MaineCourse

Dream

Jennifer

I tend to have nightmares about school especially in the week before school starts in the fall, a day or two before every vacation ends, and on long weekends. This is from before the end of our last vacation.

I was in my classroom (which was a lecture-hall), and I didn’t have much for my students to do, so they were somewhat rowdy. I kept thinking of additional things which we could do together, but each involved leaving the room for a minute to get something. Each time I returned there were more students in the room, being even rowdier. I didn’t know anyone’s name, but finally realized the reason I didn’t was some of them weren’t my students. The final time this happened, one of the drop-ins was smoking a cigarette, holding it with a test-tube holder. I remembered that I could call the office for help, so I did. The secretary who answered yelled at me for leaving the classroom.

I woke up, and I couldn’t remember what my situation is. I knew I was home, in bed, that I do teach school, and even that the secretary had in fact retired a few years ago, but I couldn’t figure anything else out. I knew that the feeling of not being able to remember students’ names is real, so I figured the way to go would be to pull up a visual memory of my classroom. It took a while, but I finally could remember where my windows are.

Classes went ok yesterday, but students were somewhat rowdy and I wasn’t quite organized enough with what I wanted them to do.

"I tend to have nightmares about school ... in the week before school starts in the fall, a day or two before every vacation ends, and on long weekends."
I'd have to find another line of work or a more powerful sleeping pill. I mean, once in a while is tolerable, but that is ridiculous.

Posted by michael.

Ah ha, so they were rowdy, and you were not as prepared as you would want to be, and it wasn't a dream; it was a preview.
But I don't think it's fair to have these dreams on long weekends. That makes long weekends almost as harrowing as short weekends.

Posted by dreamreviewer.

That'd be the icing on this crappy cake, to have dreams like that....... Guess it's just a variation on the naked-in-public dream, but the carryover's sobering.

Posted by bedridden.

Let's just say that while some people have to stretch to figure out how their dreams relate to reality, I don't have that problem with school dreams. (Except for the smoking.)

Posted by jennifer.

I've been out of school for nigh onto 4 decades, but the only nightmares I have (infrequent) are school related. I'm with Mike. If I had dreams like that all the time, I'd get a new job, like working with spiders, or testing Ebola vaccines.

Posted by rakkity.

Posted by Michael at March 1, 2005 11:32 AM