I have tried to answer this question twice already. This is lucky number 3.
A few things of interest.
http://www.xkcd.com/137/
Cool web-comic. This one's about dreams.
Eternity in a Grain of Sand
And as he stared, a change came over him. He saw into the heart of the universe. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and he was seeing it now. He saw worlds within worlds within words, worlds made of words, and of thoughts, and of matter, and of bits, and of cream cheese, and many other things. He saw the future and the past and the future that was the past; furry sad children combing beaches desperately looking for food, pleading with him to help; places where miners with ornate helmets dug in hills of gold, mining for dirt; he saw
himself, he saw his other selves, he saw the selves that were being created even now, as each possible moment went its separate ways and everything that could have happened, did happen; he saw that he would fail, and he would succeed, and he would never know the difference, you make your quantum superposition and you takes your chances, no wait that was a different world but the principle was still the same. He saw Her, and he saw the Committee Man, and he knew that even if he won, they were still out there somewhere, playing their own games with the worlds. But for every
world they touched, there were an infinity of worlds alike in every respect except for that. It didn't matter whether he went on or not, for if he chose to give up another him would go anyway. But it did matter, didn't it? He couldn't but think that it did, despite the lies he saw in the truth before him. He was getting dizzy. He tried to practice the breathing exercises he had learned from the Utterly Relaxed Koala People, but it was no use, his lungs weren't there anymore. His vision of eternity began to fade, and he heard Her voice (or was it the Committee Man's?) whispering "You won't get it up the stairs." Suddenly, he was back in "reality".
This is a small piece that was written by a Mark Buda on Google groups.
You have to look to the past and the future to reconcile the present. To turn and look into the infinitely small of the past and then to look to the infinitely large of the future and realize that you are the reconciliation of both. You are past and future, but neither past nor future. Black and white, but neither black nor white. Rich and poor, but neither rich nor poor. Good and evil, but neither good nor evil. Existence and nothingness, but neither existence or nothingness. A world and a grain of sand, but neither a world nor a grain of sand. Light and darkness, but neither light nor darkness. A whale and a bowl of petunias, but neither a whale nor a bowl of petunias. A square and a circle but neither a square nor a circle. The point where all these Reconciliations happen is you. You are the reconciliation Point or R.P. of the Omni-verse. Or rather your consciousness is that R.P. No one can have that RP but you and yet everyone, indeed everything already has it. all at the same time.
This one's mine. From one of my near-insanity experiences. You're right about Ideas popping up out of nowhere. I carry a notebook with me everywhere and write them all down so as not to forget.