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I am 47 and still have dreams that I'm in high school or college, and I can't remember where my class is, or I have an exam I didn't know about, or a paper due that I'd forgotten about. Doesn't matter that I finished my Master's degree about 20 years ago. Even in my dream, I try to use logic: Wait, I have a Master's degree, why does this high school class matter now? But somehow in the dream someone convinces me that this class or classes are required and all my degrees are somehow null and void unless I get a good grade in this current class.
Combined with these school dreams are my "unprepared" dreams, in which I'm in high school and I don't know if it's a "gym day" and I'm freaking out because I have to have gym clothes if it's a gym day. Back in high school we had gym so many days a week and health class on the other days. For gym days, we have to have gym clothes, including sneakers, or we'd get a zero for the day and be labeled "unprepared." I can confidently say that in 4 years of high school I never, ever forgot my gym clothes, and I never got a zero for gym. I was a straight-A student. But somehow in these dreams, I'm stressed to the point of panic about not having gym clothes.
Yikes. We may be sharing the same brain. Very similar to mine. Having the Masters and still trying to remember if I did my 11th grade history homework. They don't void my Masters. They don't know.
There are two lots of recurring 'anxiety dreams' that I have. One is when I'm somewhere and I'm lost. I could be in the middle of a town centre or something, and I'm trying to find my way back home. But I keep walking and walking, and I can't get to where the bus or train is (I'm not actually sure what mode of transport I'm using - just that I need to get to 'the station' or I'll miss 'it'). I just keep walking around in circles, and even in my dream I'm thinking "I've got to get home", but I never actually make it. I sometimes wake up from this dream with my heart pounding, and I'm actually relieved when I wake up!
In the second one, I'm back at school or Uni, sitting in the hall doing an exam. But when I look at the paper, I realise that I haven't revised for this exam at all. So then I start panicking and say to myself "I don't know any of this!". I'm quite relieved to wake up from this one too! And I'm glad that I don't have to do any more exams!
I forgot to mention this before, but I noticed that I get these 'anxiety dreams' before I have a migraine coming on. I seem to get bad quality sleep before and during a migraine. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this correlation?
1. Graduated from college 5 years ago, but I have the one where I realize halfway through the semester that I totally forgot about a class and haven't done a thing for it. As in- I'm attending a class for the first or second time in 2 months and I'm coming to the realization that I will surely fail and waste the money on the class. I nearly did this once so the cause is obvious. After having this nightmare 30+ times in 5 years, I've trained myself to realize it's a dream when this happens.
2. Struggling to get packed for a trip. I always feel like this is tied to a time that I forgot to pack until the last second, but I can never recollect such a fiasco in real life. I hate this one because I never catch on until I've wasted too much time on it. Once it hits me that I've packed socks 35 times I should catch on, but not yet. This one is always accompanied by the feeling that I'm already WAY late and I'll NEVER be able to pack the stuff I need. When I finally throw up my hands and give up, I'm waking.
Teeth falling out- doesn't fool me anymore. I now wake up the second they start falling out.
The worst one I have ever had was when I was 6-7 years old. I was in a church as it filled with water. As the water forced me up to the ceiling, I looked out a window to see my mother (who didn't know where I was) crying hysterically by cars in the parking lot. Solved that one by never entering a church since. Problem solved. Still creeps me out when I think about it.
I've had your #2 dream, or versions of it, too. Usually when I'm frustrated about something.
That last one is really scary. No wonder you were traumatized by it.
I have soooooo many but can only remember a few. I'll do one that recurred the most recently. I recently had to move, and with time limit. Of course like many people I had difficultly deciding what I should pack and just get ride of. This can be hard for me at times as I get attached to things. In my dream I was on a very steep grade(like 50*), rolling backward, in my truck. It was also about ready to go over a straight vertical cliff and every attempt to stop the vehicle was futile. I had only seconds, I could grab the most important things or keep trying to stop the vehicle. I think all these dreams were partially lucid dreams as I got to control my actions in them in the last 20 seconds or so. Every time it was the same amount of time. Sometimes I fell with the vehicle trying to stop it, sometimes I got my most important assets and bailed and lived. Very direct meaning to my situation though, no need for a therapist there. I had another good one last night if I can remember it I will share it too.
In 1999, I had just transferred back to the Chicago branch from the Minneapolis headquarters of the company I worked for. It was kind of a stretch position so I was working hard. Then they added a completely unrelated responsibility to my area of responsibilities. I was unhappy about that because it was not only something I knew nothing about, but almost doubled the time I had to spend working from about 50 hours to 90 or so hours per week. So I was *really* stressed out, and *really* exhausted.
One Friday they sent a *consultant* talk to me about performance. I was pissed, unhappy, and extremely frustrated and offended that they'd send a consultant to tell me they didn't think I was keeping up with their ridiculous expectations.
So that's the background - here's the dream:
It was that Friday, after the consultant. In my dream I was at the office (of course) - which happened to be in the Sears Tower (Willis Tower) - we had the entire 23rd floor. All of a sudden there were helicopters around, firing into the building. There was a small plane headed straight toward the building (this was pre-911), and it crashed into the building with gunmen hopping out and shooting at us, with fires sprouting up in file cabinets. I was frightened and looking for what to do against them, but suddenly, in a spurt of courage, I picked up a pole and, holding it like a javelin, hopped onto my desk (they had low walls - it was a trading company), and ran toward the windows, hurling the pole through the window, breaking it, and then jumping out of it, escaping the chaos around me.
That was either Friday night or Saturday night. Monday morning I walked in, handed them a letter of resignation and walked out.
Last night I had a crazy dream.. it was actually kind of cool though.. there was action in it. I wasn't scared or anything.. I kind of wanted to see what would happen.
This is a little long, and convoluted.. but it was a dream.. most are convoluted right?
But basically me and my 4 friends were kidnapped. While kidnapped our kidnappers made us go underwater and play russian roulette .. the first person who couldn't hold their breath long enough would be shot. It was kind of intense. Needless to say, one of my friends said "**********" and got out from under the water and the guy shot him.
Then later in the day i presume I was locked in this room. I managed to escape and I looked out on the mailbox and noticed the address, I tried to memorize it so I could tell the cops. So I looked at it. Ran across the street and forgot the street and number, so I went back again and looked.
Then I ran and I was on a boardwalk near a beach. tons of people were on it, so I ran in the middle of the crowd so the kidnappers wouldn't follow me. When I looked back, no one was chasing me, but I felt like I was being chased. When I turned my head around, I ran into a little old lady with her grandchild (but didn't knock her over) I just grabbed her by the shoulders, tried to balance her out, made sure they were ok and continued on running.
After that I continued running on the boardwalk.. run past some rides, saw a ferris wheel... and then saw the ocean nearby. But it almost felt like the beach and the ocean were moving towards me. I was running, but it felt like the objects like the people, beach, ferris wheel were moving backwards toward me. So it had a weird kind of fast motion effect..
What do you think of it? is it totally nuts? And what could it mean?
I'm sorry, NLV, but that made me laugh out loud. Hope it's better soon.
I always have the one where you have to use the bathroom in real life, but instead of waking up, my brain just turns it into a dream where I'm constantly searching for a bathroom. Once I find one, it's either filthy, or flooded, or tiny, or people are watching me, etc. Finally I wake up and then I'm irritated with myself because I wasted so much time dreaming about it instead of waking up and taking care of it. lol
Another one is where I'm always in a huge hotel or something sort of convention hall, and I'm going around all of the floor levels, and lounges, and rooms, trying to find all my family members.
Just about the worst one I have is where I'm taking care of someone's baby or pet or something, and I'll do the most careless things, like forget about them and leave them somewhere, and in the dream I just can't believe I did it. It's a terrible feeling.
I share your first two dreams. I hate searching for a bathroom and they're all awful!
I also dream I'm in a large hotel and can't fine the people I'm supposed to be with. I hate that too!
I also dream I'm back in high school although I am over 60 and I have a degree. In the dream I don't know what my class schedule is and I don't even know where the bus stop is. At some point I realize high school was many decades ago and I am relieved.
I used to have a recurring dream when in university that I found an abandoned cemetery overgrown with weeds. I looked around and found my tombstone with my name and graduate record exam score on it. I hadn't taken the exam at that point but was dreading it.
I am 47 and still have dreams that I'm in high school or college, and I can't remember where my class is, or I have an exam I didn't know about, or a paper due that I'd forgotten about. Doesn't matter that I finished my Master's degree about 20 years ago. Even in my dream, I try to use logic: Wait, I have a Master's degree, why does this high school class matter now? But somehow in the dream someone convinces me that this class or classes are required and all my degrees are somehow null and void unless I get a good grade in this current class.
Quote:
Originally Posted by No_Recess
Yikes. We may be sharing the same brain. Very similar to mine. Having the Masters and still trying to remember if I did my 11th grade history homework. They don't void my Masters. They don't know.
^^^Graduated a long time ago and I still have those dreams too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias
There was a small plane headed straight toward the building (this was pre-911), and it crashed into the building with gunmen hopping out and shooting at us, with fires sprouting up in file cabinets.
Since I lived by a flight path near the airport for years I had dreams that I was watching an airplane
that was going to crash (and in the dreams - it usually did). I would always wake up immediately.
This was back in the 70's and 80's.
I also used to have dreams that I could fly but the catch was that I was afraid to do it.
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Hope it's better soon. 
