What if the Universe is a Hologram?

The world is not what it seems, nor are you.

I still remember rushing through the science museum as a small child and stopping dead in my tracks. There it was—a chameleon perched on a branch in the middle of the room.

Wow, how did they get a chameleon in here? It’s not even in a cage!

I raced to get closer, pushing through the crowd of children that surrounded it. I reached out—eager to feel its scaly skin—only to gasp as my fingers passed through the chameleon, meeting no resistance and touching only empty space. It was a hologram! The chameleon, so convincingly real, was nothing but light dancing in space, creating the perfect illusion of materiality.

A World of Appearances

That moment of astonishment—discovering that something so apparently solid was entirely illusory—planted a seed of wonder that later blossomed in my search for truth. Years later, I wondered:

What if we live in a holographic universe?

What if the seemingly solid reality we inhabit—from your apparently physical body to the vast cosmic expanse of stars and galaxies—is fundamentally holographic? What if our apparently material reality is, in fact, a play of light—not physical light, but the light of a single infinite consciousness?

This is not as absurd as it seems. Every night when you dream, your own mind creates a holographic universe. It simulates an entire world within itself and populates it with characters, landscapes and experiences that feel utterly real. Your mind even fabricates you as one of the characters, complete with a dream-body. As a result, you seem to exist inside the dream as a limited, separate subject who interacts with a ‘real’ material world outside of you.

Yet upon waking, you realize that the entire dreamscape was your own mind’s creation. Both you—the seemingly separate subject—and the seemingly solid world turn out to be the activity of your own mind. What seemed material turns out to be mental. The apparently solid tree in the dreamworld is an act of pure imagination, the creative play of mind.

What if dreaming reveals the nature of existence? What if this nightly holographic experience demonstrates how the appearance of the world comes to be? What if, like the nighttime dream, the universe is an act of pure imagination—that of a single, infinite mind?

I’m not suggesting the universe is projected by your individual mind—that would be solipsism. Rather, I am suggesting that all minds and matter emerge from a single, universal consciousness that dreams everything into existence. The apparently physical universe may be a magnificent hologram arising within one infinite consciousness.

Just as a hologram is light appearing as an object, what if the universe is consciousness, appearing to itself as the world?

Pure consciousness is both the source and the image. It is the still, unchanging light of the unmanifest and the magnificent, ever-changing display of form.

I also don’t mean to suggest that the universe isn’t real. It is real; it’s just not what it appears to be. It’s illusory—just like that chameleon in the museum. The chameleon was never a chameleon; it was always only light. Likewise, the apparently solid universe is not made out of matter, despite what we were taught in school. The convincing display of physicality is pure consciousness alone. What we call ‘the universe’ is real, but not as a material world. It’s real as consciousness, the essence and substance of the world.

The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

Several prominent scientists and thinkers have arrived at similar conclusions. Federico Faggin, the physicist who invented the world’s first microprocessor, argues that consciousness is fundamental—not an emergent property of matter. After decades studying physics and computing, Faggin has concluded that the seemingly material world emerges from consciousness, not the reverse. Similarly, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman proposes that what we perceive as physical reality is more akin to a user interface—helpful icons representing a deeper reality that is fundamentally conscious in nature.

Philosophers Rupert Spira and Bernardo Kastrup argue that matter is merely how universal consciousness appears when observed from a seemingly localized point of view. These thinkers challenge the assumption that we live in a material world. They challenge the assumption that matter is primary and consciousness secondary. They challenge the assumption that consciousness is a limited, emergent property of the body-mind. Alternatively, they posit that consciousness is the substance out of which everything is made. Just like the nighttime dream. Just like a hologram.

Of course, this idea isn’t new. It is what all the great saints and sages have been pointing to over the millennia. Lao Tzu, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Meister Eckhart, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Amma—these spiritual luminaries have pointed to the singular and universal nature of reality across diverse traditions spanning 3,000 years. As the Vedic sage Ashtavakra said, ‘Just as a cloth, when analyzed, is found to be nothing but thread—so the universe, when examined, is found to be nothing but the self.’¹

At the heart of every contemplative tradition is the same understanding: that the essence of reality is a single, universal consciousness or presence. One whose nature is your nature. After all, if universal consciousness is the essence of reality, then it must be your essence as a seemingly separate self. There is only one reality—pure presence—the essence of everyone and everything.

We are not separate beings observing an external, material universe, but a single infinite consciousness dreaming the cosmos within itself—each of us a unique perspective of the same universal dreamer. We are many viewpoints of a single infinite mind, viewing itself from countless angles in the mirror of form. We are one being appearing to itself as many bodies. We are one witness with many eyes. Ultimately, there is no other. There is only the self, and we are that.

Healing Human Suffering

This understanding could transform society by healing human suffering. Chronic fear, anger, sadness, shame, loneliness, even the subtle sense of dissatisfaction or lack—these and many other forms of suffering are rooted in the belief, ‘I am a separate self’. Just as we appear as a character in dreams, we appear as a separate individual in waking life. This is the holographic, or illusory, nature of life.

If we believe that illusion—that is, if we automatically assume we are a separate self—we naturally feel a sense of isolation and vulnerability. We feel isolated because we assume we are separate from everyone and everything. And we feel vulnerable because we assume we die when the body dies. This deep sense of isolation and vulnerability could be called ‘the wound of separation’. It goes hand-in-hand with identifying as a separate self.

Most forms of psychological suffering are either surface-level expressions of this core wound, or they are attempts to avoid it. For example, the activities of seeking and resisting—which characterize so much of human life—are attempts to manage the feelings that arise when this wound remains unresolved. The cycle of suffering turns, like a wheel, around the core wound of separation.

The exit from this cycle of suffering is understanding our true nature. If the suffering is generated by a misunderstanding about our self, then it can only be healed by self-knowledge.

Take the fear of death. Believing ‘I die when the body dies’ is like believing the space in a jar vanishes when the jar breaks. But nothing happens to the space; it remains as it is. Likewise, nothing happens to consciousness when the body dies. It remains as it is—pure peace. This understanding liberates us from the fear of death that undergirds much human suffering. Just as a house cannot stand without its foundation, suffering gently crumbles without the underlying fear of death upon which it was built.

This understanding can also help heal trauma, as well as certain forms of chronic illness. Many chronic conditions, once thought purely physical, are now being described as neuroplastic.² ‘Neuroplastic’ simply means ‘learned by the brain’. Essentially, these conditions occur when the brain develops a bad habit. Specifically, they are the over-activation of certain defense mechanisms, such as the fight-or-flight response, the inflammatory response or the neural circuitry for pain. These systems turn ‘on’ but fail to turn ‘off’. Or they simply become over-reactive.³

In my own case, I spent years struggling with PTSD, chronic pain, fatigue, migraines, fibromyalgia, insomnia and, more recently, long covid. I spent countless hours and thousands of dollars searching for relief. Doctors told me these were chronic conditions that could never be healed. I’ll never forget what the psychiatrist said about PTSD: ‘This is something that cannot be healed but can only be managed.’ It felt like a death sentence. Thankfully, some defiant part of my mind refused to believe him.

Decades later, and after much research and exploration, I am now free of all those supposedly ‘chronic’ conditions. To heal from them, I had to systematically unlearn certain habitual responses. For instance, I had to gently retrain my neural circuitry for pain to stop activating so often and, if it did, not to stay ‘on’ for so long. I had to teach my subconscious mind to perceive safety rather than threat in situations that reminded it of traumatic events from the past.

During that time, my body didn’t always feel like a safe place to inhabit. At times, all I could feel was pain. In those moments, I went directly to my essential self—pure consciousness—the only real sanctuary and source of peace. Over time, the peace of my true nature dissolved the feelings of pain, fear and fatigue.⁴

Beyond healing suffering, this understanding lays the foundation for a truly humane society. Every day, we witness war, corruption, oppression and the destruction of our planet. These behaviors share the same root cause as suffering: the belief, ‘I am a separate self’. This belief creates the illusion of an ‘other’. And the illusion of an ‘other’ fuels the fallacy that one can harm a so-called other without essentially harming oneself.

Reality reveals that there is no other; there is only the self. This is why sages are kind. Just as your left hand doesn’t attack your right, those who understand the unity of consciousness aren’t compelled to harm so-called others. They see everyone and everything as their self.

If it’s true that we live in a holographic universe—that everyone and everything is an expression of a single, infinite consciousness—then we are being called to stretch our love beyond our wildest imaginations. We are being called to recognize our true creative power—the power that dreams the universe into apparent existence—and to use that power in the service of that which is beautiful and just.

I hope you will join me there—beyond the belief in separation—where we relate and create as one.

1. Thomas Byrom, The Heart of Awareness: A Translation of the Ashtavakra Gita (Boston: Shambhala, 1990)

2. I’ve especially appreciated the work of Lorimer Mosley and Dr. Howard Schubiner on chronic pain; Dr. Becca Kennedy on long covid and other chronic conditions; and Jason Quintal on trauma.

3. The research on chronic pain offers a neuroscientific description of what Eckhart Tolle calls ‘the pain body’—a topic I will save for a later essay.

4. It’s beyond the scope of this article to go into the details here, but I will share more about healing trauma and chronic illness in other articles.

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Have a lovely week, take good care.

With love,

Kyra