Four-Dimensional Vistas

The partial waking state is the soil in which remembered dreams develop most luxuriously.... Such dreams belong to both worlds, partly to the three-dimensional and partly to the fourth-dimensional. -from "Sleep and Dreams" One of the most extraordinary figures of the popular intellectualism of the early 20th century, Claude Bragdon was an architect and designer who turned his mathematically fueled artistic bent toward the metaphysical... and anticipated the new quantum physics with a philosophy of existence that bridged the rational and the transcendent. Here, in this lyrical exploration of the expansiveness of human consciousness-first published in 1916-Bragdon considers how humanity's ever-changing understanding of the universe results in an ever-growing appreciation for our own powers of thought, feeling, and experience. Other works by Bragdon available from Cosimo Classics: Yoga for You, The Eternal Poles, Projective Ornament, The Beautiful Necessity, Architecture and Democracy, Episodes from An Unwritten History, and A Primer of Higher Space (The Fourth Dimension). American architect, stage designer, and writer CLAUDE FAYETTE BRAGDON (1866-1946) helped found the Rochester Architectural Club, in the city where he made his greatest mark as a building designer with structures including Rochester Central Station, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the First Universalist Church; he also designed Peterborough Bridge in Ontario. In later life, Bragdon worked on Broadway as scenic designer for 1930s productions of Cyrano de Bergerac and Hamlet, among others.