I had that dream last night. I have it, or some similar variation of it whenever I am anxious or stressed about something. I have several recurring dreams that I can use to gauge my emotional status. Quite often my dreams tip me off to the way I am feeling. I have the stress high school dream, then realize yeah, I am stressed about something. Another variation is not in school, but I have to complete some impossible task, or that I am running late for an event and things keep happening to keep me from getting there on time.
I also have the “school dream.” I’m in college, and realize that there is a class that is on my schedule but that I’ve never attended. I can’t even figure out where it is. It’s the end of the semester, finals week, and I have no idea what the class is even about.
What a terrible dream! I also have one where I realize I never really graduated, and I have to go back and take more classes. Awful.
I have this dream regularly. It has a number of variations:
A) I’ve signed up for a class and forgotten to drop it and now must take the exam without ever having attended class and must learn the material overnight but it’s some hopeless subject that I’m not cut out for, like calculus (a lot of my nightmares are based on calculus)
B) I’ve had a number of papers to write but have blown off/ totally forgotten about one of them, and must come up with a topic and 20 pages of research by Monday and am searching the library furiously to think of something I already know that much about. Fot some reason this one is based on American/ regional history classes.
C) Variety A, homework option-- I’m sitting in my seat just before (math) class and realize there is homework I haven’t done, and try to scribble it done but it is futile
D) Finally, I have become a true grad student en route to professor-- I now have nightmares about giving exams: I pull the wrong slides, or show up late, or don’t have a key to the projector booth, or the photocopies aren’t done yet, or the students totally mutiny in the middle of the exam.
That describes my recurrent dream so closely that it’s pretty eerie (even down to the calculus bit). Just reading your description sent shivers up and down my spine.
Barry
Some good news, here. Yup, I’ve had that dream repeatedly over the years, though never while I was still actually in school. However, I took early retirement over 3 years ago (very early - I was only 46), and haven’t had the dream since. That may lend some credence to the theory that the dream reflects some type of performance anxiety; once you’re retired, those kinds of pressures tend to disappear from your life.
I have “school dreams” but they aren’t about exams.
They are always a variation on the same theme. I am in some kind of school residence, packing up to leave. Sometimes I would have this anxiety of forgetting to pack some important stuff, other times I wouldn’t.
It bothers me because I keep on having them.
I tend to have variations on “The Naked Dream”, often set in school. Interestingly, in the school ones, I’m usually not naked, but wearing some totally inappropriate article of clothing, such as a bathrobe.
I’m 29 now and still have those dreams every once in a while–usually I haven’t gone to class all semester and have tons of work due, or an exam I’m unprepared for. Usually it’s a difficult (for me) subject like calculus or Chinese, though once it was astronomy, which I enjoyed. Once everyone I disliked in high school showed up and they were all doing better in class than I was.
My dad, in his mid-50’s, still has them too. They don’t seem to go away.
I have that exact dream sometimes. It freaks me out.
My variation is the “actor’s nightmare.” Either it’s one minute to curtain and I can’t remember my lines, or another actor falls ill and the director is pushing me out to take his place, despite my protests, and keeps saying “Just improvise.” Nervewracking.
I had a recent dream where I thought I would skip class for a day (which is weird because I hardly ever skip class) and then 10 minutes before the class starts I suddenly realize that the midterm is that day, so I’m in a panic to get my books and high-tail it down there before the test starts.
Hm. Just last night I dreamed that, when I showed up for my world lit class, my professor decided to move us all “downstairs.” So far, so good. My world lit professor often decides to switch rooms. So we go downstairs. Only downstairs turns out to be the reception battalion for basic training (which I underwent over ten years ago). So then I remember I can’t shoot worth shit and therefore have no chance of graduating (in real life I am a poor shot, but I graduated anyway). Not wanting to go through several weeks of hell for no good reason, I try to leave, as is my right in the dream, only they won’t let me. My primary obstacle is this big, mean, bald drill instructor that looks vaguely like this sergeant major I once sort of knew. Eventually, I know, I’m either going to have to kill this bastard or find a way to sneak out of Fort Wherever-It-Is. First though, I decide I need some sleep. So I lay down on a cement floor and wake up in real life . . .
That’s the only dream similar to the “school dream” that I can recall at the moment, though I’ve had a number of dreams of a sexual natural that have been set at school–most of them have to do with this cute girl who sits next to me in, as it happens, the world lit class that morphed into basic training last night. Weird. Stuff like this sometimes makes me wish I had a shrink.
I get that dream all the time.
Also, I worked at a radio station in 1987-1988. Haven’t done any work like that since. And still, every now and then, I get the dream where the current song is ending and I don’t have any other records pulled and ready to go.
Another school dream I have is this: I work IRL in an art school. A good art school. My job doesn’t require that I know anything about art or have any talent or artistic experience, which is good because I don’t. Anyway, occasionally I will dream that I have decided to take advantage of the free tuition and go to school here. In the dream, I find myself in an architecture or illustration studio and when I tell you I’d probably do just as well performing brain surgery as doing the level of art required for these classes, it’s no exaggeration. After one of these dreams, I feel embarrassed at work the next day.
Oh, yeah. In my dream, it’s the last week of the semester, and I’ve completely forgotten about a class all semester. There’s a huge project due, and I don’t know what it is, and there’s no way I could finish it on time, even if I did know what it was. The class is always math or science, nothing I could ever fake my way through. It’s strange to hear other people describe such similar dream of their own.
I used to have that dream or similar quite often. It’s even mentioned in books on common neuroses and nightmares and stuff… so it’s academically ‘known’ about. I think it’s a fairly natural consequence for people who have fairly intensive educational years and endure a lot of exam pressure. I haven’t had it for a while though.
I did have a similar situation in real life though. In my third and final university year I was talking with a friend about a forthcoming exam. The exam was based on a course that consisted of just one weekly seminar, although there was a lot of reading to do in between. At least that’s what I thought. Then this friend asked me if I felt the lectures had helped. I didn’t even realise there had been any lectures. So I’d missed a year’s worth of lecture content, and the exam was a week away. This is the only time in my life when I actually, literally felt a shiver run down my spine.
Originally posted by Morgainelf
I also have the “school dream.” I’m in college, and realize that there is a class that is on my schedule but that I’ve never attended. I can’t even figure out where it is. It’s the end of the semester, finals week, and I have no idea what the class is even about.
Mark me down as another who’s had the same exact dream. Maybe the dream allocating algorithm in the Matrix has a fault in its randomizer…
I used to have the dream on a regular basis, but I began work on a new degree in '99, and haven’t had it since.
Capybara, I had a calculus nightmare once myself. I dreamed that I was being chased all around the town by a huge, predatory integral sign…
Yes, I’ve had that exact dream. Many times, and I’ve been out of college for 8 years. It’s usually a science or math class (my worst subjects). The dream is either that I go to class like usual and find out there’s a test that day, or I forgot I registered and have to take the final exam with no prep work. Or – another variation – that I forget about the class completely until the grades come out and there’s a big F because I never went to class or took the exam, and the school won’t remove it from my record.
I still have that dream more often than I care to think about. Hate, hate, hate it. It’s the only dream that I have a physical reaction to (headache, nausea, sweating, etc.) when I wake up. I usually feel bad that I don’t remember details of my dreams, because some seem to be interesting or memorable, but I’m glad I don’t retain too much from these.
It’s always undergraduate work, usually near graduation (10 years ago).