What if it was all fake?

[TheFrost]

What if you woke up one morning and realized your whole life was just a dream? A (very) detailed simulation of some kind predicting what your future might be like. You are now five years old only weeks away from your first school day and free to live out your life the way you want to although all of your accomplishments within the "dream" of your former life will be worthless.

How would you react? Do you value a chance to develop your new life with the experience of your former self or would you grieve over all the people and experiences now proven to be nothing but your own imagination?

 

[sky14kemea]

Fuck yes!

My life was going nowhere, now I get a fresh start to pull myself toge-... Hey is that a bouncy ball?

Wheeeeeee!

If I wake up as a five year old, after the initial shock, my first thought is gonna be "How much ice cream can I eat before my parents wake up?"

 

[SomeLameStuff]

Well, look at it this way, I get to make all my mistakes all over again, and everyone would think it was my first time doing it! =D

Except the one where I thought I could fly. THAT is one mistake I'm not repeating.

 

[aba1]

I think it would be very hard because much of what defines me is no longer valid not to mention everyone as I knew them are for intensive purposes dead and I am all alone. I think it would take me a while to deal with that but after that I think I would take advantage of all I know.

 

[Guffe]

I would pretty much relive every aspect of my life like in the dream, maybe I'd try a bit harder with the chicks, but ´hey, you can't get everything.

 

[Vuliev]

I'd try to stick to memory as much as possible to try and have the same path--don't want to risk the butterfly effect--but I'd also try and fix a couple of serious mistakes/oversights I've made in my life.

 

[Fappy]

I'd use my knowledge to become god of a new world. This must have happened for a reason, amirite?

 

[disgruntledgamer]

Put money in apple, before they overtook Microsoft.

 

[Ieyke]

One thing I'd do is write out a scarily wordy letter, for a 5 year old, explaining to my dad that he should invest in Microsoft and Apple ASAP, and Google, as soon as it exists.

I'd make numerous changes to myself, but actually live basically the same exact life, because gods forbid I change any of the people most important to me, and they not end up who they are today.

I'd possibly get with one of my closest friends and serve as her moral compass and emotional anchor as best I could before she could drift off into the dark times of her life. And hopefully I'd leave her much better off than she was in reality for the last 8 years or so.
(is that.....wrong? by that point I'd have a....37 year old mind, but she and I would technically be like...16... Whatever. Weird situation, so it sounds good to me.)

Eventually I'd, again, get with ANOTHER one of my closest friends when she was going after me back when we first met, and hopefully allow her to shortcut around a whooooole lot of horrible crap, including what's going on currently.
(at least she'd be like...*sigh*...18 by then. Damn her for being 2 years younger than me and not at least being 21 by this point.... my mind would be like...41. You know what? Bigger age gaps have happened in regular people, so...whatever. I'd be doing awesome for a 41 year old XD)


And hopefully, despite my meddling and relationships with her best friend and a girl she knows, a third girl will still end up being almost EXACTLY who she is now, and I'll do what I can to apply the relatively infinite wisdom and insight gained from another lifetime to try and end up with her.
Hell, mentally 41 year-old me might actually be mature enough to properly keep up with 23 year-old her! Maybe not...


I'd do fantastic in school with basically no effort, and boggle minds.
Happily, I could EASILY fake being a kid.
Saturday morning cartoons? Awesome.
Video games? Awesome.
Action figures? Awesome.

I'd start building "old school" collections of games, action figures, comics, etc while they were brand new, amd I'd keep them in super good condition for the glorious future!

I think I'd end up being the reason my friends became aware of 90% of the awesome stuff they ever encountered XD
I'd always know ahead of time which games were badass and that my friends should all play....>_>
I could freak people out by predicting what happens on LOST!!!

I'd have to suffer through the shitty version of the Internet....eeewwwwwww.....
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What a crazy train of thought... You have to figure out what would change, and what you would purposefully change, because you can't POSSIBLY actually change NOTHING if you've already experienced 21 years into the future and are an adult masquerading as a normal kid, so you may as well try and set things up for the best.

Well, this has been REALLY REALLY GORRAM WEIRD.
Entertaining though.

A 21 year mind-body discrepancy is a very very strange thing to contemplate.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I'd probably feel pretty fucked up walking around as a five year old with all the knowledge of an adult. If I could overcome the possible insanity such a shock to my world would most likely cause, then I would probably do lots of new things that I never had time for in the dream.

 

[EHKOS]

Well, first off I would stop eating like a fatass. Then I'd kick all my game difficulties up to medium. Then I'd get pissed off that I have to live fourteen more years because life sucks.

 

[UberNoodle]

Well it would mean that half the immature crap which happens on the Net never actually happened. I'd wake up and tell all my friends in the intellectually inspired society in which I live what a frightening dream I'd had.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

There's actually an argument, though it lacks any definitive method of being proven or dis-proven, that there's a high probability that we do live in a simulation. Making the assumption that any culture with a high enough level of advancement would create a simulation of a universe, it would stand to reason that that universe would itself give birth to a culture which eventually became advanced enough to simulate a universe. The implication is that any one actual universe could give birth to a much larger number of simulated universes within simulated universes, meaning there are far more simulated universes, and the probability that we exist in a simulated universe instead of a real universe would be high. I'm not going to advocate that as a notion of truth anyone should accept, but I do think it's an interesting premise.

Getting a little more on topic though, I really don't think I'd change a thing even if I knew that everything around me wasn't real. I'm the sort of person who thinks about these sorts of things a lot, and I kind of came to terms with the fact that I could never know if what I experienced was real or not, and as such maintain a strict agnostic viewpoint regarding the idea of whether or not this world is real. In my mind it doesn't really matter one way or the other. I am here now, and I have to operate under the rules of the universe which I'm in either way. Specifically, as regards the issue of "meaning," life here seems to lack objective meaning, a fact which would be relevant whether this was real or not. What meaning there is to be had is subjective, and I kind of like it that way anyways.

And if I were to wake up as a five year old and with the firm knowledge that nothing was real, I think I would be overjoyed. Since the meaning I construct remains relevant to me regardless of whether or not things are real, the opportunity to take another shot at life with all the things I've learned over the years would be phenomenal.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

I'd remain how I am today, but with all my lessons learnt and Introspection already done.

I'd also know why the tall black girl in 5th grade kept kicking in me in the nuts.

 

[Filiecs]

Sweet! That's 12 more years of learning!
I'd use my insane skills to become the worlds most talented five year old. I'd win millions of dollars and achieve my dreams for a SECOND time!

Well, either that or I'd forget to look both ways before I cross the street and get hit by a car..

 

[Unsilenced]

Well, for a decade or so I'd be a goddamn genius. I'd be a 5 year old that understands college level calculus.

Eventually though I'd catch up, to the point where I had the mental development of a 40-something in a 20-something's body, which, while kinda cool, would be nowhere near as impressive. My entire adolescence would be spent slowly slipping downwards from other people's expectations. I'd also be horribly isolated. Conversations with adults would largely just be novelties to them. "What's it like to be a 5 year old that can do derivatives?" Fuck you I want to talk about video games. I don't have anything against kids particularly, but I don't think they'd react well to having someone their age talk to them like an adult, so communication with people my "age" would be difficult. Oh, and I'd have to deal with the fact that, genius or no, people would still treat me like a 5 year old. I wouldn't be able to walk into a convenience store at 1 in the morning and walk out with 2 liters of soda and a bag of cheetos.

Basically it would suck in every way imaginable.

 

[Marter]

Well, I'd certainly have a new appreciation for the "it was all a dream" cliche.

I dunno what I'd do. Maybe off myself. I can't imagine having this level of development but be restricted like that of a five-year-old.

 

[N_of_the_dead]

Well if i remembered everything I would likely write a much down as I could since memories fade easily. Try to change and go for a different path in life. You get a chance to relive life and redoing it over the same would seem kind of wasteful. Would be cool if my mind was similar to a child in its ability to retain information make some of the stuff i would want to learn a lot easier that's for sure. I guess i would be able to help some family members not suffer some bad steps in life like keep my little bro from going out the night he got mugged and such.

 

[Nouw]

I never asked for this, but I will use this opportunity to the fullest. Maybe I'll choose the red pill next time.

 

[loc978]

Ecstatic. If I retain even a quarter of the important life lessons I've got at this point, I could make my life incredible. It certainly helps that I've always been extremely patient... could've gone to sniper school if I had better eyes.

...but I'd have some extremely well-developed sexuality for a five-year-old. That would get pretty awkward.