Changes between registers can be very strange and subtle, even affecting the words we use.

Take the word, opaque, for example.

Growing up in elementary school, I learned that word and learned it well as, “opague.”  I remember clearly how the teacher tied it with the word, “vague,” to help us remember it.

Opague rhymed with vague and was the furthermost expression of the definition.  Vague meant visually indistinct or not clear, while  opague meant a material that blocks light completely, letting nothing through at all.

I have no idea where or when in my travels that changed for me.  It was long after I started exploring other registers as I was looking for physical changes rather than spoken or written ones.

The first time I heard it as o-pake’ I thought it was a dialect mispronunciation.  When I heard it a second time elsewhere, I looked it up in a local dictionary  to discover the change in sound and spelling.

Again, I found it fascinating to find a change in a single letter and that alerted me to look for other differences in words and language.

I have found many and will share them in future postings.

There are an infinite number of parallel worlds that we naturally and constantly shift to and from in our daily lives.

We move through these places all the time but, because our natural biological range is so limited, the differences are almost unnoticeable.

It’s only after months or years that we travel far enough away from our origins to notice any changes.

And even then, most of the time, people dismiss these differences with hardy a thought.

They drive past an old blue building for years without really noticing it as anything more than something in the background.  One day, they notice it is an old red building.

Puzzled, they say to themselves, “I thought that was blue. Did they paint it?”

On the way back, they make a point of looking for it and see that the paint is peeling, with weathered boards showing through.

“Hmph,” goes the thought. “I guess I never paid attention to it.”

But they do now, every day, and it doesn’t change again because it’s become part of their world view.  They now move only through the registers that have an old red building along their travel route.

Other things that they don’t pay attention to continue to change without their noticing.

After experiencing this many times, I looked back at my own memories and recorded the changes I saw around me.  I found it fascinating and ultimately led to my creating the Shift Engine.

I found many of these changes minor and amusing, while others were more serious and profound.

In future posts, I will describe some of them as examples of things to search for in the memories of your own life.

You are welcome to share your own experiences on things that you knew were true that were suddenly different. I find natural Shifting fascinating and look to discover more about its limits.

I have decided to use this online journal as a record of my travels.

In the weeks to come, I will endeavor to describe the events that led me to this place as well as the means I used to do so.

I must also explore which materials are available in this register that will work to build another Shift Engine.

Then I have to decide if sharing that knowledge here would be wise.

As I seem trapped here for the foreseeable future, I debate the wisdom of explaining Shift Technology to those of this register.

But this internet is endlessly fascinating and the possibility exists that other Shifters may also be here.

I will say more after considering implications.