The reoccurring dream where you are back in University and failing your courses

[Deleted member 56266]

You're moving through hallways or on campus, feeling like you just got back to school after some sort of break. Though you're the only one who took this break. Everyone else knows what they're doing.

Your mind is racing trying to remember where exactly your classes are and you find yourself in a classroom when it hits you that you haven't attended this class in months for whatever reason. Did you forget about it? You see the professor is handing out an exam….will you pass this semester or not?

There are other variations but does anyone else here get these dreams (nightmares) every once in a while? Lol I graduated from university about 6 years ago but from time to time I wake up extremely stressed from dreams like this. A couple of my friends told me they also experienced similar dreams.

 

[StraySheep]

Your mind is racing trying to remember where exactly your classes are and you find yourself in a classroom when it hits you that you haven't attended this class in months for whatever reason

Click to shrink...

This is the exact dream I sometimes get. Which is crazy because that is fairly specific compared to "I am failing my classes" or something. Why are we all experiencing this??

 

[GerruFin]

Get dreams like that for more then 10 years

 

[Euler007]

Graduated 21 years ago and still have them. In reality I had taken an extended internship which pushed back my graduation by one semester, so I had spread out the courses over one more semester to graduate in may instead of december. In the nightmare I've failed midterms badly and the final is 2-3 days away and I don't see a way to possibly catch up, which means I will have to come back to university the year after, which for some reason is the end of the world.

 

[pbayne]

Yep ive had this where i suddenly get worried about the big test tomorrow or some shit. And i wasnt even someone who really sweat schoolwork or test or anything ever.

 

[Dan Thunder]

Think pretty much everyone has these dreams. They're generally just about some current anxiety you're experiencing IRL.

 

[Pirateluigi]

The "I haven't attended this class in months" dream is a very specific one I have often. And I only ever have it about undergrad and never grad school. Almost 20 years later and a masters degree in hand, I still have anxiety dreams about undergrad classes.

 

[JimNastics]

I get these dreams for school, college and University.... and I left that 22 years ago. It is ridiculous. I had one about High School last week where I was worrying about if I would keep in touch with friends when we left school, so slightly different to the failing exams / haven't done homework type ones I normally get.

 

[Guppeth]

This is what I was like at university so it'd be more of a memory than a dream.

I did not graduate.

 

[345]

i'm in my mid-30s and i still get this exact same thing.

i always blamed it on forgetting to sign up for an entire term of seminars one year at university, but turns out that millions of competent students have identical dreams too

 

[Lafazar]

Obligatory:

 

[Deleted member 56266]

The feeling of waking up from these dreams is unmatched tbh

 

[two_headed_boy]

The final is tomorrow, you haven't attended class in forever and if you fail you can't graduate.

Yeah, I still get these dreams almost 10 years later.

 

[Lotus]

Oh god yes, I've had this dream quite a lot over the years

 

[Neon Octopus]

Mine is high school. I still have my masters degree and job but my high school discovered that I didn't actually have the credits necessary to graduate. It then usually splits into 1. trying to figure which/how many classes I should enroll in and being worried about being the oldest one there and 2. an impending final exam for a class that I haven't attended in 20 years.

 

[Kurita]

The feeling of waking up from these dreams is unmatched tbh

Click to shrink...

Yuuuuup
"Yeeees, fuck you I'm never going back!"

 

[Lafazar]

Also obligatory:

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lvDFJVUaXUI

 

[Strings]

View: https://youtu.be/0g7VoRQPswg?t=23

Also obligatory:

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lvDFJVUaXUI

Click to shrink...

 

[thewienke]

I got this bad because I had a couple bad semesters where I dropped out a few times and actually did stop attending classes for a few weeks before going back a couple of times.

I often get the "where do I even sit?" bit more than the "oh no it's exam day" thing. Because yeah there's no assigned seating but there's unspoken assigned seating and I dread sitting in someone's seat.

Just had this dream last night about some kind of dance class and you had to have a routine prepared as the final project. Which was really weird since I would never take such a class.

 

[Fatalah]

Also obligatory:

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lvDFJVUaXUI

Click to shrink...

I've never seen this before! Hilarious!

 

[Persephone]

I always dream there's some kind of issue with my degree that means I have to go back to high school with all the embarrassment of being nearly 30 surrounded by teenyboppers. And then I realise I forgot the crucial end of semester assignment that's due that afternoon and my old English teacher is Very Disappointed in me.

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

The version of this I get is that I get my final exam schedule and I'm scheduled for a final for a class I thought I dropped, but I actually never did and have just been skipping all semester.

 

[Steven]

Yep, I forgot about the class and now I have an exam - I'm in my final semester and this is the last class I need to graduate, if I don't get the credits for it, I won't be getting my degree.

I have this dream once every two months or so. Got my degree long time ago lol.

 

[Couleurs]

Occasionally

"Wait I've been working in this field for over a decade, why am in this class"

 

[JCR]

Not anymore.

Had some minor dreams with the usual late for an exam, or missing a deadline etc. But I used to get some bad recurring dreams where I was convinced I had missed a whole module somehow. It almost became a false memory, it was a little scary.

 

[GameOver]

Are there any studies about this dream? I remember having the exact same dream when I was in college.

 

[Wilsongt]

My dream is that I signed up for a course but never attended it and am freaking out.

 

[Isilia]

I enjoy the "wait, what?" I always do when I wake up from these.

How did my subconscious believe that I failed to even attend an English course all year

 

[Septimus]

Once every couple years or so! So crazy that it's so common lol.

 

[GenericBadGuy]

I found a way to completely get rid of this dream, and apparently it's to serve in the military. Now I've only ever had nightmares I'm back in the Army, lol.

 

[BassForever]

My version of those is that I'm about to lose my internship/real job because I'm going to fail a class that I need to graduate.

 

[Doggg]

It doesn't help that something like this actually happened to me in real life, but that's probably my most common nightmare.

 

[G_Shumi]

Yep, I still get these dreams occasionally, and I graduated from university more than 10 years ago. I hate them. Lol.

 

[Vommy]

Never had them, but my ex had them at least 2 times per week. She never failed any courses though.

 

[tokkun]

This is the exact dream I sometimes get. Which is crazy because that is fairly specific compared to "I am failing my classes" or something. Why are we all experiencing this??

Click to shrink...

"I am failing my classes" is an expression of stress. You know something is going wrong and you need to deal with it.

"I enrolled in a class and forgot to go" is an expression of anxiety. You have a feeling that something bad is happening, but that you won't know about it until it's too late.

 

[SplitYourInfinities]

Happens a lot when I'm stressed. My version of it is that I realise I haven't passed all courses so I need to go back and do an exam 💀

 

[MIMIC]

I had a dream last night where I was taking a pretty tough exam.

Holy shit was I relived when I woke up this morning lol

 

[Lobster Roll]

My version of this dream is forgetting to enroll in classes or forgetting what my class schedule is. And I can't believe they still happen at my grown ass age.

 

[coldzone24]

My nightmare isn't exactly that I'm failing, but that I had forgotten about a course I had signed up for and never bothered attending. I'll wake up trying to remember which class it was until I remember that I graduated years ago.

 

[Arukado]

I had something similar for a while (a year or two) after graduating: first i was super worried because i still needed some credits from optatives subjects and i was running out of time, but then realized progresively that i was already graduated.

 

[DrFunk]

It's basically PTSD.

I graduated college in 2006 and still have those dreams occasionally lol

 

[glaurung]

I get these stress streams and it's been decades since I got my degree. Well, my college years were more stressful than they should have been, so there's that.

I don't really mind the dreams, I mind my mind's confusion that persists for those brief minutes between stopping dreaming and becoming fully awake. Because in those minutes, I am still convinced that I am back at school, late for an exam, late to hand in a paper, late for a class etc. I guess it is the trauma that a college education successfully gives you for life.

 

[Saiyaman]

I've had a lot of dreams about being back in high school and recently had one about college. They've never been about failing a test or class, though. The college-related dream was about me visiting some made-up campus, which had some great programs and made me want to enroll and go back to school.

I wonder if that's my subconscious trying to tell me something 🤔

 

[L Thammy]

The version I've gotten is that there's some clerical error and my degree wasn't actually valid, so I have to go back. I'd still prefer it to some other recurring dreams I've had, though.

 

[Sarcastico]

I very frequently have similar dreams to the ones in the OP.

Actually, today I dreamt that I didn't really graduate high school and had to go back to repeat some subjects. Made me very anxious lol.

 

[Zachary_Games]

The I registered for a class and somehow forgot about it, fuck what am I going to do dream has been a reoccurring dream of mine for years lol. Happy to report I haven't had it in a while.

I've that similar versions of this dream in other ways. Used to get it when I worked as a server in the restaurant industry.

 

[behOemoth]

I had this kind of dreams for quite some time!
It was really strange, after I received my master's diploma, and had sometimes these bad dreams where I had not completed all the required courses, I really had to think about whether I had not finished studying after all.

 

[Chaos Legion]

Yuuuuup
"Yeeees, fuck you I'm never going back!"

Click to shrink...

But there's that momentary confusion where you actually think you might be failing a class, missed a final, forgot homework that is legitimately pure anxiety as you awake.

I get these way too often.

 

[Lulu]

i have this dream too

 

[CMP]

I always get the dream where I forgot to attend a class for the whole semester, and I only remember it at the end of the semester and I'm about to fail it.