Share Exam Dreams & Teeth Loosening Nightmares Here!

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The discussion centers around the phenomenon of exam-related dreams, which many participants experience even years after their last exam. Common themes include feelings of inadequacy, such as being unprepared with illegible notes or textbooks, and the surreal experience of retaking exams for courses long completed. Participants share specific instances, like dreaming about a German exam or struggling with math in engineering classes, highlighting the bizarre nature of these dreams. Additionally, there are mentions of other recurring dreams, such as losing teeth or flying, often interpreted as reflections of subconscious thoughts or bodily needs. The conversation notes a lack of scientific understanding regarding the meanings of dreams, suggesting that while dream interpretations abound, they often lack empirical support.
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strangerep said:
If I tried to do a serious exam now under time pressure I'd probably collapse with a heart attack.

This led me to wonder how many people here have exam dreams, maybe even years or decades after they last had to sit an exam? Share your wierd or amusing exam dreams here!

Apart from the actual exam itself, I often dream that I am enrolled for some course with an exam looming soon. My class notes and text books are illegible, incomprehensible or just falling to tatters. Plus I somehow can't find my room in the students' hostel.

As an aside, how many people have "teeth loosening and about to fall off" dreams? For me these are highly reaslistic, in terms of how it feels to rotate slightly and press the hanging tooth into place with one's tongue.
 
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It must be a common dream; I certainly have them fairly often. It is not so much a feeling of panic about the upcoming exam, it's usually more of a feeling of dissapointment that I didn't schedule my studying well, and missed lots of assignments because I was too busy with other classes or other things.

No big deal; wake up and realize that it was a dream, and dismiss it and go back to sleep.
 
Swamp Thing said:
This led me to wonder how many people here have exam dreams, maybe even years or decades after they last had to sit an exam?
Yes, I have similar recurring exam dreams, though not very often. It's always my year-12 German exam (which is curious because that material has now mostly evaporated from my memory through non-use). Then, in the dream, I ask myself: "Why am I doing this exam again? I already did it and got a good grade". Bizarre.

Swamp Thing said:
Apart from the actual exam itself, I often dream that I am enrolled for some course with an exam looming soon. My class notes and text books are illegible, incomprehensible or just falling to tatters.
One time I dreamed I was doing Hons Elec Eng again, but couldn't follow any of the math in the class. This is seriously bizarre because math was one of my strongest assets during Elec Eng. (I'd previously completed Hons Applied Math.)

Swamp Thing said:
As an aside, how many people have "teeth loosening and about to fall off" dreams?
I've never had that, but I occasionally have dreams of another... "appendage" that becomes detachable. :eek:

Then there's the endless rising/raging water dreams, but at my age that's just my subconscious telling me I need to wake up and visit the bathroom. :oldfrown:

More recently, my water dreams have become populated with fearsomely huge monsters patrolling the murky depths. (Yes, that's just another variant of "you need to visit the bathroom".) :oldsmile:

Then there's the oft-recurring dreams where I'm able to fly, sometimes by willpower but more often by a swimming action or flapping my arms. Maybe I was bird in a previous life. :olduhh:

Unfortunately, there seems to be no scientifically-sound studies of what dreams mean - in the sense of what different types of dreams are correlated with in the person's body or experience. All the dream lore I could find seems to be just crackpot stories, without any foundation in evidence.

The human brain/mind is truly bizarre.
 
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