MY EXAM NIGHTMARE. AGAIN.
I don’t know about you, but one topic of conversation that always has me reaching for my pillow, is one that starts off with the following sentence.
“I had the strangest dream last night…..”
This is then followed by a long and detailed recount of my companion’s dream, which really only has any meaning to them and no one else. Having said that, I came across an article recently that could have been about me.
“For 30 years after her HSC history exam in 1980, Diana Prichard regularly dreamed about going into an exam and knowing nothing. She would wake with her heart racing and feeling sick.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October
Diana and I have something in common. 20 years ago I sat my HSC Modern History Exam, a subject in which I was enrolled in but clearly did not attend, as the test may as well have been written in Mandarin. On reflection, I cannot even recall owning the required text book. Those two hours were the longest of my life, sitting there in that hall while all my peers’ constructed meaningful essays about people I had never heard of.
Students sitting University of Adelaide exams in Centennial Hall, Wayville 18 Nov 1957. Image via news.com.au.
To this day I have regular dreams about that experience and, like Diana, I wake up feeling anxious.
To dream about an exam can signal that you are unprepared for a challenge, or are under scrutiny in some way. And now that I know this, it makes me even more anxious about having that dream. Oh how I wish I had studied harder! If I could go back and talk to that nightmare 17 year old Mrs. Woog, I would tell her:
“Listen up! Go to the bloody history class and take some notes. For no other reason, this will save you from reliving this nightmare for the rest of your life. And stop smoking now, and wear sunscreen. Oh, and your mother is right. Your boyfriend IS a loser”
Another common reoccurring dream that I have is where I have the ability to fly. In my dream, I am not morphed into a bird, or a fairy, but just me. An ordinary woman who can walk down the street, run a few steps and take off like an A380 Airbus. It is a very handy sub-conscious skill to have. I take myself on all sorts of adventures.
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16 Responses to this article
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Emily October 23, 2012
I used to have a reoccurring dream that I would be standing at my locker unable to pack my school bag to leave. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get it all together. Now I have that dream where I can’t finish getting ready to leave the house to go out. No matter how hard I try I just can’t get everything organised, can’t find the right clothes and I can’t get my hair done. I wake up so relieved every time that all the frustrations and panic were just in my dream.
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Jen October 23, 2012
I have a reoccuring dream that a phone is ringing and ringing and ringing and by the time I get to it the bloody thing has stopped ringing!!! or the one where I am looking for someone but each time I get to the room I think they are in I have just missed them….so annoying!!!!!
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Rachel @ The Kids Are All Right October 23, 2012
Aren’t other people’s dreams the pits? But as you asked, even after 12 years out of radio, I still dream that I am in a studio, in front of the microphone, with no music, no ads, and nothing to say.
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res October 23, 2012
Recurring dreams include: teeth falling out, needing to go to the toilet but every toilet is blocked, or the door doesnt shut or there are issues – inevitably I wake up stressed and need to go to the toilet. And the really stressful dream is that I’m at school and I don’t know where my next lesson is being held. Everyone else seems to know where to go but I don’t know where the classroom is or even what subject it is that I should be studying so I’m just wandering about the school with no idea what it is happening.
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Julia R October 23, 2012
I have the exam one where I haven’t studied, the school one where I don’t know where the next lesson is, the teeth falling out (I heard that is meant to mean you are insecure), but the one that really drives me crazy and seems to occur when I am ill is a ball bearing running down channels in a blanket, it goes on and on and never stops.
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sam October 23, 2012
I have a recurring dream of being in an elevator that is racing up and when it stops the doors open and I step into nothing…
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Sarah October 23, 2012
Bloody hell nothing changes much round these Adelaide parts! Did my uni exams in the exact same place, on the exact same tables a few years ago…
Recurring dreams as a child: Army marching down the road and me hiding in the toilet, or a huge pig the size of my window trying to eat me in my bed.
Currently having recurring dreams about getting bald spots in my hair
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Mumabulous October 23, 2012
Holey Moley. I have the HSC dream alot! Its bloody awful. I had a slightly more interesting dream recently. I was going for a job interview at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (not that I would want to work in that misogynist cesspit) and I was fretting that I did not have an outfit retro enough for my chat with Don Draper. I needn’t have worried. Aliens attacked and decimated the human race before I could get there.
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sue bell October 23, 2012
I had my first remembered dream in 32 years, I have no idea why I never remember dreams. In this lone dream I chased a stranger out of my bedroom and could not believe he thought he could hide under the piano stool. So i poked him with the broom.
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Julia October 23, 2012
My recurring dreams are:
- running late to be part of a big dance production and when i finally make it on stage I can’t remember the dance routine and all the other performers are dancing in synchronicity what should i do? panic …. wakeup.
- about to catch a train / plane to head off on some big travel thing and i haven’t packed my suitcase – i keep trying to cram things into it and still get to my train / plane on time – things keep falling out and i keep finding more things to add…. this goes on and on and on….
good-ish dreams – flying, but usually in a rickety contraption that barely skims over the tree tops – equal parts scary and exhilarating
breathing underwater – yeah awesome, except quite frequently involves having to use this skill to avoid being detected by giant crocodile in the water with me.
i have plenty more – wow, i sound messed up!
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Jenny October 23, 2012
I have had two recurring dreams, which have caused high levels of stress but with huge relief when I wake up. I quit smoking thirty years ago after a number of attempts and much difficulty. In one recurring dream I am smoking, and when I realise what I am doing I have this enormous wave of anxiety/guilt because I know that I have undone all that work and I will be hooked on cigarettes again!
I worked on permanent night shift for thirty years as a nurse in a big acute hospital. In my other recurring dream, the morning shift are just arriving on the ward, and I have just woken up after having been ASLEEP ALL NIGHT! I am panic-stricken, wondering how on earth I will be able to do my night’s work in just five minutes so they won’t know I’ve been asleep. I still get both of these dreams, even though I haven’t done a night shift for the past seven years, or smoked for thirty.
Other dreams include flying, usually to escape something or someone dangerous. Being incredibly late or unprepared for some event. Never had my teeth fall out, or unable to find a loo – I must be some kind of weirdo! lol
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JessB October 23, 2012
The last couple of months, I have been having really realistic dreams about falling – everything from falling off cliffs and the edge of buildings to tripping over the gutter and falling out of bed. I always wake up with a jolt and it takes anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour to calm down and get back to sleep.
As a child, I had dreams about slugs and snail crawling all over me in bed, which were apparantly related to the sheets and doona cover on my bed. They had a part theme, with balloons and streamers everywhere. I have no memory of these nightmares, and only fond memories of the sheets. So much so that recently, when we were cleaning out the family home, I took a set home and put it over the top of my bed. I had the worst week’s sleep I can remember, and ended up deciding the sheets were bad ju-ju and chucking them out!
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Ash October 23, 2012
I always dream about losing my kids and hunting for them in a state of panic, always at different places – theme parks, the school fete, supermarkets, once in my own house! I’m sure it’s because the little buggers never stay where I leave them.
Still haven’t figured out how to get myself any dirty supply room dreams lol maybe I need to jump on that ‘mummy porn’ wagon. -
Rachel October 23, 2012
I thought I was the only one that had this nightmare.
I left school a couple of weeks into Year 12. Always dream that I am trying to get to my exams but my legs don’t work.
I also dream that I am rostered on to work at the video shop I haven’t worked at since 1998. The shop doesn’t even exist anymore.
Maybe my brain is stuck in the 90s. -
Brando October 24, 2012
I dream constantly about my primary school, primary school teachers, friends & parents of kids I went to primary school with. It drives me mental, I obviously have unresolved feelings about primary school that I really don’t want to address.
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Mrs Woog October 24, 2012
Oh I have that dream as well. I need to get over it pronto xx
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