I Have A Dream

take two aspirin and call me in the morning : )

I have had this same dream twice now (I graduated school last May). So you are not alone in your curiousity. Bring on the explanations!

Whoa. I have almost the same dream once in awhile. Except that mine usually occurs towards the end of the semester, and I haven't done any work yet. I get that panic feeling too. And Ive been out of school for almost 3 years. Hmmm, must mean something.

I have a similar one, involving my car breaking down on the way to 'A' Level exams, which i sat in 1994. I always took it that dreams like this are symptomatic of anxiety about something current, filtered through past causes of worry. Assuming dreams mean anything at all...

Wooo.. Reading that was like Deja vu. The best part is waking up in a panic thinking, "Was that real?"..

That is amazing that so many people have had such similar dreams... I too had de ja vu reading that, Sans the dot matrix read out, I too have had dreams that I missed most of a semester of class somehow and don't know how to fix the situation and end up waking up stressed out. I have been out of school for 4 years. How funny is the internet, to find out that several other people have the same type of dream,makes me feel better, I guess it is a similar situation/concern burned into all our psyche.

I have this often too....as a matter of fact, I had it last night!

My dream never goes through the class registration, but I always come to realize that I have not attended class for a long time and I can't remember what day and time it meets.

It must be a sign of high intelligence. :)

Maybe it means you are destined to develop a registration technology for post-secondary institututions that allows students to register for courses online, get approval and download the schedule into their PDA of choice, thus assuring that no well wired student will ever miss a class do to an error of record.

Or not...

Add me to the list of people who have had the same dream. Mine usually involves an English class, or some other "core" curriculum class that must be taken to graduate, and I'm taking it in the last couple of semesters before graduation. Fully into my major classes, but with this one remaining "core" class that, for whatever reason, I've failed to show up for since the first day.

Only once, in the many times I've had this dream, did I actually venture into the classroom, half-way through the lecture, after weeks and weeks of pulling a no-show. It was there that I woke up.

I believe it has something to do with my fear of confrontation and my tendency to procrastinate. But what do I know? ;-)

Count me in! And I graduated college in 1986. Must be some symbol of insecurity, being afraid of not being prepared. I dream that I'm in school and know I should be in a class, one that I don't particularly like, but I never go to the room or can't find the room, never do the homework, and worry about how it will affect my grade. Are we worried that our careers aren't going as planned and that we should be doing something we're not? Wish I would go back to the flying dreams, they were much more fun...

I also have a similar recurring dream in which I keep forgetting to go to my algebra class. I finally attend after weeks of missing and am totally lost, but it doesn't seem to matter. The worst part of the dream is the panic attack when I realize I have forgotten to attend.

I just talked to a co-worker and she also has similar dreams quite often.

I have a very similar dream, but it involves my high school classes, probably because I can barely remember how we chose what classes we took in high school. I always end up not having gone to any of my Physics classes. It's funny that my brain chooses that class though, since that is the one I'll never forget because I had it 9th period and on the last day of school, everyone who had study hall got to get out early and we were stuck inside (but it was a fun class with a good teacher, so we weren't too upset).

And does anyone have the dream that they forgot to put on their pants?

Uh....me neither.

Wow Todd. I have to mirror the comments others have made here. I have a similar dream, every few months. Only variation is that in my dream I somehow end up "in the future", and my degree is being yanked because I never finished up that class, and therefore never obtained all the credits I needed to graduate.

Maybe you'll get a psychologist visitor and they can read your post and our coments and help us all out...

I have a very similar dream once in a while, only mine is high school. Weird

Yes, I too have this dream, but in mine, it's always an obscure math class that I've registered for and forgotten about.

Why math? I did well in math in high school, but it always did seem like a "forgettable" subject.

I've been teaching in universities for six+ years now and can report that the person on the other side of the podium has the same dream. Only the class in question is one you were supposed to teach but haven't gone to for the entire semester.

Which is just about completely unintelligible.

Yup, I have variations on that same dream: in mine, I have to return to college (high school in one iteration) to take a class that was "forgotten" for some reason. If I don't re-take the class they will 'pull' my diploma. Ack! The worst part of the dream is realizing that I'm like 10-15 years older than everyone in the class...I feel like such a loser!

I think this is a universal fear built-in to the college process. What could be worse at school?

I also think that time of our lives was so formative to who we became as adults that our brains make those memories pretty vivid. Depending on which theory of dreams you subscribe to, if our brains are 'combing through' & randomly picking all your memories when we sleep (strongest experiences/fears bubble to the top), this could explain why we have similar recurrences of that...nameless fear...of class... =)

Yup, I have variations on that same dream: in mine, I have to return to college (high school in one iteration) to take a class that was "forgotten" for some reason. If I don't re-take the class they will 'pull' my diploma. Ack! The worst part of the dream is realizing that I'm like 10-15 years older than everyone in the class...I feel like such a loser!

I think this is a universal fear built-in to the college process. What could be worse at school?

I also think that time of our lives was so formative to who we became as adults that our brains make those memories pretty vivid. Depending on which theory of dreams you subscribe to, if our brains are 'combing through' & randomly picking all your memories when we sleep (strongest experiences/fears bubble to the top), this could explain why we have similar recurrences of that...nameless fear...of class... =)

Way too strange. I have that dream, at least a very, very similar quite a lot -- mostly related to high school. Lots of times I've for whatever reason been avoiding the class, not forgetting really, until it's too late to catch up.

Wonder what it means.

Then again, there is the dream when I'm late to the discussion on What do I Know?

if you don't mind messing with yourself (not in that way) you might want to try manipulating your dream.

there's a technique anyone can master called lucid dreaming. the quickest and easeist way to get started with lucid dreaming is to constantly ask yourself during the day "is what i see real?" for instance, look at your coke can in front of you and say to yourself "is that reall a coke or pepsi" as you look away, look back and it'll be a coke can still.

in the dream world nothing is material so this means everything is completely dynamic, thinking of your coke can being something else can cause it to become something else. getting to this level in your dreams will take awhile but once you get there there won't be any limit to what you can change.

your dream world will become your own matrix per se. you can fly around admiring the landscape, eat cookies, beat up people, or make sweet sweet lovin. you'll realize your dreaming of course since it's lucid dreaming but the sensations and feelings will be there.

normally it's much to hard to dream yourself into a horrible position (such as the gpa thing) so i wouldn't even worry about something like that. if any of you have done this before (i've done it before i knew what i was doing, accidently) i'd like to hear about it :-)

thats all i have to say.

The dream shows you your motivation.

... at least that's what my psych says.

Yes. I'm serious.

I've had similar experiences, but they effect me much more drastically. I dream I'm drowning, so I stop breathing - that sort of thing. Sitting in the park I start wanting to break down and cry (I've 'dreamed' of just getting the news that my family died in a car accident...)

So - back to the point: my psychologist says that it shows me two things about myself - the habit I've developed that allows me to prepare for circumstances by 'dreaming' them as if they were real, and that I'm motivated in life by what I'm afraid of.

Obviously being motivated by fear is something I'm trying to get past. I try to find the good in every possible situation, and focus on that to motivate me.

I've found that when I focus on the good, my life becomes clear and my motives stronger. Basically I get more done, and feel better about what I've done.

Anyway... my .02 ...

Todd & everyone here, this really creeps me out. I constantly have a dream (more of an overwhelming feeling than a didactic string of events) that I didn't finish one of my English components in school. I know that this isn't true, because I finished all of my undergrad basics at the local junior college before I went to art school, but it always happens. To boot, I have my masters degree, and there are times when I feel like I missed an English class getting my MFA, and I didn't even have to TAKE English while getting my MFA! For what its worth, I still owe the Univ $5 so I don't have my MFA diploma...yet.

I can understand the oddity of your dreams, but the whole "dot matrix" part eludes me. This is probably a result of just entering college, and attending a college whose registration is completely electronic.

I can, however, understand the fear of accidently never attending a single class. Of course, I'm sure that the differences between missing a lecture entirely and day-dreaming during the lecture are very subtle.

I cannot say I've had any similiar dreams, mainly because it has been two or three years since I've knowingly dreamed regularly (except since coming to school, but even then they are fairly spread apart). I've also never had any recurring dreams. For a while, the lack of dreaming scared me a little, but then I just decided that I must do all my dreaming during the day and actually sleep at night.

Todd,

This one's easy. It has nothing to do with college. It represents beginnings, desires, control. After all, a dream is an unconscious wish.

So basically, you're all rolling, into something, doing all well, and you find out that you're missing something. And to top it off, it is your fault. You blame yourself. And the fact that you are focusing on trying to fix the problem (do I go to the class, do I do this or that) says that you are missing the message in the dream. Its point isn't to get you to save your GPA -- if anything, your focusing on that is a problem. Your key is to find out what you in your life forgot to do. And to accept that it was your fault. You did it, and that hurts. But you can get past that, move on, and start doing what it is that you are missing.

See college clearly sticks in your brain as the "big important thing and world." It is a place deep with possible symbolic meaning: formative years, clashes of all these young folks of different backgrounds and interests...who am I, who are they, this guy is already a Physics ace, oh wait, he's a spoiled rich kid, what am I going to do, etc etc...

I do also want to note that the correct info was on a printer, and you messed up when you wrote by hand. Maybe you stick to this computer stuff because you think it is the right thing to do, when deep down, you want to do something old-world (art, writing, crafts, who knows), but you fear that if you do it, you will fail, it will lack the very perfection and logic that you value in the digital world. But all along, it is perfect because what you really want is human...it is you.

Hope this helps,
Beastmaster

Too sick! I almost got a panic attack just reading that. Similar dream, etc.
Mine was an obscure math class.
(I was a math major, not that I remember much of it now anyway - though I surprise myself once in a while...)

The best explanation was given by my fiance:
Fear of/and Procrastination & not meeting your self-perception.
I am obsessivly clean and organized and this dream has to do with maintaining that fascade at a fundamental level. Also, relates to how you want to be percieved by others, self image, etc.
It usually happens when I have unchecked email, thank-you notes to do, household chores and too many side projects.
Despite my best efforts at multitaksing, I'm still disappointed often doing one thing at a time. My problem: relax and do that thing. Do it well, then do another.
For me, it's the end of story.

You're lucky that you can wake up and dismiss the whole thing as impossible. I'm in my last semester of college right now, and I regularly have this dream.

I'm currently in my fourth week of classes for this semester, and I'm still checking my schedule at least once a day to make sure I'm not forgetting about a class. It's creepy.

I have had that same dream, too. Scariest one in my sub-conciousness' repetoire, just ahead of going to work as a UI designer for MS-DOS applications. "Stupid huge pixels!"

Putting on my worst mad german scientist accent:
Interesting! wevy, wevy interesting. You rrall say you hrad ralmost identical drrrrrrreams. Now everybody lay down plrrrease. I wrrrrill now drill a hrrole in your hrreads and have a look.

I have lucid dreams on occasion. It's neat to realize I'm dreaming and change things at will. The most memorable ones are when I'm flying and I can consciously change direction, rolling and turning inside a building and around people. Usually though, the lucid dreams are too fun and I wake up in a short time and lose it. Maybe lucid dreams are halfway conscious and therefore delicate. When I was a kid, I heard about how to remember my dreams and about lucid dreaming so that's probably why I remember more dreams than the guy who thinks he doesn't dream at all. He does, he just doesn't remember them.

Moi aussi, except it's math at university. Strange, considering I'm an English major that graduated almost a decade ago. Still wakes me in a panic.

i've never had that dream, although i did almost flunk a class due to the professor mistaking me with someone else! interestingly enough, it was a pass/fail class, and when i went to the department head to clear everything up, he sadi he'd deal with it. i got my grades in the mail, and had received a B... in a pass/fail class!

Steven has a great point. More or less every time I've dreamed in the past few years (that I remembered, at least), I've known I was dreaming. If you know, you can have a great time -- let loose, do the stuff you ordinarily wouldn't do. What you've got to do is balance the line between knowing you're dreaming and knowing you're awake, because once you realize it's a dream, you're dangerously close to waking up. Knowledge is bad.

However, if you realize you're dreaming, you can also control the dream, anything that happens. The Matrix-esque implications are glorious.

On the lucid dreaming tip - I have those fairly often, say once or twice a month. Funny thing is lots of times I'm doing things that would scare the beeeeeejesus! out of me. Like flying. I hate to fly, or be disconnected from the ground in most ways.

Chairlifts, for example, scare the crap out of me -- even though I'm on them all the time and have been for many, many years.

But, in my dreams, the lucid dreams in perticular -- I fly all the time and all over the place, and I love it. It's my favorite thing to do, soar from place to place, checking things out.

I've always found that very odd. Good. But odd.

That, uh, Beastmaster guy seems to sum up the meaning. So all of you guys with this dream maybe should give it a look-see.

I've never understood why people look so hard into the meaning of dreams. Even with a sleeping disorder, I never cared where my dreams came from until I woke up on a concrete slab after sleepwalking/jumping from a 2nd floor window. I broke both my heels - couldn't work for 2 months.

Since then, my response towards traumatic events has lessened to the point of indifference. If I don't do react in an extreme way in real life, then my dreams become less hazardous (when sleepwalking). In your case, you're fear/insecurities/whatever occasionally fuel your dreams. My dreams have altered the way I live. Very Donnie Darko...

Wow that is a creepy dream. I'm going to think about that one when I enroll for Spring classes. Thanks for making me even more paranoid.

On a side note, I kinda miss the dot matrix class print-outs. At UCLA they do everything online so enrollment day loses a bit of its zest. That and I have to burn more of my toner printing out the schedule...

Yeah...been there. Except in my college dreams, it's that I somehow forgot my pants. And it seems to be something I'm really having a problem trying to remedy. I'm this poor college student who is having a very difficult time remembering his pants -- I'm afraid to go to bed at night!
Pretty spooky...

I have this dream all the time, too. Although I'm usually back in high school. Not young, though. It's like I forgot to take a class that I needed and have had to go back as an adult. And I miss it again. What does Mr. Freud say about this?

Not much I can say that hasn't already been said, but I wanted to add myself to the total. So: me, too!