What If You Were 1000 feet (300 meters) Tall?
It's a bright summer day, and you're taking a walk down a country lane toward – hang
on a minute, where are you going?
You've drawn a complete blank.
Realizing the sun has probably gotten to your head, you decide to settle down under the
shade and rest for a while.
Come to think of it, you're pretty tired, and this heat is making you drowsy.
You head toward a big tree in the field beside you and settle down underneath it, leaning
back on the trunk.
In a matter of seconds, your mind starts to wander, and you feel yourself drifting off…
The next thing you know, you feel leaves and twigs hitting the side of your face.
Ouch!
What just happened?
Did a whole branch fall off the tree and land on you?
You open your eyes to find out, but instead, you find out you're in a completely different
place – the whole view in front of you has changed.
Your heart starts racing.
Whereas before you were looking at the brief outline of a church on top of a hill, you
can now see your entire city and more stretching out below you.
Did you just get kidnapped whilst you were asleep or something?
You glance around you, and everything looks so small.
No, wait.
That can't be right.
You can't think of anywhere high enough to afford this kind of view of your city.
What the–
Then you feel an itchy sensation at your lower back.
Reaching your hand down, you feel a sensation that's familiar yet alien at the same time.
Is that leaves?
You feel a sense of dread as you look at the ground, your heart beating faster than it
ever has before.
Instead of just seeing the small patch of grass below you, you can now see the entire
field, and the field next to it, and the field next to that.
You realize the itchy sensation is coming from the tree you were leaning against, which
is now nothing more than a tiny daisy to you.
You shut your eyes again, feeling slightly nauseous.
There's no way this can be happening.
Are you dreaming?
You can't be – you've had lucid dreams before and you always just know.
Could you have some sort of super rare dissociative or body dysmorphic disease?
But they don't just spring up within seconds, do they?
Maybe somebody spiked your food or drink earlier?
That could be the answer – you suddenly realize you have no idea what you've eaten
or drank today.
Maybe you'll just open your eyes again and everything will go back to normal.
Three, two, one….
Nope.
Everything is just the same as before.
But you're still not convinced this is really happening.
I mean, how could it be?
The key is to keep calm and try to apply some logic.
So, you begin to stand up.
Woah.
The ground feels really far away.
Like really, really far away.
Meanwhile, the wind is pretty strong up near your head, and you start to feel cold.
Looking down, you see what looks like flies buzzing around your chest area, but realize
they must be birds.
You take a quick look around to gauge your surroundings and figure out just how tall
you are.
The tree you were previously sat by is now up to your ankle, and even the church on the
hill you used to be looking up at is now something you could squish with your foot – or even
your little toe.
You're not some numbers freak who goes around memorizing the heights of everything, so figuring
out how tall you actually are is tricky, but that tree you were stood beneath was probably
equivalent to the height of around five people.
Assuming for argument's sake that the average person is six-foot-tall, that would make the
tree about thirty-foot high.
And now, that thirty-foot tree isn't even reaching your ankle.
Your ankle is maybe about 3% of your total body height…which would make you…1000
feet.
Wait, what?
It sounds ridiculous to even think it.
How can a person even be 1000 feet tall?
Isn't that, like, the same height as the Eiffel Tower or something?
Is it even physically possible for a person to be that tall without toppling over?
Yet here you are, standing on your two feet and looking over your town as if it was a
model village.
This might be some kind of hallucination or delusion, and you sure hope it is, but for
now, it's your reality.
You've got to make the best of it.
That's when it sinks in.
How can you make the best of it?
If you truly are 1000-foot-tall – or even if you're only 800-foot-tall – then everyone
who lives in this town and neighboring towns can probably see you right now.
Good thing you put on a nice shirt today.
Come to think of it, how come all your clothes and shoes still seem to fit you perfectly?
But they're not going to be thinking about your shirt – they're going to be thinking
about calling the police, or even the military, to come and take you down.
You need to get out of sight quickly, so you lie on the ground.
It's a slight improvement, but you're still not exactly hidden – even like this,
you're around the same height as that oak tree, and an awful lot longer.
You may be in a quiet field right now, but it's not quiet enough – people come walking
here all the time.
Within a few minutes, someone is bound to find you.
From those few seconds you were stood up, someone might have already seen you and called
the emergency services.
You need to get a move on – but how can you move without being seen, and where would
you even go?
You rack your brain, remembering your surroundings.
There's a lake nearby that's pretty deep – maybe you could just empty it out and
hide inside?
But that would cause a flood for everyone in the town, and you'd also draw attention
to yourself.
No, that wouldn't work at all.
Could you hide in that forest nearby?
People don't go there very often.
But it would be uncomfortable for you to sit or lie down on top of all those trees, and
deforesting an area big enough for you to stay would again attract attention.
Damn, this stuff is difficult.
Maybe you could stay here after all.
There's still a chance you've been drugged and are just hallucinating, right?
Maybe it wouldn't be wise to stray too far and get yourself into a potentially sticky
situation.
As you lay on the ground across the fields with the hot sun beating down on you, you're
lulled into a sense of contentment and peacefulness for a while.
You close your eyes and hope everything will return to normal…
Instead, you hear a scream.
You jolt up in a panic and look over to your left, where the noise was coming from.
It takes you a few seconds to locate when the origin of the scream since everything
looks so small, but eventually you notice a woman walking her dog.
You shout at her not to panic, but she's already started running away.
That's when it dawns on you that this is really happening, somehow.
You really are a gigantic monster.
And that woman is probably going to be on the phone to the police already.
Whilst you'd definitely have an advantage in any kind of confrontation, you're a lover
and not a fighter.
You need to get away from all this – and fast.
Luckily, being 1000-foot-tall, speed isn't a problem.
You look down at your long, long legs – just how quickly can you move with these things?
Faster than a car, surely?
Except you don't have to follow roads.
With any luck, the authorities will think anyone claiming to have spotted a giant is
crazy, and you'll be safely out of sight before they can change their mind.
Perhaps you could make your way over to some big mountain range, the Appalachian Trail
or something.
If only you knew the way…
You have no idea where to go, but at least your height helps you to see far into the
distance.
You head off in the direction that has the least buildings as far as you can see, you
move as fast as you can, and you hope for the best.
At first, you keep glancing down to make sure you don't accidentally step on any houses
or buildings, but then you realize you probably wouldn't even notice if you stood on a person.
You're so high up now that you wouldn't even hear them scream.
Your stomach lurches.
You desperately want to be the big friendly giant and not a mass murderer, but it's
so hard not to cause mayhem at this height…
Still, you can't afford to slow down.
The military could be chasing after you right this second.
They probably are.
Maybe they have a helicopter, too.
You could easily swat it away and cause it to crash, of course, but do you have that
in you?
Your heart pounds as you wander further and further into the distance, toward hills and
fields and mountains that you pray will hide you from the world forever.
You don't know how long you've been walking – adrenaline has just been carrying you
on – but eventually, you make it to a place covered in mountains and lakes.
There doesn't seem to be any civilization around these parts, so it's probably about
as safe as you're going to get.
You lie down on the ground to get a better view of your surroundings close-up, and sure
enough, you can't spot anything.
As soon as the adrenaline wears off, you notice how thirsty you are.
Tap water or bottled water aren't really options anymore – you'll have to drink
straight from an entire body of water instead.
You eye up a nearby lake and hope it's clean.
Not that you have much choice, anyway.
What are you going to do, build a makeshift supersized sterilization system?
So, you awkwardly lie on the ground and slurp the water out of the lake.
It doesn't taste so bad, but your dignity is out the window.
Then you feel a huge rumble in your stomach.
You're hungry.
Uh oh.
It was hard enough figuring out what you wanted to eat for lunch back when you were five foot
six, but now than you're 1000 foot tall, it's mission impossible.
If you used to need 2,500 calories, now that you're almost 200 times taller, you'll
need almost…wait…500,000 calories?!
That's like eating 2,000 donuts, or 1,000 Big Macs.
You don't want to risk raiding a shop or restaurant, but even if you did, would you
be able to open any of the packages up with your huge clumsy hands?
You don't fancy eating live animals raw, but you don't see how you could possibly
get enough calories from eating plants, or how you could get enough supply.
For now, you spot an apple tree and unroot it from the ground.
It's surprisingly easy, like pulling a loose weed from the soil.
You try to only eat the apples from the tree, but it's pretty much impossible.
Instead, you end up getting bits of branches and leaves stuck in your mouth too.
And even after finishing off almost the entire apple tree, you don't exactly feel satisfied.
How are you going to keep this up?
At least for now, it seems like you're safe.
Yet you don't exactly feel relieved.
Maybe you should just have handed yourself in.
The government might have agreed to keep you in return for being their secret weapon.
What are you going to do here?
You'll never survive.
Even if you do survive, life's about more than that.
How can you find meaning and happiness in your life when you're isolated somewhere
in the wilderness as a 1000-foot person?
Full of despair, you drift into sleep – and that's when you hear another scream.
You wake up expecting to be back to your usual height, but opening your eyes confirms that
your head alone is still larger than the trees nearby.
Great, just great.
But who just screamed?
Squinting, you see a guy running away.
You shout at him not to panic, that you won't hurt him, and surprisingly, he actually stops.
You explain to him what's happened to you, that you suddenly turned into a giant and
you just want somewhere to be safe out of sight.
He's so small that you can't really work out the expression on his face or read his
reaction, but at least he's staying still.
You start to hear a distant sound and realize he must be talking, but the noise is too quiet
for you to hear.
Now shouting, he tells you that he lives here by the mountains alone but often struggles
to source and build everything he needs.
He won't tell anyone you're here, as long as you're willing to help him out now and
then.
It might not be the life you've always dreamed of, but at this point, you'll take it.
Meanwhile, a group of researchers sit around a screen.
Who would have thought that the giant simulation would be so successful?
It's one of many simulations to test how humans with different brain chemistries and
life experiences react in extreme scenarios, in the hope of learning more about building
resilience.
This is the first time that a subject has been able to adapt instead of self-destructing
– fascinating.
But for now, it's time to turn the simulation off.
If surreal experiences are your jam, check out our videos about what would happen if
you had shark teeth or broke every bone in your body.
Don't wait, click one now!
