School Nightmares

A common anxiety-based nightmare, as confirmed by the very cool book The Pop-up Book of Nightmares, involves finding yourself in a classroom and realizing you haven't studied for a test or haven't been to school all semester. In my experience, the test usually has something to do with math, and it's usually a high-school setting.  This common nightmare is of course closely related to the one in which you realize you are naked in school or in some other public setting.  In the latter nightmare, you're literally dealing with your fear of being exposed, whereas in the former, you're facing the fear of being exposed as an intellectual or academic fraud. Often, there's the added pressure of the clock running out, or the time being hard to figure out.

In my most recent school-based nightmare, I'm taking the GRE and I can't find a pencil that is sharp enough, and then when I try to sharpen one, the sharpener grinds it into a nub. In another recent dream, I find myself waking up in the classroom, hungover, and the instructor tells me I have ten minutes to prepare for my presentation, which I know I have carefully prepared, but I don't have it with me. I rush back to my dormitory room, but I can't find the right folder -- just lots of other folders, and they're all wet or fall apart when I pick them up. (I'm using the literary present to describe the action of these dreams.)

Nightmares like this raise all sorts of interesting questions, like what did people have nightmares about before school or automobiles existed?  I also wonder if people who haven't continued in school continue to have school nightmares.  I haven't been in undergraduate school for almost 25 years, but in that time, I think I've been teaching or taking classes for all but four years.  I can't remember if I had a lot of school dreams during those four years, but I would bet that I did not. 

I also have nightmares about not being prepared to teach a class or facing down particularly disruptive students, and even some pleasant dreams about appreciative students, but the most common nightmare by far has me returning to school as a student, facing down my lack of preparedness or dealing with my intellectual shortcomings. In addition to still being a student myself (a student of guitar and a doctoral student), having this nightmare makes me more compassionate toward students, as it helps me remember how difficult and stressful going to school can be.