canyonwalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
canyonwalker) wrote2023-06-22 08:18 pm
canyonwalker) wrote2023-06-22 08:18 pm
Entry tags:
Anxiety Dreams - Most People Have Them
I had a weird dream the other night. I was back in graduate school. Except it wasn't, "Hey, I'm 22 again and working toward my degree," it was, "Hey, I'm today years old and I've gone back to grad school to earn another degree." Today-me in grad school was miserable. I hated it. And I didn't even know why I was there! I even poured out my heart in a phone call to my wife, "I don't know why I ever chose to go back to graduate school. It's ridiculous. I had a successful career and could have retired early in a few more years. Now I've thrown that away and am spending money instead of earning it!"
Dreams like this are called anxiety dreams. I've had them occasionally since high school. Common themes in them are being late, being unprepared, not knowing where you are, and not knowing what/why you're doing something or being forced against your will to do it. For years nobody I talked to about them told me they're normal— not my parents, not my close friends. "You're just an anxious person," people I trusted told me. Then I learned a year or so ago I'm normal.
I learned that in a radio interview on NPR. They were interviewing a psychologist who specializes in dreams. She acknowledged, with the authority of her broad research, what I'd suspected all along: that having anxiety dreams, on occasion, is normal. And she noted that for people who attended college and especially graduate school, the dreams frequently revolve around being unprepared for classes. That's been a theme of several of my anxiety dreams. I'm in school, there's a class with a major assignment due or an exam today, and I haven't attended the class in so long that I don't even remember where the classroom is. 😱
BTW it's not just college stress that haunts highly educated people years later. In another interview on NPR, neuroscientist Robert Strickgold explained that Olympic athletes have anxiety dreams about being unprepared for their sport. They're getting into a crouch at the starting line when they realize they've forgotten to put on their uniform or forgotten to bring their equipment.
Unfortunately I don't have a link for the interview I heard months ago. I've searched several times but can't find a transcript or even the name of the scientist interviewed. I know it's not Strickgold as given in the second example above (transcripts of a few of his NPR interviews came up in the search) because he's a dude and the other person I heard is a gal. Maybe struggling to find that citation so I don't fail a class will be the subject of a future anxiety dream. 😂
Dreams like this are called anxiety dreams. I've had them occasionally since high school. Common themes in them are being late, being unprepared, not knowing where you are, and not knowing what/why you're doing something or being forced against your will to do it. For years nobody I talked to about them told me they're normal— not my parents, not my close friends. "You're just an anxious person," people I trusted told me. Then I learned a year or so ago I'm normal.
I learned that in a radio interview on NPR. They were interviewing a psychologist who specializes in dreams. She acknowledged, with the authority of her broad research, what I'd suspected all along: that having anxiety dreams, on occasion, is normal. And she noted that for people who attended college and especially graduate school, the dreams frequently revolve around being unprepared for classes. That's been a theme of several of my anxiety dreams. I'm in school, there's a class with a major assignment due or an exam today, and I haven't attended the class in so long that I don't even remember where the classroom is. 😱
BTW it's not just college stress that haunts highly educated people years later. In another interview on NPR, neuroscientist Robert Strickgold explained that Olympic athletes have anxiety dreams about being unprepared for their sport. They're getting into a crouch at the starting line when they realize they've forgotten to put on their uniform or forgotten to bring their equipment.
Unfortunately I don't have a link for the interview I heard months ago. I've searched several times but can't find a transcript or even the name of the scientist interviewed. I know it's not Strickgold as given in the second example above (transcripts of a few of his NPR interviews came up in the search) because he's a dude and the other person I heard is a gal. Maybe struggling to find that citation so I don't fail a class will be the subject of a future anxiety dream. 😂
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It didn't provoke feelings of anxiety, though, more confusion and annoyance.
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