Einstein's Dreams

Einstein’s Dreams (1993) by Alan Lightman is a best-selling novel that explores the intersection of art and science, and the nature of time. The novel imagines the dreams of a fictionalized version of Albert Einstein to explain various theories about time, leading up to Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity, which he formed while working as a patent clerk and starting a family in Berne, Switzerland.

Each chapter of the novel features a dream that exemplifies one consideration of how time might function according to various theories running through Einstein’s subconscious. This imagined Einstein then processes these physics through art, interpreting each to create a balanced whole. His whimsical dreams inform his mechanical reality.

Lightman, a theoretical physicist, teaches at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the humanities and formerly taught physics at Harvard. He was first professor at MIT to teach in both the sciences and the humanities. Lightman has published many works in fiction and nonfiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for The Diagnosis.

This guide refers to the First Vintage Contemporaries edition of Einstein’s Dreams published in November 2004.

Plot Summary

The Prologue is set in summer 1905 as 26-year-old Albert Einstein sits alone in the patent office with his special theory of relativity. Exhausted from months of dreaming and thinking about time, he’s waiting for the typist so that the paper can be delivered for publication.

The novel then leaps from the real world into the worlds of Einstein’s imagined dreams. Each chapter represents a dream and is titled by the date on which Einstein presumably dreamed it. In total, the novel depicts 30 dreams, the first of which occurs several months before the Prologue, on April 14, 1905. The dreams each reveal a world in which time behaves differently than it does in Einstein’s waking world. No characters are named, and the dreams are simple vignettes, glimpses into the world of the imagined subconscious mind, each lasting about three to five pages. These dreamworlds fall into several thematic groups.

In some, time is altered by duration. In one world, each lifetime is only a day. In another, the world will end on a specified date. In yet another, the world repeats infinitely. In these dreams, Einstein’s subconscious explores how world duration might impact time.

Other worlds explore the trajectory of time. Time may flow forward, backward, or in circles, or it may stop and start. Each of these alterations is represented in a different dreamworld.

Still other worlds play with the human perception of time, breaking it into two categories: mechanical time and body time. In one world, time is an absolute. In another, time is Godly. In yet another, people despise time. In these worlds, how time is viewed is a choice. There is a world in which humanity is unable to perceive a past; in this world, people are unaware that they were born. In another, humanity is unable to perceive a future; in this world, people will someday die, but the mere concept of the future is beyond grasp. These worlds question whether time is an absolute or is driven by the perception of it.

Several worlds postulate on free will. In one, every decision point results in three branches, which break off infinitely. In an opposite one, people are aware of their futures and live as observers, unable to alter their lives. In another world, time is a visible dimension and is fixed, removing the possibility of free will. In yet another, time is cyclical, the same events repeating forever, unchanged; free will doesn’t exist, and those who are aware of time’s cyclicality are miserable because nothing can ever change. In these dreams, Einstein’s subconscious wonders whether free will impacts time or only the perception of time and whether the events in time are already written.

A few worlds explore time as an entity that exists outside the mechanical. These dreams juxtapose the worlds of order and absolutes. In one such creative world, time is a sense like hearing and smelling. In another, time is a quality and can’t be measured; it can only be experienced at various degrees of quality and thus might not exist at all.

The dreams all portray humanity as an interconnected species in human form that lives, loves, and desires the same way that humans in Einstein’s waking world do. Most of the dreams imagine Berne in various altered states, though some branch to other cities, named and unnamed.

Three Interludes return to Einstein’s conscious, waking life on an undefined date between the previous and following dreams. These Interludes offer a perspective on Einstein from his best friend, engineer Michele Besso. Because Besso is a caring, kind, and generous friend, these vignettes of Einstein’s life during 1905 depict Einstein in that way. Besso is concerned that Einstein isn’t sleeping or eating properly, that his friend is stuck in a loveless marriage, and that he’s too fixated on his work, letting other parts of his life lag. Clearly, Besso has great admiration for Einstein, aware of his genius and supportive of it. Although Einstein is distant and aloof, Besso understands that he’s well-intentioned. Einstein never reveals his dreams to Besso, though he does discuss his work in trying to understand time to get closer to God.

The novel’s Epilogue chronologically continues where the Prologue left off. Two hours have passed since the Prologue, and the typist has arrived at the patent office. Einstein gives her his theory and then stands blankly at the window, feeling empty. With no great thing to drive him or his mind, Einstein feels without purpose.

Thematically, the novel addresses the search for God, or the “Theory of Everything,” in which the universe is perfectly ordered under the laws of physics, and humanity’s job is to understand those laws. Additionally, the novel explores the humanism in each dreamworld and time’s impact on the populous. The novel is a testament to the concept of the merging of science and art, a theme at the heart of both Lightman and Einstein’s academic processes.