Tag: Professors

Oxbridge College – Short Dream – 16-12-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream had just before 6 AM. I am no longer getting up to watch TV during the night. The sleep is still not profound. I wake several times. After about 3 AM I do not feel tired. But can sleep. After about 6 the lower back pain tends to make me want to get up and move around.

The dream opens on a green field which slopes slightly down to a river. It is like Christchurch Meadow. There can be seen a weeping willow near the river. The dream is certain that this is Oxford. I am walking with two male “fellows” who are a bit younger than me along a path. They are professors. One has dark hair the other more blonde.

The scene changes and we are in some unspecified Oxford college taking the tour. They are showing me a refectory, a library and the kind of rooms that a college fellow has. They say that it has access to university libraries including the Bodleian. It dawns on me that in a round about way they are offering me a position at the college.

I ask them on what criteria they could do such a thing commenting that in no way do I match up to the normal criteria about how these things are offered. They say that because of the private way the college is funded there are many weird and wonderful endowments that could be invoked and used. I do not think they are being serious and it is some kind of cobbled together ersatz. I further comment that I am not able to teach anything vaguely on any university curriculum. They seem unfazed by this.

They want to show me the college farm. We take a short ride out into the country and the dark haired one proudly displays their new eco-farm in which they grow heritage vegetables. He shows me his tutor group in action and shows me a spreadsheet of names arranged in a “portrait” orientation excel spreadsheet. I rearrange the spreadsheet into “landscape”. The names are all very English. One name stands out, Scanlon.

We go back to the college and I am invited to a soirée that evening at which many of the fellows and members of the college will be. The master will also be there. I thank them for the invitation but decline. I explain that I am not fond of such things and generally have difficulty hacking them.

I am near perplexed in the dream as to why they might cobble together some kind of position. It smacks of some political fix; somebody has had a “bright” idea. They have not thought this through.

The dream ends

Wayback even though I was not a top “A” grade student my school wanted me to take the Oxford entrance exams, because the teacher thought I would be better at the slightly off the wall questions. We visited Christchurch. The extra lessons however were interfering with rugby training at lunchtimes so I stopped going. I did not sit the exams.

South Africa – Richard W – Imperial College Colleagues Dream 29-06-2025

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Here is last night’s dream.

The dream starts in the South African bundu or bush. I am driving along a rough dusty unmade road. The road goes up and own and has a yellow-orange bull dust. I am in an open sided Jeep like vehicle of a classical pedigree age. It is four wheel drive and contrasts with an antiseptic modern SUV. I am dressed in faded olive green park ranger type clothes with shorts. I have a pistol in a holster on my right hip, suitable for my left handedness. It is tremendous fun driving along the road / path. We are near a fairly fast flowing deep river like at the Augrabies falls which I visited two decades ago. I can hear a waterfall.

–

–

The sound of the water is loud. The wind is in my hair and I can smell and taste the dry bush all around me.

The scene changes and I am now in the UK. I am in a busy Tesco supermarket. People are queuing. Outside the air is dank and wet. There is a constant hum of urban traffic. In one of the checkout queues I see Richard W whom I know from school and UCL chemistry. He is miles away up in his head. I tap him on the shoulder. At first, he does not recognise me. Then when he does, he is totally surprised to see me. I motion to behind the checkouts and will wait for him there.

When he has checked out, he comes over to see me. Although he looks a lot younger than he would be now, I can see that life is getting him down and he lacks energy. I turn him around and stand behind him. I open up a battery compartment in his back by sliding off a plastic over. I take out the two AA style batteries which are there and replace them with two fresh ones from my pocket. These batteries are similar in colour and design to Duracell. I replace the plastic cover and Richard reboots.

There is a short break for a loo visit.

I return to the dream back into a dank drab UK urban environment. You can hear the noise the cars make on the wet road. I enter a large building which I do not know with some kind of large atrium. It is Imperial College and Chemistry related. The hallway / atrium is being renovated. I bump into various ex-colleagues {sequentially} who were at Imperial two decades ago, all of them now professors. There are more than half a dozen of them both men and women. They are slightly sheepish about meeting me, there is an air of awkwardness or embarrassment. They are unsure as to how to greet me and if to greet or acknowledge me at all. Two males with whom I worked are very noticeable by their absence. The absence speaks volumes. There is a weird feeling that the former colleagues are surprised to see me even though there is a sense for them that I never left.

I walk into some kind of a hallway. There are poster boards up with academic conference style poster presentations on a blue “felt” background. These are all chemistry related. I can see molecules and graphs. Walking past I think some things do not change despite modern technology. A poster is a poster. In the dream I do not know why I am there in that building with them. It seems anomalous to me if not to them.

The dream ends.

Former Imperial Colleagues – Big Japan Trip Dream – 01-06-2025

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Here is last night’s dream. Out of the blue. I have not spoken with any of the people in it for ~ twenty years!!

The dream starts in a small seminar room. It has a London, Imperial College feel. The décor is bland with diffuse bright overhead lighting. There are multipurpose tables at which are set two people, each. The tables are arranged in a U-shape and I am at a table by myself at the focus of the U-shape.

Sat around the tables are various ex-colleagues from Imperial College. They are all professors and some are now “big-cheeses”. They are all from the age cohort slightly younger than me. My direct age equivalent ex-colleagues are noticeable by their absence. The “job” has been handed to the younger incumbents. They are mostly male, with a few women. I had no “problem” with any of them historically. They have the brief to find a solution and make amends. Something has been cobbled together, some suggestions. This they have just presented to me. I cannot recall what.

I say to them that I am in no way interested in what they have just suggested. That they have the wrong idea about where I am coming from and what I might want. Which is close to nothing. That they are looking at things solely from their perspective. I am not like them and do not share their motivations.

There is a faint ripple of unease. I say that I am leaving and walk slowly, relaxed, out of the door, which is behind me.

The scene changes to a London airport terminal. I have been booked along with others for a big high profile visit to Japan which includes some technology and some cultural things. I am not keen from the get-go. I notice that my chest is wheezy and take a Ventolin inhaler. It remains a bit wheezy. I decide that it would be mad for me to travel to Japan for a long high profile visit. I know that the tour organiser will be at the airport well before all the others might arrive. Implicit is some of my age equivalent academic peer group. I make my way there.

I approach the woman who is young and smartly dressed with dark hair. I explain that she had better cancel my flight and all the other things associated with the trips in order to get as much as a refund as possible. She is unconvinced. I wheeze for her. She says that for the insurance she will need a medical opinion. A doctor is summoned and they concur that is it is unwise for me to travel. She cancels my ticket. She asks me to try to buy a ticket to find out what the going rate is. I go to the British Airways desk and inquire. The price is multiple thousands of pounds because it is cherry blossom season. I go back to the woman with this information. She is in a video call with a Japanese restaurant chain cancelling my meal plan for the week, which amount to tens of thousands of Yen. She cancels my suite at the hotel in central Tokyo. I say that I made a private reservation at Langham’s restaurant where I have been before and ask her to cancel this. She does.

There is some time before all the others get there. She tells me to buy a ticket to London which I do. I do not know where the airport is now. I sit down at a computer terminal and start doing a Japanese language quiz. One of her colleagues comes over to me and is surprised that I am doing so well on the Japanese. I explain to him that I have been many times before and spent time with a man and his family in Sendai. He suggests that the man was gay. I say not because I have been around quite a few gay men and understand them well. He is upset that I am not going on their carefully organised trip. I say that I am too unwell to travel and that in general my health is very poor. People do not understand how bad it is.

The dream ends.

Helm Stack Map – Boris Johnson – Interview Dream 17-01-2025

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Here is last night’s dream had between 12 and 2.

The dream starts with a view of a map of Cornwall. On the map I can see a rock stack between Land’s End and the Scilly Isles. The rock stack is called Helm Stack. It is very specific. {On checking there is a Helm Crag in the lake district}.

The scene changes to an ornate room with an antique table and chairs. It feels like Whitehall or St James’s, a bit gentlemen’s club. I am sat one side of the table. On the other side is Boris Johnson and two emeritus professors whom I have not met. They are interviewing me in a manner similar to the appointment of junior faculty. Their tone is condescending.

Johnson is his usually ebullient yet dogmatic self. He is trying to chivvy me along to answer. His manner is having exactly the opposite effect.

They are asking me questions based on their socio-political world. They are based entirely on the form side of life and events which may have taken place therein. I answer accurately using as few words as possible. This does not help them. They are asking all the wrong questions yet are insistent in carrying on. They think they are right. I know in the dream that there is no way that they will accept or understand that the way of approach is entirely wrong.

Dream ends

* Table is the dreaming symbol for need to resolve problems.