Observations placeholder

AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME BY J. W. DUNNE [SECOND EDITION]

The account of the following experiments, once again, is not scientific evidence, nor is it intended to be regarded as such. It is evidence for me, and part of my excuse for publication; but it is not, of course, evidence for the reader. Conviction, for him, must depend either on the convincingness of the arguments advanced in the concluding chapters, or else on the results which, according to the theory, he is likely to obtain if he makes the experiment himself — upon himself.

Personally, I found this image-hunting a fascinating and even exciting business. But it was a new kind of sport, and I made every possible blunder open to a raw beginner. Not only did I delay the attempt to recall the dream until I had been awake for half a minute or more; but I also failed to appreciate sufficiently the importance of detail in the written accounts. Incidents which should have been described in fifty words were recorded in three. The result was that, although the dreams yielded much that was suggestive of future experience, I could find little that was identifiable as belonging to either half of Time.

There was one fully described image, the original of which was seen four years later; but that was outside the prescribed limits of the test. It was not, in fact, until the eleventh day that I got the clear, conclusive result I had expected.

On the afternoon of that day I was out shooting over some rough country. I was a little uncertain regarding the boundaries covered by the permission which I had obtained, and presently found myself on land where, I realized, I might have no right to be. As I crossed this, I heard two men shouting at me from different directions. They seemed, moreover, to be urging on a furiously barking dog.

I made tracks for the nearest gate in the boundary wall, trying to look as if unaware of anything unusual. The shouting and barking came nearer and nearer. I walked a trifle faster, and managed to slip through the gate before the pursuers came into view. Altogether a most unpleasant episode for a sensitive individual, and one quite likely to make him dream thereof.

On reading over my records that evening, I, at first, noticed nothing; and was just going to close the book, when my eye caught, written rather more faintly, right at the end :

" Hunted by two men and a dog"

And the amazing thing about it was that I had completely forgotten having had any such dream. I could not even recall having written it down.