Grand Central Station of New York has two levels namely New Haven and Hurtford. There does not exist any Third Level. It is only the imaginary discovery of the narrator and his psychiatrist, Sam who calls it a waking dream— wish fulfilment. One night he took the subway from Grand Central Station which was faster than the bus.

On reaching there, he went down the steps to the First Level. Then he walked down another flight of stairs to reach the second level. He got into an arched doorway and was lost in a wrong corridor. He kept in walking along the corridor which went turning left and slanting downwards. At its end, he went down short flight of stairs. Then he came out. He found himself on the third level. For a moment, he thought he had again come back to the second level. There he got surprised to see everything different from old fashioned. It made him believe that he was actually standing at the Third Level.

The modern consumerist world is full of fear, insecurities, stress and wars because there is no safety for life. The modern innovations and competitions have human being put in a vicious circle and there is no escape from it. The present world has became a rat race and everybody is after power, money, fame and success. He has turned selfish, stressed, tensed and troubled.So his mind and life have become unsafe and insecure. In order to combat them, he starts day dreaming and adopts an escapist theory like Charley.

Charley is the product of the modern consumerist world. He starts imagining that he has gone in the Third Level of Grand Central Station, New York. There he finds everything old of 1894. He wants to go to Galesburg through the Third Level where people are free from all worries. It is a romantic world. He imagines that his grandfather came from a village Galesburg. He finds proof of his experience and realities that from Grand Central Station, trains go to Galesburg as well. He thinks that this has been the point where meets the present, past and future. Though it is imagination to combat the stress of the modern consumerist world. We can adopt different hobbies and busy schedules to combat the painful realities of the modern world.

Sam was a psychiatrist. He was also a friend of Charley. When Charley fantasied about the Third Level at Grand Central Station, he visited Sam for consultation. Sam declared it merely a ‘temporary refuge’ from his tension. He called it a waking-dream-wish-fulfilment. But slowly he himself got trapped in this imaginary world. He talked to many psychic patients daily, who told him about their woes and worries. It had made Sam's life a burdened one. He also started trying to find sojourn. He wanted to escape from the life which had become woeful after listening to the afflictions of the patients suffering from mental diseases.

Unconsciously, he also felt like breaking all the barriers of the realities of life and moved freely in the world of fantasy. He wanted to imagine himself in the world, where there are no repressed fears and conflicts embedded in the minds of the people. He first did not believe in the whim of the Third Level, but deep in his heart, he wanted to believe in this fantasy. He knew that Charley was not right, but he wished Charley to be right and then slowly he started finding the reality in a whim and got trapped.

Jack Finney's story The Third Level’ interweaves between fantasy and reality. The Third Level is medium of escape for Charley from the present harsh realities of modem life which is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and tension. It is a safe route for Charley to go to Galesburg in order to escape from trouble. So he tries to purchase two tickets for Galesburg, Illinois from the Third Level at Grand Central. The Third Level is merely a fantasy that exists in Charley's mind only.

His psychiatrist friend, Sam calls it a waking-dream-wish-fulfilment. In reality Charley fails to cope up with the modern world which is full of fears and worries. He just wants to escape. He takes it for a reality and plans to go to Galesburg. He even exchanges his new bills of three hundred dollars for old style bills. But he is never able to find the Third Level. It is because the Third Level has existed in his fantasy only. Hence it can be well ascertained that the Third-Level is a medium of escape for Charley. It is only his escapist fantasy.

There does not exist any Third Level at the Grand Central Station, New York. It is Charley’s own imagination and fantasy that he is involved in. In reality it is his journey into the past and the Third Level might have existed a century ago.

A man was sitting there in the booth. He wore a green eye-shade and a long black sleeve protectors. He saw a man glancing at his watch. He wore a derby hat, a black four button suit with small lapels. He had a big black handlebar mustaches. Other people had worn dresses like eighteen ninetees. They had beards, side burns and fancy mustaches. A woman was wearing a dress with leg of mutton sleeves and high buttoned shoes. He also saw a news-boy having. The world’ and the name was published on June 11,1894.