Tag: school work

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #311 – So Large, So Unprepared


(Female, 20’s) The dream I had last night was not a ‘scary’ dream per se, but one of those uneasy dreams that become increasingly uneasy.

So I show up to teach my composition class. I’m running late and feeling
rushed. I’m carrying an enormous amount of stuff with me, weighed down
with papers and books. I have a backpack that’s stuffed full and a
briefcase too, just brimming with manila folders and papers bursting out.
I’m out of breath as I arrive at class– only to discover that we’ve been
moved to a new room, a bigger room — almost a conference center room or an
auditorium.

My students are already there, spread out over a dozen tables, and since
there are only 20 of them, the wide expanse of tables look a little empty.
I have to turn my head back and forth to see everyone who is there.

And then I notice that the “audience” is made up of more than just my
students– there’s also a number of other people there. One notable person
seated at a table, pen in hand, is one of my old professors. In real life,
he is dead now, but in my dream I realize that he’s there to “observe” my
class and report on my teaching.

Unfortunately, I can’t recall what I have planned to teach in this class
session. Or more accurately, *if* I have *anything* planned for the class
today. Then I really start to panic. I open my briefcase, rifling
through, but my files of stuffed full of papers to grade. Crap– all those
papers turn my stomach.

So I step to the podium, which has a microphone and desk lamp– I wasn’t
expecting those. I speak into the microphone, asking my students to settle
down and get out their books and class work. I glance at my watch– we’re
already running late.

As I look around, I see that the room is even larger than I realized– like
really, really big. Almost a football field-sized room. Along the sides
of the room, there are shops and houses. Some of the buildings have lights
on and some boarded up.

Then a mass of people start to move into the room, marching in formations,
in between the tables. They are practicing for something. They’d reserved
the space earlier and they have no idea how the room was double-booked.

Neither do I. I have no idea what is going on, but I’m pretty sure I’m not
going to get a very good evaluation.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #296 – Test Anxiety Too Late

(Male, 30’s) This was one of those classic nightmares, the kind everyone talks about having but it was so vivid, so real. It didn’t seem like a joke at the time. I was really on edge.

I was walking down a hallway very similar to the hallways at the place where I work but it was crowded. It felt like there were hundreds of people trying to go one way or the other in the hallway. People were desperate. It struck me as not very professional.

I finally got to the room where I was headed and I sat down. Then I realized it was a chemistry lab, a high school chemistry lab. I remembered that I had enrolled in a science class and that I guess I hadn’t attended in months. I recognized the room but I didn’t know anything about what was going on.

The teacher started off with a game. I sort of caught on and I thought, maybe, I could fake my way through the whole class period. Then the teacher handed out the test.

It was actually kind of cool. We each pulled a plastic figurine out of a large cardboard box and we had to describe its molecular structure… that is, pretending that it represented a molecule. The guy next to me had something that looked like a clear glass giraffe. Even I knew that was supposed to be CH4 – which is a “realization” that is simply hilarious in retrospect.

The thing I pulled out looked like a sea anenome with maybe a dozen long spikes pointing out of it, some of which had jointed articulations. Even the teacher seemed to think I’d selected a hard one. I was confused and I started to panic a bit. It got worse when I realized I hadn’t brought any paper or even a pen. I do all my work on a computer so it’s probably been a week or so since I’ve used paper as part of my job.

I looked up at the door. It seemed so far away. Just then two of my actual co-workers walked by. They looked in at me and just shook their heads in pity. These are two people who I admire and the way they looked at me was crushing. I found that part the most disturbing.

I looked around the room. I was wearing a suit and tie, a normal business suit and I was crouching on this chair that was too small, sitting in a room full of teenagers in jeans and greasy hair. Teenagers who also seemed to know more chemistry that I did. The teacher was collecting the tests. I still didn’t even have a paper to hand in. The creature I had selected was beautiful, intriguing but it wasn’t a chemical. I think it might have actually been alive. I held it in my hand even though I knew its long spines might prick me.

I woke up just as I was about to be found out as a fake.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #77 — Shuffled Computer

(Female, early 40’s) My partner and I were visiting a friend of mine and her girl friend in Chicago. We went out to this strange restaurant that had a menu as thick as a phone book and it was all arranged by, for instance, the cut of meat that would be used. When the waiter took the order, he said something like “I shall do my utmost to insure your satisfaction” or something hokey like that, like that phrase was the tagline for the restaurant, something that all the waiters said.

At some point during the meal, I tried to open my laptop computer and I discovered that all of the screws holding it together had disappeared. What’s particularly weird is that the computer started to fall apart like a huge deck of cards, y’know, like a stack of computer chips and the case and the screen all sliding around. For some reason I thought the monitor might explode and even worse, I didn’t want my partner to know that the computer was falling apart. The laptop is where I have all my doctoral research stored and since my partner is the “computer-person” in our relationship I didn’t want this little mishap to spoil dinner.

So I went to the bathroom and there was a tiny, kid sized toy washbasin with an old-fashioned water pump that was bright blue, red and yellow. I decided to hide my computer in the cabinet underneath because I thought no one would ever find it there.