<p>Parents, you know the dream I’m talking about - the one where you sleep through your final and fail. For me, it was still happening occasionally even in my late 30s. But it’s been quite awhile now.</p>
<p>For some reason this question occurred to me after seeing all the “fear of rescinded admission” threads.</p>
<p>There’s also the dream of suddenly being back in school but you realize you don’t know your schedule or where any of your classes are even though it’s the middle of the semester.</p>
<p>Or worse - that dream where you’re in school walking down the hallway with everyone else when you suddenly realize you’re naked! Now what?</p>
<p>I had worse repeated dreams: final exam week was approaching but I did not know what books I should read to review, did not know date and location for each subject because I did not attend any class of my HS teachers. I used to be their best student.</p>
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<p>OMG. I’ve had this dream several times over the years!!! What does it mean??</p>
<p>I still have that dream, and I’ve been out of school a looonng time!</p>
<p>Those are simple anxiety dreams. I bet everyone has them from time to time.</p>
<p>In fact, I bet cavemen/women probably had dreams about showing up for the hunt without their spear!</p>
<p>I have a regular dream about being in college with exams coming up and I forgot to go to a class for which I had registered. I haven’t been in college for well over 30 years. I rarely, if ever, have anxiety dreams like that about practicing law, or even about law school (which, believe me, was more anxiety-provoking than college). When I was in high school, I had naked dreams about high school, but never not-prepared-for-the-exam dreams. I don’t know what it is about the college experience that sticks in the unconscious like that, but it does.</p>
<p>My dream reoccurring nightmare is that I have forgotten to officially drop a class that I stopped attending.</p>
<p>I also don’t know why the college experience (since it was soooo long ago) prevails, but I DO know why I have the dream.</p>
<p>I used to have dreams that I couldn’t get my locker open, or I couldn’t make a phone connection.</p>
<p>[There’s an app for that](<a href=“http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/way-dreams-dream-dictionary/id333208205?mt=8”>http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/way-dreams-dream-dictionary/id333208205?mt=8</a>)</p>
<p>One of my colleagues used to comment about his students who waited until the week before finals to buy the textbook: “They’re living my nightmare!”</p>
<p>I have never slept through a final in my dreams. Instead, I am showing up for the final in a language class I have never attended, or I have a week to finish and write up an entire semester’s worth of labs, or my Ph.D. thesis is unwritten, or I haven’t scheduled my final Ph.D. oral. My oddest dream in this category: I have less than 24 hours to finish constructing a robot for a course, and I have only a box of the pieces and the sketchiest plans. (Thanks, MIT! Except I never took that course!)</p>
<p>I just had that “OMIGOD I never showed up for this class now I have to take the final” dream a week or two ago.</p>
<p>I also have the reverse–I was supposed to be teaching this course, but I never prepared/don’t know the subject/ forgot to show up to class. Equally panic-inducing.</p>
<p>There are variations as you get older. I dream that I forget to show up to work on time or to some other important commitment or that I’m unprepared. For many, many years I ran a silent auction at my kids’ school. I haven’t done it in several years but recently I dreamt it was the day of the auction and I was unprepared. It was starting in an hour and nothing was set up, etc. Same theme, different content. I think it’s been a while since it’s been an actual exam.</p>
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<p>I have this dream frequently. The final is coming up and I haven’t been to class since the first week…</p>
<p>You were lucky. I had worknprogress’ have to take the final for a class I forgot to drop dream on many an occasion, but luckily not in a few years. I’ve always wondered what the related dream is for hunter-gather people: OMG, there’s the wildebeest and I left my spear at home?</p>
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<p>I have that dream OFTEN. </p>
<p>Last night I kept dreaming that I was in school and had forgotten to write a research paper that was due today. I’d wake up, be relieved, then go right back to the dream again. Happened at least four times during the night.</p>
<p>My husband thinks I’m a total psycho as he NEVER has anxiety dreams of any kind.</p>
<p>I have those dreams. Most of the time I can’t find my class on test day. Have also dreamed that I forgot the combination to my (h.s.) locker with my paper due stuck inside and then got lost trying to find the class.</p>
<p>Well, thanks to this thread popping up on the first page of this forum many time, I now have had it several times, including last night! Mine was about a project I had to do for a class that I didn’t ever take. But I needed to pass it to graduate high school.</p>
<p>I’ve had similar dreams often. Last night, I dreamed I went to college and took my dog with me.</p>
<p>My latest dream is of being back in high school. Sometimes I do not know the location of classrooms, other times I am scheduled for impossibly difficult classes and I am clueless. Last night I wondered to myself what I was doing back in school at fifty something.</p>
<p>I used to have nightmares about getting exams that had almost nothing that I could answer with confidence. My children inform me that this is the reality for many of the exams they have taken in STEM courses, that are heavily curved.</p>