Customer Reviews

An Experiment With Time (Studies in Consciousness)

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In this gem first published in 1927, John W. Dunne puts forth a theory of multidimensional consciousness which manifests itself mainly in the "Dream effect". A mathematician and aeronautical pioneer, Dunne found himself having precognitive experiences throughout his adult life. His dreams would come true. Often times the very next day and in rich detail. I am myself mathematicly inclined, and can only ponder at the discomfort this would have created to a scientist of such a logical mind.

And surely enough, he spent the rest of his life seeking an answer to the riddle.
In "An experiment with time", he reveals his startling conclusions, which are based in deductive reasoning and experiments.
By applying the concept of regression in human consciousness and time to the results of the experimental work he finds an answer to the problem of apparent psychic abilities in his more or less ramdomly chosen subjects.
Not only that; he thereby also explains the phenomena of deja vu and many cases of clairvoyance, common precognition, ESP and many other "paranormal" occurances.
It is important to note that this theory, which I can only describe as analogous to the theory of general relativity in its ingenuity and brilliance, have NEVER been disproven in its 77 year history.
Furthermore there is no known physical law or concept that would disallow the "dream effect", even today.
The pieces of the puzzle, therefore, fits uncannily well in the map of the eye-opening reality that Dunne unfolds.
Towards the end, Dunne takes the theory even further to prepose the exsistance of an eternal multidimensional concsiousness and a higher, supreme consciousness, which it has to be said, I find rather speculative and philosophical. However, It is an extrapolation that is not wholly unnatural, at least in case of the seamingly immortal qualities of human serial consciousness.

This piece is in my mind one of the most important books of the last century, and almost tragic that so few know of it. This is in part, I think, due to the non-scientific material which it brushes up against, but ultimately deciphers for the first time.

As to the question of whether or not it is psuedo-science: The experiments can be repeated at all times in any laboratory with any subjects, and from that, the same results have so far been found. These are the parameters which define scientific research. And the more experiments are conducted, the more probable Dunne's conclusions are.

This book is exeptionally engaging to anyone interested in these matters. Its my all-time favorite non-fiction piece and I can only recommend it, so that awereness of the theory increases.

This book reviews the author's strange experiences with dreams. He developed a theory of the nature of time as a result. It seems unlikely the author was attempting to deceive readers. He was well known, well respected, and his work was accepted widely at the time.

Basically, the author believed dreams relate to a mixture of past and future events, and he developed a test of te theory. The results prove his theory seems to be correct, if you rule out intentional deception. The book is much more convincing than any description of it. And if the thesis is true, then it is is life-changing. I first read the book more than fifty years ago, and I re-read my well worn copy about every ten years, It changed my life.

The reader who was "sickened" by this book apparently didn't notice that it was written about 80 years ago. That reader also missed a central historical point: People have been reporting precognitive dreams for a very, very long time and trying to grapple with how to understand them in scientific terms for about a century. Dunne was one of the first to write about his experiences, and his training as an engineer led him to a thoughtful series of analyses and fledgling theories. Anyone who has had precognitive experiences will find this book interesting. But if you strongly believe that such experiences are mere coincidences, or logically incoherent, or impossible, you should avoid this book because it will just make you angry.

Dunne is onto something very important. The first half of the book is easy to follow and very insightful. It is an important work that, in my opinion, successfully demonstrates the precognotive nature of some dreams. I am perhaps more easily convinced than others as I too have had similar experiences. However, Dunne goes beyond proving the existance of such dreams and attempts to explain how and why they happen. The infinite regress argument seems to be flawed. He claims it to be proof of God's existance. I do not feel that he has successfully proven this theory about the how and why of time. For a very good analysis of Dunne's theory, see "Man and Time" by J.B. Priestly. Regardless, "An Experiment with Time" is a very important book that attempts to take an objective view on a very subjective subject.

I've been borrowing this book from the library for many many years. I'm ecstatic I can finally have my own copy!

I still don't know how I feel about Dunne's theory----basically, that our dreams are memories from the future. But it's something that makes sense (no matter how far fetched it sounds....) and it's something that I'd *like* to believe.

A regular person can easily understand the text; it's not all heavy-handed scientific terms. An enjoyable read.

This book came to my attention when I read Agatha Christie's auto-bio. I would like to copy part of what she felt about it; "I realise that something happened to me - not a change of heart, not quite a change of outlook, but somehow I saw things more in proportion; myself less large; only one facet of a whole, in a vast world with hundreds of inter-connections.... I did feel from that moment onwards a great sensation of comfort and a truer knowledge of serenity than I had ever obtained before." As an Eastener I couldn't agree more with her that Dunne's purpose of writing wasn't about the experiment with dreams but the believe of future or destiny, as individual and a whole. Everyone's destiny has already laid to (or in) the future and one has to follow one's path without avoiding it. If one could see or realise about one's destiny, one then will be able to see all material things in a different perspective. Because of the society and believe in that period when the book was published, I believe that was why Dunne was trying in extreme to explain his believe in a very physical terms instead of philosophical terms.

_The author of this book admits that if anyone else had told him of their precognitive dreams he would have had no difficulty dismissing them as coincidence. However, the fact that he himself spontaneously experienced a number of striking examples of such phenomena changed everything. As well it should have, for if we can make contact with the future it means that the entire foundation of our shared conventional assumptions about reality and existence are simply wrong.

_The author, one of Britain's first aeronautical engineers, designed a series of experiments to attempt to repeat such contact with future events by way of dream. First he used himself as subject, and then he brought a larger number of ordinary friends and acquaintances in. He found that if careful attention was paid to documenting the details of one's dreams immediately after waking, and carefully reviewing and comparing those dream records with later events, then almost everyone has this ability to some extent. Most of us tend to ignore this fact out of some ingrained habit of thought. Later, it was found that this ability to contact the future isn't strictly limited to dream consciousness. It was found that while waking, people could open themselves up to seemingly random impressions that were later documented to agree with future events (such as concentrating on a book that one had never read before- and receiving definite "hits" on the contents and specific words and phrases- that go way beyond chance.) Further analysis of dream material also showed that we made "contact" with past events in our lives about as much as we did future ones. Once freed of our habitual way of assuming time as linear (and one way) and the world as strictly three dimensional, the mind seemed to be capable of intermittently ranging past and future in an unfocussed state. The conclusion was that both past and future exist in a higher dimensional framework- and since we can access them- then probably so do we.

_The first part of this book is primarily empirical, while the second is primarily logical (an elaborate model- complete with diagrams- explaining multidimensional mechanics.) The first part is much more readable. As for the second, as ingenious as it is, I cannot but help think that a cerebrum concentrated in third dimensional consciousness is inadequate to explain higher dimensional realities. We can experience the fact that there must be more to our ordinary conception of reality, but to truly understand it is another matter. Yet, the day will come for us all when we no longer intersect with this three dimensional world- and then we will be free to focus our concentration on the higher dimensional extent of our being.

_The only restriction in breaking free of our conventional time-consciousness is shaking our selves free of our ingrained habit of seeing the world. Once you have personally experienced such precognitive events, or perhaps synchronicity, then this is much easier- and their frequency increases. It isn't enough to wish or believe- you have to KNOW....

This book, first published early 20th century, has an intriguing theory regarding life, death, dreams and prediction of the future. Although antiquated in style, the idea is still fresh and original. You can try the 'experiment' yourself and sometimes it works. Worth seeking out if you are interested in the philosophy of what is life, death and what are we doing here. Was republished in paperback in UK in the 50's. I lent my copy to many people many who had no previous interest in the subject but then found it quite fascinating - unfortunately someone didn't return it to me!

This book is certainly interesting, not only in theory, but in presentation. Dunne is excited about his discoveries yet, his enthusiasm does not muddle the preciseness of his observations. It is an exposition of wonders, geared to explain away phenomena like clairvoyance, déjà vu, telepathy, etc., but he is positive and professional all throughout, at times playing his own skeptic, chicanery-free. Given the burden of proof, the scientific validity of the book will always be called into question. A previous reviewer believes that "the main problem arises with the writer's assumption of time having an unlimited number of dimensions. This is a statement that Dunne does not even try to prove at any point of his otherwise rather meticulous analysis." In other words, Dunne conceives of time as being another dimension of space. He has no recourse but to assume that time has dimensions like space because humanity has rather limited tools of perception for the purpose of such a study. If time has dimensions, then it will take time to measure any unit of time, and one will need another unit to measure the measuring time, and so on, until infinity. In such a model, real time would be the unattainable border of this infinite series.

What this reviewer regarded as "mind-boggling philosophical statements" I found to be charming intuitive gems:

"Evolution has worked for possibly eight hundred million years towards the development of the brain. Today, as Professor McKendrick points out, nearly all the functions of our bodies are operating towards the end of the adequate nutrition of the grey matter. And it now appears that, apart from its self-sustaining and self-developing activities, the brain serves as a machine for teaching the embryonic soul to think."

My opinion of the book is best summed up in a preface written for the second Spanish edition by Jorge Luis Borges. It can be found in BIBLIOTECA PERSONAL (Emecé, 1998). Borges later wrote an essay incorporating elements of the preface called "Time and J.W. Dunne" (1940), which is included in his SELECTED NON-FICTIONS (Penguin, 1999).

Since the essay can be found easily enough, here is my translation of the preface, written in 1934:

"A literary historian may one day write the history of a most recent genre in literature: the title. I recall none more admirable than the one on this volume. It is not merely for show; it ignites our interest in the text and sure enough the text does not disappoint. It is conversational in character and opens up marvelous possibilities for our conception of the world.

J.W. Dunne was an engineer, not a man of letters. Aeronautics is indebted to him for an invention which proved its efficiency in the First World War. His logical and mathematical mind was opposed to all things mystical. He arrived at his strange theory via a statistical study of his nightly dreams. He explained and defended the theory in three volumes that provoked a clamor of polemic. H.G. Wells accused of him of taking the first chapter of his "The Time Machine" (pub. 1895) much too seriously; Dunne responded in a note to his second edition, which is now in print. Likewise, Malcolm Grant refuted him in A NEW ARGUMENT FOR GOD AND SURVIVAL (1934).

Of the three volumes that constitute his completed work, THE SERIAL UNIVERSE is the most technical. The last, NOTHING DIES (1940), is downright popular science, meant for radio dispersal.

Dunne proposes an infinite series of times that flow in and out and because of one another. He assures us that upon our death we shall be handed the happy reins of eternity. We shall recover all of the instants of our lives and compose them in whatever manner is most pleasant to us. God and our friends and Shakespeare shall collaborate in this."

And the closing line of the essay:

"So splendid a thesis makes any fallacy committed by the author insignificant."

This book is an interesting look into the mind of J.W. Dunne, who was an early British aeronautical engineer and inventor. He was also a philosopher of sorts who, in this book, explores the nature of time and dreams. This book fascinated me when I first read it and today is still worth multiple subsequent reads. The first few chapters are easy to wrap your head around, however in subsequent chapters Mr. Dunne uses graphs and table to explain vastly complex notions about time. If you are good at variable-centric math or sciences and enjoy a good book on the nature of reality, this is a good book for you. I find that the ideas that Mr. Dunne examines in this book hold both mystery and truth still today after 80 years.