Just Curious....

[ladysprite]

How old do you have to be to finally stop having those 'Oh my god I have a test in an hour and I forgot to study or read the textbook or ever go to the class' dreams?

Comments

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Not breathing.

Wow...!

[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

I can't get over the awesomeness of your icon!

Re: Wow...!

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Isn't he adorable? Can't remember when I snagged him and have no idea who to credit.

[bkdelong.livejournal.com]

I stopped about 5-6 years out of school.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I'll let you know when it happens.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

More than 47, I can vouch.

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

More than 49....

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

More than 59...

[edthetallguy.livejournal.com]

At least 52

[metaphysick.livejournal.com]

I haven't had one in quite a few years, but - like my periodically recurring zombie dream - I'm not willing to consider myself in the clear, quite yet.

Last time I had one of those "test" dreams, though, I couldn't even get anyone to give me a straight answer as to what the subject was, let alone the specific material on which we were being tested. In frustration, I eventually just walked out of the lecture hall.

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

I keep having them after 50, but they've become so familiar they no longer panic me--it's all "Been here, done that."

Note that "Years Out of School" may be a more relevant measure than "Years of Age."

[rms-butterfly.livejournal.com]

Good point. I'm 10 years out of grad school this summer, and 20 years out of undergrad, and I'm *still* having them. It seems to be my default stress dream.

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

I had one last night. At 30.

[arachne8x.livejournal.com]

Actually the funny part is that in the dream I was having the final in Differential Equations. I used to teach Differential Equations to others in workshops. In the dream I even remembered that, and wondered how I could do that if I hadn't taken the final yet.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's a new variant.

This one was just a history exam. Except when it was a math exam, or maybe an english exam. It was hard to tell; I was hungry and the counter monkey at the restaurant had made me the wrong lunch and then gave it to someone else, while the person behind me in line kept trying to grope me.

Ironically, the groping was less upsetting than my chicken nuggets being replaced by a chili dog and fed to someone else. Gotta love dream logic....

[udalrich.livejournal.com]

Mine lasted at least 10 years, and I'm not certain I'm done with them. They at least were consistent. There was a history class; I'd been to the first class but nothing since (so I knew what was required); most of the grade was from several sizable papers (not something you could push out in a night); I hadn't even started researching any of them yet.

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

I still have them, but now I dream I'm giving the test. Ah, the joys of becoming a teacher.

[goldenoak.livejournal.com]

I've heard of a professor having them all the way up through retirement.

The subject matter is the psyche expressing fear at lack of control, similar to the classic "why am I not wearing any clothes" vulnerability dream. So most likely they continue until you stop fearing lack of control, or feeling vulnerable. That's something to aspire to, but hard to ever actually accomplish. :)

I temporarily conquered the "shoot, I'm naked" dream by deciding that if people were upset that I was naked, they could bloody well help me find something to put on. In the dreams I started just going up to folks and saying "hi, sorry, yeah, I know, naked, terribly embarassing - could you help?" I stopped having those dreams for awhile. I thought I was so clever in vanquishing my vulnerabilty dream, until my psyche came up with the "naked and being hunted down by strange men through a decaying city where no one speaks English" dream to replace it. :p

So, yeah. When you become superhuman, tell the rest of us how you managed it? :)

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

The changes to my naked dream fascinates me....the fatter/older I get, the less they bother me. Now I just walk around like I'm fabulous in them. And yes, there are other newer vulnerability dreams. Le Sigh.

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

I'm a professor. I've never had the test dream. I have, however, after a bad reappointment review, had a dream where I show up completely unprepared to teach on the first day of class. I have the naked dreams, though. I also have dreams where I need to go to the bathroom and none of the toilets have doors, or have doors that don't cover the right parts. What's up with that?

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

You ever have the "Warner Brothers and Dot" dream where you look at the stall/bathroom and say "I can't go in THERE!"

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

Yup. I look everywhere for an acceptable bathroom and can't find one.

[kitsunesan.livejournal.com]

I keep having ones where I'm back in school for some reason, (usually high school or lower), and something happens along the lines of I don't know how to get there, or I forgot my locker combination and I can't get my books out that I need for class, or there's one class I haven't been to all year and I just realized I'm going to fail it, or I haven't read any of the books and the final paper is due. ALL THE TIME. Those ones and the zombie dreams, they're almost all I ever have and they're pretty much constant.

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

They haven't completely stopped for me, yet.

[laurion]

Heh. If you work in Academia you have to wait until after retirement, and maybe not even then...

[pagawne.livejournal.com]

60 and counting

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Never. Stress dreams are like that. They always come back when you're feeling a similar stress.

(For military people, it's the "back in bootcamp" stress dream. That one combined with the "I have a final exam in one hour in a class I never knew I was enrolled in" makes a particularly effective combination of horror, overlaid with a touch of absurdity as you're trying to figure out how the heck you enrolled in a class while you were in bootcamp.)

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

Still have them every once in a while...

[corwyn-ap.livejournal.com]

I never had one after I actually had it happen to me. No idea we had a major test coming up, went 'oh shit', proceeded to try to derive formulas I had not seen. Did ok actually, as I recall.

Note, I don't recommend this course. The dreams are easier than the reality (if more common).

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

I also had this happen to me, and I got the highest grade in the class. After that, I kept track of when the tests were, but forgot to study for the next one. I still got something in the A range. That class was too easy. All I did was show up and got As.

[udalrich.livejournal.com]

I had one class where all I did was not show up and get As. OTOH, it was diff eqs for engineers, and I was a math major who'd already passed a class with it as a prereq.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Anxiety dreams never fully stop, although sometimes they change form as you get into a different life stage. The ones I have now all tend to be focused on trying to get something done, only other stuff keeps getting in the way and no one will help me when I ask and half the time I realize partway into the dream that I'm naked, although nobody seems to notice or care about that except me.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I still get them. They got a lot more frequent while Kes went back to school. My dreaming brain would be aware of the (true) facts:
*) It's finals time.
*) I hadn't studied *at all*.
Sadly, it would forget the one vital fact that I WAS NOT ENROLLED!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I stopped getting them when I started getting the "Oh no I'm calling a square dance and I have no idea what to say and I don't remember who everyone's partner is and they're all looking at me like I'm a moron" dreams. I guess it just got redirected.

Maybe it'll switch back now that I'm back in school. :-/

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

At least thirty-mumble. And now I also have "I am autocratting an event today and I forgot" dreams, as well as "I am cooking a feast and not only did I forget to buy groceries, I don't know how to cook for that many people".

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the dream where I suddenly remembered I was getting married that day and was going to be late to the church if I didn't hurry up - and then realized I had NO IDEA who I was marrying. And yet I felt compelled to show up anyway.

[bess.livejournal.com]

I have those fairly frequently. Usually I'm in high school, trying to take classes that I skipped over, because they suddenly decided I had to take them or something like that, even though way beyond college at this point. Usually, somewhere along the way, I suddenly have this moment of realization like "Wait a minute -- This is ridiculous! I got my BA back in '93 and they've got me back in High school now? -- What on earth can happen if I fail?" And then I usually wake up, still rather anxious and flustered, unfortunately.

[citabria]

Since I had one of those in the past month or so, I can tell you that they're not done by 44 -- at least not for me.

[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

I haven't had one in a few years, but mine were always more
on the level of "I am myself, transported back in time,
trying to hide the fact, but I don't remember my schedule
or locker combination/location."

[victorthecook.livejournal.com]

I asked my dad this question a while back. He still gets 'em at 68.

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

38 and counting.

[jducoeur]

Still having them, but the fear level seems to have gone down -- in the dreams, I've gotten much better about going, "Oh, *crap* -- but nothing to be done for it now, so I'll do what I can..."