History Main / YouCanNotGraspTheTrueForm

* The Bible, in the Old Testament, God has mentioned that if anyone unprepared saw His face, they would die. Even Moses, his most obedient follower, could only see His back.

*** After his first encounter with the Burning Bush, Moses had aged 40 years.

**** The "Elder Gods" thing can cause big arguments among Lovecraft fans... but Nodens does show up outside the Dreamlands in "The Strange High House in the Mist", attended by Neptune, so he may not be entirely unique. He * does* seem to fit in with the "feeble gods of earth" of the Dreamlands, and that story does associate him with Dreamlands locations (despite his appearing in the waking world) ... but "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" kind of does present him as a rival of Nyarlathotep, so the Derlethian interpretation of Nodens isn't indefensible. (Some of Derleth's other stuff, like the elemental junk, on the other hand...)

*** Indeed, later in the same story Yog-Sothoth explicates what is in fact a major implicit premise behind the whole CthulhuMythos: practically everything we experience goes under this trope, including three-dimensional space, change and time, and the individuality of what we ordinarily think of as different creatures.

** An even bigger number is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham's_number Graham's number]] which cannot be expressed ''with any standard system of numerical representation'' including such things as exponent stacks (e.g. a^b^c^d^e...).

*** And the spider-thing wasn't even IT's true form. Just it's default form when manifesting inside the universe. That's right, you cannot even grasp the true form of IT's avatar. IT's true form is the Deadlights, a mass of cold and empty light outside of universe, unfathomable in age, form, and power.

* In [[TheWorldEndsWithYou The World Ends With You]], it's impossible to make out the Composer's exact features, even though you can clearly tell who it is. He appears in a shroud of white light, and the artwork is sketchy and hard to focus on.

** But when full-god-mode had set in and S/Paul got a look, he was blinded by the awesome.

*** After all, what could possibly be the original form of a being capable of assimilating the genetics of everything it comes into contact with?

* Toyed with in the tale of Orpheus in the ''{{Sandman}} Special'', reprinted in ''Fables And Reflections.'' Orpheus visits Death and becomes confused and disoriented when he sees her in her [[PerkyGoth house clothes]]. She quickly [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith cleans house for her visitor]].

** We ''can'', however, project it into three-dimensional (and even two-dimensional) space, just like we can draw a cube on a piece of paper. That may not make it easier to understand, though.
*** See also ''{{Flatland}}''.

*** The values for General Relativity require space-time to be a unified 4-dimensional field. This does not rule out ''other'' additional dimensions, but for most day-to-day purposes, Occam's Razor applies. Please note that dimensions do not have to be spatial in nature. If branching-parallel universe theory were correct, for example, then probability of instantiation would be a second temporal dimension. String theory calls for X number of spatial dimensions and X number of scalar (temporal) dimensions, [[OrSoIHeard ITTRC]].

*** The values for General Relativity require space-time to be a unified 4-dimensional field. This does not rule out ''other'' additional dimensions, but for most day-to-day purposes, Occam's Razor applies. Please note that dimensions do not have to be spatial in nature. If branching-parallel universe theory were correct, for example, then probability of instantiation would be a second temporal dimension. String theory calls for X number of spatial dimensions and X number of scalar (temporal) dimensions.

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''{{Flatland}}'', whose protagonists are two-dimensional polygons for whom the very notion of three-dimensional creatures inspires CosmicHorror. When a Flatlander is [[PalsWithJesus befriended by a]] 3-dimensional cube, he literally [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm Cannot Grasp The True Form]] without touching it.

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''{{Flatland}}'', whose protagonists are two-dimensional polygons for whom the very notion of three-dimensional creatures inspires CosmicHorror.

*** The values for General Relativity require space-time to be a unified 4-dimensional field. This does not rule out ''other'' additional dimensions, but for most day-to-day purposes, Occam's Razor applies. Please note that dimensions do not have to be spatial in nature. If branching-multiverse theory were correct, for example, then probability of instantiation would be a second temporal dimension. String theory calls for X number of spatial dimensions and X number of scalar (temporal) dimensions.

* The [[EldritchAbomination monster]] It from StephenKing's book of the same name. The closest approximation for its physical form that the protagonists could comprehend was a giant spider.

** Also by King: ''[=~From A Buick 8~=]'' is an extra-dimensional entity that manifests as... ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin!

* After getting crap for using AFormYouAreComfortableWith, an alien on TheVentureBros showed his [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel real form]] in anger. The unseen body had flashing lights, tentacles, and was enough to make a (mentally handicapped) character crap his pants. Plus, he showed them by tearing the suit's face in two [[NightmareFuel by ripping the face through the middle]]