Nightmares…….

I’ve had a fair few recently. I think it’s the impending start of my therapy that’s causing them. My subconscious maybe throwing them at me to remind me of my “issues”. Not that I need reminding.

Last night’s was an absolute classic though. Both in terms of interpretation and for me as I have had many variations of this same dream. But this one was a corker in terms of detail. And so real that it was a good half hour after waking that I remembered the reality.

I’m sure we all have dreams like this at some point. But the detail on this was particularly scary.

In my dream I was on a trip with other disabled people, including a very interesting chap who had been into space, despite his disabilities. As my group was returning home I got a phone call from my brother (which would never happen) and he told me I had an exam at 9am the next morning. He refused to phone them (which would happen) and tell them I couldn’t make it so I had to leave my new friends and hurry home.
I arrived back at 8am, exhausted and in pain, but I wasn’t home. I was actually at the college where the exam was being held and when I told them I couldn’t sit the exam, they said “Well, you’re here now” so I had no choice. I scrabbled together pen, pencils etc and went to the exam room.

The thing was – and this is crucial – this was the last exam of 8. I had already taken and passed the others but without this one I wouldn’t get the final qualification. Without this one, all that time and achievement would be wasted. Pointless.
But…..I hadn’t attended the lessons for this one for a long time. I hadn’t revised. I didn’t even know where my notes were.
I was essentially going in blind.

I was the only student in the room and there were two of those official people at the front. I got my papers and I had 65 minutes to complete the exam =-O

It was hideous. Truly hideous. I was so stuck for words to answer the questions that I was drawing little line pictures. It was a Psychology exam and one ‘answer’ I gave (actually it was all I was able to do the whole 65 mins) was draw to explain what a depressed person might do. So I drew two chairs facing each other (therapy), a bed, a bottle of pills, a table with 2 cups on (talk to a friend) etc etc.
I drew them in a circular pattern around the paper. It was pants!! Absolute total rubbish!! I needed 8 and I only managed 5!!

Then the exam ended and I knew I had failed, of course. The looks of disgust everyone was giving me were hideous. And all the previous exams I had passed were now meaningless. That 98% I got in one……totally wasted. I would never get that qualification.

I woke up to my daughter bringing me a coffee and it was a good half hour before I remembered…..actually I DO have that qualification. I got a B grade  😀

The thing is…..I have taken exams I wasn’t prepared for. I took English A level via home study when I was 20, because we lived so far away from the college at the time. I did it in 8 mths. I sat the exam on the novels and the one on the plays but I had only 10 days to cram in the units on poetry and prose before the exam date.  I took the exam feeling totally unprepared and absolutely terrified, convinced I had failed. But I got a B for that too.

Then there was the combined science degree that I started. Psychology, Biology and Chemistry. I lasted one semester before I admitted it wasn’t for me…..the chemistry was like learning Japanese backwards……I hated it. But a few months later I got a phone call from the college…..it was my Psychology exam that day and they thought I should attend. I explained I hadn’t been at college for a whole semester but they said I should give it a go to gain some credits towards the Psychology degree I was starting the next semester. I had to sort the girls out, myself out and then drive 13 miles. They had delayed the start of the exam for me.
Talk about pressure!! And fear.
But that was the exam I scored 90 + % in. Thank the starry skies for the A level I had done the previous year – the curriculum of which was never repeated as it was then  deemed too complex for A level

Yet in my nightmare I failed…..spectacularly!!

The everything hinges on one exam nightmare is not new either. I have had the nightmare a fair few times.
To me it seems like a fairly obvious lack of self-esteem dream. But I really wish it would bugger off!!!