school nightmares

Another dream about being back in school. I bet everybody has these dreams sometimes. Luckily, I’ve never found myself in class naked.

It was the first day of classes, and I couldn’t find my classroom. I had successfully located the first six, but for the seventh and last class, found myself back in fifth period, which was being taught by someone who looked like Coach Tyndall from 7th grade, the coach who taught history and was rumored to occasionally drop pencils and ask girls to bend over and pick them up so he could look down their shirts.

I thought I was in the wrong class because it was the same classroom and teacher as before, but I didn’t know how to find out which class I was supposed to be in. I didn’t have a schedule with me. I went to a different class that I thought might be mine, but that wasn’t the right one either because they were talking about things that I’d already learned and reading aloud from a very dry and boring book.

At this point I realized that I actually WAS supposed to be back in the first class, so I gathered my things and went back to the first classroom. I felt embarrassed about not knowing where I was going and walking back and forth between the classes, but I also realized that I was older than everyone else and therefore couldn’t get “in trouble,” and also it was the very first day, so all would be forgiven.

One night this past weekend, I had a full-on night terror/sleep paralysis episode. It was the kind where in the dream you are screaming and screaming, panicking, but no one else can hear you. I was scared to death and screaming Doc’s name to get his attention, but even though he was right next to me he couldn’t hear me. It was like I was invisible. I also kept dreaming that I had woken up but he still couldn’t hear me, lying in bed next to me. Eventually, some semi-conscious part of me must have heard myself actually whimpering and struggling to get out a whisper while lying there, and so I eventually was able to wake up. It was incredibly frightening. One theory behind dreams like this is that your mind is becoming conscious, but you are still under full sleep paralysis and the disconnect between the paralysis and your body trying to move throws you into panic mode.