Like many people, I have recurring nightmares. By the time we’ve reached adulthood, our recurring nightmares have solidified into a distinct type that usually pops up when we are at our most vulnerable. “Stress dreams.” Maybe it’s the one where you show p for school naked. Maybe it’s the one where you are looking for soemthing lost and can’t find it, or the one where your teeth start falling out.
Mine takes the form of the “unknown exam.” The dream is always the same. I’m in my last semester of college, and exams are coming up. I have an exam for a class that I don’t remember registering for. I have to make up all the work for this class or I’ll fail out of school. Sometimes, it’s even too late for that, and there’s no way to make up the course work.
I have had this dream for years. Whenever I am stressed out about something, this is the dream I have. I usually wake up in an utter panic, and sometimes it takes me a really long time to remember that I haven’t been in college in almost ten years, that I did graduate, and that my degree is in a frame downstairs in my office. Sometimes it takes me several minutes. Yes. There I am lying in bed with my husband, in Washington DC, in a house I bought with money from my career, with a puppy that I bought AFTER I bought my house at my feet, and it takes me several minutes to remember that I’m not longer a college student in a dorm room in New Haven.
I am not proud of this.
I’m not the only one who has this dream. In fact, it’s so common a recurring nightmare that people have actually written academic papers on the subject.
Indeed, success is one of the hallmarks of many people with recurrent exam nightmares, says Zadra, who wrote his doctoral thesis on the link between recurrent dreams and psychological well-being…. “What’s strange is that the negative aspect in the dream is tied to an experience in which the dreamer did well. What people should keep in mind is to make a link with their current situation. There is the same underlying message: this is just another task that I can solve or approach constructively.” This link, often a stressful situation, is known as a “retrieval clue.”
Which is interesting, especially in the context of what I’m about to tell you.
Last night, I had the dream again. Except, this time in the dream, for the first time since I started having this dream many years ago, something was different. This time, I called the professor back and told him that there was absolutely NO WAY I’d signed up for a 300-level math course, and that he must have the wrong student number down or something on his registrar packet. And then I called the registrar’s office and told them that there must be some mistake, that a 300 level math course was not required for me to complete either of my two majors and I would not have signed up for it on a whim as an elective (I hadn’t taken the pre-reqs, either), and that therefore, someone had made a coding error. I got the issue resolved. I ddn’t have to take the exam.
And then I woke up.
I have no idea what this means. All I know was that I was in such a gleeful mood when I woke up. I’d beaten the dream! For once, I’d beaten it. I didn’t need to take the exam. I didn’t need to lay quietly and remember how I’d graduated from college in 2001. I’d solved the problem in my dream. I actually laughed out loud. I woke up my husband, who wanted to know what I was laughing about.
I know why I had the stress dream. There is something going on in my life that has never left me feeling so utterly powerless.
But why did I beat this dream? Why now? Is my subconscious telling me that I’m an adult, that I’m no longer a college student, and that it’s time to put away childish things? Are my new stress dreams going to be not of a collegiate nature? Or is that just the pessimist talking?
Or is my subconscious taking one of its most cherished security blankets, the outlet for stress it has relied upon for the better part of a decade, and offering it up as a sacrifice? Here, you can have this. You can have this to show you that you are stronger than the things that are happening to you. That you can overcome them. There is a way.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Huh! Congrats on beating the dream. Mine is the most common: being chased. Always at night, through a parking lot. There’s always a fence to climb, and the person chasing me usually has a knife glinting in the moonlight if I glance back. *shrug*
[Reply]
April 15th, 2010 at 8:56 am
I’ve had that dream and sometimes it is still so real that even days later I have to think to remember that it didn’t really happen. I actually had something close happen in real life so it never occurred to me this might be a common dream.
I am hoping that I’ll remember how you beat it when next it comes to me.
I think your new dream is telling you that you can handle life if you just do in slowly and with thought. Best of luck on all the stress.
[Reply]
April 15th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Something similar happened to me a while back. I think my subconscious solved the problems in my dreams because my real-life problems were overwhelming and (seemingly) unsolvable at the time. As you said, a sacrifice, a spark of hope to remind me I was capable of surviving and overcoming the problems.
[Reply]
April 15th, 2010 at 9:44 am
I used to have that reoccurring dream until I beat it as well. I still don’t know how or why I beat it but it’s now been replaced by one of the following: getting fired from my job or worse, showing up without pants and going the whole day with only a shirt and underwear on. Totally embarrassing. I think I have these because I feel insecure at work. Hopefully you can beat whatever’s stressing you in real life as well!
[Reply]
April 15th, 2010 at 9:46 am
I have nightmares any time I get too warm while I’m sleeping, but I haven’t had a recurring nightmare since I was a small child. Wonder what that says about me that I come up with something new to horrify myself every time.
Best of luck getting through your tough time. I’ll think good thoughts for you.
[Reply]
April 15th, 2010 at 10:13 am
I have that dream but usually my stress dreams revolve around not being able to get all the patrons out the library where I work after closing time. But onc, George Clooney showed up to tell me it would be okay. I still have them regularly, though.
But the dreams I have where I’m able to triumph over my insecurities are about 2 popular boys I briefly and ignominiously dated in high school. In one version I’m super together and finally cool enough for them, and in the other we have really satisfying candid conversations about what went wrong. I like the 2nd type better because it helps me feel like I have actually moved on and stopped caring.
[Reply]
April 15th, 2010 at 10:21 am
You beat it! That’s awesome. Your unconscious mind is kickass. I used to have the teeth-falling-out stress dream all the time, but lately it’s been replaced by a nightmare about registering for classes and not being able to decide what to take.
Hope everything is okay.
[Reply]
April 15th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Thanks for that, Diana. Especially that last paragraph. It’s hard to be an adult all the time. I’m fairly certain much of my stress comes from that issue. And having people depending on you for support and/or survival.
I’m so glad you banished that dream.
[Reply]
April 15th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
I used to have the teeth falling out dream, but haven’t for a few years. Lately I’ve been having an astonishingly coherent (usually my dreams are total nonsense) dream about going into a bookstore following the release of my imaginary debut novel and being thrown out of the store because no one’s buying it. Then everyone in the parking lot laughs. No joke. I’ve had it three times now!
Dear subconscious: My teeth are fair game. My future writing career is not! Kisses, Meg.
[Reply]
April 16th, 2010 at 6:49 am
Sorry to hear you’re stressed, but I think the dream means you feel capable of overcoming whatever is stressing you out. (Even if that feeling is only subconscious.)
When I was young, I would have horrible dreams about tornados. They’d scare the bejesus out of me. Then one day I thought about what they might mean and realized I only have them when I feel out of control. I still have the dreams, but now they don’t scare me. They’re just a heads-up that something’s out of whack.
[Reply]
April 16th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
I dream about being chased by zombies quite often but fortunately I can fly and have superb weapons training so mostly I\’m kept busy saving my friends and family. I definitely kick ass in that one.
My scary recurring nightmare involves getting trapped in a small tube underground but I haven’t (knock on wood) had that one for years. I’m pretty sure it had a lot to do with feeling powerless or forced to do something I didn’t want to do. So I cultivated selfishness and that seemed to work.
[Reply]
April 17th, 2010 at 1:35 am
I think your subconscious is saying that even in a situation out of your control, like being plopped in the middle of an exam you didn’t register for, you’re strong enough to control how you react, and that’s pretty awesome!
[on a side note, during my first semester in college I actually was an hour late for my English final!]
[Reply]
April 17th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I have that dream as well. That exact dream. I’ve never been able to solve it, and I usually wake up in a cold sweat. I’m amazed that your subconscious showed you a way out, and I hope that it *has* given you that spark of confidence that you need to know that things will be okay. It’s really inspiring to me to know that your dream self can do that – maybe mine will be able to as well.
That said, I hope everything is okay. Whatever you’re dealing with, I hope you know that all your fans are behind you!
[Reply]
April 22nd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
It’s funny. Most of my recurring nightmares become a book.
[Reply]