I’ve been having a strange recurring dream where I’m back in school and completely unprepared for it.
Ever see Top Secret? There’s a scene where Val Kilmer is being tortured by Nazis. He drifts into unconsciousness and dreams he’s late for a test and he hasn’t studied. He screams, “My God...I’m back in school!” And then he wakes up and realizes he’s being tortured by Nazis and he says “Thank goodness.”
Well, I’m actually having that dream. The first few times I just ignored it. But I recently had it again, which means it’s been coming and going now for several months.
Is it because my brain is somehow reacting to the fact that I spent most of my life--all through my 20s--in school? Is it some sort of sublimated anxiety about current projects at work? I don’t know. But I remember that when I was little, I could sometimes concentrate during my waking hours and eventually control my bad dreams.
It really is possible to do this. It just takes practice. I would simply think about the way I wanted my dreams to go, and then when I slept I could often make it happen. And, apparently, I need to brush up on this skill because I need it again.
Since I now have a blog, I thought I’d write my dream script here to help project it into my conscious and unconscious mind. It’s not as easy as it sounds--I tend to digress and scripts don’t always go as planned. But let’s give it a shot.
BEGIN DREAM
(I walk into class.)
ME: What the hell am I doing back in school? Do I have a test?
MRS. VAN DUSEN: Damn right you have a test. And you haven’t studied.
ME: I do not have a test. I’m an adult. I have a job. I am not taking a test.
VAN DUSEN: GET IN YOUR GODDAMN SEAT BEFORE I TEST YOUR HEAD IN THE PENCIL SHARPENER YOU SNIVELING MISCREANT.
ME: Yes ma’am.
(Laura Chan, Stacey Anderson, and Kelley Kesey enter.)
LAURA, STACEY, and KELLEY: Hi Greg! Since you always gave us creepy looks in school, we wanted you be the first to know that it’s hot and we’ve decided to strip down to our underwear.
ME: Hey, that’s a good idea! I’ll take control of this dream by imagining Mrs. Van Dusen in her underwear.
(Looks at Mrs. Van Dusen)
ME: Okay, not my best idea.
VAN DUSEN: I WILL GRIND YOUR BONES TO PASTE.
LAURA, STACEY, and KELLEY: (crooning together like a Greek chorus): Underwear! Underwear! Underwear! Also, there was a miscount in the vote. You won class president, and you were voted Most Likely to Keep all Your Hair by just about everyone, and--
(Star quarterback Gil Tourner enters and shoves me against the wall and kicks sand in my face.)
GIL: Get lost. The girls are coming with me.
ME: Hey! I think they were just getting to the second verse.
(Gil and the girls EXEUNT.)
VAN DUSEN: WHERE THE HELL DID ALL THAT SAND COME FROM?
ME: Aren’t you going to give him detention or something?
VAN DUSEN: AFTER I GRIND YOUR BONES TO PASTE I WILL PAINT THE WALLS WITH YOUR BLOOD.
(I shoot out DEATH RAYS and destroy her.)
ME: So much for the test.
(I take off into the air as the entire planet turns into a big foaming sea of beer and also they decide not to remake the Pink Panther movies and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay gets a tremendously painful ingrown toenail.)
-END-
Hmmm, well, that didn’t stay entirely on script. Still, not bad for a dry run. I believe when the time comes, I can make a few very subtle improvements.
Ha ha ha, so hilarious...not. This website sucks.
I keep dreaming I’m back at school too! And, in the context of the dream, it’s a good thing and I’m all excited, except I can never figure out what to do with my toddler. Nobody’s in their underwear though, so yours might be better.
I had that exact dream only I didn’t have to force it. Who’s Mrs. Van Dusen?
did your high school actually have a vote category for “most likely to keep all your hair”? cool. my classmates were so unimaginative.
M, THOSE ARE VERY BOLD WORDS FROM SOMEONE WHO FAILED MY CLASS AND HAD TO SPEND EVERY JULY IN SUMMER SCHOOL. NOW GET YOUR SORRY BEHIND UP HERE AND CLEAN THE BLACKBOARD.
Ha. Mrs. Van Dusen has become YOUR 4th grade schoolteacher!
I keep having that dream too, except, when I wake up, I’m actually in class and realize I went back to school, and will be in school until I’m well into my 30’s. Then I start to cry.
I am so contemplating whether to send the URL for this post to my dad’s wife who is in some kind of crafts group with the actual Mrs. VanDusen back in U----. I’m sure she’d get a kick out of reading about herself.
Whoops. I could have sworn she was no longer alive.
I like how you blank out the name of our home town like some kind of Victorian novel.
The scariest part about that dream was Laura Chan. My reoccurring dreams are WORSE because they always involve H--------. Now I am not going to be able to sleep tonight.
One of my worst recurring nightmares is the one where I am Freshman again and attend more than half the school year before realizing I already graduated and no one believes me.
i’m surprised the dream didn’t involve the myriad exchange students. surely the girl from spain could have played greek chorus in a pinch? or what about lorraine, festively adorned with tattoo ink? would she abandon you in favor of the quarterback?
anyway. don’t wake up untilyou’re sure the ingrown toenail part is true. it’s community service you’re doing, here.
I guess it takes all kinds. When I take the trouble to plan out my dreams, a dry run is hardly what I have in mind.
M, release the hate man… woo saaaa! Greg, yo hook me up with #5 mrs van dusen… she a hottie man… I volunteer for blackboard duty… rarrrrr!
HA! I love it.
Luckily my stress dreams don’t bring me back to school. Instead I have stress waiting tables dreams, where I have about a million customers and no paper.
Or, driving a car that keeps going faster and faster and i can’t control it. Those are kind of fun though.
failing one test isn’t going to screw up your GPA. forgetaboutit! you’ll still get a B.
I think it’s time you searched the internet for pictures of these three young ladies so those of us not in your class can appreciate them in our dreams too.
Greg kissed VanDusen after school by the bike racks. I saw it. I could tell he liked it. They are boyfriend and girlfriend now. She’s going to have his babies someday. It’s all true.
I want something worse to happen to Tom Delay. Damn it, you are in control of your dreams. Get him caught in a park restroom with a transvestite in a bear costume. On video.
Get over yourselves! And pay attention to me. I am tiny in ways that make people question my sexual prowess, and I wear flannel shirts.
Too funny! I have the waitress dream...new job, can’t find anything, huge section, can’t cope! Or the driving in a fog or blizzard one...where did the road go? I’m so glad I found this place, I have this great need for plenteous goosing!
What the...?! Why can you say Laura Chan, but I can not mention H------?!?! Does her Mom read this?
So, tell us about the underlying anxiety! Something big coming up? They say when you dream of falling, let go and fly. When you dream of being unprepared for a test, vomit all over your desk. That’s what the kids in my school do.
I cannot believe you put naked (mental) pictures of Kelley Kesey on the internet, AND you had them exeunt! I’m too appalled to use contractions. My kids read this, ya know.
In lighter news, I can confirm that Mrs. Van Dusen is alive and well and living under the name Robert Novak.
Donovan, you still fucking crack me up.
that’s my recurring dream too - that I’m back in school (sometimes it’s high school & sometimes it’s college) and I’m NOT GOING TO GRADUATE b/c I skipped all these classes. But I skipped them b/c I was SURE that I already had my diploma. It’s quite confusing and distressing to me.
All your dreams have girls stripping to their underwear.