<p>Over in the forum an old thread was resurrected where a student made a schedule screw-up and missed his final exam. Several posters noted this as a recurring nightmare. I had a similar recurring dream, in which I was panicking on my way to a final for an upper-level course that I never attended and had done no reading for. The strange thing is that a few years ago it just stopped. Apparently, some how my subconscious mind was able to get to the Registrar and drop the course. Weird.</p>
<p>My variant of The Dream is not that I missed the final but that I forgot to attend the class. The final is tomorrow, and I haven’t studied at all. I haven’t even bought the book. It’s way too late to drop the course. I am doomed.</p>
<p>Decades later I still have this dream occasionally.</p>
<p>This is what I posted on the other thread:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>With all this talk, I’m probably going to have one of these nightmares tonight! The worst for me was always the kind of dream like coureur’s. Or a variation in which I would suddenly find out that a huge paper (sometimes my senior thesis in college) was due in 24 or 48 hours, and I hadn’t even picked a topic. Doomed is right.</p>
<p>My variation: I show up for class, turns out it’s the day of the final, I haven’t studied, and I’m wearing pajamas. Or nothing. I search around for any way to cover myself and cannot.</p>
<p>Big recurring dream angst person here. The dreams are usually a few steps back from where I actually am in life. I read somewhere to give yourself an affirmation on how to solve a recurring dream issue before you go to sleep. Now, in a dream where I’m totally unprepared for a final or can’t open the locker because I can’t keep my eyes open, I (subconsciously) remind myself that I’m a successful business owner and it doesn’t really matter how it turns out. School stuff is now less of an dream issue, but I still find myself moving back into old houses I’ve sold or showing up to job interviews without shoes in my dreams. </p>
<p>Well at least I’m not naked anymore.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s pretty much mine, too. I check my printed schedule during exam week and see a class that I had forgotten that I signed up for. Same thing. Too late to drop.</p>
<p>But I haven’t had it for years. (Maybe tonight?)</p>
<p>I did run out of gas on the way to a law school final.</p>
<p>ZZZ…I sometimes dream it is graduation week and I’m all set to march. The night before grad, I learn my college had a 4 -year gym requirement and in all that time, I never knew about it. I don’t even know where the gym is located on campus. I rush around looking for a gym, wearing my cap and gown. </p>
<p>I’m doomed, although clothed.</p>
<p>I have two such dreams:</p>
<p>I show up for the final of a biology class that I haven’t been to all semester. If I don’t pass it, I won’t graduate.</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>Five years after getting my doctorate, I have to return and redefend my dissertation.</p>
<p>Seems that since I’m almost 60, I’d have long ago outgrown these dreams…</p>
<p>Wow-- we all have similar anxiety dreams. I havent had one in eons, but mine involves either the “I forgot an never attended the class” one described above, and also a variant on NSM’s-- that somehow I hadn’t finished my dissertation had had to go back to grad school, work in the clinic and finish my dissertation.</p>
<p>My main dream (haven’t had it in a while) is that I have to teach a class and have done no preparation. And I still have the forgotten/skipped class one.</p>
<p>True story: Years ago, when I was a lecturer who still thought she’d finish her dissertation and not end up the ABD that she is today, I showed up on campus to set up my office and make copies of my syllabus (with my mother and baby in a stroller in tow). It turned out it was the first day of classes and mine was meeting that day. I had assumed classes started the following week. Panic set in, but I got my copies and faked my way through the class. I felt lucky that I happened to be on campus that day. So at least one of my biggest f**k-ups was not as bad as it could have been. But it did become the stuff of nightmares.</p>
<p>Just to make you feel worse, I will point out that sometimes it’s not a dream.</p>
<p>My sister is an example – twice.</p>
<p>First, one semester she signed up for a one-credit course in science fiction but dropped it. Or at least she thought she had dropped it. Apparently, the paperwork didn’t go through properly – something she didn’t discover until nearly the end of the semester, way after the drop deadline and just before the final. (She was able to get the Registrar to correct the mistake.)</p>
<p>Second, several years after the end of college, she realized that she could not find her diploma and requested a replacement from the college. She was told that she had never been sent a diploma because she had not graduated! According to the college’s records, she had only 119 credits. The problem turned out to be an ROTC history of aviation course that she had taken even though she was not in ROTC. The year after she took the course, the college decided that credits from ROTC courses would not count toward the 120 credits required for graduation. But when she took the course, they did count. Again, the Registrar corrected the mistake. </p>
<p>I think our kids are better off now that all the Registrar’s records are available online and they can spot mistakes before things get critical. But they will probably have the same dreams we do.</p>
<p>I have a similar dream. </p>
<p>I passed, when I was 17, a high level equitation and horsemanship test (USPC A rating) There are a lot of hoops to jump through along the way and decades later they keep adding more formal steps. I dream that I have to go back and pass a test (C-3) that did not even exist until I was 25. And since I don’t ride anywhere nearly as much, or as well, as I did at 17 – I know I can’t pass the test!</p>
<p>The dream lives on - we just wish it wouldn’t. </p>
<p>I’ve had the one where I had to take a final in a room I couldn’t find for a class I never attended. I’ve also had one where I was back in high school - then remind myself that none of it could matter because I’ve got a Master’s degree. </p>
<p>A reader of Freud offered this explanation: we have the dream about an earlier anxiety producing event (college and exams) to reassure our subconscious when we are facing a challenge in our current lives. When we awaken, we dismiss the dream - it isn’t real, we’ve successfully finished college, etc. I wonder if anyone has had the dream who DIDN’T finish a course or complete college requirements.</p>
<p>Gosh, similar dream about never attending class and suddenly realizing just before final that I have run out of time and I had better cram. Have the dream once every couple of years. Makes me anxious just thinking about it.</p>
<p>This is an amusing article about how common this dream is: [Dreamed</a> You Didn’t Study? Be Proud, You Meritocrat by Samuel G. Freedman](<a href=“http://www.samuelfreedman.com/articles/education/nyt09082004.html]Dreamed”>Dreamed You Didn't Study? Be Proud, You Meritocrat by Samuel G. Freedman)</p>
<p>Freedman makes the point that this is a NEW nightmare, because you have to have access to education and an exam to have this nightmare. And yet it’s so common! Psychology Today even wrote an article about it: [Recurring</a> Final Exam Dream - You Forgot You Were Taking the Course | Psychology Today](<a href=“http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/radical-teaching/200909/recurring-final-exam-dream-you-forgot-you-were-taking-the-course]Recurring”>http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/radical-teaching/200909/recurring-final-exam-dream-you-forgot-you-were-taking-the-course)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s mine too! The interesting thing is I had this dream throughout undergrad and continue to have it on occcasion, usually when I haven’t done what I need to get done.</p>
<p>But I NEVER had it in law school. The difference (I think)? I regually skipped classes as an undergraduate so it was a possibility not to know when/where an exam was, not to be fully prepared, etc. In law school I was so paranoid, I NEVER missed a class and was NEVER unprepared! So no need for that horrible dream!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>drb, thanks for bringing this up. I had no idea that others had this dream. Mine have stopped also, but I can’t remember when. Probably when I had my kid. My dream always involved a calculus test, not the final. Calculus was no problem for me in college. That’s the aspect that I don’t understand - I took plenty of harder-for-me classes in college. I don’t remember having these dreams during my low-stress high school days.</p>
<p>So Argentinians don’t have these dreams? How weird!</p>
<p>I have this dream from time to time and it never happened to me in school. DH’s theory is that it has to do with incompletions or feeling incomplete about something else in your life. Makes sense to me…</p>
<p>I have had this recurring dream for years. It seems to be when I am under a lot of stress and worried about getting stuff done.</p>
<p>The dream is always slightly different - may be a final, may be just not remembering where the class is (because I haven’t gone the whole semester). Sometimes it is a high school class - sometimes it is a college class. </p>
<p>Still rattles me, every time!</p>
<p>^^^ This is the reoccuring dream I have!!!</p>