{"id":4938,"date":"2012-07-31T16:31:45","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T20:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=4938"},"modified":"2012-07-07T19:05:15","modified_gmt":"2012-07-07T23:05:15","slug":"like-a-great-egyptologist-you-can-dream-the-questions-before-you-take-the-exam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/07\/like-a-great-egyptologist-you-can-dream-the-questions-before-you-take-the-exam.html","title":{"rendered":"Dream the questions before you take the exam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Exam at the University of Adelaide in 1971<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Have you dreamed you are in school, having to take a test for which you are unprepared? You are not alone; \u00a0this is a very common dream theme. If you have finished school and do not have to take any literal exam ahead of you, a dream of this sort may be speaking to you about a new test that life is presenting to you. After all, life itself is a school.<\/p>\n

However, if you or your kid is \u00a0facing a literal exam, it’s worth thinking about whether a dream of this kind may be a literal rehearsal, offering information you could use to dream better. One of the reasons I did very well at exams in my last years of high school was that I sometimes dreamed exam questions ahead of time, which clued me in to how I should approach my last-minute prep.<\/p>\n

I came across a fascinating account of how dreaming exam questions ahead of time aided the career of a famous scholar, E.A.Wallis Budge, who produced many important works on ancient Egypt, including a celebrated edition of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, during his long tenure at the British Museum. His career might never have gotten off the ground had he not dreamed, in exact detail, what would happen in a locked room where he would be presented with green examination papers containing certain Assyrian texts for translation.<\/p>\n

Budge recounted the episode to his friend H. Rider Haggard, the famous author of\u00a0King Solomon’s Mines<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0She<\/em>, and Haggard retold it in his autobiography. I’ll let Haggard (no mean raconteur, who fired my imagination with his adventure tales when I was a boy) tell the story as he narrated it in his autobiography:<\/p>\n

“When he was at Cambridge Dr. Peile of Christ’s offered [Budge] an\u00a0exhibition if he would be examined in Assyrian, and as Budge’s funds were exiguous he was very anxious to get the exhibition. An examiner,\u00a0Professor Sayce of Oxford, was found to set the papers–four in all–and the days for the examination were fixed.<\/p>\n

“The night before the day\u00a0of the examination Budge dreamed a dream in which he saw himself\u00a0seated in a room that he had never seen before–a room rather like a\u00a0shed with a skylight in it. The tutor came in with a long envelope in\u00a0his hand, and took from it a batch of green papers, and gave one of\u00a0these to Budge for him to work at that morning. The tutor locked him\u00a0in and left him. When he looked at the paper he saw it contained\u00a0questions and extracts from bilingual Assyrian and Akkadian texts for\u00a0translation. The questions he could answer, but he could not translate\u00a0the texts, though he knew them by sight, and his emotions were so\u00a0great that he woke up in a fright. At length he fell asleep, but the\u00a0dream repeated itself twice, and he woke up in a greater fright than\u00a0before.<\/p>\n

“He then got up–it was about 2 A.M.–went downstairs to his\u00a0room, lighted a fire, and, finding the texts in the second volume of Rawlinson’s great work, found the four texts and worked at them till\u00a0breakfast-time, when he was able to make passable renderings of them.<\/p>\n

“He went to College at nine, and was informed that there was no room in\u00a0the Hall, it being filled by a classical examination, and that he must\u00a0go into a side room near the kitchens. His tutor led him to the room,\u00a0which was the duplicate, skylight and all, of the one he had seen in\u00a0his dream. The tutor took from his breast pocket a long envelope, and\u00a0from it drew out several sheets of green paper similar to that of the\u00a0dream, and gave Budge the examination paper for that morning, saying\u00a0that it was green because Sayce, on account of delicate eyesight, was\u00a0obliged to use green paper when writing cuneiform. The tutor then\u00a0turned, said he would come back at twelve, and, going out, locked the\u00a0door behind him as Budge saw him do in the dream.<\/p>\n

“When he sat down at\u00a0the table and looked at the paper he saw written on it the questions\u00a0and four pieces of text for translation, and the texts were line for\u00a0line those which he had seen in his dream. Surprise at his good\u00a0fortune prevented him from writing steadily, but at length he got to\u00a0work and had finished the paper before the tutor appeared and unlocked\u00a0the door at noon. The three other papers were easier, and Budge got\u00a0the exhibition–for him a very vital matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rider Haggard goes on:<\/p>\n

“I asked Budge if he could explain the matter, or account for it in any\u00a0way, and he said,'”No. My mother and maternal grandmother both had\u00a0dreams of this sort from time to time when they were in any kind of\u00a0difficulty, and in their dreams they were either shown what to do or\u00a0were in some way helped. Being very pious folk, they regarded these\u00a0dreams as the work of Divine Providence, who wished for some reason to\u00a0help them out of trouble or difficulty. For myself, I could never\u00a0imagine Providence troubling about any examination, but I was quite\u00a0overcome for a time with astonishment at my good luck.'”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a>Source: H.Rider Haggard,\u00a0The Days of My Life: An Autobiography.\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
–<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
For many more examples of how dreams have been secret engines in great lives and great events, please see my book The Secret History of Dreaming<\/em> (New World Library).<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you dreamed you are in school, having to take a test for which you are unprepared? You are not alone; \u00a0this is a very common dream theme. If you have finished school and do not have to take any literal exam ahead of you, a dream of this sort may be speaking to you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,5,20,30],"tags":[100,1403,1402],"class_list":["post-4938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-religions","category-dreams","category-history-of-dreaming","category-precognition","tag-dream-rehearsal","tag-exams","tag-school-dreams"],"yoast_head":"\nDream the questions before you take the exam - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/07\/like-a-great-egyptologist-you-can-dream-the-questions-before-you-take-the-exam.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dream the questions before you take the exam - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Have you dreamed you are in school, having to take a test for which you are unprepared? You are not alone; \u00a0this is a very common dream theme. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4938"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4975,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4938\/revisions\/4975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}