The train.

I had a recurring dream when I was a university student back in the early seventies in Glasgow, Scotland. In my dream, I would arrive at the train station to see my train leaving, or I would miss my train because I was on the wrong platform, or because the stairs to the correct platform formed some kind of endless Mobius strip, or because I was at the wrong station altogether.

I never did catch that dream train until the night before I sat my final exams. That night I jumped on the train, found a spacious carriage, and plumped myself down on a luxuriously padded seat. The man sitting opposite me put down his newspaper and gave me a conspiratorial welcome smile. Now our journey could really begin. I laughed, so loudly that I woke myself up.

Those were the days when a university degree hinged on how well you did in the final exams. It wasn’t a continuous assessment thing based on assignments. It was all about revising everything you had been taught during the degree course and carrying all the facts into the exam hall before letting them flow through the inky nib of your fountain pen as fast as you could write in three hours of cramped-hand writing. Then you would have a lunch break and go back in for another three hours.

At first I thought it strange that I caught my dream train before I sat my exams, at what you might think would be the most stressful time, rather than catching it after sitting the last exam, or after the results were announced. On my way into the exam I realised I had done everything I could to prepare. What would happen in the exam hall would only reflect my preparation, or lack of it. I had arrived at the station, I felt all the conditions were in my favour, and I had the ticket to journey on with the rest of my life.

Now that I look back on this recurring dream and its happy resolution, I see so much more depth than I realised at the time.

It wasn’t only about my training, my fears and feelings about studying, whether I was doing the right course, or going in the right direction, or whether all the studying would ever end. It went much deeper than this, and it was also about other areas of my life. If I’d known then what I know now, about dreams, dream analysis, and dream alchemy, I would have learned personal and spiritual lessons that would have conferred much greater rewards than my academic degree. I went to university at a young age, at sixteen, and gradated at twenty; I could have done with those deeper lessons as I journeyed on into my twenties.

I have since taught, trained, encouraged, and mentored people all over the world on the art and science of working with dreams, and it’s such a pleasure to add to these offerings by inviting you into The Dream Academy. Not an exam in sight, I promise, but plenty of rich material and inspiration to delight, enlighten, and assist you. Jump on the train. Let the journey begin.