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In this volume we accompany the author on an exploration into scientific knowledge about the nature of time.  Gribbin references various cultural concepts of time and science-fiction insights into the possibilities of time distortion and parallel dimensions.  He investigates these questions in the actual accepted knowledge of current science.

Psychic Sources
He explores different concepts of the sources of dreams, precognition, telekinesis and luck, in regard to concepts of quantum mechanics, such as distortion of time and parallel universes.  Gribbin includes a detailed and insightful discussion on "sideways time travel" and the psychic perception of mental energies, such as "mind traumas" of people in other eras by certain individuals in the present.

He suggests that our mental energies provide a simpler explanation for the awareness that some individuals have of what have been thought to be past lives, as a sensitivity to the mental signals of other individuals persisting through time or from a parallel ("sideways") time.

Past Brain Wave Detection
It sounds like Gribbin means that there are actual waves of energy and psychic messages, from the brain waves we produce.  This much seems consistent with what has been known for some time about brain waves, as a detectable form of radiation within a certain frequency range.

He discusses the possibility that some of these brain waves of past persons continue, like radio waves, across the spans of time.  He suggests that some people are sensitive to these and these might be the reason some people experience these images from past life brain waves as their own memories.

Propagation and Geography
The idea that the brain waves of past generations are still around, perhaps even for centuries or millennia, seems to me less likely.  Waves unimpeded by some surface or entity continue to propagate infinitely, according to radio theory.  This would mean that they move ever outward from their source.

After that source is gone, or stops propagating waves, I don't understand how the waves could be encountered again in the vicinity of their original propagation.  So how could someone on earth now pick up brain waves of someone who was on earth a few centuries ago?  Gribbin does not address this aspect of wave propagation.

Exciting
I found both the subject and the writing style exciting, and factually instructive.  Gribbin talks about ignored areas of knowledge and makes you think.

See related reviews and articles on this site:
The Essenes Through Psychic Memory
Quantum Space Travel
A Real-Science Time Travel Plan!

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OBJ

First reading notes written 15 May 2005
Initial review posted on Amazon 29 July 2005
Topic expanded in September 2007
Finalized as an article and posted on OJTR 3 December 2007
Last edited 13 November 2008

Orville Boyd Jenkins, EdD, PhD
Copyright © 2007 Orville Boyd Jenkins
Permission granted for free download and transmission for personal or educational use.  Other rights reserved.

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