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Experiment With Time Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
J.W. Dunne discovered an interesting quality to dreams (yes, nightly visions) which seems to apply to every individual. This discovery eventually led to the first analysis of Time Regress ever completed. Incidentally, it also contains the first scientific argument for human immortality.
The
book, An Experiment with Time was first published in March of 1927. And,
a fourth edition was published in 2001 by Hampton Roads Publishing
Company. Almost a century has passed and
An Experiment with Time is still considered one of the best inquiries into the
nature of precognitive dreams. I
recommend to the interested reader that he purchase either the third or fourth
edition. Both include the informative
introduction from the third edition.
This web-page is in no way meant to be a substitute for the original text. The content of this site is a mere summary of and commentary on the original works of J.W. Dunne. Many of the dreams mentioned at this site are from my own personal journals and are not necessarily those recorded by J.W. Dunne himself. It is my hope that this web-page will generate renewed interest in the dream work of J.W. Dunne and perhaps lead to more studies regarding precognitive dreams.
* * * *
(from the Introduction of the 3rd edition, written by J.W. Dunne himself)
The Universe which develops as a consequence of what is known to philosophers as the 'infinite regress' is entirely free from the foregoing objections.
This 'Infinite Regress', I may explain to the uninitiated, is a curious logical development which appears immediately once one begins to study 'self-consciousness' or 'will' or 'time'. A self-conscious person is one 'who knows that he knows'; a willer is one who, after all the motives which determine a choice have been taken into account, can choose between those motives; and time is -----but this book is about that.
The usual philosophic method of dealing with any regress is to dismiss it, with the utmost promptitude, as something 'full of contradictions and obscurities'. Now, at the outset of my own perplexing experiences, I supposed that this attitude was justified. But the glaring regress in the notion of 'time' was a thing which had intrigued me since I was a child of nine (I had asked my nurse about it). The problem had recurred to me at intervals as I grew older. I had troubles enough without this one, and I wanted it out of the way. Finally, I set out to work to discover what were the contradictions and where were the obscurities. I spent two years hunting for the supposed fallacy. None, I think, can have subjected this regress to a fiercer, more varied or more persistent attack. These assaults, to my great surprise, failed. Slowly and reluctantly I acknowledged defeat. And, at the end, I found myself confronted with the astonishing facts that the regressions of 'consciousness', 'will' and 'time' were perfectly logical, perfectly valid, and the true foundation of all epistemology (i.e.. the theory of knowledge).
It was not, however, until years later that it dawned upon me wherein lay the full significance of any regress. A regress is merely a mathematical series. And that is merely the expression of some relation. But the relation thus expressed is one which does not become apparent until one has studied the second term of the series concerned. Now, the second term of the regress of time brings to light relations of considerable importance to mankind. It is the existence of these relations that the regress asserts. But the information thus disguised is entirely lost if we confine our study to the opening term alone. Yet that is what mankind has been doing. . . .
* * * *
(from the Introduction of the 2nd edition, also written by J.W. Dunne)
It has been rather surprising to discover how many persons there are who, while
willing to concede that we habitually observe events before they occur, suppose
that such prevision may be treated as a minor logical difficulty, to be met by
some trifling readjustment in one or another of our sciences or by the addition
of a dash of transcendentalism to our metaphysics. It may well be
emphasized that no tinkering or doctoring of that kind could avail to the
smallest degree. If prevision be a fact, it is a fact which destroys
absolutely the entire basis of all our past opinions of the universe.
Bear in mind, for example, that the foreseen event may be avoided. What,
then, is its structure?
I would
suggest that we are lucky, on the whole, to be able to replace our vanished
foundations by a system as simple as the 'serialism'
described in this book.
Anyone who hopes to discover an explanation even simpler would be well advised to examine his own statement of the difficulty to be faced ---viz., that we 'observe events before they occur'. Let him ask himself to what the time-order does that word 'before' refer. Certainly not to the primary time-order in which the occurring events are arranged! He may see then that his statement (and every expression of his problem must bear that same general form) is in itself a direct assertion that Time is serial.
If Time be serial, the universe as described in terms of Time must be serial, and the descriptions, to be accurate, must be similarly serial--- as discussed later in this text. If that be the case, the sooner we begin to recast physics and psychology on such lines, the sooner may we hope to reckon with our present discontinuities and set out upon a new and sounder pathway to knowledge.
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