They can still be living, but you only get 15 minutes, to see, feel, smell, hear, taste and even “listen” to their thoughts. You can’t however control their actions, or “posses” them. I wouldn’t recommend squandering it on sexual fantasies (as tempting as they may be ), but rather to gain insight on momentous occasions.
For me, I think I’d go with July 20th, 1969: Neil Armstrong as he descends the ladder of the LEM for the first time. I would love to know what was really going through his head, whether he did say that elusive “a” or not*, and experience the surface of the frickin’ Moon.
How 'bout you?
*and, yes, I know some sound analysis of the transmission as supposedly detected it.
I’d like to inhabit the mind of Samuel Taylor Coleridge the moment he awakes from the opium-induced dream, and note down the whole of *Kubla Khan *before the ‘visitor from Porlock’ distracts him and makes him forget most of it …
Good choice. You could put to rest a lot of conspiracy theories.
My first instinct would be to solve a mystery by jumping into the head of Jack the Ripper, or even JonBenet Ramsey’s killer.
But it would also be really cool to leap into Abraham Lincoln as he was writing the Gettysburg Address, or one of the founding fathers as they signed the Declaration of Independence. I like to imagine them thinking something like “Holy sh*t, what have we done?”
Poe, perhaps the eve of his death. Know why he died, exactly. But being in his mind might be frightening. We saw his writing… imagine what didn’t get censored between mind and pen.
Dr. Seuss. I’d love to know how he came up with some of what he came up with.
More practically, I’d love to know exactly what was going on in my fiancee’s head, if only for 15 minutes!
My very first thought was JonBenet’s killer. I’d hate to feel like a part of the murder, but I sure would like to know for sure who it was, why they did it, and how they pulled it off.
Now that another person also mentioned JonBenet Ramsey, I feel less dirty. I got really into reading about the murder last year and I’m very curious for sure to know who did it.
I’d like to find out what was really going on in the mind of Hitler. How did he perceive what he was doing? Was he haunted by demons, or did he believe what he was doing was right?
To gain some insight into a historical figure I admire, I’ll nominate Martin Luther standing before the Diet of Worms, asked to recant his writings on penalty of excommunication and execution as a heretic. He replied,
Moses when he was receiving the 10 Commandments. What a mind screw that must have been. Or maybe when the burning bush was talking to him. That would be absolutely mind blowing.
Serenata67, that’s a good one!
I wouldn’t mind being Joan of Arc when she gets the revelations from Saints Catherine, Marguerite and Michel.
Or, if the story is true, be Beethoven when he is turned around to face the audience at the end of the premier performance of the 9th Symphony (the story goes that he didn’t realize that people were applauding and one of the performers had to go to him and take his arm to get him to face the audience.)
Probably this one. I mean, I studied Hitler and in a short time I figured him out. I studied Stalin and it took a bit but in a while he made sense. Jim Jones, yeah I knew what he was about. Same with the guy at Waco.
This one doesn’t seem to hold up under any of my theories.
), but rather to gain insight on momentous occasions.
