Fourth Dimension

What Is the Fourth Dimension?

In Neville Goddard's teaching, the fourth dimension is the realm of imagination and consciousness that transcends the three-dimensional physical world. While we navigate everyday life in the dimensions of length, width, and height, the fourth dimension is the inner world of thought, feeling, and mental imagery from which all physical reality originates.

Neville did not use this term in the way physicists use it (to describe time or spacetime). For Neville, the fourth dimension is the dimension of causation — the level of reality where creation actually happens. The physical world, with all its seemingly solid objects and fixed circumstances, is merely a shadow or projection of fourth-dimensional activity.

This concept is foundational to everything Neville taught. If the fourth dimension is the cause and the third dimension is the effect, then changing your experience in the fourth dimension (imagination) must change your experience in the third dimension (physical reality). This is the metaphysical basis for manifestation.

Neville Goddard's Description of the Fourth Dimension

Neville described the fourth dimension in vivid terms throughout his lectures and books. He taught that when you close your eyes and imagine a scene, you are not engaging in fantasy — you are entering the fourth dimension. The imagined scene exists there just as real as anything in the physical world. In fact, it is more real, because it is the cause rather than the effect.

Neville said: "Imagination is the fourth dimension. It is the creative power that forms all things." He taught that human beings exist simultaneously in both dimensions — the physical body moves through three-dimensional space while consciousness operates in the fourth dimension. Most people are unaware of their fourth-dimensional existence because they are so focused on the evidence of their physical senses.

In the fourth dimension, Neville taught, there are no limitations of time, space, or physicality. You can be anywhere, experience anything, and interact with anyone. Past, present, and future exist simultaneously. Distance is meaningless. Physical laws do not apply. This is why imagination is so powerful — it operates in a realm where the constraints that seem absolute in the physical world simply do not exist.

The Relationship Between 3D and 4D

Neville taught a clear hierarchy: the fourth dimension is primary, and the third dimension is secondary. The physical world does not create itself. It is continually projected by the activity of consciousness in the fourth dimension.

This means that what happens in your imagination is not less real than what happens in the physical world — it is more real, because it is the cause. When you vividly imagine a scene with feeling, you are performing an act in the fourth dimension that must eventually express itself in the third dimension. The time delay between the 4D act and the 3D manifestation is what Neville called the bridge of incidents.

Neville often used the analogy of a movie projector. The fourth dimension is the film strip. The third dimension is the screen. Most people try to change what appears on the screen by manipulating the screen itself. This is futile. To change the image, you must change the film — and the film is your imagination.

Accessing the Fourth Dimension

Through SATS

The state akin to sleep is Neville's primary method for consciously accessing the fourth dimension. As your physical body relaxes and your conscious mind quiets, the boundary between the third and fourth dimensions becomes thin. In this drowsy state, your imaginal scenes gain vividness and impact because your awareness is shifting from the physical dimension to the imaginative one.

Through Meditation

Deep meditation can also serve as a doorway to the fourth dimension. By withdrawing attention from physical senses and directing it inward, you shift your operative center from the 3D world to the 4D world. In deep meditation, imaginal experiences can become as vivid and real as physical ones.

Through Revision

Neville's revision technique demonstrates the fourth dimension's independence from linear time. By revising past events in imagination, you are operating in a dimension where the past is not fixed. This ability to rewrite history from the fourth dimension and see corresponding changes in the third dimension is powerful evidence of imagination's primacy.

Through Conscious Assumption

Even without formal techniques, you access the fourth dimension every time you make an assumption. When you assume something to be true — whether positive or negative — you are issuing a creative decree from the fourth dimension. The physical world has no choice but to eventually reflect it.

The Fourth Dimension and Dreams

Neville saw dreams as natural excursions into the fourth dimension. During sleep, the conscious mind fully releases its grip on physical reality, and consciousness moves freely through the fourth dimension. This is why dreams can include impossible scenarios, impossible locations, and impossible interactions — they are not bound by physical laws.

Neville taught that lucid dreaming and SATS share a common mechanism: both involve conscious awareness within the fourth dimension. The difference is that SATS is directed (you choose the scene) while ordinary dreams are undirected (the subconscious generates the content). Learning to be conscious and deliberate in the fourth dimension — whether through SATS, meditation, or lucid dreaming — is the essential skill of manifestation.

Common Questions

Is the fourth dimension the same as the spiritual realm?

Neville would say yes, in the sense that imagination is the spiritual reality from which physical reality derives. However, he did not describe it in traditional religious terms. For Neville, the fourth dimension is not a distant heaven but an ever-present inner world that you inhabit right now, alongside your physical experience.

Can I get stuck in the fourth dimension?

No. You exist simultaneously in both dimensions at all times. Practicing SATS or meditation does not risk losing connection with physical reality. You are simply becoming more aware of a dimension that has always been part of your experience.

How does the fourth dimension relate to the law of assumption?

The law of assumption operates through the fourth dimension. When you assume something to be true, you are making a declaration in the fourth dimension. Since the fourth dimension is causal and the third dimension is effectual, your assumption must eventually manifest physically. Understanding the fourth dimension helps explain why assumptions are so powerful — they are creative acts in the realm where creation actually occurs.