Gravity Falls Cosmology Blog

 Gravity Falls Cosmology Blog:

(Edit by Twice!)

Gravity Falls’ Cosmology is shockingly thorough, rich and elaborate, which is pretty unusual for a western cartoon at the time, but due to a large amount of it's information being strung among various external pieces of media across a multitude of books, ciphers to be cracked, and comics, information about the cosmology can be a bit difficult to gather at points, which made GF’s cosmology rather underrated within the vs community for a rather extended period of time.

However, within the past year or so, Gravity Falls’ greater Cosmology has been getting put under a pretty large magnifying glass, and things have been getting dug up that show how truly vast and expansive the worldbuilding for GF is, so I figured it’d be a fun exercise to try and break down the cosmology in as concise, readable and understandable a way as possible. This will all, of course, be looked at largely from a versus lens however, so please keep that in mind going in.

Before We Begin:

This blog is made largely as a sister blog for another blog I’m working on, that being a Bill Cipher Solo Analysis, which you can read here. I recommend reading both of these blogs together, as much of the information within this blog will be necessary to understand the higher levels of power argued in Bill’s Blog. However, this blog can largely be read on its own just fine.

The Bill blog also has an exhausting media list of all the media used for my research, that same media list applies for this blog.

The Multiverse:

The Gravity Falls Multiverse is absolutely fucking massive, shockingly so!

To begin with, a single universe within the multiverse is shown to be infinite in size, as the universe and its spacetime continuum in the main Gravity Falls canon contains the Bottomless Pit, an infinite four dimensional construct, and among Fiddleford’s maddened notes contains implications and mentions to the universe being infinite as well.

The greater multiverse is stated to contain an infinite amount of universes a multitude of times, with their space-times referred to as “time-streams”, not timelines (this distinction is important later). The dimensions are also regularly referred to as parallel, which means their size should be equal in comparison, meaning that every one of the universes and their spacetimes would be infinite as well! Lots of infinity going around.

It's further specified that in the multiverse, all conceivable realities can, and must be real, this extends to various things, such as all afterlifes in every religion being real somewhere, to a dimension existing where all typos exist. He even makes direct mention of the Disney Chibiverse existing within the Multiverse. There also exists a “Mirror Realm” within, an “inverted anti-reality” that can be accessed from every mirror.

The Mindscape / Dreamscape:

The Mindscape is a rather unexplored plane on a versus end of things, so let's break this down piece by piece. The Mindscape is a mental and spiritual plane of reality that can connect to not only all consciousness across all physical reality, but also being able to connect to the Nightmare Realm and act as a gateway for entities like Bill Cipher to access and communicate with beings from lower planes. This technically means that it would be a cosmological structure that overlaps with an entire Multiverse!

Each and every person has their own Mindscape, which can be accessed through their dreams while they sleep. Said Mindscape contains information core to them, such as their memories, their fears, and their hopes. All these individual Mindscapes likely connect to / are embedded by the “greater” Mindscape, which overlaps with physical reality, as seen when Dipper’s spirit was trapped in the Mindscape… which was occupying the same space as physical reality. Considering the multiverse is infinite, there would thus be an infinite amount of potential Mindscapes contained within this “greater” Mindscape as well.

Within an individual’s Mindscape, one can make whatever they imagine real, manifesting things within and changing the nature of the Mindscape however they’d like. This only seems to apply when within the Mindscape of an individual, and not the greater Mindscape that Dipper was trapped in. Something else that should be noted is that the Mindscape isn’t just mental in nature, but also spiritual, as removing someone’s soul from their body traps them in the Mindscape as a soul “that doesn’t exist”, making them invisible to the naked eye, when even typical ghosts can be perceived by humans.

Most notably however, would be recent revelations from the website, with direct confirmation that the Mindscape is an Ideaspace! Bill confirms that one’s very identity, the idea of themselves, the ultimate representation that they are, alongside the stories they represent, can be stored within the Mindscape and live forever. In fact, he equates the Mindscape to being a “story world”, and he specifies that “stories are just as real as physical reality, but they exist in a separate realm.”, said realm being the Mindscape. The worlds are essentially separate, yet intrinsically tied and can directly affect and manipulate each other. The physical world (the Multiverse) creates and spreads stories, while the story world (the Mindscape) controls the motives and thoughts of those in the physical world. Bill equates it to reality creating fiction, which creates reality in turn. Bill also states that dreams, which reside within the Mindscape, are “glimpses into possible realities”, implying that they may be physical spaces in of themselves.

So in short, the Mindscape is functionally an equal reality to the Multiverse that can overlap with it in some way, a conceptual ideaspace in which people’s core identities, stories and ideas can reside and remain eternal, with the Mindscape having a fundamental effect on the multiverse and the multiverse an effect in turn. At the least, this doubles the size of the basic cosmology, as it's essentially a second multiverse, a space that overlaps with the physical reality of the multiverse across all of time. It also contains the various individual Mindscapes and dreams (possible realities) of the infinite amount of beings living within the multiverse.

The Fourth Dimension & In-Between Space:

In the CYOA Book, Blendin Blandin, a member of the Time Police, explains in depth how time travel and its mechanics within Gravity Falls works, which includes the fourth dimension! Using Time Police technology, he’s able to access “a place between time and space”. When describing how it works, Blendin says: “If you could see the fourth dimension, you could see the entirety of human history sprawled out like a river delta. Infinite lives and parallel universes coexisting.” Viewing the fourth dimension like this allows one to see historical events as if they were strips of film. Functionally, this means the fourth temporal dimension embeds the entire multiverse within itself. It's also what the Time Cops use to travel through time and space, using it as a hyperspace to travel through, with Dipper and Mabel using it to traverse to different points in their timestream.

It should also be noted that, in this In-Between Space, is where Dipper and Mabel encounter the Axolotl, Bill’s opposite and equal, with the Axolotl saying that they’re in  “time and space between time and space”. 

If one gets lost within the In-Between Space or on Time Island, the place outside of the Fourth Dimension, it can result in falling into an inescapable pocket outside of the fourth dimension, disconnected from any other timestream, known as the Land of Malfunctioning Timelines.

The Smile Dip Realm / The Astral Plane:

I have no idea where I should be placing this in the cosmology chart at the moment so for now it goes here. I like to call it the Realm of Tweaking.

Within the Book of Bill, Bill confirms that the realm Mabel went to after overdosing on Smile Dip was actually her “ascending” to the astral plane (or at least her mind did).  It should also be noted that the dog seen on the packaging and in said plane is referred to as “The Beast”, and is given the same level of max security threat as Bill Cipher???

Through the use of the word “ascending”, it's implied that Mabel is accessing a higher realm with this astral plane, which implies it might be a higher dimensional location. It’s not clarified how this plane would exist in relation to other higher planes such as the Nightmare Realm however.

Spatial Dimensions:

Spatial dimensions have been an extra hot topic within Gravity Falls powerscaling for a while now. However, before I begin talking about notable examples of higher spatial dimensions, I should first distinguish HOW spatial dimensions are distinguished within Gravity Falls to begin with, and if they meet the standards of typical dimensional tiering arguments. I won't be explaining the very concept of spatial dimensions here, I’d like to save time. Check here and here if you need help though. With this quick section I just want to confirm the legitimacy of spatial dimensions in Gravity Falls, seeing as it was such a hot topic for so long.

In order to prove the basics of dimensional tiering existing within Gravity Falls, the easiest way to do this is to analyze the difference between the second dimension and the third dimension.

The second dimension, Bill’s home world, was ultimately completely eradicated by Bill himself, but we do know quite a lot about it. Bill refers to it as a “flat world with flat dreams”, and Ford compares it to various “Two Dimensional-Dimensions” that you can find within the greater Gravity Falls Multiverse, these dimensions are shown to have only two coordinates, x (length) and y (height), but no z (width), width is noticeably completely absent in this dimension, with Ford noting that his three dimensional eyes are functionally useless in this dimension, and that they can’t experience directional light or shadow, things exclusive the third dimension, not even able to properly perceive 3-dimensional shapes. Within the Lost Legends Comic, the Pines enter into a comic, with the experience being akin to entering a lower 2 Dimensional realm, with Ford declaring that they’re going to lose their width doing so, and this world being able to be altered by affecting the paper it's written and contained on. Bill’s home dimension is also directly compared to Edwin Abbott Abbott’s novel “Flatland” on a few occasions, which is a novel about a two dimensional world and its social hierarchies.

What’s most notable and important though, is how Bill, an original resident of the second dimension, describes what the third dimension is like in comparison. Bill was able to see the third dimension from the second dimension, and described the third dimension as “a world of infinite glittering potential beyond the sliver of a forgettable gruel that was my home reality.” This showcases infinite superiority between spatial dimensions, that a higher spatial dimension transcends the one beneath it infinitely, which solidifies Gravity Falls’ Multiverse abiding by the typical mechanics of spatial dimensions, quantitative superiority, and dimensional tiering of versus debating.

One thing that needs to be covered though, is a common argument against spatial dimensions being “legit” often aimed towards Gravity Falls, that being the residents of the 2-Dimensional Universe being able to harm Ford. One might think this instantly discounts the idea of spatial dimensions being superior to one another within Gravity Falls, but this couldn’t be further from true.

To begin with, dimensional tiering does not state that lower dimensional entities cannot interact with higher dimensional ones, it only says that infinite higher dimensional spaces are larger than infinite lower dimensional spaces. Something such as mass is disconnected from dimensionality, it's singular in its nature and applies to all dimensions. In terms of other instances of lower dimensional objects can still have an effect on higher dimensional ones. Most obviously, black holes. While they themselves are 3-4 dimensional constructs, their surface is actually 2D, as they have literally zero volume, and yet it's well documented that a black hole would kill a 3D human instantly. Within string theory, there’s the concept of cosmic strings, which are 1-Dimensional objects that are able to affect higher dimensions through gravitational disturbances. All in all, a lower dimensional object, especially a non-infinite one, affecting a non-infinite higher dimensional object, doesn’t contradict the concept of dimensional tiering nor valid spatial dimensions at all.

With that out of the way, I figure I might as well collect all notable examples of mentions of spatial dimensions and what arguments arise from them.

The Trilazzxx Beta Aliens:

In Journal 3, Ford makes the first mention of the Trilazzxx Beta Aliens, aliens who first crashed into Gravity Falls and died like jackassess because they have a horrible sense of direction due to being pandimensional.

That’s enough about THEM though, now we have to talk about what they represent. Ford mentions that they exist in 7 to 11 dimensions at once, with the joke around their existence being that they exist in multiple spatial dimensions at once, thus their sense of direction being terrible as they exist in a multitude of dimensions, all of which have more or less coordinates and directions than others.

However, within the Book of Bill, Bill specifically states that these aliens are 7 Dimensional, the lower end of Ford’s initial estimate. Considering it's the more recent statement, that Bill is generally more knowledgeable in the multiverse than Ford (not to knock against Ford’s knowledge at all, he is obscenely smart and absolutely a reliable source), I think generally Bill’s statement in regards to the alien’s dimensionality is more definitive. Though it doesn’t discredit Ford’s statement fully, I think you can still argue them being 11D, it's just not quite as easy as 7D.

However, I should take the time to quickly cover a common “debunk” made towards the Trilazzxx, that being that they died in the crash on Crash Site Omega. If they were truly higher dimensional, how would they die to a finite force of energy in a collision in the third dimension, surely that’s a massive anti-feat, no? Not at all, actually, as it's all a matter of force, mass and pressure. Seeing as being higher dimensional (especially as a finite being) doesn’t make you invulnerable to lower dimensional forces, operating a spaceship and slamming into a mountain at extremely high speeds would result in a massive amount of mass being displaced, and thus, force. Force that would apply pressure, a scalar force that affects all dimensions, that would affect, harm, and likely even kill an entity, regardless of their dimensionality.

Ultimately, I think the Gravity Falls Multiverse consisting of at least 7 Spatial Dimensions is very fair. 

Bill’s Dimensional Charisma:

Bill makes a statement that he has “10-Dimensional cunning and charisma”. Does he say 10-Dimensional in the way that’s specifically referring to spatial dimensions? Yes. Does he ever elaborate further on the idea of 10 spatial dimensions? No. Is it ever mentioned again? No. This is very likely just Bill hyping himself up, I don’t really think it's all that viable for use on a cosmology basis without further evidence. Maybe if there’s ever another statement in regards to 10 Dimensionality for anything else it could be usable, but as is it would be a reach and a half to actually use legitimately.

The Nightmare Realm:

One of the most enigmatic and discussed cosmological locations within Gravity Falls, Dimension 0, the Nightmare Realm! There’s a lot to cover here, so let's begin!

The Nightmare Realm is the “dimension between all dimensions”, the “In-Between Space” the “gateway to all other worlds”, and further elaborated as an “boiling, shifting intergalactic foam between dimensions”. It’s also referred to as infinite and endless, Ford even uses an infinitely long belt to anchor himself to his home universe so he doesn’t get lost within the Nightmare Realm. By its very nature, the realm would HAVE to be infinite though, as it exists BETWEEN every universe within the infinite multiverse… while also existing OUTSIDE of it, Bill specifying that it exists outside of space-time! The very nature of encompassing and embedding an infinite multiverse within itself, existing between and outside of it, would not only necessitate being infinite, but also a GREATER set of infinity, making a very easy argument for the Nightmare Realm being a higher dimensional space!

That’s not all in its favor though! In order to give extra evidence to support the higher dimensionality of the Nightmare Realm, to even be able to create the Portal that could access the Nightmare Realm, one would need knowledge of Applied Quantum Phase Theory, and most notably, Fifth-Dimensional Calculus! The dimension also noticeably contains objects which cannot exist within typical three dimensional space, such as penrose triangles and penrose stairs, objects that require at least 5 spatial dimensions to exist within. Ford also refers to the Nightmare Realm as a “higher plane” of reality from the multiverse. The graph Stanford presented as how the Nightmare Realm connects to the universe resembles brane cosmology charts, in which 4D branes connect to one another through a 5D bulk hyperspace! Despite being disconnected from the timeline, Bill still makes mention of time passing in countable measures of hours and years, implying there may still be some “greater” time which the Nightmare Realm is bound by, one beyond the average four dimensional time that the rest of the multiverse is bound by.

Also of note in regards to the Nightmare Realm is that it’s a lawless dimension, with no consistent physics or laws to abide by. This unstableness is directly causing the realm’s own undoing, as throughout trillions of years it's slowly become the victim of entropy, an “edge of reality” forming, which eventually passes through and erases any space it passes, making it as if it had never existed. Anything that’s not hunkered down in a stable dimension, one with defined rules and laws, will find themselves erased when the Nightmare Realm eventually is completely gone.

Timelines:

You might be wondering “why isn’t this in the multiverse section?” Well, that’s because “timelines” within Gravity Falls have a very particular meaning that’s distinct from universes.

Bill confirms that there is an infinite amount of alternate Bills, and even clarifies that they reside in alternate timelines, and that in every single one other timelines, he wrecked house and won, achieving his goal. It should also be noted that there are an infinite amount of these timelines.

Now this is where we get to the ACTUAL point. Bill establishes that his plan to begin with is smashing the multiverse, and then making a new reality using the bones of what remained. Assuming that there’s a single Bill per multiverse would be rather strange, seeing as if there was an infinite amount of other Bills who won, why is the multiverse still here? Shouldn’t it have been shattered by now due to one of the other Bill’s succeeding and then going on to destroy it? Or what about one of the Bill’s winning, but not closing or handling the Rift properly which would result in all of existence detonating? Not to mention, if there truly were infinite Bills within a single multiverse, why hasn’t Bill ever mentioned running into alternate iterations of himself within the Nightmare Realm? In fact, multiple Bill’s within a single Nightmare Realm is kind of a preposterous idea to begin with, there would HAVE to have been some kind of crossover between them at some point across over a trillion years.

One might think this invalidates the cosmology or prove Bill is actually fodder or something, but realistically the answer is rather simple, to find the solution, we have to look back on the Fourth Dimension, as well as some other tidbits Bill has dropped:

The way the Fourth Dimension is explained, it embeds specifically every parallel universe within itself across all of history. But there's no mention of like other timelines, even when Blendin mentions all the other Dipper and Mabel's from alternate worlds, he specifically says "in countless universes" rather than "countless timelines"? Also notice how the word “time stream” is used when referring to the space-time & history of a universe rather than “timeline”, there’s a big distinction being made here! The fourth dimension isn't where every timeline seems to commune and connect into one, it just seems to be where every universe's spacetime and history connects into one fourth dimensional timeline! What helps cement this further is that Bill equates "exiting the timeline" with him entering the Nightmare Realm. 

What this likely means is that… each individual “timeline” contains a multiverse of its own! That would mean that, within the full Gravity Falls Cosmology, there’d be an infinite amount of timelines, with each individual timeline having an infinite multiverse encompassed within itself, infinite parallel worlds in which every possible reality exists, all contained within the fourth dimension, visible from the Inbetween Space, encompassed by its own Nightmare Realm. Basically there'd be an infinite amount of Nightmare Realms, allowing for there to be an infinite amount of Bills wreaking havoc in their own multiverses divorced from one another.

So let me reiterate what I said from the beginning. The Gravity Falls Mutliverse is fucking MASSIVE, shockingly so!

Reality > Fiction Transcendance?:

Read this mini-document to see the brunt of the discussion on this.

Cards, The Card Holder, and Dennis:

It's specified by Bill that the entirety of the Gravity Falls Multiverse is contained in a trading card, owned by a greater, unfathomable being called Dennis, stored within a collector’s binder held within a backpack. “All that is or was or ever will be is encoded along this cheap card’s glittering edge”. This same entity and its Card Holder are also mentioned by narrators other than Bill, such as the Time Cops’ Transcript of events that occurred in an encounter with Bill and Time Baby, further cementing its existence.

He also further elaborates on the concept of string theory, and that physicists' concepts of it are rather different than what it actually is. Instead of bulks, one dimensional objects and gravitational forces, it's instead the process of Dennis trying to trade his brother cards for a string cheese.  Dennis is also capable of creating big bangs to start new multiverses, as well as wave function collapses to blink the multiverse out of existence. It's also noted that “FOLDING THIS CARD MAY RESULT IN T CROSSOVERS”.

Bill specifies that if anything were to ever happen to this card, that everything and everyone, would be completely fucked! This basically outright states that Dennis, and all concepts revolving around him are just vastly superior to almost everything else within the Gravity Falls Cosmology beneath him, he’s completely beyond it.

At the absolute minimum, Dennis’ Card Holder should be able to qualify as a higher dimensional space, as it's able to contain not only one infinite 8 dimensional space within itself, but likely all the timelines as well, meaning it’d contain an infinite amount of 8 Dimensional Multiverses within as simply small facet of itself. This means it could likely be considered a 9 dimensional construct at the minimum.

Now, this leads to the debate of trying to classify Dennis’ and his world as a whole. Would he just be another tier of dimensionality above the rest of the multiverse? Or is there enough here for him to present an actual Reality > Fiction difference? Before I begin though, in the event you’re unaware of what Reality > Fiction Transcendence (R>F) is, read this excerpt to get a general basic idea on what it is, and its relation to tiering.

Argument Against: 

• A trading card is not infinitely small relative to a person. They’re small, yes, but still have mass and height, stack enough of them up enough and they’d be taller than a person. R>F is meant to be to the point that the universe is so illusory and inferior that infinities upon infinities stacked upon one another still cannot compare, while the difference between a person and a card is strictly finite. Thus, it cannot be R>F.

• Bill and Time Baby’s feat of affecting the Card Holder could technically be an anti-feat for R>F for VSBW’s standards for R>F. 

Arguments For: 

• The multiverse in relation to the card is meant to be the picture printed onto the card itself, and represented by the greater fictional game that the card is a part of, viewing the multiverse as just a small aspect of a greater fictional game in relation to itself. When you play a game of Pokemon cards, you don't view the card as Charizard itself, the card simply represents/shows the information of the fictional entity of Charizard in a grander fictional game you’re playing, it simply isn’t real to you.

• Narrative intent, Dennis views the multiverse as a simple card he can play with which is simply a part of a greater fictional card game that he plays to pass the time. The intention is that the multiverse and reality is so small and meaningless in comparison to him that it’s literally fiction, even if the specifications aren’t one to one.

• While one might think that Bill is referring to the card itself as the multiverse, and thus, not infinitely smaller in comparison to Dennis, what it could be argued he’s actually saying the multiverse is is the “code” of reality that was “encoded” onto the trading card’s edge, with said code previously stated to be illusory in nature. While the card may not be flat, the code very much is, and is viewed as fictional by Dennis, and thus R>F would still be viable.

• Reality is said by Bill to be an illusion and he also states that the universe is a giant hologram, and this is literally mathematically proven by Ford and McGucket. The card contains/represents these illusory structures as a fictional card game, implying it's of a higher level of reality.

There’s also the argument that Dennis as a whole is a massive analogy / explanation of actual string theory in just a funny wacky way, and thus Dennis himself is actually the embodiment of the function of string theory and 11D himself, but I’m not fully sure of this myself.

All in all, I think I’ve presented both cases well enough, I’ll leave it up to you to decide in full what you believe in relation to Dennis. At the moment I’m give or take, I lean more towards it being a dimensional jump, but don’t mind taking the angle of Outer as a high end.

Overall:

All in all, Gravity Falls’ Cosmology is expansive, and within this document I presented multiple routes for how the cosmology could be taken, so I’ll give a brief tl;dr and leave it to you, the reader, what you think is most legitimate of the options presented:

At the absolute lowest bare minimum, the cosmology would be 6D due to the Nightmare Realm very very blatantly being a 5D Construct and the Card / Card Holder encompassing it to be 6D.

Most reasonably, the main Multiverse would have 7 spatial dimensions, with the Nightmare Realm being an 8D Construct encompassing it, and the Card / Card Holder being 9D due to encompassing it. 

If you think 11 spatial dimensions is fine, Nightmare Realm becomes 12D and Card / Card Holder 13D.

 

R>F arguments are a bit dicey at the moment, with arguments for and against them. If you were to take the arguments at face value and believe them to be legit, then Dennis’ Card / Card Holder would be Outerversal.

There’s not a single EXACT science for Gravity Falls’ Cosmology at the moment, despite everything I’ve laid out, as minor changes in interpretation can lead to the aforementioned variance. Regardless of one’s thoughts though, it's completely undeniable that Gravity Falls’ Multiverse has a degree of dimensional tiering, and is frankly one of the most blatant examples of valid dimensional tiering I’ve ever seen in fiction. Honestly, Gravity Falls is what I would ultimately suggest be used as one of the golden standards for dimensional tiering in versus debating going forwards. I’m going to ultimately leave these options open, with all the information and facts available, and leave everyone to make their own conclusions to exactly HOW high they think GF’s Cosmology currently is!

I also would like to make a quick mention that I am aware of the arguments in relation to potential Infinite Dimensional/Low Outer for the Multiverse/Nightmare Realm from the “all conceivable realities” statement in conjunction with Bill’s mention of particles colliding changing the future. While interesting, I think it requires a lot of extrapolation that isn’t necessarily elaborated on within GF itself, so I decided against putting too much stock into it. I also will not be making any comments on the implications of Bill teaching Plato his theories like the Theory of Forms or the Allegory of the Cave.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed it! This was largely made for my Bill Cipher Solo Blog, so read it here if you wanna know what a lot of this information was largely retooled for!