Nightmarish

When I woke up from this particular dream this morning, I couldn't go back to sleep.  My heart and mind were racing.

In this particular dream I don't know if I was in high school, was an undergrad, or was a graduate student, but I think the course was graduate level.  I don't know what school I was attending, but there were two very different classrooms in that school.  There were two instructors involved, one who was most definitely a retired teacher from the school at which I teach, and I'm not sure who the other was.  I cannot even be sure if the dream involved one class or two, despite the two rooms and instructors. 

But when I showed up for the final exam, I realized I hadn't studied at all.  And when I opened the test, I had no idea what was asked of me.  In fact, I could barely focus on reading the test, instead being so overwhelmed that I knew literally nothing about the test material that I seemed to do anything but read the test.

I've had the dream before, the one where I'm back at West Point, it's the end of the semester, and I realize I didn't go to English class all semester and hence won't graduate (but I didn't have English as a senior).  This was the first time, though, that I've dreamed about a graduate level class.  And the fact that I don't have to do a thesis for my master's program, but rather a comprehensive test over the material I'll have learned over the course of 5 years--and that test occurs late next Spring--might have been the genesis for the dream.  Who knows.

But it was most disconcerting, even after waking up.