Hearing about someone else’s dream has got to be the most boring thing ever. I’ve already wasted Major Readers’ time recounting my loose tooth dreams. At the risk of turning everyone away for good, here’s another one.
I dream so rarely that these recurring ones sort of freak me out. I am highly skeptical of generalized dream analysis based on any sort of archetypes, but I figure that, for me, these must be significant.
So, I’m back in college, taking classes and, apparently, working at the same time. The semester is nearly over, and it occurs to me that I’ve completely forgotten to attend any classes or do the work, and the date for dropping courses without penalty has long passed. In a nutshell, I’m screwed.
I am greatly troubled by this. I know that I often rely on things “just working out” since, for me, they nearly always do. But I think I’m sort of unconsciously waiting for the other show to drop. I mean, I’ve been pretty fortunate/lucky throughout my life in work, health, finances, family, relationships (with a notable exception), and now as a parent (see “My Smart Kid”). A part of me is lurking somewhere, deeply embedded in my brain, wondering “Just when is life going to catch up with me?”
When am I going to face a real no-win situation?
When will the deadline just not be extended for me no matter how hard I plead?
When will I finally be revealed for the fraud that I must suspect I truly am?
Of course, it could just be all that cheese I ate yesterday.
Comments
Anxiety dreams are fairly common. During my tenure as a high school Spanish teacher my dreams usually began in early August. My favorite was a dream of the first day of school when I found out that I was to teach a class in Chinese. My principal's reasoning was: Well, you know Spanish so Chinese shouldn't be that difficult for you.
Posted by: Your Mother | July 12, 2006 5:28 PM
I have the Back In School dream fairly regularly. Sometimes I'm back in college. Other times I have to go back to high school to make up credits I missed, despite having completed college. But the common theme is that I'm freaking out because I forgot to attend one or more of my classes. Apparently, this is a common type of anxiety-induced dream, as is the Loose or Falling-Out Teeth dream.
Posted by: Bill | July 12, 2006 8:22 PM
Damn. Why am I not feeling any anxiety while I'm awake!? Can the dreams just be my way of dealing with it so I don't feel it consciously, or am I repressing some anxieties that are going to come out sometime?
Posted by: majorsteel | July 13, 2006 12:33 PM
IMHO, these dreams are the anxiety-release valve. Conceivably, you could be repressing feelings to the extent that the dreams alone cannot process them, but that's unlikely.
Posted by: Bill | July 13, 2006 2:57 PM