course is it would wreck the storyline but I think it's also there was a belief you couldn't exist in time with two bodies. 

I'm thinking maybe you can. 

I didn't think to ask on Saturday because my mind was too busy wrapping itself around someone in a jet plane being seconds into our future (LOL) but maybe someone asked this question at one of the earlier presentations?

One reason I think it's possible is that it happens in a book called The Time Traveller's Wife.  Then there's also the TV series, "Lost".  The past season has been about time travel with the main characters being 30 years into their pasts.  One character watches his father holding his infant self.

There's a way it works in physics but for the life of me I can't explain it.  I think I saved a diagram of what your life would look like if you travelled into your own past, time bending in on itself.

Anyway, re the DS storyline, I wonder how things could have been different if Barnabas had just shown up as his 1970 human self instead of being transported into the vampire body?

[Joeytrom]

Back to the Future was a good example of using multiple bodies at the same time.

[Gothick]

The idea of trying to somehow "explain" the time travel in DS really baffles me, when you watch the actual shows and they are so vague about how it all happens.  I thought one of the writers gave his own editorial comment to the time travel element when he had Prof. Stokes tell Jeff Clark "I am not a travel agent for time!"

The I Ching time travelling was inspired by a section in William Seabrook's circa 1940 book on Witchcraft in which he explores the notion of "atavism" and talks about experiments that were made in the 1920s where people used the I Ching in an attempt to "open a door" on the astral plane and do something along the lines of what, today, many New Age people think of as "past life regression."  The instance of the Russian lady who turned into a ravening wolf after she "went through the door" actually did involve the K'o hexagram which was how the time travel was accomplished on DS.  Needless to say, this has no connection to anything documented in the Chinese lore about the I Ching material, nor anything remotely connected with quantum physics.  It does seem to be connected with some early 20th century occultists' theorizing about "atavism" in human psychology (there's a great entry in the early 1970s "encyclopedia of the supernatural," Man, Myth and Magic, on this).

The first instance of time traveling seemed to occur as a result of the ghost of Sarah Collins intervening at a seance.  How this happened was never explained--which I personally thought made it work better as a story.  We never knew how it happened, we just know that it did. 

I think the "Staircase through time" setpiece in the final storylines, which includes a scene where Julia reads a diary entry from the 1840 Quentin in which he theorizes that time and space are one and the same dimension, *may* be something that can somehow be related to modern speculations in quantum physics... but only in a really vague way. 

If you want to give yourself a headache, try reading Warren Oddson's attempt to reconcile how there Barnabas wound up being split into two, with bodies existing in separate time continuums, but without the existing Collinwood continuity being disrupted (I use the term "continuity" here in an extremely loose way).

It's much better, IMO, to just go with the flow and take the stories for what they are--fabulous entertainment!

cheers, G.

[Gerard]

I think Barnabas went into his vampire body when he sent his consciousness back to 1897 because his body already existed at that time.  As a matter of fact, keep watching the 1897 storyline - it will provide an explanation when an unexpected visitor shows up to help. 

Now, the 1840/41 storyline - a real paradox happens with that one when Barnabas goes back in time, but I shall say nothing more about it so as not to make a spoiler!

Gerard

[Irishcoda]

The part I really enjoyed about the presentation was that there *is* a way to make time travel possible, to make sense, and to not defy the law of physics.  The speaker said that basically we need to develop a way to move faster.  He used the later example of time travel (the staircase) by saying this is how a wormhole would work.  There are wormholes out there, we just don't have the technology to be able to travel that fast...yet.  There are conjectures about parallel time that haven't been proven yet but maybe they will be.  Now isn't that a cool thought, that what we were watching as a good sci/fi horror show could actually become technologically possible?     He didn't discuss the I'ching wands because it's got nothing to do with the law of physics.  But say Barnabas travelled back through a wormhole...

I enjoyed reading Walter Oddsson's theory but boy, you're right...I did have lots of headaches trying to figure it all out!   

I love the stories and the entertainment, it's just that part of the fun is in figuring now could this happen?  And how?  And what if...?

[Irishcoda]

I think Barnabas went into his vampire body when he sent his consciousness back to 1897 because his body already existed at that time.  As a matter of fact, keep watching the 1897 storyline - it will provide an explanation when an unexpected visitor shows up to help.

That's true...Only his consciousness went back to 1897 so it did need to occupy the body there.  What happened to the consciousness that was in the vampire body?  There *was* one there, he was "sleeping" at the time.  It's like an episode of a show I watch, "Lost" where the character's consciousness went back in time to his body then.  The consciousness of that past body came to the present.  It was quite wild.

Now, what if the vampire consciousness had come to the human Barnabas sitting in a trance?  Wouldn't that have been something!

[Gerard]

I think that because the "consciousness" of Barnabas was the same, that's why he re-occupied his own body.  In other words, he woke up!  Better than an alarm clock!

And I really like, Irishcoda, what you said if things had gone eskew and the vampire consciousness of Barnabas had occupied his mortal body in 1969.  Now wouldn't that have been a hoot!  Woopsadaisy!  I can just picture Julia rolling her eyes, saying:  "Well, that was a great idea."

Gerard

[Irishcoda]

And I really like, Irishcoda, what you said if things had gone eskew and the vampire consciousness of Barnabas had occupied his mortal body in 1969.  Now wouldn't that have been a hoot!  Woopsadaisy!  I can just picture Julia rolling her eyes, saying:  "Well, that was a great idea."

It would have been the whole Tom Jennings thing all over again!  Barnabas would think he needed a drink and be chasing her around but with no fangs.