Had it again last night. This one was sneaky - I re-enrolled in college specifically to exorcise the College Dream.
I was so proud of myself; I checked and double checked my course load to make sure I didn’t miss any classes, I made sure I completed my library assignments, I berated my lazy roommate because all he did was lay in bed and never did any studying or classwork. I was so sure that I was never again going to have a College Dream.
Then I woke up.
And realized that I just had a Meta College Dream.
(quick background - my last class in my Masters program will start on Jan 7th, I know what I’m taking, but haven’t signed up for it yet.)
So I was in my old childhood church (which doesn’t have a school in real life) and was there for classes - I had signed up for a lot of them, and they were all weird:
Valhalla: psychology of religious afterlife promises
Sociology of Israel vs Palestine conflict
Class struggle in India
…and a few others - one had something to do with superheroes, another was specifically in defense of christianity (which I would never take in life, as I’m an atheist now)
So I’m sitting there in the cafeteria of my old church, looking at this bizarre class list, thinking to myself - I don’t remember taking any other classes here at my church - they must have sublet the building.
Then I think - waitaminit - I’ve only got ONE class left for my degree! I don’t need to take all this shit this term - I only need one of them! I wonder which of these will be the most fun for my last class… hmm… I think I’ll stick with Valhalla - that sounds interesting.
Then I woke up and was a little disappointed that I couldn’t actually take a class in comparative afterlife promises instead of the one I’m really signing up for.
Very true. In high school, you typically have a fixed schedule that doesn’t vary that much and you always show up at the same time and leave at the same time, and they even conveniently tell you when to eat lunch. On a 9-5 job, you show up every weekday and your supervisor is keeping tabs on you so if you suddenly forget about a task, you’ll find out about it at the next status meeting where you hopefully have enough time to stay late and catch up rather than at the end of the fiscal year when the budget is closed and everything is delivered.
I’ve also had the dream where I have to re-enroll in high school or even junior high at my current age - mid 40s - because of some obscure state law I’m in violation of. It’s basically a kind of house arrest. I have to report everywhere by a certain time and am given nothing to do but sit in class, repeating subjects I learned decades ago for no good reason.
I have this dream all the time. Probably once or twice a week.
Last night I dreamt I was enrolled in an electronics design class, and the final project was to design and build a circuit. I asked another student, “When is the project due?” He replied, “This Thursday.” I knew there was NO WAY I could finish the project in time. Just then I woke up, and then had to remind myself that I’m not taking any classes.
Yes I have it too - more often I’m in high school - it’s the end of the school year, I haven’t done the work and there’s no way to catch up, I don’t even know where to find my classes, I’m not going to graduate, etc…it’s always very real feeling and it takes me a few moments after waking up to remember I did graduate high school (and college) over 20 years ago.
Several times a year. Out of grad school for 15 years now. Two variations:
It is a math class I haven’t been attending, and it is well into the semester - too late to drop - when I realize I am still enrolled in the class. IRL I am not good at math, and can pass courses only by attending every single class and doing every piece of work assigned. Even asleep, I know this, and know I am screwed.
It is a class for which the major grade component is a long research paper. I haven’t been doing any of the preparatory assignments, I haven’t read the material or attended the lectures, it is too late to drop the class, and it is past the point that even top-notch B.S. skills could save my hide.
I have had these dreams so often that I think I have transitioned them to a form of lucid dreaming in which I know this can’t be real, I would never let myself get in this mess.
Except, once, I did, I thought a paper due tomorrow was due today, which I found out at breakfast. Except I had attended the lectures and I had read the material, so I cobbled something together and was fine.
My foster daughter graduates from college this month, and has been undergoing the real life end-of-semester stress of exams and papers. I actually described this phenomenon to her a few weeks ago, telling her to expect these dreams for the next quarter century. She was not pleased to hear this bit of adult wisdom.
Yes I’ve had these dreams, but as my college life recedes into the distant past I have them less and less frequently, but they have been replaced by dreams that elicit the very same sense of dread and impending doom: I discover whole wings or floors of my house that I forgot existed (in some cases I remember an entire separate house I forgot I owned) and which I had neglected for years and now represent an incalculable outlay of time and money to set right. Ugh.
Yep. I found that dream to be one of the near-universal anxiety dreams for folks that have been to college, and it appears this poll confirms it. I still have those dreams, 15 years out of college. They are being somewhat replaced by the same type of dream with my current job. (I’m a photographer, so, same sort of thing, except forgetting an assignment, not getting directions to the job and not knowing where I’m going, forgetting equipment, etc.)
