Do you guys have specific anxiety dream templates?
Multiples. There's the one where I'm working back in Retail Hell, and the phrase
"Jillian, cashier please"
rings across the loudspeakers. There's the one where the xenomorphs from Aliens are attacking the building I'm in. (At least in that one, I get a pulse rifle.) There's the one where I keep dreaming I'm trying to fall asleep and can't.
And then there's the very worst one, where there are zombies, Pete has been bitten, and the decision has to be made: do I just run, or do I make sure he doesn't rise from the dead?
There are times when I think my brain hates me.
Now I can't remember the blue book situation in grad school. They might have provided them. Hm.
Fuck, why am I not asleep?
I know, super keyed up, sugar, but fuck. Only 3 more days and the off until the 5th.
What is a blue book?
There's the one where I keep dreaming I'm trying to fall asleep and can't.
Which tidily matches the ones where I'm trying to wake up and can't.
Adding to my standard templates are the repeating dreams--they can be as short as 15 seconds, and just put on infinite loop. And sometimes they repeat across nights, so I'll have 3-4 days of just one dream--no matter how tame the subject matter, the repetition ensures tension.
I
know
my brain hates me.
What is a blue book?
The little throwaway notebook that you (well, I) would be given to write exams in. Usually about 10-12 pages or so, stapled in the center. They even used them for the bar exam, at least until the 90s.
We bought our own blue books and if the prof was worried about cheating we'd turn them in at the top of class and they'd be re-distributed so you wouldn't end up with the same one.
I clearly recall buying my own blue books for exams, but strangely have no memory of using them in grad school. I must have, I know some of my classes had exams.
I have never heard of that. Interesting. In England the books were issued by the testing board and white.
Do not remember university, though.
My usual anxiety dreams are usually one of two types. One: I have to teach a class but I can't find space, or I have space and I can't herd the student together to teach. These dreams are endless rushing around and never get the class together and I wake up exhausted. Two: The other dream is that I'm back in NYC, and find I don't have a cell or keys or money (or sometimes shoes). I am often in some odd part of the city as well. I'm trying to get to my apartment, and everything is against that happening, but I often get unexpected help . I end up in an apartment that I forgot I'd kept, or go to an old friends place and they have gone, but their room is there and their roommates are happy to let me rent their gigantic furnished suite. These dreams feel anxious when I'm in them, but they tend to end happily.
