Dunne, John William

Dunne, John William (1866–1949) Aeronautical engineer John William Dunne developed the theory that dreaming allows people to see images from various points in time—past, present, or future. The idea for this theory came from his own experience with a precognitive dream. In the spring of 1902, while serving in South Africa as an officer in the British army, Dunne had a vivid dream in which he saw a volcano erupt. He recognized the location as being the French Caribbean island of Martinique, and he was so convinced that the dream was a premonition—not only because of its vividness but also because he had experienced premonitory dreams before—that he contacted French authorities on the island to suggest they evacuate its residents. They refused, and shortly thereafter Martinique’s Mount Pelée erupted, killing many people. After this, Dunne gave more thought to why he might be receiving glimpses of the future, and in 1927 he published a best-selling book about his theories, An Experiment with Time. In his book, Dunne compares time to a train track, arguing that past, present, and future events in time exist along a continuum just as a series of cities exist along a track. And just as a passenger on the train cannot see all of these cities while traveling down the track—only the city that is currently passing by outside the window—so too do people normally see only one event—the present—while moving along the time continuum. Dreaming, however, allows a person to rise above this continuum to a spot far above it, so that the dreamer’s vantage point is much like a bird’s above a moving train. Such a bird, if flying high enough, can see many of the cities up and down the track, just like the dreamer can see many moments in the past, present, and future.

SEE ALSO:

• Dreams

SOURCE:

The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning