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I'm in college again. Months ago, I signed up for a class — maybe a complicated math class, but more likely a class with lots, and lots of reading, such as a study of Shakespeare's entire works, or perhaps it's Dostoyevsky.
And here's the thing: I meant to drop the class. I realized early on it was too hard, too time consuming to do the work… but somehow, I never got around to actually getting to the registrar and dropping the class. It is now near the end of the semester, and I am responsible for taking the final for this class — and I don't even remember where or when it meets. I have a week to learn everything, or face an F on my transcript.
Does this dream sound familiar to you? I've been having it for as long as I can remember, probably once every few months or so. A few years ago, while part of a small trial team, my colleagues and I would sit around and have fairly inane conversations over shared lunches and dinners, gobbled quickly in conference rooms, and the topic of conversation turned once to stress dreams.
I remember being amazed that all of my colleagues had had stress dreams (even the partner who had had an incredibly enviable and successful career!) — but more specifically, they all had this stress dream, the meant-to-drop-the-class-but-totally-forgot dream.
{2020 Update: Come check out our latest discussion on how to deal with stress dreams!}
Readers, what stress dreams do you have repeatedly? What message do you take away — for example, does it help you recognize that you've reached a certain point in your stress and that you need to force yourself to relax?
Some great sleep aids if you're struggling with sleep issues…
(Pictured above: Shakespeare, originally uploaded to Flickr by Hellebardius. Image updates via Stencil.)
Legally Brunette
WOW. I’ve had this exact same dream, except that I was taking an Advanced Calculus class. I never went to class, never did the homework, and found myself having a nervous breakdown toward the end of the semester when I realized that I didn’t even know where the class was located. Thank goodness these are just dreams!
FP Angie
Me too! It would always be a math or science class… I haven’t had it in ages, though. How funny!
Ros
Oh, man. Exactly this dream. Always a math class, too!
(I’ve been out of university for 7 years, and still, the same nightmare…)
M
I have had math, Spanish, and English lit, with a classroom that looked like my h.s. classroom.
BMBG
Same here! Spooky …
PharmaGirl
Always some kind of advanced math for me as well. Spooky!
I used to have dreams about my teeth falling out which I have learned are related to financial anxiety. Once I started my first well paying job and was able to pay off credit card debts, the dreams went away!
BigLaw Optimist
Really?! I have these all.the.time., and thought I was a crazy person. I can’t wait to share that with the husband (who thinks I am a crazy person every time I wake up freaking out because I had another “teeth” dream).
DJ
I’ve had the teeth falling out dream since I was a teenager! Either I’m punched in the face, in a car accident, or they just start falling out for no apparent reason… seemed to start when I had braces, and I always figured it was because when they tightened the braces, my teeth always felt ‘loose’… but who knows? Maybe I was financially stressed as a teen (I did work a few part time jobs, even in high school!).
PharmaGirl
There are probably multiple reasons for any particular dream ‘theme.’ I had the teeth ones when going through orthodontic treatments as well but the ones that persisted through some very difficult financial times were certainly related to the money and the anxiety caused by debt.
AN
I have the ‘teeth came loose and fell out’ dream too from time to time….cannot believe I’m not alone!!
Herbie
Re teeth falling out dreams… you could also be grinding your teeth in your sleep. I used to have frequent bad dreams about teeth falling out until I started sleeping with a mouth guard in. No more such dreams (and I’m not grinding down my molars no mo’).
D Train South
Same! Or often it is the whole slate of classes. My dream also includes trying to find my locker and locate my books.
JAM
Mine is geography. And in addition to all this I can’t figure out my locker combination. I wake up in a panic every time.
Business, Not Law
Same thing here! And in the dream it’s always a Shakespeare class that I keep forgetting to go to/forgetting to drop.
DC Lawyer
Exact same dream, but add that I never bought the books either, and can’t find the bookstore let alone where the class is located.
rosie
In my version I have the books but have never opened them, and I don’t know when the class meets.
C
This!
PollyD
Forgot to drop a class, or just forgot I was taking it (usually a class requiring lots of reading and writing) – check.
Forgot locker combination – check.
Teeth falling out – check (sometimes I can FEEL the upper edges of my teeth with my tongue, so disturbing).
In a similar vein:
Lost class schedule and have no idea where I should be, even though it’s several months into the term.
Just recently – showed up at a large international conference (as it happens, I am going to one next week) to find out that I am supposed to give a talk, but it’s someone else’s slides and I have no clue about the topic.
viclawstudent
I also have (or at least had) this dream all the time – but only when I’m not actually in school. It’s a weird thing – between undergrad and going back to law school, I regularly had this dream (usually involving either a high school science class or one of my undergrad creative writing classes), and then as soon as I started school again for law, I stopped having it. I imagine it’ll be back when I graduate, now featuring law school classes …
jcb
This is actually making me laugh. I was the worst law student ever, and often never went to class, didn’t really know when/where they met, etc., and then would just study for the exams for a week or so at the end of the semester. Y’all’s nightmares were my life! Never bothered me that much, always worked out fine, and I much preferred the unstructured semesters. My stress dreams have always been about waiting tables, far more stressful than school IMO. Oh no, I’ve been triple-seated! Oh no, I completely forgot to get anyone’s drinks! How long have those people over there been here?! The customers all look so mad!
Really?
Wow.
Jill
Just saw this post. My stress dream is that waiting tables dream, too. And it’s usually a night that I’m returning to work after somehow forgetting that I even had the job.
JRed
Oh god, serving dreams are awful. Now that I’m in law school, I’m back to having school-related stress dreams, but when I was working during undergrad and summers my serving dreams were just awful. I’d work an 11 hour shift as a solitary bartender (50 seat restaurant and I was literally the only person working – hostess, server, bartender, busser!) and then come home and have frantic dreams all night. Sometimes it would be that the restaurant was completely full and I’d feel like my mind and body were moving in molasses, i.e. people had been waiting for over half an hour and I hadn’t even asked them for drink orders yet! Other times I’d dream that I had guys waiting at the bar for their beer….and I just walked out and starting walking home, then suddenly realized where I was, and what I was doing, and that I’d left my customers all just sitting there! I swear, school-related stress dreams, bad as they are, don’t even come close to server stress dreams =S
Elle P
mine was always a history class!
Jen
Me too! I always have this dream, but it’s sometimes a college physics course, and sometimes a college medieval theater course.
I also have stress dreams in which I argue the merits of whatever case I am working on at the moment…to a panel of judges who are also all me! So it’s me arguing to three me-judges, who berate orator-me about how stupid and flawed my arguments are. Le sigh. These actually sometimes help me flesh out and identify real flaws in my arguments, but most of the time they just leave me exhausted and in a panic when I wake up.
Catelyn
This is so relevant to me! I had a dream last night that I came in to work and my boss told me that they were firing me because they’d realized that all my work was really bad, and they were making me pay back all the money they’d paid me in the last year because I didn’t deserve it… It was awful!
I think it was because I just signed the lease on a new, more expensive, apartment, and I suddenly freaked out about how we would pay the rent if somehow my boyfriend and I both lost our jobs (which of course is unlikely to happen, and we have adequate savings, etc… it was just a big step).
SoCalAtty
This! It is so awful! I think because I actually was laid off once, 2009, a long time ago, but it was pretty traumatic – they told me my work was great and it had nothing to do with me personally, and so now I have these dreams that either just like Catelyn they’re firing me because I’m awful, or they’re firing me for no reason.
I also have dreams about missed litigation deadlines. Those are pretty bad too.
Emilie
I have the exact same dream. I’m in school, I have a class that I hate and just refuse to go. I forget where and when it meets until the last day of school and then I realize I’ll never graduate. Add to this the fact that I only graduated from grad school a year ago and my dreams are incredibly realistic- I have woken up on more than a few mornings in a cold sweat thinking I’m back in school a really just screwed my life up. Ugh.
NOLA
The one I last had was similar to that. I couldn’t ever figure out where the class was meeting, forgot to drop it, etc. Since it’s been many many years since college, I think I’ve mainly stopped having these dreams. Then again, I did have a completely crazy dream last night that someone walked into my house and pulled a knife on my SO and me while we were laying around watching TV. In my dream, my SO pulled a gun out of his pocket and told him to “get the @#$! out.” When I told my SO, this morning, he said that he wouldn’t have told the guy to get out . He would have shot him. Well then.
mbm
Same dream here. It’s always an English lit course, which is weird, because I actually enjoyed English lit.
There is a variant, where I am back in my seventh grade classroom, but my class is full of random people I met later in life. There is much discussion of next year’s graduation, whereupon I start wondering why I am in there, since I finished grad school already… And then I wake up.
When I am really stressed, though, my dreams just take the form of one ten-second idea or sentence that is related to the source of the stress, over, and over, and over again. I wish just once this would result in a really brilliant idea.
Cat
My stress dream involves flying, even though I’m not a nervous traveler – I’m a passenger in an out of control airplane, usually narrowly missing obstacles, swooping around, etc. I only have it when I’m feeling out of control with respect to workload, which makes total sense since you’re so not in control as an airplane passenger. It’s funny in that sometimes it’s the first signal I get that I’m feeling overloaded!
Cat
And not a stress dream, but I DEFINITELY have realistic work dreams. I can never decide if it’s worse to have invented an assignment for myself in my sleep (therefore having to convince myself I DIDN’T forget to turn that agreement) or if it’s worse to think I finished something and wake up only to realize I have to do it “all over again.” I think option (b).
Katy
I’ve begun doc reviewing imaginary documents in my sleep. Then I go to work and doc review for another 10-15 hours. Repeat.
These have not been a good few weeks.
Godzilla
Oh, that would happen to me in school. I would program and solve math and engineering problems in my dreams alllll night long. It was like studying in my sleep.
Beach Bar
Ugh, I had both of those dreams in law school. I was usually semi-conscious for option (a) and I would toss and turn mumbling “have to expand X section of Y class outline”–where X was a topic we didn’t cover or just flat out didn’t exist.
I’d get (b) when I was in really deep sleep so it’d take me a while to fully wake up and realize the assignment wasn’t real.
Now I just toss and turn trying to figure out what I need to do the next day on each of my cases. At least I sleep alone so I don’t have to worry about blurting out client names in my sleep ;)
Elysian
When I was teaching public school this happened all the time. A child would do something terrible to me in in my dream (like bite me or something), and I would have to remind myself not to be mad at that child all day once I woke up. It was tough sometimes!
long time lurker
I have had very similar plane dreams, where the plane is going down or spiraling out of control, and I wake up just as the plane is going to crash. Am also not a particularly nervous flyer.
Anon
My stress dream is about a train that falls off the track, sometimes hanging from a high bridge!
Gail
I have this exact same dream. I’m taking a class, never go, then finally show up one day to discover that there is a big test or final the next day, or some big project due that I didn’t even know about. In the dream I have not even been keeping up with the class material so I am totally clueless and panicked.
Anon
Not only do I have this dream, it also happened to me in in real life – which can make me pretty confused sometimes when I wake up.
I can remember (real-life) knowing for sure that yes, it was too late, I’d missed so many classes that I hadn’t even grasped the basic concepts of the course let alone read any of the material, and the exam was in two days. And then sitting in the exam hall, totally unable to answer most of the questions. But the world didn’t end, I scraped through the re-sit a couple of months later, and I switched classes the next semester.
So I was pretty surprised when I discovered this is a common anxiety dream and not necessarily related to my past experience.
suomi
I’v had a similar stress dream. I have often dreamed that I am late for an important exam. No matter how quickly I try to get to the exam room, I cannot do it fast enough and I fail to finish the exam. Sometimes it feels like I am running as fast as I can but remian in one place or move very slowly, as if something is holding me back.
I have not had the dream for a long time now, though.
a.
See, I did that in real life. I wrote down the wrong exam time, so when I showed up for my final on the Italian Renaissance they were handing out a Calc exam. I called my professor sobbing, then sobbed some more in his office, and fortunately he took pity on me and let me go to the library and take it…and later he would become my adviser and write me nice letters of rec.
Moral of the story, missing exams is not always the end of the world. And I am dumb.
suomi
I ma glad that something stressful ultimatley turned into a positive experience for you! :)
And, yes, missing an exam is not such a big deal.
suomi
Sorry for typo – “I am glad” is what I meant. :)
Coalea
I also missed an exam IRL. My university had an automated wake up call system that was great … except for the fact that it went on the fritz the morning of my Japanese final! I woke up well after the exam was over and called my professor in tears. My Japanese was never great, and in this stressful situation I could only wail, “I sleep. No clock. No exam. Please excuse me!” Fortunately, there was a second section of the course sitting their exam that afternoon, and I was able to join them.
The following year I had a close-call with a math exam. My roommate’s phone rang in the middle of the night and, thinking it was my alarm, I shut it off. Luckily I had friends in the class who knocked on my door on their way to the exam. I took the test with bedhead in my jammies, but at least I made it!
JK
I had a dream like this in law school several times.
suomi
It’s really bad…it’s such a relief when you wake up and you realize it was just a dream! At the end of the day, nothing as is as darmatic as it seems when you dream it. :)
chicago shopping
Threadjack re nordstrom.
I ordered a dress last week from Nordstrom for $69.00. It just arrived today and I see that it is not on the Nordstrom Rack website for $55.00. Do you all know if there is an easy way for me to get the lower price, or should I just keep it and not worry about the price difference? It still has the tags and packaging.
chicago shopping
curses! the other dress I got for $75 is now $49. Maybe I should send them both back as self-punishment for being an impulsive, bad shopper and not waiting it out…
J
Use the online customer service chat option on Nordstrom.com and ask for a refund of the difference – it’s worked for me a couple of times.
Bunkster
That’s worked for me, too!
MissJackson
This. Have your order number and the item number handy. The availability of the online chat price adjustment is the #1 reason that I buy 80% of the things that I own at Nordstrom online.
just Karen
Nordstrom has great customer service – you should be able to give them a call and they will do a price adjustment for you. If you randomly draw the ONE theoretical bad Nordstrom customer service agent, just order the dress again today and use your free return label to return the one that arrived today – if they won’t do the price adjustment, they deserve to have to pay your shipping both ways.
chicago shopping
thanks all. I am online chat now. we will see how it goes. If not, I will take just Karen’s advice!
Esquared
Call them or bring it in, Nordstroms is supposedly amazing. Or just return & re-order…?
Diana Barry
Huh, I’ve never had this stress dream, not ever. I have (only a couple of times) had a dream that I was getting fired, but that was after I had just gotten fired in real life!
Bunkster
Yup, me neither.
AIMS
Thirds. Now I feel very un-ambitious.
Anne Shirley
I dream that I am on a luxurious tropical vacation yet I have forgotten sunscreen and there are no stores and DOOM. (am very pale)
I have extremely vivid stress dreams whenever I’ve got a lot going on, and remember with fondness from 1L having to chase my con law prof through they library because he had hidden our final, and the clock was ticking while we hunted him.
Goosebumpy
This is CRAZY. I totally have this exact dream, too! The class is usually higher-level math or a science class with math-related homework (like Chemistry), and I’ve been skipping class and not doing homework since the first week. I too meant to drop the class and forgot to do so. Weirdly, the homework rules are always lenient–I could’ve just turned in every single assignment on the last day of class but again failed to do so.
Coalea
I often have stress dreams involving excessive baggage. For example, I will find myself in some kind of urgent situation (fleeing from generic “bad guys”) and I need to pack a bag of supplies to take with me. I end up with either one extremely heavy bag that I can’t even lift, or I have multiple bags and can’t carry them all.
I also have a lot of dreams about bathrooms. For example, I dream that I urgently need to use the bathroom, but when I get there, there is no door on the stall – or I find myself in a huge public restroom and all the stalls are occupied.
mamabear
Oh! I just saw your post about the bathroom dreams. I have those too! And usually, it’s because I really do need to wake up and use the bathroom.
Ellie
whenever I have the bathroom dream, I’ve found I actually REALLY need to go in real life… e.g. I forgot to go before bed, and in the morning I sprint to the bathroom as soon as I’m up. Kind of funny. Similarly, I often have dreams about chugging water out of my Nalgene when I eat a lot of salty food the night before, and I wake up parched.
Beach Bar
I have a similar one on the baggage. In mine, I’m going somewhere either at the last minute or I knew I was going somewhere and packed, but I discover at the last minute that I forgot to pack something. Then I have to scramble to pack what I need, and as I go that one thing I needed turns into 5 which turns into 20 and I never finish because my packing list just keeps multiplying.
Not surprisingly, I have problems packing for trips–I’m always worried I’m going to forget something, and I struggle to determine what I need, what would be nice if it can fit, and what I will never ever need, barring nuclear disaster.
NOLA
I remember having a crazy packing dream (I had packed all of my clothes but had not packed anything from my room) the day I was leaving to come back home from my junior year abroad. I have a lot of travel dreams (always work trips), but not packing, other than that one.
M in CA
I have had the same dream Kat described and the bathroom dream. I used to have the bathroom dream 2-4 times/week when I worked at a Biglaw-type firm. In the dream, I’d have to go to the bathroom but whenever I found one, they were always inaccessible somehow – either all the toilets were severely overflowing (gross), or lined up right next to each other and impossible to reach, or were very, very shallow. Unlike the other posters, I would not wake up having to go to the bathroom – these were just anxiety dreams, pure and simple. They subsided after I switched jobs – but the back-in-college dreams persist.
I’m just glad I’m not alone in having dreams like this.
Business, Not Law
I have had the bathroom dream too and they are either all overflowing/not flushed or there is no privacy (low or no door, multiple toilets lined up together or something similar). When I wake up I don’t have to go…it’s pure anxiety. It’s interesting to hear that so many people have similar dreams.
Cb
Oh my goodness, I have this too! No doors or the toilets are in a public place! I had a friend who lived in a super sketch apartment and the toilet was in the kitchen and I couldn’t visit her because I was anxious just thinking about it.
Jennifer
I have the exam dream a lot too. I like to think it’s symptomatic of being an over-achieving woman.
Here’s the interpretation:
http://www.ivillage.com/you-re-taking-test-which-you-re-unprepared/4-b-122045
suomi
This is interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Equity's Darling
My stress dream always involves my teeth somehow being clenched so tightly and being unable to open my jaw, and my grinding them until they shatter in my mouth and all my teeth fall out. Whenever I have that dream, I know I’m super stressed.
I’m a grinder, obviously.
For some reason, I never had stress dreams that were obviously about school- either in undergrad or law school.
a.
I never have or had stress dreams specifically about school, either. Instead I’m always running somewhere, but know that I won’t get wherever I’m going in time. Uck.
Seattleite
I’m a grinder, too. I used to dream I was eating my contacts.
Godzilla
Sometimes I have dreams where my teeth get soft and it feels like my mouth is filled with chiclets. And then as I’m talking or eating in my dream, my teeth start falling out and I get really sad and try to convince myself that dental technology is really good these days. And then I wake up SUPER GRATEFUL that I still have all of my teeth and I schedule a cleaning at the dentist’s.
Goosebumpy
I have a variation on this dream, too! I’m usually flossing or eating something really chewy (gum or caramels), and somehow I end up loosening one (or more) of my teeth. I try to, like, shove it/them back in, but the damage is done. And in my dream I also try to console myself with the knowledge that I can get some really realistic-looking bridgework or something.
lexi
me too – Always losing teeth (though not grinding them down). Whenever I wake up I always check to make sure none are loose. I also never had school specific dreams.
Ugh, recently I started clenching my teeth at night (or so my SO tells me) and I wake up with jaw pain. It sucks and I don’t know what I can do about it except ‘relax’ – but if I could relax I wouldn’t be clenching!
Godzilla
About 2-3 years ago, I went to the dentist for grinding teeth issues and they didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I started to pay attention to when I would grind my teeth and it was *always* allergy related – trying to hold back a sneeze or just trying to deal with a sinus headache. When I was totally on top of my taking-allergy-meds game, no more teeth grinding and resulting jaw pain. Maybe the same thing is going on for you? The mild winter is turning out to be a killer spring in terms of allergies.
Goosebumpy
My nighttime grinding was so bad I was wearing down my teeth. My dentist kept telling me to get fitted for what’s essentially a nighttime mouthguard, and I finally caved. It was about $120, I think. I notice I’m much less likely to wake up with a headache now that I’m wearing it.
PollyD
A mouth guard will do wonders for this. I did have to pay around $500 for mine, but my dentist adjusts it for free and it’s lasted about 3-4 years. I didn’t grind, but did clench my teeth and would wake up with an aching jaw. The mouth guard has helped so much. Plus apparently clenching/grinding your teeth can be bad for the gums, so it’s a good idea to try to stop.
Coalea
I also have dreams where my teeth are loose and/or fall out. I find them really upsetting :(
Lyssa
Ha, I’ve had the opposite (not lately, but when I was a kid/teen) – I’d have my mouth open, and not being able to close it, and be struggling like crazy to try to cover it with my hand (which also wouldn’t move for some reason). All the while, terrified that bugs were going to crawl into my mouth.
Wow, dreams make you sound insane when you try to type them out.
Lyssa
And by “you”, I meant Me! Please don’t think that I was calling anyone else here insane!
Anonymous NYer
I’ve had this dream where I’m chewing gum (which I rarely do), and it gets stuck in my mouth and keeps multiplying, so I’m in a situation where I’m trying to talk to someone (vague, don’t remember who/why, etc), but I keep having to pull gum out of my mouth, and it won’t stop. I think I’ve finally gotten it, but then I open my mouth to talk, and there’s still a huge amount of gum inside.
Weird.
AgencyCounsel
Yup, I’ve had the same dream with the gum.
Jenny
Dreaming that your teeth are breaking off or falling out is a classic, Freudian (or is it Jung-ian?) stress dream. It symbolizes loss of control. I had it once, and it was terrifying. I woke up and ran to the bathroom to check my teeth in the mirror.
D
I think the teeth related stress dreams are much more common with women strangely. Men thatIi’ve talked to seem to have more falling/can’t move type stress dreams.
Eloise Spaghetti
I get the breaking teeth one too. I grind my teeth in my sleep though.
BigLaw Optimist
I commented above, but am really pleased to see this discussion down here too (not that I would wish these dreams on any of you — they’re awful!)! I always get the “teeth falling out,” “teeth shattering while talking” or “brushing my teeth with a wire toothbrush” dreams, but never tied them to stress. I like that I have an excuse now. :) I’m going to be monitoring them the next time I get one!!
Herbie
see above. This used to happen to me, too, until my dentist fitted me for a mouth guard to use at night. It really does help (protects your teetheses, too).
Sarah
Funny – I have never had the school dream, but I think mine is similar. I used to be a dancer, so I dream that I’m getting ready for a performance when I realize that I didn’t go to any of the rehearsals and have only minutes to learn all of the material. Sometimes I don’t even know what part I’m supposed to be dancing.
Elle
I do the same thing with either cheerleading or musicals. (I’m 2 years post-law school and still have dreams that I’m back in HS…it’s horrid). I arrive at the performance and realize I don’t know the routine/show.
nona
Definitely have the unprepared-for-theatrical-performance stress dream! My most common stress dream. Although recently I’ve been dreaming that I’m the teacher and am unprepared for class or am teaching a subject I know nothing about — in reality I’m a lawyer but my spouse is a teacher and tells me a lot about what he’s teaching every day.
Amy H.
Same here — never had the school/exam dream, but I still occasionally have this re: being back on rifle line in my HS marching band but not knowing this year’s routine — and having to take the field in 5 minutes. A couple of times I’ve dreamed I’m actually performing. And high school marching band was over 26 years ago . . . .
(I’ve also dreamed I’m back on ski patrol — which I had as a paid job for several years after undergrad — and have headed out on the hill in full uniform and first aid gear but have forgotten to pick up a radio!)
Kat
I have the same dream! I was in musicals in HS and when I am stressed I am suddenly back there. When I first read this feed I assumed no one else has stress dreams about being force to sing or dance and not knowing the part. Glad I am not alone.
Lyssa
I can’t really remember ever having any about college like that, but I’ve had a few that involved being in court completely unprepared – yikes!
But the most stress dreams I’ve ever had have come from, oddly enough, my college job waiting tables – and dreams like this were common among my collegues. My best one involved suddenly getting seated with a big party, but the kitchen lost their order, and the customers had to wait so long for their food that they died. Then the manager got mad at me and started chasing me with a gun.
It was weird.
phillygirlruns
i have the restaurant dream, too! i am a waitress and my entire section (or sometimes the entire restaurant) is full, and i just.cannot.get.to.my.tables. i’ll be trying to get a drink order together and won’t be able to find all of the necessary ingredients or garnishes, or something along those lines, and everyone is getting angry and no one has their drinks and everyone wants to order food and i desperately want to get everything done, but can’t. i’ve been having this dream since i first started working at a restaurant in high school, and still have it occasionally when work gets rough now – and i haven’t worked at a restaurant since 2005.
and sign me up for the exam dream as well – mine is a variation where i never realized i was registered for the class at all.
Eloise Spaghetti
I posted the same below. I haven’t worked in a restaurant for years and when I did I never had dreams like this. But it’s the exact same thing.
BigLaw Optimist
Me three (when I’m not having teeth dreams)!! My dream sounds almost exactly like yours, phillygirlruns. I also waited tables in highschool and college, but haven’t done it in years.
Amy H.
Yes! You have described it so perfectly. Yikes. (My waiting tables experience was from 1990-1994. Good grief.)
Jane Fairfax
When I waited tables in college I had the waitress in the weeds dream almost every night. I even woke up a couple of times in our kitchen after sleep walking there in search of tartar sauce. I hated that job and it made me even angrier that I couldn’t get away from it even when I was asleep.
jcb
That is so funny. I just posted the same thing above – my stress dreams are always either about waiting tables or being chased. My customers never died though. :-) Haven’t waited tables since about … 1997? 1996?
Gail the Goldfish
My mother still has stress dreams about waiting tables. She hasn’t waited tables since 1980.
Muddy Buddy
I have very vivid dreams, but they’re always absurd when I’m stressed. They start out just seeming like the situation I’m about to encounter, but then they get crazy. A recent example from the bar exam:
I sit down to take the MPT (for non-lawyers, this is the practical part of the bar exam where you write a memo or a client letter or something like that). I click on the “start timer” button on my computer, and a giant clock starts ticking down. Suddenly, the proctor makes an announcement that we can take the MPT at home if we’d like, but the clock will keep ticking during the journey home. For some reason I decide this is a good idea, so I scoop up my computer and walk outside into the sun. I’m greeted by a smiling pot-bellied pig who says something like, “It’ll be okay, little buddy. Follow me.” We proceed to walk down a road that is made of a rainbow. When I get home, there are only a few seconds left for me to type something very quickly.
The weird thing is that I don’t feel stressed after these dreams. It’d be stressful to realize I only had a few seconds left on a section of the exam, but when I wake up I’m always just amazed that I had such a fun, absurd dream. In that dream, for example, I just remembered looking down at the smiling pig and walking on the rainbow road. I really think that these dreams help me feel less stressed.
cbackson
Um, this dream sounds delightful. Happy pigs! Rainbow roads! I kind of want to live in your mind.
Muddy Buddy
It’s a nice stress response, I must say. I have them all the time, too. I had a similar one the day that I gave my first closing argument in court. I don’t remember the specifics, but I feel like I spilled water in a funny way and then the founding fathers brought me a new brief case.
Merabella
I was so tickled by this dream I laughed out loud. I’m pretty sure my office mate thinks I’m a loony toon.
Eleanor
I’ve been trying to muffle my giggles at most of these; my paralegal probably thinks I’m having trouble breathing.
I want to dream about a rainbow road and a cheerful pig.
conbrio
I too have had this exact dream many, many times. Very stressful!
mamabear
I have that dream, verbatim.
I also have a similar dream where I am headed to the airport to catch a flight and I get sidelined with talking to people or helping people or this or that, and next thing you know I’ve missed my flight. I may not even be sure exactly when or where my flight is.
I also dream that I’m looking for a bathroom because I really have to go, and every toilet I find is either disgusting or has zero privacy – like a toilet sitting in the middle of a room that’s open to the public.
Last, I have a recurring dream about a house and a place I don’t think I’ve ever visited in real life but it’s usually the same place in every dream. In the dream, it’s my house, and I keep discovering rooms or floors of the house I never knew were there.
sbegonia
ha! You just hit most my stress dreams. I also have a packing dream where I can’t get everything packed in time. The only other one is I come to work and they have either (1) taken away my computer, or (2) moved my office somewhere far away from my practice group.
Roly Poly Little Bat-Faced Girl
Weird, Mamabear. I have a lot of the same dreams as you — missing flights, nasty toilets, and extra rooms or floors in a house. The only slight variation is that for the flight dreams, my family and I are going to Europe and I’m the only one who has a passport. I also sometimes wake up from the extra-rooms dreams believing they are true. Again, so weird that we have so many dreams in common.
V
It’s always amazing to hear about someone having the EXACT SAME dreams. That toilet dream is one of the worst!!! And I have that house dream very often too. I wonder what causes us to have them…
PharmaGirl
I have the dirty toilet dreams too. Oh man, they are some filthy toilets and they are also completely out in the open. I’m nauseating by the thought of those dreams.
I just htought of another dream these I have. I’m running somewhere very important or away from soem Very Bad Guys (with guns!) and my legs just won’t move fast enough. My legs feel like lead and I need to lift them with my arms just to take a step.
Mary Ann Singleton
So weird, I have all those dreams too. Especially the extra rooms in the house dream – to the point where I wake up and still feel excited that I now have more storage space….until I realize it was just a dream.
RS
I have the bathroom dream too — except that I am also always not wearing any shoes and the floor is really dirty!
mamabear
I have to say, I am usually severely disappointed to wake up from my extra-rooms dreams and realize that, no, I do not have a newly discovered second living room just for my piano, or a bathroom for me alone, or an amazing balcony. :)
cbackson
I have had this dream a bunch of times, but my most common stress/anxiety dream is being trapped in a falling elevator. Actually, to be more accurate, it’s an elevator that shoots upward to the top of a high building really quickly, and that won’t stop on any floor so I can’t get out. And I know that when the elevator gets to the top of the building, it’s going to fall.
When it’s really bad, I’ll have it multiple times a week, and sometimes I’ll feel anxious when getting into an actual elevator in real life. My neuroses, let me show you them.
mamabear
I have elevator dreams too, but not that the elevator is falling, but more like I don’t know where it’s going. Sometimes it moves sideways, too.
PHX
The sideways-moving-elevators are so weird. As are the escalators that go super fast. (Yes, mamabear, I have them too.)
TechAnon
I have the sideways elevator dreams, too. Not only do they move to the side, they turn ONTO their sides and spin like a bullet. Creepy and weird.
Cb
Oh god, the falling elevator! I probably shouldn’t be reading this before I go to sleep.
Legally Brunette
In addition to having this exact same dream, I also have a recurring dream involving having multiple contact lenses and not knowing which lens to put in my eye. Anyone have this dream or something similar? It’s always a pretty scary dream for me because I’m severely near sighted, so not putting in the right lens means that I can’t see anything.
Emily
I have totally had this dream. So.many.times. Extremely nearsighted, as well.
PollyD
Yes, I have a similar dream. In my dreams, I can’t figure out if I already put a contact in, so end up putting multiple (yes, more than two, makes no sense, I know) contacts into one eye. For some reason the contacts also are always huge in these dreams, like poker chip-size or something.
And I am pretty nearsighted (~20/500), too.
M in CA
Hopefully not too late to respond, but yes I’ve had a similar dream about contacts, although in my case it’s that the contact has grown to 50 times it’s normal size and I can’t get it in my eye. Seriously it’s like half the size of a basketball, and all I can think about is how will I ever see again? Scary.
CKB
My stress dreams are either I’m trying to tell a bunch of people something, and no matter how loudly I shout they just ignore me.
Or, I’m doing something (like writing an exam) that has a time limit, and things keep interupting me so I can’t get anything done towards the task.
Or, in the days of payphones & calling cards, I’m trying to call someone long distance with a calling card, and it’s usually an emergency, and I keep punching the numbers wrong (because there’s 25 numbers to punch into the payphone), and then, when I finally get it right, there’s something wrong with the connection and I have to start again.
Ugg, I get stressed just thinking about these dreams! Someone pass me a donut (I’m a terrible stress eater!)
SF Bay Associate
My reoccuring stress dream is a permutation of yours – I am in a situation where I really need to speak loudly or yell, but I try to say something and no noise comes out. Sometimes I am trying to get my SO’s attention from across a room, and it’s important that I get his attention. I keep waving and trying to say, “hey! over here!” and I can’t make a sound, and he doesn’t hear me so he doesn’t look over. More commonly, I’m being mugged/attacked and I need to scream for help, but I can’t get my voice to work, not even a whisper. So I’ll try to yell again, and again, nothing happens. Over and over. I finally wake up by my voice working in real life, whispering “no!” in reality. It’s horrible.
Cat
oooh, I totally have this one. I still remember a version of it that I had in elementary school, where I saw my little (toddler) brother get kidnapped by a guy in a blue pickup truck. My parents were down the block and he had run ahead of me by a little bit, and I screamed and screamed in silence. Still gives me the chills!
Ellie
This! The most common stress dream I have is opening my mouth to shout because of some kind of vague, “bad guys are coming” danger, and no matter how hard I try I can’t make a sound. That, or being in class (even though it’s been years since I’ve been out of school) and not being able to talk to the teacher or classmates.
I’m also suprised no one has mentioned “forgetting” some (or all) items of clothing. Those are a close second for me. I’ll look down and see I have no pants on, or no shirt, and I’ll already be at work so in my dream I just shuffle things around my desk and hope no one notices.
TechAnon
Oh, the “can’t dial the phone correctly” dream is awful! Do you also get the “trying to run but feet and legs are too sluggish to move” one?
Reve
My stress dreams generally fall into one of two categories:
(1) Action/adventure (think an episode of Alias, outrunning baddies the entire time)
(2) I’m unable to have children, had them but can’t find them, was supposed to be watching someone elses children but lost them, etc.
CKB
I’ve had outrunning bad guys dreams (but not for a few years). Usually I’m running & running & they’re getting closer & closer, and then I trip & fall and wake up.
Merabella
I had this dream in college. In mine I had dropped the class, but the registrars office somehow lost my paperwork and I never officially dropped it. I woke up terrified that the class I had dropped was still somehow on my record.
Another Sarah
When I was studying for the bar, and again recently with a major change at work, I’ve started having stress dreams again. I basically dream the day I just had over again. When I studied for the bar, whatever TV show I watched before I went to bed, the characters read my outlines to me. With work, I just re-live the day over again. With the barzam, I started going to the gym for a couple hours every day, and that made them go away. My theory is that I was physically exhausted at the end of the day so I slept more soundly than when I wasn’t. I want to do the same thing for work, although my schedule isn’t exactly conducive to catching the last spin classes every day.
MK
I have this type of dream every time I am stressed. While in law school, I would dream about doing my reading–taking my different colored highlighters, looking for the holding to highlight in pink, but not being able to find it. While studying for the bar exam, I would dream about reviewing my flashcards, and not being able to remember for the life of me what was on the other side. Now that I’m a litigator, whenever I have to draft something I can’t seem to get it out of my head. Writing a memo for a client? I dream about it all night, and feel like it will be good if I can just remember to add one more thing (problem is, in the dream, I can’t remember what that thing was). Preparing for a deposition? I dream about writing the deposition questions all night long, searching for the perfect “gotcha” line of questioning that I can never find. Now that my wedding is coming up, I am having dreams about things going wrong on the big day in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on, but that I could fix if I just looked a little harder….
The problem is that these dreams happen when I am so busy that I don’t have time to de-stress before bed… but then they make me less rested, less productive, less able to go to the gym, and more likely to have to stay up late the next night finishing my work! I find that tea before bed helps, as does cuddling with my sweetie… but I still have not found a perfect fix.
CKB
Physical activity like that is also a great stress reliever.
Patent Geek
I dream about work a few times a week — usually something related to patent application numbers.
In my first work dream as an attorney I was at a desk with stacks of patents printed out on shiny paper. Since the paper was so slick, the stacks were sliding and falling all over. Apparently I said “shiny patents” in my sleep, much to the amusement of my sweetie.
A few months after the bar I dreamt that the actual bar, including the trip to Roanoke to take it, was really an elaborate BarBri practice test and I had to take it again. I think I woke up from that one still believing it was the case. Worst.dream.ever.
Generally, I have very vivid, weirdly detailed dreams — I hate it, because I sometimes wake up more anxious than I was when I went to bed.
Anonymous NYer
I had horrible dreams between the barzam (stealing this word) and finding out results. My dreams are also extremely vivid, and I often had to check the date when I woke up to make sure I wasn’t still pre-exam. I used to get super disoriented after one of these dreams. Or I’d have to check my email to make sure I didn’t actually receive a failing notice.
I swear barbri was the reason for my dreams. I never felt adequate b/c I was SO far behind on their stupid study outline, that I convinced myself I was going to fail, and then I had dreams that also convinced me I would fail.
I passed. Those dreams stopped. Phew. Now I just have dreams that I’ll never get a full time job doing anything I want to do, and everyone else is happy and I’m not. Lawyering is stressful.
karenpadi
Oh goodness. I had so many dreams about taking the Bar between the Bar and the results. It was freaky.
Em
I sometimes still have dreams that it turned out they made a mistake, I actually failed the bar exam, and I have to retake it.
NEAttorney
I had the worst dreams during the bar exam. I was studying for the bar one of the summers that a new Pirates of the Carribean movie came out (one of the early ones), and I saw the movie one night as a break from studying. That night, I dreamt that Pirate Code was on the bar. I remember opening the test booklet: the first question was civil procedure, no problem; the second question was Pirate Code. In my dream, I started crying and screaming that I hadn’t studied Pirate Code! I was apparently crying and mumbling in my sleep because my husband woke me up and I cried to him that I didn’t know Pirate Code. Ah the bar exam.
Nan
Yup. Definitely had this dream…years after college. Also on popular rotation are dreams featuring (unwanted) pregnancy and miscarriages. Nighttime is no fun when stressed.
karenpadi
When I’m stressed, I have a dream that’s set in a very large mall/hotel complex. I’m always doing something different–shopping for a gray cardigan, shopping in a luxury department store for a wedding dress, driving around the multiple parking ramps/highway exits to get to the complex, running away from the complex after having robbed it, staying in the hotel and trying to find the conference room, eating in the food court and being allergic to all of the food, circling the Kohls store to find the right door to the parking lot, and many others.
I don’t know why I always return to this complex. I’m wondering if Inception might be true and someone is hijacking my dreams.
Eloise Spaghetti
I haven’t been a server (waitress) in years. But I have the same one that I have 20 tables who all need me and I have no idea what I am supposed to be getting them. I just run around like crazy and all the while knowing I am not making money because no one is going to tip.
SAB
At their worse, my stress dreams involve loved ones dying in horrible ways. One time my dad had a heart attack, one time my brother and I got into a physical fight and he died. Woke myself up sobbing sort of things. Fortunately those don’t happen much.
I tend to work through my problems in my dreams so some stressful dreams end up being helpful in a small way.
V
Ah, yes!!! The “Didn’t drop that horrible class and now I’m screwed” dream. I’ve had that dream way too many times since starting law school. Now, 6 years out, I’m still having them and many other horrible dreams night after night, like the “Getting fired” dream… or “Cheating significant other” dream… or “Being hunted down for no reason” dream… or “So scared and need to run but can’t move” dream… or “Fighting someone evil but my kicks and punches do nothing” dream… and the list goes on and on. Honestly, since I started off on this career path in law, I’ve had bad dreams almost exclusively. I can’t remember the last time I woke up and was disappointed that my dream wasn’t real (you know, like when you won the lottery, or can fly, or anything super special was happening). I miss those dreams. I hope they come back after I change careers (which will hopefully be someday soon)… I’ll just daydream at my desk in the meantime!
V
I forgot about the “I’M BLIND!!!” dream. Those may truly be the absolute worst. It usually happens mid-dream. I’m usually lost, or upset in the dream and then suddenly it’s as if someone covered my eyes… or sometimes like a serious case of bright-light eye spots… or I simply can’t open my eyes. Of course I can still hear, which just frustrates me more and I fight harder to see again while stumbling around scared. I usually wake up feeling panicked. No fun.
LLM in BsAs
It must be a regional thing…
My parents, my brother, my husband and myself have all had dreams not where we are not prepared for the final in a class, but that we are missing some class or credits to graduate!
For my mom, the MD, it’s a math class that she never had to take. I am 2 credits short in a specific area. My dad is missing some course in mechanics. My husband is missing some course in structural integrity or something of the sort for architects.
But we haven’t dreamt that we are unprepared for class, but that we cannot graduate because we are missing a class. Odd.
Sefue
Oh god, yes. I kept dreaming that as the grad school totaled up my credits to make sure I’ve got enough for my PhD, they discovered I didn’t have enough gym credits as an undergrad – so all of my degrees were invalid (BA, two Masters) and I would have to start over as an undergrad and go through all of my classwork again to work back up to my doctorate.
We were talking about stress dreams at work once, and all my coworkers had the ‘ZOMG I’m nekkid’ dreams – somehow, those never bothered me. I guess I felt like if I pretended I wasn’t nude, it was bad form for anyone else in dreamland to point it out.
anon
I had my worst bad dreams while on what should have been an incredible vacation hiking in Norway. Just before we left on the trip, I’d been very stressed at work over researching a client’s tax issues. I’d made a mistake in my interpretation of one of the IRS rules, which we’d had to correct after giving initial (and partially incorrect) advice to the client. Every time I fell asleep while on my trip, I dreamed that the vacation was governed my a complex code of regulations, and disaster would befall us if I couldn’t figure out how to comply. Very awful. Made me seriously consider another line of work!
Nonny
Does anyone have weird dreams that then actually come true later?
This happens to me occasionally and is always very unsettling. The best example was when I was in undergrad and taking a music history class. I dreamt that we were studying Mozart and discussing a performer’s interpretation of a piano sonata, and that one person in the class made a remark that was just so unusual that no-one else would have made it – she said how the performer’s piano coda was so incredible it was like having an org**m. I kind of laughed about it because it was such a weird dream. Well, just imagine two weeks later when we were listening to Mozart and that particular student made that particular comment in that particular circumstance. I couldn’t believe it – it was like the Twilight Zone. Has this ever happened to anyone else? *How* does it happen?
AIMS
Not sure how it happens, but it happens to me from time to time. Very recently, I had a very specific dream about my coworker I don’t know too well and everything in the dream ended up happening in real life. Very odd detailed stuff. I even considered telling her but my SO told me that there’s nothing creepier than someone at work telling you they had a dream about you, so probably best to leave it unsaid.
NOLA
They’re called precognition dreams (found that out from my psychologist ex). Mine are about really stupid and unimportant things. Nothing as good as dreaming about winning lottery numbers! Like I’m sitting around talking with my family and my brother has kids, but at the time IRL my brother didn’t have kids. Years later, I have a deja vu when I realize that it’s what I dreamed.
CKB
I have these dreams too – not about anything important, and I don’t even remember the dream until I’m in the situation and then I remember dreaming about it days/weeks/months/years earlier.
Godzilla
Yeah, I have these, too. The very specific ones, down to the words and gestures and also more general ones. I’ve dreamt that people I hadn’t spoken to in years got pregnant or married and it has always come true. Really weird.
JAM
Sunday my husband and I were in the yard gardening and he couldn’t remember the word for pansies. He kept calling them posies and poppies and I made fun of him and he squirted me with the hose. The minute the water hit me I had that deja vu feeling but I dismissed it.
But a few years ago my husband gave me a journal and asked me to start recording my dreams and there it was, 18 months ago I had dreamed that exact thing happening. We didn’t have any pansies planted until 12 months ago.
I also have crazy dreams that come true in part. I dreamed my dog’s swollen leg shriveled up and took her life away and then in real life she died the next day while I was at school and I dreamed my fish was eaten by a bear and in reality woke up and he was dead in his bowl. I also dreamed I ate cancer, it got stuck in my throat and tasted like lifesavers. The next month I was diagnosed with cancer and the lymph nodes were in my neck area (right by the throat) and at a cancer get-well party a friend gave me a pack of lifesavers to help with the dry mouth she heard chemo caused. I almost dropped the bag the moment I connected the dots, I was so freaked out.
Jen
My mom had a dream like this once–when she was in grade school, she dreamt that a friend of hers had a seizure while juimping rope on the playground. Several weeks later, the friend had a seizure while jumping rope–the first seizure she ever had, so not something my mom could have possibly known might happen.
NightTrain
College class, last-minute, where the hell is it and why haven’t I been there all semester? Check.
On the road, don’t know when my flight home is and I haven’t packed yet, plus a bunch of new stuff needs to go with me? Check!
Teeth falling out? Check! (Weird – when all those years of stress takes its toll on your teeth, and they start chipping. Word to the wise, ladies.)
Here are some new ones for y’all’s enjoyment and comparison:
* Passenger in driverless car (only in childhood while I lived with surviving mentally ill parent)
* Ownership of old rental property we sold years ago reverts to us so WE have to get all the stuff cleared out and ready for rental or preferably sale (and there’s food decaying in the turned-off fridge).
* (Variation on the school dream) I’m back in one of my old stressful, pressure-cooker media jobs. Showtime’s approaching but I don’t know how to use the new equipment (TV), and I don’t know anyone on my beat but my deadline’s coming up fast and everyone in the newsroom hates me (newspaper).
* My pets are in danger.
OHCFO
Similar dream but the twist for me is that I’m trying to buy the books for the class and I think I can find them, but then I can’t and I spend forever and a day searching for them.
Just one of my many “can’t find the thing I’m desparately looking for” stress dreams.
JK
My stress dream that recurred the most was one about my wedding. [sidenote: I was engaged for the second two years of law school, and then got married right after the bar exam]. I didn’t feel like my wedding planning was that stressful because I had a long engagement, so I think it must have been the law school and bar exam stress manifesting itself into a wedding dream since I was thinking about it a lot.
For some reason the dreams ALWAYS revolved around one of two things:
-Not having any shoes to wear (like we’re getting ready and I realize I have no shoes to wear with my wedding gown and I have to go like right now)
-Not having anyone to do my hair and I frantically try to put my own hair up in an updo right before the wedding starts
Weird, right?
Anonaroo
Definitely have the unprepared exam dream, but I get another one pretty frequently where I just didn’t go to work that day and never called in, until around 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon when either I realize I forgot to go to work or my boss called looking for me. And I have no reason for not calling in or not showing up – I just forgot!
ADB_BWG
I did forget to go to work one day – didn’t set the alarm, woke up late, puttered around, and while having coffee and reading the newspaper realized it wasn’t Saturday or Sunday.
SouthLA
Usually my stress related dreams have to do with me needing to get somewhere and not being able to walk or even crawl – it is so scary. But last week, I had a dream that I had a six month old baby that had basically survived with little care from me for 6 months before it finally clicked that the baby was mine and that i wanted and needed to love and care for it. It was like I was completely checked out of being a parent. I wonder why I would have that dream? I’ve been married less than a year and my hubby and I want to enjoy the DINK lifestyle a few more years before starting a family, although I daydream about my future babies often.
SF Bay Associate
Just remembered my other reoccurring nightmare, which perhaps only the lawyer corporettes will appreciate: I’m responsible for the document production in a big case. It’s my job to design the tagging criteria for documents that go out, e.g. docs tagged responsive, not document-level privileged, not family-level privileged, whatever. I give the green light, the production of hundreds of thousands of documents runs, and gets produced to the other side. And then, too late, I realize that I screwed up on the criteria somehow, forgot to exclude a category of documents that needed to be excluded, and now it’s my fault that privileged documents were produced. I am professionally F’d, and now I have to go tell Senior Partner that I am a Failure. Sometimes my subconscious isn’t subtle at all. In real life, I get a huge pit in my stomach every time I green light a production.
Miriam
Had the missed class dream for years, during the semester, I knew that I was missing classes, but couldn’t find my schedule or books, didn’t know where I was supposed to be, didn’t get to the class, same dream, repeat.
I have had witchy dreams, in which something I’d dreamt later happened. One time, I had a vivid negative threatening dream about the scene outside a particular window in a particular room of house; In real life, sometime later, was looking for a country house with ex, and the agent showed us slides of houses he wanted us to see [it was in olden times. One of those slides was exactly the scene of that dream. When I said I didn’t really want to consider that house, agent and ex kept pushing for a reason, so I finally told them. Ex was furious that I would say something so crazy.
Another time, I dreamt that my sister was in the back seat of a car, and suddenly there was a brick wall in front of us. Later that day, awake, I learned that my sister had been in an accident in a taxi that skidded on one of the cross-town Central Park roads, the taxi hit a brick wall, and she was in the hospital [she was OK].
I’ve had others, and just accept the fact that I’m a witch.