Thursday, May 01, 2008

Dreams and Going Back to School - the Dark Side

Do you ever have dreams where you're in school and you thought you had dropped a course but the paperwork didn't go through and now you have to write the exam even though you didn't attend a single class?

Or that you have to hand in an assignment, but for some reason you haven't done it and now you have 30 minutes in which to complete it and get to the other side of campus to hand it in?

I had recurring dreams like that into my 30s. Gradually they went away.

Then I went back to school in my 40s and I once again have anxiety dreams about exams and assignments.

In a recent one, I was assigned to do something about linguistic ambiguity; and I had decided to take a piece of text, print it in big letters and block out the ascenders and descenders in the letters (the parts of the letters that fall above and below a lowercase "o"). In the dream I was aware that this was not what the prof wanted me to do, but I was convinced that I could give an explanation that would allow me to get a passing grade.

I had the text picked out, a song lyric, and I knew how to accomplish the printing and removal, but I kept having computer problems that wouldn't allow me to get it done. I was going nuts and then I woke up. The anxiety from this dream lingered with me so long, that I wound up actually doing the task for the first verse and chorus.

Can you tell what song it is?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I can tell what song it is... do you want me to tell? Manoushka

David Scrimshaw said...

M,

If it's so easy that everyone can tell, I suppose there's no need.

On the other hand, if someone can't tell, it would be good if somebody put the answer up.

Or perhaps another clue.

coyote said...

Carly Simon. You're so Vain. Do I get chocolate?

Anonymous said...

hey - great anxiety dream. I often have dreams that I'm in a play, and if I could just get my opening line I'll be fine. But I can't for the life of me remember the first line. Sometimes, I just need a hint of what the play is about. If I knew that I could wing it from there. ... much like life ...

Pearl said...

woudn't mind an exam dream. last night I was a mom of 5. We were living in a suburbia of The Incredibles and near a townhouse built in 1000 AD. One daughter was a girl with a dad of wolf-god, 2 mortal boys, 1 son from a pig-god and another grown son who moved out who was estranged and also son thru a pig-god.

David Scrimshaw said...

Coyote, correct, but chocolate is bad for dogs.

Say, Sal, that's a good anxiety dream. I'd like to have it just to see what I'd come up with. Surely there must be some lines that one could use to get a play started when you can't remember your line. How about "what do you want me to say?"

Pearl, wow. Is having children from animistic deities a recurring theme in your dream life?

Pearl said...

It's a first. :)

normally people just mutate one into another, defy physics and inanimate objects talk.

I swear, I'm never trying mushrooms. It would push the whole limit of psychedelic to way new boundaries.