So you’ve clicked here to have your mind blown, you must be curious!

Flatland is a humorous and meaningful film that explains the structure and mysteries of dimensions and geometry. It also features a range of religious, political and philosophical parallels.

The film is easy to access via Youtube, you can see the official HD version of Flatland below. A very brief summary and some thoughts are also offered below.

The film is about a 2D square named ‘A Square’, a lawyer who lives in flatland, a 2D realm comprised of 2D shapes and societies. This square is startled by a 3D sphere who appears seemingly out of no where, who takes A Square beyond his 2D realm into the 3D realm, in order for A Square to go back and teach his disbelieving 2D compatriots about the 3D realm.

Throughout the film, a fascinating and refreshing set of explorations is offered about the nature of reality, dimensionality, and how we interpret reality. The film could be seen as an attempt to open our minds to wider possibilities; I will give an example based on the film and geometry.

In 2D, an infinite number of points create lines (1D to 2D), when layers are infinitely added to 2D shapes that arise from various line formations (e.g circles and squares), we get 3D shapes like cubes and spheres, depth gets clearly introduced.

This said, there is by necessity, a infinitesimal amount of 3D in 2D, a tiny bit of depth, a layer, is needed for lines and points to relate to each other. In our 3D world, time is postulated to be the 4th dimension.

Like how 3D infinitely replicates layers of lines and points into depth, time as the 4th dimension enables 3D objects to be combined, seen and change in virtually infinite ways. If 2D has a tiny slither of 3D baked into it, then perhaps for us in 3D, we experience only a slither of 4D, that is, a timeline amongst infinite other timelines.

In Flatland, the 3D objects can easily navigate, transcend and see the details of 2D; a journey that takes a 2D object a long time to do, or a barrier like a 2D wall, is of no consequence to a 3D entity. Extrapolating to 4D, if there are entities in that dimension, they could do the same with 3D, effortlessly shifting between and existing beyond any given 3D reality.

Flatland’s spiritual undertones and parralels with religion are quite obvious, and this link is no doubt a purposeful one. The idea of a ‘messiah’ or one who seems to know about something beyond what is taken for reality, is pointed to often.

Personally, I am sympathetic to this paralleling; perhaps, through direct but limited experience (as you’ll see with A Square), there may be ways to glimpse higher dimensions.

There are a range of experiences that many people have, but they are not understood using a material-scientific lens, which is limited, akin to a 2D entity’s paradigm of reality struggling to go beyond its own dimensional assumptions:

• Near death and out of body experiences
• Extrasensory perception
• Lucid dreaming and astral projection
• Psychedelic experiences: meeting or realising God, entering other dimensions, appearance of entities
• Time travelling experiences: back to moments of birth, historical events beyond one’s own lifetime, past-life regression/experiences
• UFOs, abduction stories and mysterious sightings
• Channeling of entities including spirits in mediumship circles

Anyways, these are some of my thoughts, but take from the film what you will! I found it to be an insightful and fun watch that is worth sharing. I hope that you enjoy it.