A Theory of the Mechanism of Survival: The Fourth Dimension and Its Applications

by W. Whately Smith

A side light on this matter of the two sorts of time is given by the phenomena of time in dreams. It is well known that we may be awakened by a noise and that in the very few seconds between the occurrence of the noise and our becoming completely conscious we may experience a long and complicated dream in which we may do and say things which would take quite a long time in actual life and this without any sense of hurry.

This seems to show that the "time scale" for the dream state is not the same as that to which we are accustomed in our waking hours. The difference should be sought, as Mr. Bragdon points out, in the differing vehicle of consciousness.

This idea can be pushed much further.

I have suggested that there is a sort of time which is, so to speak, peculiar to our space and which is expressible in terms of four space; and that there is another sort of time which appertains to four space itself, associated, that is, with four space change in the same way that three space time is associated with three space change.

But if we accept the idea that there are more dimensions of space than three we cannot refuse to consider the possibility that there are more than four. If so we must say that four space change is in turn expressible in terms of five space in just the same way that three space change is expressible in terms of four space.

Now, it is evident that a being embodied in four space and possessing, either temporarily or permanently, no three-space vehicle, will be unaffected by three space change and will, therefore, be independent of three space time. Four space change would take the place of the three spatial simultaneities by which we, embodied in three space, reckon time, and five space change would take the place of the changes in Psychic states which for us give rise to the second aspect of time which we have been discussing.

The whole dual nature of time would be repeated but with the difference of being one dimension higher.

The same may be applied to five space and six space and so on, indefinitely.