Quantum Physics & Psychoanalytic Buddhism: The Philosophy of ‘Dark Matter’

Eddie Ejjbair
7 min readJun 30, 2024

Something that stood out to me in the book/ TV series, Dark Matter, was the way that it incorporated Psychoanalytic Buddhism without mentioning either Psychoanalysis or Buddhism.

For those unfamiliar with the show, the characters in it travel to parallel universes by entering doors in an infinite hallway.

‘So if the world really splits whenever something is observed, that means there’s an unimaginably massive, infinite number of universes — a multiverse — where everything that can happen will happen.’

At first, the worlds that they enter seem random, but it soon becomes clear that their thoughts — prior to opening the door — dictates the world that they see.

What a strange thing to consider imagining a world into being with nothing but words, intention, and desire. It’s a troubling paradox — I have total control, but only to the extent I have control over myself. My emotions. My inner storm. The secret engines that drive me.

To control where they end up, they have to control their thoughts, and the way that they do this is, essentially, Buddhist meditation.

“If that’s the truth, if it’s our emotional state that’s somehow selecting these worlds, to what kind of a place is your rage and jealousy going to take us? You can’t hold on to this energy as…

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