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AN EXPERIMENT IN TIME/ Dreams and the future

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AN EXPERIMENT IN TIME

Has anyone ever read 'An Experiment with Time' by JW Dunne?
I found a copy the other day while moving house and remembered that I'd.....'borrowed' it from the school library when I was about 16. I think it might have been mentioned in FT once, but I've only ever met one other person who's read it.
Anyone who has read it, what do you think of the book, and have you had any such precognitive (is that a real word) dreams?
 
damn, thats a trip!!!

hey, what a freakin' coincidence! the other say i was moving cleaning aorund my house (my garage actually) and i stumbled upon "A wrinkle in time". i had also "borrowed" that book but that was way back when i was about 13 or 14. still, that is a strange coincidence.
peace
 
My view on precognition:

There are quite literally BILLIONS of dreams every night.

Nobody remembers the vast majority of dreams that don't have any correlation at all with daily life. But if you think about how many dreams there are (in a little over three years, that's a TRILLION dreams, and I'm only guessing 1/6 of the world dreams on a given night) it would be MORE shocking to get NO "precognitive" dreams.

People like to discard the meaningless and keep the meaningful. That's how prophecy works. You don't remember the fifty failed ones; you remember the one that works.
 
hachihyaku said:
....People like to discard the meaningless and keep the meaningful. That's how prophecy works. You don't remember the fifty failed ones; you remember the one that works.
Click to expand...

Of course, but I have had a couple of experiences of this kind that were startling enough to wobble my sense of reality a bit. I might post them here when I'm not at work and have the time.
I don't necessarily accept the 'spooky sixth-sense' type explanation myself, but Dunne's theory (from what I remember) is that precognition is a by-product of the way spacetime works - it's not a supernatural phenomena but a natural one which conventional science has failed to recognise.
Your 'coincidence' explanation is also quite convincing. Anyhow, it's a fascinating topic whichever way you look at it.

ZERO

I think I remember 'A Wrinkle in Time'. Wasn't it a kids' sci-fi story with a brother and sister whose father disappeared and they had to travel through time to rescue him or something?
 
An Experiment in Time has been on my "must get around tuit" list for years, in fact ever since I first came across a mention of it (somewhere in Colin Wilson, I think).

I have occasionally had precognitive dreams, but they've always foretold things that are of absolutely no practical use whatsoever. Mind you, "precognition" is almost as problematic a notion as "cognition", so...
 
I have had at least one completely precognitive dream -I was about 10 and dreamed all the christmas presents my brother was to get- in a scenario that was so realistic I refused to believe that it was a dream. I'm still not certain it was, but my brother assures me he didn't open all his presents in the middle of the light and I do believe him.

A Wrinkle In Time was a way cool kids story about some children who use deep mathematics to travel through space and rescue their dad.

I got my copy of A Wrinkle in Time for christmas, possibly the same year.
 
OK, here's a little precognitive dream story. It's quite mundane but here we go.

The dream was very simple; I was in a park of some kind on a summers day and felt a pain in my right hand. When I looked at my hand to see what was wrong I saw that a wasp had parked itself on the back of my hand with its sting stuck in my flesh and was pumping its venom into me.
I woke, and after lying there for a few minutes returning to reality I switched on the TV by the bed. The first image I saw was a close-up shot of a man's hand - framed exactly as in my dream - and yes there was a wasp right there in the process of stinging him. It turned out to be an old Open University* programme. I was living at the time in a large-ish apartment block, and later that morning as I walked down the stairwell I noticed an unusually large number (about 10) of dead wasps along the landing and staircase.
Obviously the TV thing could have been pure coincidence, and it's not unusual to see dead wasps inside a building (although I never saw so many in such a small area - they looked almost as if they'd be 'arranged' at regular intervals). Nevertheless I found the double coincidence quite spooky. I know I'm not talking about predicting earthquakes or anything, but I found this an interesting experience and I found the tidyness and simplicity of it somehow aestheticaly pleasing, if that makes any sense at all.
It must be 10 years since I've looked at JW Dunne's book, but I have a funny feeling this may be similar to one of his experiences. I must read it again sometime.
Another experience which I've had on two occasions that I can recall is when I have heard a piece of music in a dream, and on waking and switching on the radio I've discovered the same song has been playing. Could this be explained by our hearing being somehow more acute during sleep? Maybe it's possible to hear very faint sounds coming from a radio which is powered up but not switched actually switched on. I seem to remember reading a post on one of these boards from someone who can predict the next song to be played on radio shows. I suppose this could be explained by just being very familiar with the playlist, which is going to up the odds a bit.
Any thoughts?



*For members outside the UK the Open University is a series of programmes on the BBC which are really TV lectures, the idea being that you can study for a university degree from home by watching the broadcasts and from other materials which you receive through the post.
 
Wrinkle in time

We had to study this for English lit. aged about 12 at Middle school in the early 80's. I still have my copy too excellent book. We had to do "Rebeccas World " too which was about travelling to another world through a telescope (?) has anyone else ever read this?
 
Dreams and the future.

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this, i'ts my first time.
Does anyone beleive it's possible to dream the future, I seem to have dreams about quite silly things and then I see something on the morning news and think I dreamed that last night, it's never important stuff, I'll dream of an animal or something and the first thing I see on the news will be about that animal.
 
Hi Danny, interesting thread, we have discussed dreams before, have you ever kept a record of your dreams, keep a note pad so that you can write down what you remember of the dream as soon as you wake up, that way you can be sure you have not been influenced by what you see on the news.
 
Hmm, I haven't mentioned it before due to the cheesiness that I associated with it but I did have a dream of a jet fighter crashing into a local park rather spectacularly about a week before the events of 11/9. I'm not at all suggesting that it is in any way a precognitive dream though. I have only once remembered dreaming about planes before or since.

I don't think it's time to phone Randi about the million pounds just yet! :D
 
Makes me wonder how many of us have those kind of dreams and just put it down to coincidence.
 
<off topic>
Not exactly on-topic here. But just was intrested to know if anyone had any weird post-9/11 dreams of the event after the images and stories of all the goings on.
I had a dream the day after I heard about it, I don't want to bore you w/details but it was one of those totally lucid ones and I got very strong vibes from it. I could practically 'feel' the pain and suffering and awoke crying.
</off topic>

I love those dreams where the very same event happens in real life the next day, just proves that ~there's more to life than this!~
 
So it's not just me then, does it mean that the future already exists before we actually get there?
 
Danny boy said:
So it's not just me then, does it mean that the future already exists before we actually get there?
Click to expand...

There are those who believe that time is not a stream
as we experience it, and that it is possible for beings
to exist without time as a consideration. (I think we
had this discussion in another thread.)
Basically, if we were able to step out of time, our
whole reason for creating things, the joy of surprise
and our need to learn would be gone.
If the future DOES already exist, our inability
to look beyond the present, and the attempts we make
to SEE the future are a huge part of what drives us on.

FWIW
TVgeek
 
I've mentioned this in another thread somewhere. There is a theory that when we sleep our minds explore the various probabilities that may occur the following day, so that we are subconsciously choosing the best course of action for whatever events MAY occur. This gets rid of the idea that the future already exists, and means that we are choosing how to exercise our free-will while we're asleep.
I actually had a dream last night which was echoed in the day's events. We maybe should have a poll to see how often people have this type of dream.
 
So it's not just me then, does it mean that the future already exists before we actually get there?
Click to expand...
I've arrived at places, or done things that have triggered memories of dreams where I've already been, or done these things. Dejavu? Yes, but a very real sensation. Personally, I believe it's quite possible to dream of the future.

As they say, `Coming events cast their shadows before.'
 
I read an article in yesterday's (8/7/2) 'Independent' in which an American researcher comments on his work with precognition. He showed subjects pictures on a screen, some containing strong material and some neutral, and recorded their brain activity. Apparently approximately four seconds before viewing violent or erotic material the female subjects showed increased brain activity and male subjects showed 'predictive' brain activity also, but only before viewing erotic material. It seems to indicate that there is a possiblilty of a precognitive brain function.

Unfortunately I left the paper at work. Anybody got a copy lying around?
 
Wastrel said:
I read an article in yesterday's (8/7/2) 'Independent' in which an American researcher comments on his work with precognition. He showed subjects pictures on a screen, some containing strong material and some neutral, and recorded their brain activity. Apparently approximately four seconds before viewing violent or erotic material the female subjects showed increased brain activity and male subjects showed 'predictive' brain activity also, but only before viewing erotic material. It seems to indicate that there is a possiblilty of a precognitive brain function.

Unfortunately I left the paper at work. Anybody got a copy lying around?
Click to expand...
I've read about this before but it was several months ago and I've no idea of the source. Of course four seconds is plenty long enough to evade a flying bullet or falling masonry, so I suppose its a useful tool to use in emergencies.

Slacker : re - An Experiment With Time
I came across references to this book in the early 70's and as I was a student on a really tight budget couldn't afford to buy a copy. I think it was in Penguin. When I eventually had enough money dear old W.H.Smiths said it was out of print. Its a book that's always been on my must-read list.

Precognitive Dreams
I'm currently reading a book by Brian Inglis called Coincidence (A matter of Chance - or Synchronicity). Its a book that has been funded by the Koestler Foundation and all the source material comes from its archives. In it precognitive dreams are categorised as coincidences.
 
I just ordered 'An Experiment in Time' from Amazon.co.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1571742344/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-2816430-0064463

12.99 - a bit pricey though you can get s/h copies through them now (it works I tried it!)

I read the book as a youngster and wanted to read it again having read about Dunne in J B Priestley's 'Man and Time'. There also seem to be some allusions to Dunne's ideas in modern literature/cinema - I'm particularly thinking of the end of 'American Beauty' - the idea that 'eternity' does not necessarily equate to 'living forever' and that the final 'moment' of life consists of being able to observe one's life from outside of time and move around it at will in a spatial sense.
 
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