Now here's an end-of-the-semester anxiety dream that's new to me

[RoscoeElegante]

At 61, I didn't think me old noodle could twist up a new nightmare. Even so, I woke up from this one laughing.

I'm in an old ex-mill, groovy, brick-walled coffee shop. Somewhere in...Massachusetts? Up the Hudson from NYC a bit? Some make-post-industrialism-chic kind of place that kinda solaces/kinda irks Buffalo-raised rusty me. It's that quiet hour before the staff arrives to rev up for the day. I've got a familiar acoustic in hand, I'm up on the little stage, it looks I'm solo'ing tonight. Okay, I'm ready. The kind of nervous that keeps you focused, alert to the decisions you have in your phrasing, etc.

In walks a combination of my high school health class teacher (also one of its football coaches). A towering, lumbering, cranky ex-Marine who liked to blame then-long-haired-me for the world's ills. Umm, getting tense. He's got his plays-we'll-run clipboard with him. But also a lawyer's briefcase. Tenser, now. He parks his large frame on one of the big leather sofas, crosses his legs purposefully, and snaps open his briefcase. He's beginning to morph into a more looming version of my dad after he'd learned of yet another law-bending escapade of mine while a teen. The flop-sweats start. My feet feel cold. He clears his throat--a bass drum loading up--and out comes a prior boss's voice, the boss who really hated my guts, she did. Now, that's kinda funny. I'm recognizing that this is a version of the stuck-atop-the-rope-in-gym-and-you-might-be-naked trope. S/he squeak-squeals, "You also are two months behind on the mortgage here--remember, you signed for it--and that kid who crapped out the worst on all his work all semester, his dad is the dean's friend so it's a ****storm if you don't hand him a B, and you have a class whose final exam is today that you didn't know about and it's in a strange building's basement. And your fly is open and your B string won't hold tune. And you think that's funny?"

I recognized, in the dream, that it was a dream, and as if my anxiety were really scrounging up the plot lines, as I'm all set to stumble over the semester's last grading mountain. In fact, I would've told the coach/teacher/dad/boss figure, "C'mon, you know I'll get it all done," but I was laughing too hard in the dream. And wanted to hear just how bad that B string was.

But when I strummed a cowboy G chord, I smelled bad macaroni-and-cheese. And realized that the dog was farting me "Good morning."

Life is good when you endure being you in it, or something.....

 

[Dave Hicks]

...

But when I strummed a cowboy G chord, I smelled bad macaroni-and-cheese.....

 

[Toto'sDad]

At 61, I didn't think me old noodle could twist up a new nightmare. Even so, I woke up from this one laughing.

I'm in an old ex-mill, groovy, brick-walled coffee shop. Somewhere in...Massachusetts? Up the Hudson from NYC a bit? Some make-post-industrialism-chic kind of place that kinda solaces/kinda irks Buffalo-raised rusty me. It's that quiet hour before the staff arrives to rev up for the day. I've got a familiar acoustic in hand, I'm up on the little stage, it looks I'm solo'ing tonight. Okay, I'm ready. The kind of nervous that keeps you focused, alert to the decisions you have in your phrasing, etc.

In walks a combination of my high school health class teacher (also one of its football coaches). A towering, lumbering, cranky ex-Marine who liked to blame then-long-haired-me for the world's ills. Umm, getting tense. He's got his plays-we'll-run clip board with him. But also a lawyer's briefcase. Tenser, now. He parks his large frame on one of the big leather sofas, crosses his legs purposefully, and snaps open his briefcase. He's beginning to morph into a more looming version of my dad after he'd learned of yet another law-bending escapade of mine while a teen. The flop-sweats start. My feet feel cold. He clears his throat--a bass drum loading up--and out comes a prior boss's voice, the boss who really hated my guts, she did. Now, that's kinda funny. I'm recognizing that this is a version of the stuck-atop-the-rope-in-gym-and-you-might-be-naked trope. S/he squeak-squeals, "You also are two months behind on the mortgage here--remember, you signed for it--and that kid who crapped out the worst on all his work all semester, his dad is the dean's friend so it's a ****storm if you don't hand him a B, and you have a class whose final exam is today that you didn't know about and it's in a strange building's basement. And your fly is open and your B string won't hold tune. And you think that's funny?"

I recognized, in the dream, that it was a dream, and as if my anxiety were really scrounging up the plot lines, as I'm all set to stumble over the semester's last grading mountain. In fact, I would've told the coach/teacher/dad/boss figure, "C'mon, you know I'll get it all done," but I was laughing too hard in the dream. And wanted to hear just how bad that B string was.

But when I strummed a cowboy G chord, I smelled bad macaroni-and-cheese. And realized that the dog was farting me "Good morning."

Life is good when you endure being you in it, or something.....

It's good you realized it was a dream. My brother-in-law once remarked that if you notice ANYTHING that is not true, or real in a dream, just sit back and enjoy where it takes you because it's just a dream. Sometimes though, when a bear is charging you, and the bullets keep falling out of your firearm onto the ground, it can be very exciting.

 

[Toto'sDad]

My dreams are usually work related from my past. I get a call on the cell phone from one of my major clients, they want me on site in a few minutes, I say, I'll be right there. Then I notice that I'm about fifty miles out in the desert, a hundred miles from where I've just said I'd be right there. THEN, when I go to start the truck, it won't start! I get out and open the hood, and somehow with me sitting in the truck someone has stolen my battery. I then decide to call a tow truck, but the battery has died on my phone!

This can go on seemingly a very long time, but they say dreams only last a short while. I don't care what they say about dreams, I can get started on one, wake up, and go RIGHT BACK to where I was when I go back to sleep. It can tire a man out something fierce!

 

[David Barnett]

I had a dream once that I was mixing a music festival. Except for some reason the stage was on one side of the Arkansas River, and the mix position was on the other bank. During the headliner's set the mixing console started scooting away from me - someone was pulling on the snake and dragging the console across the bridge and I was chasing it, still trying to mix the set.

 

[naneek]

I often get finals related anxiety dreams this time of year.

I dreamt I was turning in a final paper for a college art class. I tried to give it to my high school history teacher, but I only had the essay on a laptop, and no printout. So she made me turn in the whole computer, which turned into my computer setup from the 90s.

It became 2 giant beige desktop towers, a yellowed crt monitor, a SCSI skuzzy port document scanner, a dot matrix printer, a modem, an external soundblaster, and piles and piles of tangled cables.

And I was stuck, just lifting heavy computers and peripherals onto a desk forever, with an indeterminate number of students laughing at me.

 

[RoscoeElegante]

Pick yer poison!

 

[doghouseman]

I have studied dreams professionally for a number of years. I was actually working in robotics and found that dreaming is a great way for robots to learn associations, and no one in the robotics community is using dreaming as a learning mechanism. I tried to tell this to Elon Musk, but he was not listening.

Anyway, in general, when you dream, the brain is trying to use what it knows from the past to help you adapt to current stressful situations. This is why dreaming about old houses, old places, old teachers is so common. Dealing with test anxiety, school teachers and fickle friends was one of the first times in many peoples lives that they had to deal with a significant amount of stress. So when you are under stress in your current situation (like during the holidays) your brain trys to make connections with how it dealt with stress before - like during high school.

I am 57 and I still dream I can't find the classroom where I need to take my final calculus exam.

 

[Swirling Snow]

View attachment 1061408

I've always known that multicolored letters were hard for me to read, but this reveals it makes the numbers easier to read!

 

[uriah1]

I can remember mine for about 1 minute after wake up. Then fssst gone.

 

[David Barnett]

I can remember mine for about 1 minute after wake up. Then fssst gone.

It's a mercy. I had a "horror" dream last night, and when I woke up from it I was afraid to go back to sleep lest it continue. Don't remember a bit of it now, except that it happened.

 

[Killing Floor]

I still have a dream that I thought dropped a class in college and never turned in the form and years later the university discovered I didn’t graduate. My daughter studies sleep and cognition. Maybe I should ask her over drinks.

Also when my dog farts it doesn’t smell like macaroni and cheese.

 

[Bob Womack]

I get a couple of interesting dreams. I one of them that started as son as I exited university is that I suddenly realize that I am three-quarters of the way through a semester at college and haven't started on the big paper for the semester and there is little hope of completing it. That's pretty interesting, and stressful, given that I've worked in a job for over forty years that demands obsessive time management.

The other is that I am booked to a recording session (I am a recording engineer/producer) and walk in to the stdio only to find that the clients are already there and waiting on me and I have to do an extensive setup before they can start. Meanwhile, they've brought noisey friends and family who have taken over the control room and I can't seem to make my way through them to the chair in front of the console.

Weird, huh?

Bob

 

[Harry Styron]

I still have a dream that I thought dropped a class in college and never turned in the form and years later the university discovered I didn’t graduate. My daughter studies sleep and cognition. Maybe I should ask her over drinks.

Also when my dog farts it doesn’t smell like macaroni and cheese.

A friend of mine who knew he didn’t quite graduate managed to work 30 years for the state highway department as an engineer until retirement. He was so relieved to retire without having been caught.

 

[doghouseman]

I can remember mine for about 1 minute after wake up. Then fssst gone.

THis is because your brain is switching "states" when you are waking up. So your brain is going from a sleep state to a wake state which helps to prevent recall of dreams. Quite common not to remember dreams because of this state switch.

If you want to try and remember your dreams, try waking up more slowly.

 

[RoscoeElegante]

I have mild narcolepsy, and maybe an odd version of it, at that. I'm always aware of a river of dreams running just beneath consciousness. (Or, at my age, semi-consciousness.) As soon as I close eyes, I'm in the current. The images get clear, dreams start occurring in all their morphy ways, the voices, smells, textures, faces, situations are all very real. I often wake up with a start from something happening in a dream, or mumbling to someone or something in a dream, or still half-dreaming as I trudge to the back door to let the dog out or to the bathroom. Once in a while, I'm looking for our back or basement doors according to memory's maps, if I've been dreaming of a childhood house, or a cabin we rented in 1986.... I often can remember my dreams vividly for many hours, and can call them up as if they were yesterday's events. Sometimes I have to stop and sort out whether what I'm remembered occurred in a dream or reality. Other dreams are wisps or just lingering emotions. But few quickly vanish altogether.

Free movies at the Eyelid Theatre!

The price for all this, of course, is getting suddenly sleepy during everyday things--such as driving, working, even drinking coffee. The narcoleptic waves can be unpredictable, and unstoppable. Whenever I can, I surrender to them, just so I can get them done with and refocus. Some such sleeps take 5 minutes, some 3 hours. So when I plan long drives, I double the expected time, and tell people that I may arriving much earlier if waves don't hit me. The waves occur less often if I'm getting eight hours a night and not too stressed out. So they often do occur just when I can least afford to be suddenly sleepy because I've got a lot of stressful work to do.

Oh, well. Mary Ann from "Gilligan's Island" may be awaiting me sometime today, coconut pies and all. So like a dusty Gibson amp, my noggin's odd wiring does have some fringe benefits.

 

[ClashCityTele]

I have studied dreams professionally for a number of years. I was actually working in robotics and found that dreaming is a great way for robots to learn associations, and no one in the robotics community is using dreaming as a learning mechanism. I tried to tell this to Elon Musk, but he was not listening.

So...'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep'?

 

[Jared Purdy]

At 61, I didn't think me old noodle could twist up a new nightmare. Even so, I woke up from this one laughing.

I'm in an old ex-mill, groovy, brick-walled coffee shop. Somewhere in...Massachusetts? Up the Hudson from NYC a bit? Some make-post-industrialism-chic kind of place that kinda solaces/kinda irks Buffalo-raised rusty me. It's that quiet hour before the staff arrives to rev up for the day. I've got a familiar acoustic in hand, I'm up on the little stage, it looks I'm solo'ing tonight. Okay, I'm ready. The kind of nervous that keeps you focused, alert to the decisions you have in your phrasing, etc.

In walks a combination of my high school health class teacher (also one of its football coaches). A towering, lumbering, cranky ex-Marine who liked to blame then-long-haired-me for the world's ills. Umm, getting tense. He's got his plays-we'll-run clipboard with him. But also a lawyer's briefcase. Tenser, now. He parks his large frame on one of the big leather sofas, crosses his legs purposefully, and snaps open his briefcase. He's beginning to morph into a more looming version of my dad after he'd learned of yet another law-bending escapade of mine while a teen. The flop-sweats start. My feet feel cold. He clears his throat--a bass drum loading up--and out comes a prior boss's voice, the boss who really hated my guts, she did. Now, that's kinda funny. I'm recognizing that this is a version of the stuck-atop-the-rope-in-gym-and-you-might-be-naked trope. S/he squeak-squeals, "You also are two months behind on the mortgage here--remember, you signed for it--and that kid who crapped out the worst on all his work all semester, his dad is the dean's friend so it's a ****storm if you don't hand him a B, and you have a class whose final exam is today that you didn't know about and it's in a strange building's basement. And your fly is open and your B string won't hold tune. And you think that's funny?"

I recognized, in the dream, that it was a dream, and as if my anxiety were really scrounging up the plot lines, as I'm all set to stumble over the semester's last grading mountain. In fact, I would've told the coach/teacher/dad/boss figure, "C'mon, you know I'll get it all done," but I was laughing too hard in the dream. And wanted to hear just how bad that B string was.

But when I strummed a cowboy G chord, I smelled bad macaroni-and-cheese. And realized that the dog was farting me "Good morning."

Life is good when you endure being you in it, or something.....

Grading mountains can do that, not that I have that particular malaise this semester. I'm on top of it. Four presentations to mark tomorrow, submit the grades, and good bye 2022. That being said, I do have a couple of colleagues who are sweating bullets they are so far behind, and everything has to be in by next Wednesday. I'm hoping for a better semester for the winter 2023, more engagement from the students, better attendance. We'll see. Go forth, and grade!

 

[RoscoeElegante]

Grading mountains can do that, not that I have that particular malaise this semester. I'm on top of it. Four presentations to mark tomorrow, submit the grades, and good bye 2022. That being said, I do have a couple of colleagues who are sweating bullets they are so far behind, and everything has to be in by next Wednesday. I'm hoping for a better semester for the winter 2023, more engagement from the students, better attendance. We'll see. Go forth, and grade!

"Yeah, but, uh, like, uh, can I, uh [time out while I check my phone, fiddle with my phone, fondle my phone], like, uh, get, like, uh, like, uh, ex, whatever, ten, uh, sion? [Time out while I check my phone, fiddle with my phone, fondle my phone.] Uh, like [prolonged vacuum], you know? 'Cause you, like, owe me a, like, good, like, grade. Or whatever."

Good luck to you, too, James. I hope that yours are better than mine. After 36 years in this racket, I'm down to teaching the mere 10% who remain capable and willing to learn. And this is at a major research university. How they're accepted when they're so obviously and stubbornly illiterate is beyond me. Entrance requirements have not only cratered, but are plainly nebulous. It's almost as if the university's main value is....raking in tuition money. And football. And enabling alcohol poisoning.

(Funny thing, I still like the word "like," and I still love teaching the few who can still learn.)

 

[Jared Purdy]

"Yeah, but, uh, like, uh, can I, uh [time out while I check my phone, fiddle with my phone, fondle my phone], like, uh, get, like, uh, like, uh, ex, whatever, ten, uh, sion? [Time out while I check my phone, fiddle with my phone, fondle my phone.] Uh, like [prolonged vacuum], you know? 'Cause you, like, owe me a, like, good, like, grade. Or whatever."

Good luck to you, too, James. I hope that yours are better than mine. After 36 years in this racket, I'm down to teaching the mere 10% who remain capable and willing to learn. And this is at a major research university. How they're accepted when they're so obviously and stubbornly illiterate is beyond me. Entrance requirements have not only cratered, but are plainly nebulous. It's almost as if the university's main value is....raking in tuition money. And football. And enabling alcohol poisoning.

(Funny thing, I still like the word "like," and I still love teaching the few who can still learn.)

Na, I've got about 10% who are interested. It's a huge drop from before the pandemic. I'm hoping this past semester is a post-pandemic hangover kind of thing with the lingering effects of on-line learning. Had many students who never came to class once, and after weeks in, they'd email me to see if the course was on-line or in-class. Epic. Raking in money as their raison d'être? You don't say! Or should I