Late for school

Two nights. Two dreams.

 

The night before last I had the classic student’s dream: exams were coming up in a class I had never attended … two classes, come to think of it. I couldn’t remember how I had signed up for these classes, nor where they met. And yet, exams were coming up. I realized in the dream that I’m fifty-three and not in school. And yet, … exams were coming up. I finally reasoned out that I had to be dreaming, that it had to be a student’s dream: nothing else made sense of the confusion and anxiety. And then I woke. But it had seemed real enough while I was dreaming it.

 

Then last night I dreamed a variant. I was a substitute teacher. (In real life I worked as a substitute teacher for several months over thirty years ago.) I had been called for an assignment and was trying to get there. But I was running late and couldn’t find the place. I had started out confident that I knew where it was; so I hadn’t bothered checking which suburb the job was in, or what street the school was on, or how to get there. I would know it by landmarks for sure. Only … once I got well under way I suddenly realized I didn’t know where to turn. Here? Or a few miles farther on? I had someone in the car with me and I asked irritably, “Look at the map and find this school. Tell me how to get there!”

 

“What city is the school in?”

 

Pause. Blank. I didn’t know the name of the city. “The pink one!”

 

“Which pink one?”

 

So I pulled over to the side of the road, grabbed the map, fumbled with it for a while, and finally said “There. Right there. That’s the school.” (The city was marked orange, in fact.) But I also realized I was still several miles away and it was mid-afternoon already. When was I supposed to get there? I didn’t remember that either, but I pulled back on the road and sped on my way … into wakefulness.

__________

 

Do these mean anything? Am I anxious? I could explain last night’s dream by my unsatisfactory encounters with Human Resources yesterday. Maybe. But the night before? Was it just random noise or do I have more on my mind than I let myself realize? I’m not really sure.