How to go down the rabbit hole
Mapping the journey of curiosity through portals, wonder, and whimsy (and Mimzy!)
The hour is late. There’s a cool breeze and soft white noise coming from the fan. I’m scrolling Reddit (although I should probably be reading a book). As I drift off, the white text on my phone's dark screen begins to vibrate, becoming wave-like. The words meld with the early stages of dreaming, blending stories of known and unknown people and places. I feel myself dropping, melting, fading.
This liminal space between wakefulness and sleep, also known as the hypnagogic state, is just one of many portals we pass through daily.
Have you crossed a threshold today? Made any kind of choice? Looked in the mirror? Scrolled on your phone? Believe it or not, these are all portals, each asking for our attention and energy to varying degrees.
Portals come in many forms. Some are brief vestibules, others clear dead-ends. The most intriguing are nebulous and fluid, like meditation or flow states. Every now and again, we tumble into a portal that shifts our entire paradigm, presenting novel experiences that transform everything about us. We are no longer the same.
There’s a story of one such portal you may have heard of: Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. If you remember, Alice decided to follow the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole. And what an adventure that was!
Thanks to dear Alice, we casually use the phrase “going down the rabbit hole” when our curiosity takes over and we dive deep into a topic. You might be going down the rabbit hole right now by reading this.
I recently fell into a rabbit hole that revealed a pattern to this creative exploration. Please come along as I break down the process step by step.
In this rabbit hole, you’ll never need to say, “I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!” You’re always right on time. So come along, let’s have an adventure!
Anatomy of a Rabbit Hole
No two rabbit holes are alike, but there are some similarities. I’ll unpack my experience into steps that are sometimes chronological but can also be mixed and matched, depending on your own curiosity and creative impulses. Let’s begin!
The Portal Opens
Call it a spark or an inciting incident, something likely pulls you into the rabbit hole, much like Alice curiously following the White Rabbit. Something grabs your attention and holds it. If you frame it as though it is an invitation, a call to adventure, a portal opening just for you, it becomes a lot more exciting. Here’s how my journey started:
A teacher of mine appeared as a guest on a YouTube podcast. I had recently started pairing YouTube with my workouts, so I was happy to check it out. It was a great episode, and thanks to the magic of YouTube’s algorithms, one episode became many. Soon, this podcast was my constant companion on treadmill walks and Peloton rides.
The Hook
Once you're in the rabbit hole, something keeps you there. It connects with a part of yourself that deeply resonates or calls to you. Perhaps it taps into a memory or something you’ve always wondered about. Your curiosity is activated, and you realize a story unfolds before you. Here’s how that happened for me:
After watching many episodes, one guest in particular stood out to me: Bruce Joel Rubin, the screenwriter of the movie Ghost. You know Ghost, right? The iconic pottery scene with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze? The unforgettable Whoopi Goldberg as suddenly-is-actually-a-psychic-medium Oda Mae Brown? It came out in 1990 when I was in junior high and definitely helped mold my teenage brain.
During this episode, I learned about the many spiritual experiences that Rubin had, starting as a child and once after accidentally taking a massive dose of LSD, which quite literally blew his mind 🤯
These experiences led Rubin to seek a spiritual teacher, leading him on a journey across India and Tibet and ultimately finding a teacher just blocks from his home in New York City.
As Rubin deepened his spiritual practice through meditation and study, he continued writing, infusing films like Brainstorm, Jacob's Ladder, and My Life with his evolving perspectives. His journey from seeker to screenwriter to spiritual student resonated deeply with me, keeping me connected to this rabbit hole.
The Deep Dive
Once you work your way into a rabbit hole, you can decide to stay the course or move on to something else that interests you. Even if you’ve been hooked, opting out is still an option. But if you want to go deeper, you’re in for an experience. Your rabbit hole may serve up ideas for ways to go even deeper. This might look like a book on the topic, a course, or any opportunity to fully immerse yourself, dedicating more time to the contents of your rabbit hole. Here’s where I took a deeper dive into my rabbit hole:
During the podcast, Rubin discussed some of the children’s movies he had worked on, including The Last Mimzy. What a clever title! I was intrigued, especially as they unpacked the film in the episode. I thought to myself, “I’ve got a 7-year-old! Maybe we could watch it together!” So that’s what we did on our next family movie night, popcorn and all.
The Last Mimzy features a brother and a sister who discover a box of toys at their summer cottage on Whidbey Island, including a stuffed rabbit called Mimzy. Soon after, the children begin displaying enhanced intelligence, the ability to communicate telepathically, and other strange behaviors, like sketching extremely complex Tibetan mandalas (a nod to Rubin’s spiritual journey) and even levitating. As their parents try to figure out what is happening, they encounter a concerned visit from their son’s teacher, who happens to study Tibetan mandalas (more on that in a minute), and a visit from the Feds.
My son was mesmerized by the film. I later learned why: it was intentionally told through the children's eyes, with the adults as mere background characters. This approach not only captivated my son but deepened my fascination with Rubin's work and its spiritual and sometimes metaphysical undertones.
The Side Quest
On your rabbit hole adventure, you might stumble upon a detail that's a mini rabbit hole in itself. You dive into this parallel exploration, even if temporarily. While everything is interconnected, this feels adjacent to your original mission. Side quests, often occurring randomly, can enrich your current journey and spark future explorations.
My side quest in this case was Rainn Wilson, who plays the teacher in The Last Mimzy. (Side note on my side quest: his partner in the film is played by none other than Kathryn Hahn, who is worthy of all of the rabbit holes and consumption of all of her film projects. I’m watching Agatha All Along as we speak).
Confession time. I have never watched The Office (the American version), so I don’t have a nostalgic connection to Rainn Wilson. I just noticed that he was popping up all over my feeds with his show Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss, his book Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution, and his corresponding podcast. I caught him on Trevor Noah’s podcast and learned a bit more about his own spiritual journey, starting with his Baha'i upbringing and his adult exploration of meditation and other spiritual seeking. I started listening to his audiobook while walking on the trail and enjoyed hearing more about his origin story.
But I did not go all the way down this rabbit hole, which is why I called it a side quest. It added depth to my original exploration, and I know there's potential for future diving, particularly finishing his book. That would probably be my next step.
But for now, back to our main rabbit hole...
Finding the Origin Story
When deep in a rabbit hole, I'm drawn to the source material. What seeds brought this story to life? Often, the topic shifts as you dig deeper, like a Russian doll revealing smaller versions of itself. This differs from a side quest—it's more of a focused descent into the heart of your fascination. The deeper you go, the deeper you go, pulled by the allure of an even tinier Russian doll.
In my case, I wanted to know the origin story of The Last Mimzy. Where did this story come from? A screenwriter isn’t always the writer of the original story. Sometimes they simply translate the story to be told in film format (and I know this is not necessarily “simple” at all!).
My search led me to a short story called “Mimsy Were the Borogoves,” written in 1943 by Lewis Padgett. Fun fact: Lewis Padgett was a pseudonym for not one, but two writers, the husband and wife team of Henry Kuttner and Catherine Lucille Moore (who went by C.L. Moore and was one of the first women science fiction writers… enjoy the side quest!).
Making it Real
While a rabbit hole often involves internet searches, articles, and notes, bringing it to life with tangible objects and experiences is much more fun. Just as I watched The Last Mimzy with my family, there are plenty of ways to create a sensory experience of your exploration. This could mean seeking out sights, sounds, tastes, and other physical manifestations of your curiosity. Remember the pandemic sourdough bread craze? That's a perfect example of people diving into a rabbit hole through delicious trial and error.
I wanted to get my hands on this particular origin story, so I went searching for a physical copy of the “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” story, which I ultimately found in the 1971 anthology called The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. This 50+ year-old volume is jam-packed with stories for many more rabbit holes, should I decide to pursue them!
Also, there’s nothing like feeling the weight of the book in my hands and, honestly, the smell of 50-year-old pages. Talk about being transported into the past while reading a version of the future!
The Full Circle Moment
There comes a time in every rabbit hole journey when you realize that you’ve reached the end. This may look like abandoning the journey for now or forever for your own reasons. But it may also look like all of the dots have connected, the synchronicity is on the nose, and your journey feels complete.
For me, in this particular rabbit hole, it looked like getting curious about the meaning of the title of the short story “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” and discovering it was, in fact, from the nonsensical poem “Jabberwocky,” from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
A rabbit hole that ends with Alice in Wonderland! How perfectly meta! The journey that began with following a white rabbit led me right back to Alice herself. (And yes, we couldn't resist watching the original 1951 animated film soon after.)
Reverberations and Ephemera
A rabbit hole never really ends. We may put it down or close the book, so to speak, but it still has a way of sticking with us.
My rabbit hole continues by sharing my story here, which has led me back again and again to the origin story step. This has led me to other stories like Gulliver’s Travels and The Journey Of Niels Klim To The World Underground, both published in the mid-1700s and said to have inspired Lewis Carroll.
Even today, I noticed that Bruce Joel Rubin is the screenwriter for The Time Traveler’s Wife which recently came up in conversation with a friend, so now I have to watch.
Our rabbit holes create ripples and reverberations, stirring up old stories and creating new connections. Rabbit holes are portals to adventure, knowledge, and serendipity.
Don’t be surprised when they inspire you in unexpected ways.
Embrace the Rabbit Hole
I hope I’ve inspired you to take your rabbit holes further and appreciate the whimsy and dimension they can add to your life.
Rabbit holes can help you to:
Enhance your creativity and curiosity
Expand your knowledge and perspectives
Cultivate a sense of wonder in everyday life
Strengthen your storytelling skills
Help you see things in new ways
Inspire novel methods to solve problems
Lead you to new experiences that might change your life
Here’s what going down the rabbit hole may look like in practice:
Keeping a documentation and reference library of the things that catch your attention.
Reading references and bibliographies and exploring those materials.
When you're stuck on a problem, allowing yourself to explore with no destination might enact some creative incubation and unconscious processing.
Visiting places like Perplexity, Wikipedia, IMDB, your local library, and any place (virtual or in-person) where you can discover and keep pulling the thread.
Sketching out your ideas and making mind maps of your rabbit hole, introducing new possibilities and paths to explore.
Questions for Reflection:
What has made you curious lately? Is there more to explore?
What rabbit holes have you gone down? How deep did you go, and what unexpected discoveries did you make?
Look around your life. Is there an open portal inviting you to go on a creative journey down the rabbit hole?
How would you map out a recent rabbit hole? How about the next one?
How might you incorporate regular "rabbit hole time" into your routine to stir up your creativity and curiosity?
Have we sparked your curiosity?✨ Here’s more:
The podcast that inspired it all: Bruce Joel Rubin on Next Level Soul [YouTube]
Listen to William Shatner read the short story Mimsy Were the Borogroves [YouTube]
'Curiouser and Curiouser!': Exploring Wonderland with Alice [University of Michigan online exhibit]
I love this and am chuckling because I recognized that “mimsy were the borogoves” was from Through the Looking Glass and I was hoping your rabbit hole would lead you there. I have a collection (6?) of Alice in Wonderland books. I also have many bird books, so this past Christmas my husband made me a “Birds of Alice in Wonderland” book, including the birds in the movie and books.
Anyway, thank you for this lovely piece of writing!