Okal Rel Universe




Jump Hallucination

Each pilot has his or her own visual and experiental "mantra" for getting through a jump. Reetions call this the jump hallucination. Gelacks consider it more mystical. Pilots of both side tend to be superstitious about sharing them with each other for fear of theirs losing potence or getting mixed up with other people's. For example, one pilot may experience a jump as a dive through water, another as a conversation with a dead persona and another as a psychodelic nightmare. Getting through a jump depends, in each case, on repeating the experience associated with it.

Gelacks believe jump encounters to be a form of communing, soul to soul, with the world of the Watching Dead. Reetions believe they are hallucinations, caused by the mind's need to place meaning, retroactively, on the "death like" experience of a large-dose exposure to gap. And, in fact, people will experience hallucinations under skim whether or not in the vicinity of a jump if they are seriously overexposed to gap, lending credence to the Reetion point of view. Reetions, however, are reluctant to accept the Gelack spritutal believe that two people making a jump together (or reality skimming intensely in wake lock) can experience each other's "souls".

Reality skimming pilots guide their ships through jumps the same way that they fly to begin with: by binding the mass moving at the same velocity as themselves with the same "mix" of shimmer and gap (the components of reality skimming drive). How a pilot binds mass with his or her "grip" is a bit of mystery. What is know is that "grip" is a property of self-conscious beings (Gelacks would say people with souls) and its strength is proportional to how much one "cares" about just about anything. Engagement, if you will.

Jump hallucinations are first described, in print, in Courtesan Prince (Fall 2004, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy).

see also glossary entry: soul touch
see article:
reality skimming
see jump hallucination graphics in gallery