rivka | (no subject)

Entry tags:

dreams

(no subject)

Okay, how old do you have to get before you stop having the dream where you're in college and you suddenly realize you haven't been going to class or doing the readings, and in fact you're not even really sure where the classroom is or when the class is supposed to meet, and it's way too late to drop the class because exams are coming up?

Because, man, at 3 o'clock this morning I suffered through the most incredibly awkward one-on-one meeting with a professor... and I am one.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My dad's 71, he got his PhD at 25, and he's been teaching ever since. He still has the "I forgot to study" dream, usually the week before classes start. He's hoping it'll quit now that he's only teaching one class in the spring.

Must be some number in excess of 60 years, 'cause I ain't there yet . . .

If it ever stops happening to me, I'll let you know. ;) (39 and counting here.)

Sorry to hear about the dream - those really suck.

Well I'm in my mid-50s now. Does that help?

Although mine is about wandering through high school not knowing my schedule or locker combination.

This one's mine too. It stops someday?

Oh I only wish it would! But I can report that it doesn't happen as often any more.

Oof. Not looking good from the above comments. I was hoping...

Are you at least wearing clothes while you're trying to figure out your class schedule?

I still have that one!

I read about somebody who stopped having the dream by telling himself repeatedly that the next time he had it, he would dream that he dropped the course. I haven't had the dream since then.

Okay, I finished taking classes about 16 years ago and got my PhD 12 years ago and this is my eleventh year of teaching. I probably dream more often that I am going to teach a class and not prepared, compared to the one where I am a student and forgot to go to class and am not prepared. The student one still pops up occasionally though, and in that the campuses of my high school and my various universities all blend together.

Edited 2008-09-26 13:12 (UTC)

Oh, yes, this one. "What do you mean I'm lecturing today? I haven't written the lecture!" Or, one of my favorites: "The midterm is tomorrow. No problem; I'll just show up, watch the students take it, and then set to grading it. The exam's back from the copy center, right? Right? *echoing silence* Oh, god, did I ever send the exam to the copy center? Did I ever write the damn thing? *panic and hyperventilation ensue*"

I don't think I had that dream while I was a student, but I had it sometime in the last year. Realized that I'd completely forgotten to attend any sections of a class I'd registered for, it was almost the end of the semester, too late to drop, and I'd missed most of the graded work.

My parent still get this dream. Both in their 60s, both have PhDs and tenure, and my father is an extremely respected scholar in his field. My father usually dreams that he's back in high school and has to re-take a class (gym, sometimes, but sometimes it's a high school class in Poli Sci, which is his field) or they'll take away the PhD.

Just this morning, I had the high school version of that dream. Gonna fail physics because we're a month into school, it's the first big test, and I haven't gone to any classes at all yet.

I think it's stuck in our brains for life.

You know, I *never* had those dreams while I was actually in school (possibly because they would have been a mundane reflection of my actual life for a good portion of the time), but I started getting them say three or four years after I graduated and they've been continuing since.

I still dream I show up at primary school wearing only or having forgotten to wear underwear.

The one about the teacher decapitating my mother has stopped though.

Is the "teacher decapitating your mother" dream a nightmare or a good thing?

Far and away the worst nightmare I ever had while asleep, I think. Recurrent for years. Details: Cneragf fng fvqr ol fvqr jvgu gurve onpxf gb gur qbbe, ba fpubby punvef. V fng ba gur sybbe bccbfvgr gurz. V fnj gur grnpure jnyx va, yrna ba gur onpx bs zl zbgure'f punve, punggvat cyrnfnagyl. Xavsr fyvqrf guebhtu ure arpx, fvqr gb fvqr; urnq sybcf bss. Grnpure naq pure cncn pbagvahr gurve cyrnfnag pung. V nz sebmra.

There are more details which are meaningless to anyone who doesn't know the people or rooms in question.

According to a recent study, "never".

One theory that I've heard is that, in our culture, we lack a specific "adulthood rite/test", and that graduation is as close as we have, so it gets burned into our memories as the most important "test" motif, the one that we come back to every time we face a test in our lives.

Last night, Lis was wondering if she had a better chance at getting a work-study job at the campus library, since she had the master's degree in library science and all.

For those of us who went to college, it is one of our most formative experiences, where we shifted from childhood to some approximation of adulthood. So college is our metaphor for testing, for challenge, for transformation.

The military version is the dream where you're back in boot camp (or the service academy for those who went to it). Still happens to me some times.

For awhile the dream was further complicated by trying to remember my job schedule as well as the class schedule -- they always seemed to conflict, even though I was never sure when either was.

Oh, duh. *is blinded by flash of the obvious*

This is your backbrain dealing with the IRB Inquisition yesterday. But your subconscious doesn't know from IRBs, so it substituted another, rampant-anxiety, I'm about to get in trouble for not doing something I didn't even know I should have been doing! situation.

Dear

rivka's backbrain:

Cut it out. No, really.

I don't know...but I had one very similar about ruining my homework last night.

I'm 44 and haven't been near a class since I was 21 and I still get them all the time. I think they are part of the hivemind.

I had a horrible never went to class, exams coming up, got stuck in a conference meeting with a prof dream just the other day.

I don't think you're ever too old to have that dream.

Alas.

I don't get that dream, but this morning I woke up with a loud "Oh shit!" as I realized my French class had started an hour earlier, and I hadn't set my alarm. I was in the shower before I realized that my French class is actually tomorrow.

I didn't realize that so many other people have that dream, still--I thought I was strange.

I'm 41 and I still have that dream from time to time.

I get a different version of that one now, where I am trying to find a job and/or apartment after college, and can never quite get out of my parents' house. It switched the last couple of years since I've been modeling. Because you know, that 'haven't been to half the classes, haven't done any work, haven't studied, and it is finals and you are in front of the class on a platform, and you are naked, and everyone is staring at you'...that is my *reality* every semester when I model for the life drawing final. :) My hind brain had to find something else.

I still get the high school one. But also the one where you get to end-of-shift report and "OMG, I didn't realize I was supposed to be taking care of Mr. X and no one gave him his meds, or took his BP, or or or"...and I haven't been an inpatient nurse in the hospital for almost 20 years.

I'm in my fifties. The last time I had that dream, it was a wonderful adventure ("I get to learn stuff!") instead of a nightmare. So maybe there's hope.

I still have that dream every few weeks at 46.

Once, about two years ago, I just walked away from the school and went to a party instead. Since then, more often than not, I can realize I'm in the dream and walk away from it.

I'm in my late 40s and I get it. My mother is in her 70s and she gets it. Usually my version is the one where it's already the end of the term and you suddenly realize you forgot that you were signed up for a class and now you have to take the exam in it. Don't get the one with the professor conference.

On a possibly related note, I don't dream as often about going to work naked anymore.

My version of it is I'm working backstage on a play and suddenly, opening night, i'm right there onstage, spotlight and everything, and everyone's staring at me and all I wanna do is whine "but i'm not even IN the play!"

I've never had variations of that dream, but I didn't go to school very much, either. I do have some repeating dreams, though.

Frick, I still have that one, but it's about High School, not college. And it's been over 10 years. Hate it...hate it....hate it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only