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Traumphysik
A brilliant young physicist, alone on a Pacific atoll during World War II, begins to chronicle the laws of motion that govern her dreams.
19 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 29, 2016
About the author
Monica Byrne
20 books437 followersMonica Byrne is a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. You can support her work at patreon.com/monicabyrne.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
July 11, 2016
Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
A self-described “brilliant” co-ed, after graduating from MIT, volunteers for the war effort in WWII. The Navy assigns her to a small atoll in the Pacific, responsible for periodically sending up a signal light to guide warplanes to their proper destination. She lives there alone, isolated from all human contact except radio communications with the Navy.
To pass the time, the woman begins a set of experiments, on herself and her surroundings, dealing with lucid dreaming, and how the laws of physics may be altered in dreams. In honor of the Gaertners, the German husband-and-wife team who were her physics professors and mentors at MIT, and because “everything sounds more rigorous in German,” she calls her experiments “Traumphysik,” or dream-physics. Gradually her dreams become increasingly odd, affecting her waking life. She also often reminisces about her difficulties fitting in socially at MIT, and the way the Gaertners helped her through some trying times.
As the story goes on, the woman’s thought processes become increasingly bizarre, culminating in a surprise ending that recasts the entire story. The name Gaertner means, in English, “gardener,” which I am reasonably certain is not a coincidence. Unfortunately, I found the storyline disconnected and too often random and unclear. In that sense it was dreamlike, but ultimately, like many dreams, not very satisfying.
A self-described “brilliant” co-ed, after graduating from MIT, volunteers for the war effort in WWII. The Navy assigns her to a small atoll in the Pacific, responsible for periodically sending up a signal light to guide warplanes to their proper destination. She lives there alone, isolated from all human contact except radio communications with the Navy.
To pass the time, the woman begins a set of experiments, on herself and her surroundings, dealing with lucid dreaming, and how the laws of physics may be altered in dreams. In honor of the Gaertners, the German husband-and-wife team who were her physics professors and mentors at MIT, and because “everything sounds more rigorous in German,” she calls her experiments “Traumphysik,” or dream-physics. Gradually her dreams become increasingly odd, affecting her waking life. She also often reminisces about her difficulties fitting in socially at MIT, and the way the Gaertners helped her through some trying times.
As the story goes on, the woman’s thought processes become increasingly bizarre, culminating in a surprise ending that recasts the entire story. The name Gaertner means, in English, “gardener,” which I am reasonably certain is not a coincidence. Unfortunately, I found the storyline disconnected and too often random and unclear. In that sense it was dreamlike, but ultimately, like many dreams, not very satisfying.
September 9, 2017
There is so much more to learn.
review to come.
read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2016/06/29/traump...
January 31, 2018
A fluid motion was given in the story. The progression was very nice. However, the story itself was a bit odd. I did feel for the character but everything else was just whatever.
August 12, 2021
I so hope that this little tidbit will be part of a much longer work. I am absolutely not done with Lucy the scientist and her experiments in Traumphysik. Oh, the places this story could go! I'd be thrilled if it turns out to be part of Byrne's upcoming new novel, which I can hardly wait to get my hands on. I haven't given it five stars, only because it feels so tantalizingly unfinished.
September 9, 2017
Really wavering between 4 or 5 stars here. Despite the dream-like quality of the prose and the occasional superiority of the MC, I LOVED the twist ending. So 5 stars it is. Not much for the dreamy bits, but THAT ENDING. Completely perfect. I'm sure this can be read in many ways, but I really like my interpretation of it. Worked for me. Quick read, highly recommended. :)
July 13, 2016
This has a very strange and abrupt ending, but I happened to quite like it. Probably because I really enjoyed the writing and tone of the story, and the strangeness. My theory? The whole thing is a lucid dream!
February 18, 2019
DNF. Pointless meandering, I thought. Distressing ending.
The premise, that the Navy would station a single woman, by herself, close to enemy territory: well. NO. In my judgment. See reply to Tadiana, below. Downgraded to 1 star.
The premise, that the Navy would station a single woman, by herself, close to enemy territory: well. NO. In my judgment. See reply to Tadiana, below. Downgraded to 1 star.
November 30, 2024
Read for free here: https://www.monicabyrne.org/traumphysik
I love this story: a woman scientist in the 1940s reflects on the misogyny of her field and the embattledness of "fact" amid a global war, all while stranded on a mysterious island in the Pacific where the scientific knowns she relies on have been undone. Heavy themes of fascism - including that which she's internalized from so-called scientific "truths" - intervening in the architecture of reality itself, which are handled in interesting ways. Plus, I'm a sucker for morally ambiguous woman scientists, as many may know.
I love this story: a woman scientist in the 1940s reflects on the misogyny of her field and the embattledness of "fact" amid a global war, all while stranded on a mysterious island in the Pacific where the scientific knowns she relies on have been undone. Heavy themes of fascism - including that which she's internalized from so-called scientific "truths" - intervening in the architecture of reality itself, which are handled in interesting ways. Plus, I'm a sucker for morally ambiguous woman scientists, as many may know.
January 18, 2019
Traumphysik is the first misfire in this Tor collection. This is from the POV of a female scientist crewing a guidance station for the US Air Force during WW2, on a lonely atoll in the Pacific. She is using her time to train herself in techniques of lucid dreaming, and drifting away from her (admittedly light) responsibilities.
While the prose is good, and the mixing of dream state and waking were promising - and brought to mind Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation - the themes came to nothing and the story just ends without arriving anywhere. Rather than a story, we have snapshot of someone isolated from society becoming increasingly detached from reality.
While the prose is good, and the mixing of dream state and waking were promising - and brought to mind Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation - the themes came to nothing and the story just ends without arriving anywhere. Rather than a story, we have snapshot of someone isolated from society becoming increasingly detached from reality.
January 22, 2022
Such an odd, meandering story. A woman who, post-grad from MIT, joins the war effort of WWII and is left on a deserted island in the South Pacific. She wiles away the hours by conducting "dream experiments". Pretty strange but gratefully brief.
June 8, 2019
นักฟิสิกส์หญิงอาสาคีพไฟส่องทางให้เรือ/เครื่องบินรบบนเกาะปะการังโดดเดี่ยวกลางแปซิฟิก ใช้เวลาว่างที่มากเกินไปเก็บข้อมูล วิจัยส่วนตัวเรื่อยเปื่อยทั้งในโลกความจริงและความฝันจนมันกระทบถึงกันและเริ่มแปลกมากขึ้น
วนๆ อยู่กับการทดลองของกาลิเลโอ แรงโน้มถ่วง ย้อนไปถึงการกีดกันเพศในแวดวงวิทย์ช่วงก่อน WWII ซึ่งผู้หญิงมีบทบาทน้อยมาก แต่พวกเธอก็ยังมีตัวตน
โดยรวมค่อนข้างน่าเบื่อ ทั้งเรื่องมีตัวละครเดียว ราบเรียบ รู้ว่าอะไร แต่แล้วยังไง? และน้ำเสียงเวลาตัวละครพูดถึงความฉลาดของตัวเองออกมาตรงๆ มันหลวม
วนๆ อยู่กับการทดลองของกาลิเลโอ แรงโน้มถ่วง ย้อนไปถึงการกีดกันเพศในแวดวงวิทย์ช่วงก่อน WWII ซึ่งผู้หญิงมีบทบาทน้อยมาก แต่พวกเธอก็ยังมีตัวตน
โดยรวมค่อนข้างน่าเบื่อ ทั้งเรื่องมีตัวละครเดียว ราบเรียบ รู้ว่าอะไร แต่แล้วยังไง? และน้ำเสียงเวลาตัวละครพูดถึงความฉลาดของตัวเองออกมาตรงๆ มันหลวม
August 9, 2016
Hmmm.
3.5 stars, but rounded up because science.
I’m actually surprised this short story was included on Tor.com because I read it as a psychological breakdown rather than actual traumphysik. (Traumphysik is dream physics for those not keeping up with the German.) Although, I suppose any aspect of alternate history does fit under the broader speculative fiction label, so it makes more sense in that way.
Also, I’m confused by all the reviews saying they’re confused by the ending. :S Made sense to me.
I happen to like an element of ambiguity in my reading.
Read it online here.
3.5 stars, but rounded up because science.
I’m actually surprised this short story was included on Tor.com because I read it as a psychological breakdown rather than actual traumphysik. (Traumphysik is dream physics for those not keeping up with the German.) Although, I suppose any aspect of alternate history does fit under the broader speculative fiction label, so it makes more sense in that way.
Also, I’m confused by all the reviews saying they’re confused by the ending. :S Made sense to me.
I happen to like an element of ambiguity in my reading.
Read it online here.
May 5, 2020
No idea what happened in the end, but I'm going to assume the ending's disconnected dreamlike chain of reasoning was on purpose (the prose and plot possessed a particularly dreamy elegance) and enjoy it. Weird, unresolved, but pleasant.
August 24, 2018
★★★★★ (5/5)
One of the best Tor short stories I’ve read. Solitude and reality of dreamscapes with the Second World War being fought in the background. The reliability of our narrator comes into question increasingly as the story progresses. She is chronicling her lucid dreams but lines of reality are being blurred owing to her isolation.
A selection of my favourite passages from the book
• For example, I must count the fingers on my left hand several times a day. The reasoning being that, when I do the same thing out of habit within my dream and come up with a nonstandard result (three fingers, or nine), I will know that I’m dreaming.
• And now here I stood, wearing the same nightshirt, noticing how MIT stayed MIT. This is the first deviation from known physics in waking reality
• If Traumphysik is the same from person to person, that suggests the existence of a real physical world to which we collectively travel each night; on the other hand, if Traumphysik varies from person to person, then one’s own Traumphysik must represent the subconscious world in which one lives. One’s own Platonic cave. One’s own fires and figures and shadows
• I have to conclude that, again, there are forces of gravity in Traumphysik that differ from those in the waking world. Multiple centers, multiple pulls. It is not the earth. It is not the moon. Gravity is fungible.
• The stars were bright violet sparks, and the sky was deep chocolate brown. The ocean was markedly different, too—pearly and viscous. In waking life, this landscape might appear choked and polluted; as it was, I felt as if this palette were the natural and normal one
One of the best Tor short stories I’ve read. Solitude and reality of dreamscapes with the Second World War being fought in the background. The reliability of our narrator comes into question increasingly as the story progresses. She is chronicling her lucid dreams but lines of reality are being blurred owing to her isolation.
A selection of my favourite passages from the book
• For example, I must count the fingers on my left hand several times a day. The reasoning being that, when I do the same thing out of habit within my dream and come up with a nonstandard result (three fingers, or nine), I will know that I’m dreaming.
• And now here I stood, wearing the same nightshirt, noticing how MIT stayed MIT. This is the first deviation from known physics in waking reality
• If Traumphysik is the same from person to person, that suggests the existence of a real physical world to which we collectively travel each night; on the other hand, if Traumphysik varies from person to person, then one’s own Traumphysik must represent the subconscious world in which one lives. One’s own Platonic cave. One’s own fires and figures and shadows
• I have to conclude that, again, there are forces of gravity in Traumphysik that differ from those in the waking world. Multiple centers, multiple pulls. It is not the earth. It is not the moon. Gravity is fungible.
• The stars were bright violet sparks, and the sky was deep chocolate brown. The ocean was markedly different, too—pearly and viscous. In waking life, this landscape might appear choked and polluted; as it was, I felt as if this palette were the natural and normal one
September 6, 2016
This is a short story, not a novel (I didn't know when I bought it). I wonder if Byrne had been reading 'Man in the High Castle' around the time she wrote it; one could imagine the world she's writing about being part of that one.
Anyway. I love her writing, it's just beautiful. She has an excellent way with a phrase, and a poet's way, with a single sentence, of telling you many, many things while holding back the piece you have been lead to expect to see until you've swallowed a lot of lovely, rich, evocative stuff on the way there. And then pow - always, with the punch.
This is my second piece; I read The Girl in the Road (her first novel) a little bit ago. Looks like her background so far has been play writing - I hope she turns her hand to more novel writing in the future. I want a stack of them from her, stat.
Anyway. I love her writing, it's just beautiful. She has an excellent way with a phrase, and a poet's way, with a single sentence, of telling you many, many things while holding back the piece you have been lead to expect to see until you've swallowed a lot of lovely, rich, evocative stuff on the way there. And then pow - always, with the punch.
This is my second piece; I read The Girl in the Road (her first novel) a little bit ago. Looks like her background so far has been play writing - I hope she turns her hand to more novel writing in the future. I want a stack of them from her, stat.
April 22, 2021
A very confusing short story of a woman attempting to experiment with the physics of dreams while stuck on an island atol she names "Lucifer". The prose reads well, but in the end I had no idea what the point of the story was. The themes never got explained or fully realised, so we're left to wonder.
December 31, 2016
A very interesting story set during world war II. It is the story of a brilliant young physicist, one of the first women in STEM, that after excelling in her study in the face of gender based discrimination by her peers, enlists to defend her country during the war. She ends up alone on a Pacific atoll, with tons of time to spare. She there decides to chronicle the laws of motion that govern her dreams.
December 27, 2016
Very creepy in her progression toward mental instability.
Reminds me of The Bell Jar and Esther's decline into insanity (I am still in the process of reading it at the moment).
It is interesting that you see this depiction of insanity in women and not in men...well, at least more in women than men. And also in relation to intelligence and success. Things to think on. I would be interested in discussing those points more if anyone would like to do so.
Reminds me of The Bell Jar and Esther's decline into insanity (I am still in the process of reading it at the moment).
It is interesting that you see this depiction of insanity in women and not in men...well, at least more in women than men. And also in relation to intelligence and success. Things to think on. I would be interested in discussing those points more if anyone would like to do so.
Read
June 30, 2016Somewhere between that story - is it by Poe? - where the lonely lighthouse-keeper dreams of a bride, and Faraday's wonderful 'All this is a dream. Still, examine it with a few experiments'. But perhaps a little more vengeful, and understandably so.
August 4, 2020
Liminal in a bit of an unclear way, but fascinating and memorable. Love the pigs.
September 12, 2018
The ending was abrupt and jarring, ruining its five-star rating. Had the ending been expanded a little instead of opting for the intentionally obscure, it would be a prime example of short story writing. The style is light, despite its strange subject matter, the characterization thorough (for short fiction) with only just a few brush strokes, and the setting exciting. Still worth recommending to others.
October 3, 2021
A sort of interesting investigation into dream physics undertaken against the backdrop of WWII, but with an ending that was deeply disappointing, implying that a whole lot of really awful and shitty behaviors and prejudices that prevailed in America during the war were well-justified, rather than disgusting tribalism.
I don't think the author set out to write apologia for the Japanese internment camps per se, but that's exactly what they've done with their ending.
I don't think the author set out to write apologia for the Japanese internment camps per se, but that's exactly what they've done with their ending.
May 29, 2017
Not quite as compelling as the others in the collection, but I liked the unreliable narrator and the uncertainty about whether she was really conducting scientific experiments or just going insane from her prolonged isolation. The details about being a female scientist in the 1940s were interesting, and unlike other readers, I felt the twist ending made sense.
December 30, 2024
3.75⭐️
Would have been a solid four star short story if not for the last part (two ish pages). What happened? Anyways, I have another book from Byrne on my tbr (The Actual Star) and I’m excited to pick it up
Would have been a solid four star short story if not for the last part (two ish pages). What happened? Anyways, I have another book from Byrne on my tbr (The Actual Star) and I’m excited to pick it up
June 21, 2022
i am so confused
December 23, 2024
TW: Moderate sexism..
I read this in Some of the Best from Tor dot com 2016.
A very interesting concept clearly presented. The ending is satisfying yet open to the reader’s interpretation of the first person narration. How reliable is this narrator?
I read this in Some of the Best from Tor dot com 2016.
A very interesting concept clearly presented. The ending is satisfying yet open to the reader’s interpretation of the first person narration. How reliable is this narrator?
December 31, 2016
Actually, my current situation—isolated, with limited responsibility and an overabundance of free time—is an ideal situation in which to run my dream experiments. I’ve brought with me Professor Gaertner’s text on lucid dreaming. The first step toward lucid dreaming, he posits, is hyperawareness of phenomena in the waking state. For example, I must count the fingers on my left hand several times a day. The reasoning being that, when I do the same thing out of habit within my dream and come up with a nonstandard result (three fingers, or nine), I will know that I’m dreaming.
And when I achieve this state, and keep it stable, I can begin my experiments.
July 23, 2016
I do enjoy a mysterious plot line and this was a story where the finality of it all couldn't quite be pinned down for me. There's no exact understanding of what went on due to too many questions left unanswered. Depending on how you view it, multiple different scenarios can be drawn from the context. It's all about how far are you're reading into the writing, reading into the character Lucy & her habitat she calls Lucifer.
December 10, 2016
A sleepy story with an intriguing premise, where a lone islander conducts physics experiments in her lucid dreams. Soon, the protagonist learns that things on the island are not what they seem (quite expected given the theme of the story).
I wanted to really like this, but I dunno something fell flat - maybe it was the ending, maybe it wasn't, I don't really know, it was just that kinda story yknow?
I wanted to really like this, but I dunno something fell flat - maybe it was the ending, maybe it wasn't, I don't really know, it was just that kinda story yknow?
June 29, 2016
Traumphysik was a very eerie story with an ending that felt very out of place. The narrative spends a lot of time building up this sense that perhaps our narrator isn't the most reliable of people to listen to, but then it drops that train of thought for something completely different. Well written, but disjointed and incomplete feeling.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews