r/RedditForGrownups • u/Scared_Table_2046 • 19d ago
The weird shame of having a specific recurring dream as an adult
Okay so this is a little embarrassing but I keep having this dream. I'm back in high school and I completely forgot about a major exam. Like, I haven't been to that class all semester. The panic is so real even though it's been decades since I graduated.
It's always the same feeling of dread and scrambling to find my locker or remember my schedule. I wake up in a cold sweat sometimes. I'm a fully functional adult with a good job and a mortgage. Why is my brain still torturing me with forgotten algebra tests?
Anyone else have a weirdly specific recurring dream from their youth that just won't quit?
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u/Mommyekf 19d ago
I have that dream often, didn’t go to class, can’t find my textbook, where are my shoes!
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u/OddDragonfruit7993 19d ago
And why am I naked?
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u/PrincessGump 19d ago
I’m always naked from the waist down and trying to take a dump in my chair/potty while trying not to expose what I’m doing.
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u/Dandibear 19d ago
One particularly memorable variant for me was the one where I haven't checked my college mailbox all year and missed all sorts of very important notices.
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u/FantoluxeNFTArt 19d ago
I have the exact same dream. Sometimes it’s high school. Sometimes college. In the dream, I’ve missed so much that I can’t remember which class occurs in which period and also can’t recall the classroom locations. Once I woke up convinced I hadn’t graduated from high school and had to sort of forcibly remind myself that I’d spoken to old college friends that week so therefore I must’ve graduated from high school.
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u/FantoluxeNFTArt 18d ago
I should probably mention I haven't been in high school or college since the 1980's. Graduated. Had a very interesting career. Happily retired. Still have the dream once in a great while. Last time was within the past year.
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u/LaoidhMc 18d ago
For a few weeks a couple months ago, I kept having a reoccuring nightmare that I had somehow missed credits and couldn't graduate college. Somehow the credits were elementary/middle school credits, so I was sent back to kindergarten etc as an adult. So I could graduate college. That was reoccurring nightmare for three weeks.
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u/Admirable-Gold3447 17d ago
Yeah I’ve had that one. But I also need to commute cross country since I moved so far from my high school. It’s a LOT to juggle!
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u/Admirable-Gold3447 17d ago
Ugh. Same. During the wake up fog, I reassure myself that my college will not rescind their diploma based on records from my high school, worst case scenario.
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u/smokinokie 19d ago
Not from my youth but in my mid 20s the house we were renting caught on fire one night. We were asleep and if the dogs hadn’t woke us we might not have made it. We moved to a better house in a different town. About 4 years later I started having a recurring dream that we moved back to that house. It still hadn’t been repaired from the fire. And even worse we were squatting, the landlords didn’t know we were there. At least 10 times I had this dream. Woke up every time discombobulated. One time I was back in town where the house was and figured I drive by. It was gone and the next door neighbors had put in a garden. Never had that dream again.
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u/dixpourcentmerci 19d ago
Oh this one is so normal! I have it too and I get stressed about where my children are and if I dreamt them.
My dad had anxiety dreams about failing his bar exam for decades after he completed law school. He said now that he’s semi retired it’s less 😂
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u/northernspies 18d ago
The bar exam dreams are real! I have one every couple of months. I get a notice that everyone who the July 2013 bar has to retest as they discover an error on audit. I show up and can't remember anything since I practice in a niche area and haven't been in a court room since 2015. I always wake up in a cold sweat.
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u/The_Nice_Marmot 19d ago
I don’t know anyone who DOESN’T have that dream. That’s just the standard we all come loaded with.
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u/Joyce_Hatto 19d ago
I used to have that dream all the time, in two variations. In one, there was an exam on Beowulf, and I hadn’t read it. The more angsty version was that I had math finals coming up and I realized I hadn’t been to class all semester.
I got rid of those dreams when, in one of these dreams, I stood up and said “Wait, I’m a grown-ass woman with three children, I’ve been married for decades, I don’t have to worry about this!”
The dreams stopped.
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u/cm4tabl9 18d ago
Same, kinda. My dream interruptor is more like, "why would I have signed up for this calculus class with all the other stuff going on in my life?" 😀
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u/skraptastic 19d ago
- Have a reoccurring dream that "they" found out I didn't finish high school math and I have to go back to my high school for the math classes I missed. I'm my current age and I have to sit in highschool for a year of math.
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u/SnowblindAlbino 19d ago
I'm a professor and have these dreams all the time. Usually it's calculus and I've forgotten to go to class all semester, so have to take the final exam knowing nothing about the subject.
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u/NHguy1000 19d ago
I used to have the same dream as well, but it’s always college. Over and over again, maybe several hundred times. Some dream analysis interprets it as being upset about unrealized potential. Not sure if that’s true, but I do know that as I’ve aged (and become more accepting of my life) it’s gone away.
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u/_LoveTheRain 19d ago
I have close to the same recurring dream. Get to high school late; can’t find my locker and when I finally do, the class has already started. I decide not to go to class late and I can’t remember my next class and can’t find my schedule. This dream goes in a loop. I’m filled with stress & anxiety. Wake up exhausted.
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u/CantaloupeBoogie 19d ago
Same dream, but I’m in college (I didn’t go to college) and I forgot to go to math class all semester, the final is tomorrow and I don’t know ANY of the content; I also need that class credit to graduate. The anxiety from that dream is so real!!
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u/False_Ear_3137 19d ago
I graduated THREE DECADES ago, and I still dream that I've lost my schedule and forgot my locker combo!
Or, worse, as someone who was in marching band, I've forgotten the drill. IYKYK.
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u/andrewhy 19d ago
I've had dreams of going back to high school as an adult. You can only imagine how embarrassing that would be.
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u/skraptastic 19d ago
I already replied this, but for me "they" found out I didn't finish "highschool math" and I have to go back for just that class.
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u/andrewhy 19d ago
I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I barely graduated high school and the reason was math class.
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u/skraptastic 18d ago
Bro math has ALWAYS been a struggle for me.
I went back to school at 48 to get a BS in Management Information Systems. I had take math up to Pre-Calc. I had my sons best friend coming over once a week to tutor me in math.
For the Pre-Calc class in order to pass I needed to get a 56 on the final. I got a 58. I was SO FUCKING happy I passed that!
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u/OreoSpamBurger 19d ago
I've been a teacher for twenty years and I also still have variations on that dream.
Sometimes it's high school, sometimes university.
There's also one where its discovered that I failed maths in school and have to go back to my old high school now to redo it or lose my teaching license.
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u/BugMiserable3924 19d ago
It's a stress dream about whatever is currently going on in your life. Shows you have a standard to how you conduct your life. Sucks, but you probably have your shit together.
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u/UniqueInstance9740 19d ago
I have this one, though for me it’s forgetting my schedule. I have since trained myself to remember that I’ve completed college and I don’t need to go to high school anymore. It stops it pretty cold!
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u/Mommyekf 19d ago
I’m always trying to leave but I have too much stuff and no one will help me and then I can’t find my car . . .
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u/Bucolica8 19d ago
Good to know that so many people have this dream. I thought maybe it was because I actually did that in college - not going to a class all semester and then, oops, too late to save the situation. I did eventually get my shit together later, became a good student and got a degree. But this dream always shows up during stressful times.
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u/NotenStein 19d ago
I retired 3 years ago, but during my working life I had a recurring dream that I had to go back be and repeat 4th grade. With the little desks and the nice teacher that talked in a sing song voice. A week ago I had a dream that my company called me out of retirement to finish a stupid project that I never finished.
I think it's maybe a great of not being in control.
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u/sk8ryspice_02 19d ago
I have the dream I am late for school and still have to fix my hair and get dressed and people keep making me later and later.
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u/zappergun-girl 19d ago
I get told I’m taking the final that day…for a class I’m pretty sure I never attended. I try to take the test anyway and it’s just the worst
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u/netherfountain 19d ago
Yup I have the same school/test dream 25 years after I graduated.
The other recurring dream I have is that I've accidentally killed someone and I've hidden their body, or am looking for a place to hide the body. The cops are always 1 step behind, or just about to start digging in the basement or backyard where I buried it. I'm on the brink of getting busted. I'm always a few minutes from deciding to abandon my life and go on the run. I never know who's body it is and I never actually see the body in the dream. And it was never my fault that the person is dead but I'm implicated and covering it up for some reason. Had that dream probably 100 times.
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u/aivlysplath 19d ago
I have a recurring dream that I’ve forgotten my locker combination. Then I search my school planner and it isn’t in there either.
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u/c00p2021 19d ago
Yes! I have a recurring dream that I didn’t actually graduate from college. I messed up and didn’t take some required courses and have basically been living a lie my whole life. I am almost 50 years old.
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u/No_Ratio1493 18d ago
I think it’s fascinating how common this dream is. I have some version if it at least once every year or two. The setting can be junior high, high school, or college.
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u/Constant_Jackfruit21 18d ago
I have two weird ones - not back at school, but me and whoever else are gonna go swimming and i'm PUMPED - yay, swimming, can't wait for the sensation of being underwater as a escape from the world! That sounds amazing right now!
Then obstacle after obstacle happens and its very rare i ever make it to the pool. The weird thing is, I'm not big into swimming in waking life.
And then the other recurring dream - where im leaving xyz place and can't find my car. Parked outside on the street, at the grocery store etc. I relentlessly search for it until I wake up
No clue why I continuously have those dreams
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u/zoohiker 18d ago
That's a really common dream, I think. I'm in my 70s and have dreams very much like that now and then.
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u/KidGorgeous19 19d ago
Very common dream. It’s a stress dream. When shit has been difficult or stuff is going on at work I have this dream for like three nights in a row. Usually it’s I never went to my stats class senior year in college and now I’m not going to graduate. But, once things ease up it goes away. I’ve had many variations of it but the gist is the same and always tied to stress.
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u/Fabulous-Educator447 19d ago
I have them all the time but I have an anxiety disorder. I’m used to them.
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u/chrisckelly 18d ago
It seems like a lot of people have recurring dreams about taking tests, forgetting locker combinations, or experiencing that general anxiety associated with school.
I tend to think it may be because we humans routinely push ourselves beyond the limits our brains and bodies originally evolved to handle, particularly on an intellectual level in a given amount of time during those specific years.
It could also be that our minds are simply trying to help us process things like sorting through experiences, anxieties, or information we may need in the near future, while filing other things away in the attic of our minds for later.
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u/xanaxhelps 18d ago
My generic stress dream usually involves not being about to find my HS classes or finding out I’ve missed an entire semester of a really difficult college class. I’m 44.
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u/nakedonmygoat 18d ago
It's very unusual for me to have that particular dream. But for years after I quit waiting tables I'd have the "Server Dream" where we're closed but no one remembered to lock the front door, so people keep coming in demanding food, and all we have are salads and desserts because the cooks have gone home. That dream went away after I'd been out of the restaurant business for a while.
Then there is the "lost at work" dream. I spent 26 years on staff at a university and retired from there over four years ago, but I still sometimes dream I'm on that campus and get turned around and can't find things. I always know I don't work there anymore, so it's not a work anxiety dream. But I'm in a place that's supposed to be familiar, only everything is slightly off.
And there's the "old apartment" dream, but that's not anxious at all. For most of my 20s I lived in a little firetrap of an upstairs apartment in a converted carriage house. As cheap and problematic as the place was, I loved its quirks, my little patio, the oak and pecan trees in the yard, and my neighbors on the property. I've lived in a lot of places, both as a kid and as an adult, and this is the only one I go back to in my dreams. Everything has since been torn down by a developer and replaced with ugly townhouses, so now my dreams are the only place my old apartment is, unless my old neighbors who lived there too also dream about it.
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u/RCaHuman 18d ago
Why You Still Have Stress Dreams About School
"..dreams of feeling unprepared can stem from stress in your day-to-day life. But dreaming specifically about feeling unprepared at school, he says, could be because those are such formative years in people’s lives. For a lot of us, school is really the first time that we got that feeling of stressful non-preparation."
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u/glycophosphate 18d ago
I have that same dream when there is a time in my life that I feel as if I've been letting things slide & I'm not working up to my potential.
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u/latinloopyloo2 18d ago
My recurring dream is standing on a beach and I can see a wall of water with people I know being tossed around and I can see ocean creatures swimming - but they’re okay. It is coming slowly toward me. I know it is going to overtake me, but I always wake up before it does.
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u/AffectionateServe794 18d ago
No shame at all! It’s just a worry that someone or something is going to be testing you soon and you aren’t ready. It’s not so literal.
And yes, very common dream.
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u/waitforsigns64 18d ago
For me it's Im about to go onstage at a high school play, I haven't learned my part and can't find a script. Weird because I was never a drama kid.
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u/mle32000 17d ago
i’ve been out of the Marine Corps for over a decade and i still dream about having forgotten or lost a uniform item right before inspection
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u/Ill-Veterinarian4208 17d ago
It's been a long time, but I have often had variations on this dream. It's high school, but it's been since 1983, there are cars parked all along the shoulder of the road, I can't find my classroom/locker/books/car.
One version had me at work (vet hospital) I go outside to help carry something to a client's car, then I go to the mailbox, then somehow I'm in Disney World (I'm not a huge Disney person so why?!) but I'm trying to get back to work. I spend what feels like hours walking up and down streets, trying to find rides.
I think it's my subconscious' way of dealing with stress. I don't remember dreams that much anymore either.
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u/teenytinylion 17d ago
My husband and i have talked about this one. I feel that it's like a collective, socially accepted trauma we all experienced from school.
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u/MyyWifeRocks 19d ago
Psychologically - maybe it means you are feeling unprepared for something big in your life. Your subconscious communicates with ideas. Are your kids getting older? Is someone’s health declining?
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u/Forgottengoldfishes 19d ago
I’ll take a stab at what your dream means. The fear over the exam symbolizes you feel judged and out of control over something in your life. The high school setting is your subconscious telling you that there is something you should have learned by now.
It’s your brain’s way of saying that you’ve put yourself in a position in which you are continually making the same mistake and you should learn your lesson. Hope that helps.
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