I Need Me Some Dream Analysis

For the past week or so I've been plagued by school dreams. I haven't been to school in years. My own kids don't do school. But for some reason, I fall asleep each night and travel to the halls of the building where I attended high school. None of the people I knew are there, but the halls are the same and the lockers and the bathrooms and the sea of faces is there -- people bumping me as I traverse the hallway, making me feel anxious about getting to class on time.

Last night it was about finding my book bag. All my homework was in there. I was sure it would be in my locker, but I was unable to open the darned thing. I couldn't remember the combination and had concerns that maybe I was actually at the wrong locker.

One night it was about discovering that I'd been attending the wrong class all semester. I was really enrolled in some sort of math class and I was trying to figure out how I would pass the semester final having missed all the classes.

I've never had the dream people talk about where you realize you've arrived at school without any clothes on, but the anxiety I experience in these school dreams is often just as troublesome. I'm telling off a teacher for some injustice they have committed. I'm late for a class and the hallways are so crowded that I know I'll never make it. I've stepped into the bathrooms only to realize that they are located in some labyrinth of cave-like tunnels beneath the school itself.

It's this constant inner turmoil of not quite being in the right place or not quite living up to my commitments. What's most disturbing is that I seem to be carrying the anxieties from these dreams into my waking hours. And so I question, is my subconcious trying to tell me something? Have I missed a beat in my daily life that I need to be reminded of? Is this simply the result of the self-imposed writing deadlines and opportunities that I have managed to make for myself in recent weeks.

Funny, I feel like I am thriving in my waking hours. Yet, I am longing for a night of peaceful sleep. One that doesn't have me wandering the halls of some ancient school building or stressing about turning in homework on time. Give me green meadows in springtime. Give me clouds and fluffy sheep.

Better yet, give me one of those dreamless nights where I wake with nothing but the memory of my pillow beneath my head.