Board Thread:The Flash discussions/@comment-9346948-20160503225647/@comment-27934866-20160505200815

It seems Barry has entered The New 52's portrayal of the Speed Force.

To physically enter the realm that the Speed Force has developed into, individuals need to reach a speed that exceeds beyond the speed of sound, light and time. Once entering the realm, individuals run the risk of becoming one with the energy due to their speed. Individuals need a "lightning rod" to ground themselves with their original realities in order to ensure their return from the Speed Force.

In the Crisis on Infinite Earths incident whilst trying to outrun a Tachyon to save the Multiverse, although succeeding the disintegrating into bones and dust in a wash of energy was his passage from this world to the next. The next being the Speed Force. Where he remained for three decades until Final Crisis.

The New 52 version of the Speed Force has an actual physical structure like a sea of memories, but the core danger is if you lose yourself to the past, your past, and you may be lost in the Speed Force forever. It calls for every speedster, and the faster they go, the firmer it pulls. Despite being restrained his molecules are moving at accelerated rates.

So far in the series the heroes have looked at the Speed Force as just a connection to their powers, whereas the villains such as Zoom and Trajectory treat is a drug. Where in fact it's a faucet, the more the speedster can open the faucet (tap into), the more powerful they become. Powerful enough to stop those who treat their speed as a stimulant, and have to steal others to get it back.

Barry's lightning rod that's going to lead him back to reality are either Iris' feelings that were revealed in Rupture, or according to promo's a book called The Runaway Dinosaur his mother used to read to him.