[Man] is quite familiar with the three dimensions of length, width and height, and he feels that if there were a fourth dimension, it should be just as obvious to him as the dimensions of length, width and height.
A dimension is not a line; it is any way in which a thing can be measured that is entirely different from all other ways. That is, to measure a solid fourth-dimensionally, we simply measure it in any direction except that of its length, width and height.
Is there another way of measuring an object other than those of its length, width and height?
Time measures my life without employing the three dimensions of length, width and height.
Time is … a fourth way of measuring an object.
The more dimensions an object has, the more substantial and real it becomes. A straight line, which lies entirely in one dimension, acquires shape, mass and substance by the addition of dimensions. What new quality would time, the fourth dimension, give which would make it just as vastly superior to solids as solids are to surfaces and surfaces are to lines?
Time is a medium for changes in experience because all changes take time. The new quality is changeability.
Observe that if we bisect a solid, its cross section will be a surface; by bisecting a surface, we obtain a line; and by bisecting a line, we get a point.
This means that a point is but a cross section of a line, which is, in turn, but a cross section of a surface, which is, in turn, but a cross section of a solid, which is, in turn, if carried to its logical conclusion, but a cross section of a four-dimensional object.
We cannot avoid the inference that all three-dimensional objects are but cross sections of four-dimensional bodies.
To see the four-dimensional self I must see every cross section or moment of your life from birth to death and see them all as coexisting.
My focus should take in the entire array of sensory impressions which you have experienced on earth plus those you might encounter.
I should see them, not in the order in which they were experienced by you, but as a present whole.
Because change is the characteristic of the fourth dimension, I should see them in a state of flux as a living, animated whole.
If we have all this clearly fixed in our minds, what does it mean to us in this three-dimensional world?
It means that, if we can move along time’s length, we can see the future and alter it as we so desire.
This world, which we think so solidly real, is a shadow out of which and beyond which we may at any time pass.
From Neville Goddard’s Out of This World , chapter 1.
*Note: Neville Goddard’s works are public domain.