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Have you ever had a dream that comes back in slightly different forms over and over again at regular intervals, maybe once or twice a year or every couple of months?
Mine is the "Failure Dream" where when the dream starts I'm on a university campus and instantly I know I am enrolled in a Ph.D. program. Then next second I suddenly realize that I have been enrolled in several classes all year and I have not attended even one of them! They are usually in advanced subjects that I would not be prepared for in real life, like Quantum Physics.
And the next second I realize that the final exam is in only a few days. The situation is hopeless. Deep down I realize there is no way I can pass this class. If I found myself in such a bizarre situation in real life I don't know what I would do, but I know I would cut bait and go home because there's just no way. But in the dream I start frantically trying to prepare, even when I see that page one of the book we're using is years beyond my mathematical knowledge. My anxiety increases and I see the angry face of the professor in my mind's eye, the other students staring at me as if I were insane. I begin to panic out of control and that's usually when the dream ends.
Sometimes I attend several horrifying lectures where I find out how lost I am and how impossible each class will be able to pass at this point. And the worst form of the dream is when I further realize that I have been doing this every semester for several years and this is the first time I've realized or remembered it. So I know my transcript from the start of grad school will be littered with Fs in every subject and that I have somehow escaped being kicked out of the university yet. I wonder if by some miracle my own thesis supervisor doesn't know yet that I am failing. Or perhaps she is just being tactful. Or she's waiting for me to come to her. Either way I live in dread waiting to see her and have her tell me I have failed!
Once in a while for variety, my mind changes this dream to another, similar scenario. In this one I arrive at a theater the day a new show is to begin. It's too soon for the audience to be let in, so the actors, director, stagehands, etc. are either scurrying around making last minute changes or sitting in the seats practicing their lines with each other holding scripts (this wouldn't make sense in real life because they'd all know their lines by now and likely wouldn't rehearse at the last minute.) I am there to volunteer in some way to help the production. A minute after I arrive someone notices me and says, "Great, you're here! I hope you've memorized all your lines because you're going in for {Actress} because she's sick." That's when I realize that I was actually cast in this play months before and have never seen the script, never shown up for a single rehearsal and have no idea how to act the role. Then someone else tells me, "Curtain in 20 minutes!"
I grab a script and look at the role I am supposed to play and I see it has hundreds of lines. I consider simply bolting from the theater and never speaking to anyone again. I have terrible stage fright as it is, let alone without knowing my lines. The original person comes back and says, "Remember, if you leave now it will cancel the whole play for everyone. It can't go on without you. Everyone who has worked so hard will have to go home, not to mention the audiences who have been buying tickets for the season!" I immediately start trying to cram the lines, repeating them out loud several times, and not remembering even one of them a second later. I look at the clock and there are 12 minutes till curtain and go into a full blown panic attack. This is when I wake up.
