The “glitch-in-the-matrix” tale is a brief autobiographical account of a paranormal experience typically shared online. Thematically, such X-file tales run the gamut from stories of temporal displacement to accounts of precognitive dreams, mind-matter interaction, parallel realities, and contact with non-physical entities. While frequently framed as a contemporary online Western trend, an analogous genre, the “zhiguai,” not only exists in contemporary China but also fulfills a similar cultural function. In both cases, autobiographical narratives about temporary glitches of reality are told to interrogate mainstream materialist conceptions of reality, to argue for the existence of experiences beyond the ability of reason to comprehend, and to signal toward new models of identity, time, and space. This is visible not just in the specific details of the narratives proper but also in expository addenda provided by the writers that explicitly comment on the tales’ significance.
Ultimately, these narratives support the contentions of literary theorists like Victoria Nelson and Jeffrey Kripal that literary works, particularly those associated with popular culture genres—such as fantasy, science fiction, and the paranormal—frequently reflect a veiled allegiance to mystical models of reality. More specifically, these narratives portray time as nonlinear, consciousness as fundamental to reality, and our material plane as a living cosmos of phenomena connected with one another and other planes of existence. Drawing upon an analysis of contemporary tales collected by the presenters from America and China, the presenters argue that glitch-in-the-matrix/zhiguai tales function to express, via a popular autobiographical form, a panpsychic understanding of reality and identity that is frowned upon in the narrators’ everyday world.
About the presentersJohn Yu Branscum
John Yu Branscum is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. As well, he serves as a curriculum development consultant for New Oriental Education Inc. in Beijing, China and literary editor for Black and Grey Magazine in Los Angeles, CA.
Yi Izzy Yu
Yi Izzy Yu is a lecturer at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and creative director for Pangea Organic Foods in China. Her scholarship focuses on applying ideas from Taoist and Buddhist philosophy to education. Before she moved to the United States, she worked as translator for Microsoft in Shanghai, China and was a professor at several Chinese Universities. She teaches classes in international literature, mythology, and composition.