Editing An Experiment with Time (section)

=== Academic ===
Initial reactions from the scientific and scientifically-minded community were broadly positive. ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' carried a review by [[Hyman Levy]]. They accepted that Dunne was a sober and rational investigator who was doing his best to take a scientific approach. They acknowledged that if his ideas about time and consciousness were true then his book would be truly revolutionary.<ref name="jones">Jones (2020)</ref> However opinions differed over the existence of dream precognition, while his infinite regress was almost universally judged to be logically flawed and incorrect.<ref name="levy"/>

Philosophers who criticised ''An Experiment with Time'' on much the same basis included [[John Alexander Gunn|J. A. Gunn]], [[C. D. Broad]] and [[M. F. Cleugh]].<ref>Gunn, J. A.; ''The Problem of Time'', Unwin, 1929.</ref><ref>Broad, C. D.; [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3746736 "Mr. Dunne's Theory of Time in 'An Experiment with Time'"], ''Philosophy'', Vol. 10, No. 38, April, 1935, pp. 168-185.</ref><ref>Cleugh, M. F.; ''[[iarchive:in.ernet.dli.2015.172131|Time: And its Importance in Modern Thought]]'', Methuen, 1937.</ref>

Physicist and parapsychologist [[G. N. M. Tyrrell]] explained:

<blockquote>Mr. J. W. Dunne, in his book, ''An Experiment with Time'', introduces a multidimensional scheme in an attempt to explain precognition and he has further developed this scheme in later publications. But, as Professor Broad has shown, these unlimited dimensions are unnecessary, ... and the true problem of time—the problem of becoming, or the passage of events from future through present to past, is not explained by them but is still left on the author's hands at the end.<ref>Tyrrell, G. N. M.; ''[[iarchive:dli.ernet.233758/page/135/mode/1up|Science and Psychical Phenomena]]''. New York: Harper, 1938, p. 135.</ref></blockquote>

Later editions continued to receive attention. In 1981 a new impression of the 1934 (third) edition was published with an introduction by the writer and broadcaster [[Brian Inglis]]. The last (1948) edition was reprinted in 1981 with an introduction by the physicist and parapsychologist [[Russell Targ]]. A review of it in ''[[New Scientist]]'' described it as a "definitive classic".<ref>[[John Gribbin|Gribbin, John]]; Book Review of ''An Experiment with Time'', ''[[New Scientist]]'', 27 August 1981, p. 548</ref>

Mainstream scientific opinion remains that, while Dunne was an entertaining writer, there is no scientific evidence for either dream precognition or more than one time dimension and his arguments do not convince.<ref>Evans, Christopher; ''Landscapes of the Night: How and Why We Dream'', Viking, 1983.</ref><ref>[[Paul Davies|Davies, Paul]]; ''About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution'', Viking, 1995.[https://books.google.com/books?id=mOgIGyD1uSIC&dq=paul+davies+%22experiment+with+time%22&pg=PT303]</ref>