From little things.

The Dream Academy is about to launch with its first course, the first of many, and we’re currently checking that everything’s shipshape and ready for our first visitors and students to come on board. Last night, my dream took up the theme. I was on board a brand new ferry, having a look around, supposedly still in harbour, when I felt a slight rocking sensation, and suddenly there we were, underway on the open water. It seems I’m ready, unconsciously I’ve already launched, and there’s nothing holding me back.

When I wrote my first book, Sleep On It (published by Harper Collins, 1994), I thought it would be my definitive work. It needed to be a complete guide to understanding dreams, based on my research, with a beginning, middle, and end. What I didn’t understand was that it was just a beginning, a kind of snapshot in time, and that my research and my understanding of dreams and dreaming would grow way beyond my original vision. Naïve, I know.

I don’t know whether the way I launched my first website, in 1998, was naïve or courageous, but either way, it was founded on my faith that I’d always be able to monitor my progress by interpreting my dreams.

I also valued my dreams for revealing fresh perspectives and sharpening my vision, creativity, and problem-solving abilities – qualities dreams impart for anyone willing to work with them. Here’s how it happened:

It was six weeks before the launch (yes, you’ve spotted the theme of this blog) of my third book, The Shape of Things to Come (published by Random House, 1998), when, inspired by a dream, I thought it would be a good idea to have a website, and what better way to get the website address out in the world than to have it printed on the back cover of the book. Sounds really sensible, doesn’t it? The publishers thought so too, and said that if I could get the domain name to them within two weeks, it would catch the press. Naturally I agreed. Then I sat down and wondered what a domain name was. My only interaction with the internet until then had been to have an email address.

With help from wonderful people (magical stories and dreams that I’ll tell at another time), I had my first website up and ready by the book launch. It was six pages, and I thought it was complete, like a book, with a beginning, middle, and end. Little did I know just how far that little boat would travel. It has sailed well beyond the horizon of my vision back then, and it’s still sailing in both charted and uncharted territory.

It took several more launches for me to learn the lesson. From little things big things inevitably grow when nourished by our dreams.

The Dream Academy did not feature in my original vision for an online learning course.

Instead I had a simple vision of creating a video-based course that would be popped onto my current website. Before long I had a team around me offering ideas and encouragement, and then came my dreams with their nightly feedback and magic. Ideas for other courses showed up, we needed a dedicated website to deliver them, the website needed a name, the team came up with The Dream Academy, The Dream Academy prompted bigger visions, the visions came, people started to ask how soon they could access the course and to suggest what other features they’d like to see, and so we roll (or sail).

We launch The Dream Academy with one course, but on another level she has already taken off toward horizons and in directions that will become apparent over the years to come. I know this now. It’s the pattern of my life, and the pattern of my dreams.