It has been almost a decade since I graduated from school. But even today I get nightmares of not being prepared enough for my Physics and Maths board exams. It’s always Physics and Maths. The dream almost always includes me blankly staring into my textbooks and realising I understand none of it, with my board exams just a week away.
However, it’s not just me having such dreams. Turns out, several people online who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s and even older have similar dreams of being unprepared or late for an exam, not completing their homework and even failing an exam. They took to Twitter to talk about this and called it “nightmares”. Some revealed how they abruptly wake up from sleep feeling anxious, only to realise that it has been years since they graduated!
Have a look:
I turn 36 in four months, and yet last night I had a nightmare about being late for an exam and not being allowed to appear for it.
Some scars really do run deep.— Gautam S. Mengle (@NotMengele) November 20, 2021
I have that dream all the time. Not only, that but also that I’m unprepared.
In my defense I’ve been writing exams last 10 years, Masters, PPL and another degree I just finished a few months ago 🙈— Gul Panag (@GulPanag) November 21, 2021
I’m 50. I still have nightmares of homework not submitted
— Natasha #SaveChevellaBanyans نتاشا (@nuts2406) November 20, 2021
I’m almost 53 I still wake up terrified that I haven’t studied for my Maths/Hindi test.
— Old Monk (@ruefulsmile) November 20, 2021
I will turn 70 in a few months and let me tell you I still , still wake up in a sweat after having nightmares of not having attended enough lectures or worked enough in the library and am not at all ready for the exams !!! That’s how deep . Almost 70 !!!!
— Viji Venkatesh 🇮🇳 وجی وینکٹیش (@vijivenkatesh) November 20, 2021
I’m 55. Get similar dreams once in six months at least.
— Ajay Kamath (@ajay43) November 20, 2021
I can feel you brother.
The other night I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t list all the Rivers and their tributaries of the country in my head..
Then I remembered, I don’t have an exam..not anymore.
I turned 36, this july..🤣🤣— Preeti Maithil Nayak (@preetimaithil) November 20, 2021
I have constant dreams about failing in chemistry and going back to school at this age. I always have to wear the same school uniform and go to the same school. 🙁🙁
— Hana Mohsin Khan | هناء (@girlpilot_) November 20, 2021
Gautam, I am 37 and have a yearly nightmare about failing the German language paper in law school. It’s been more than a decade!
— Apar (@apar1984) November 20, 2021
I’m 45. I have a recurring nightmare about being in an exam hall and staring at a paper with complex equations that I don’t know head or tail of, and very conscious that it’s a make or break exam. When I wake up, I 100% know that I’m stressed out and long overdue for a vacation.
— Suresh R (@iamabofh) November 20, 2021
33, on and off dream of not paying attention that the exam paper had questions on both sides of the paper, missing half of the questions and then trying to find out how to get that teacher to give me my paper back which I ended up giving before time to show off 😂 #fiction
— Ankita (@MadbutModest) November 20, 2021
I am 51. Stil get such traumatic ones.
Mine is not attending first 20-30 lecture and then denied admission in the course meaning flunking in the course. And then would wake up in jiffy to realize the reality.
To get the full import of above lucidly, humbly , am from IIT K— NP (@naveenprk10) November 21, 2021
51. Still get similar ones. Studied for wrong exam. And my favourite now. Forgetting my lines before I enter stage. (I haven’t done theatre for 15 years)
— Munish Bhardwaj (@MunishBhardwaj) November 20, 2021
I am over 50 and still wake up sweating – dream is that I arrive at the empty exam centre at noon coz the exam was in the first shift, another recurring one is of having prepared for Geography instead of Maths 2! The scars run deep for sure.
— Sita Giri (@sitagirinair) November 21, 2021
If you are wondering what such dreams mean, a report by The Guardian explains it well. Apparently, exam-related anxiety-causing dreams are very common.
“Some research suggests that anxiety dreams might play a useful role. In 2014, scientists based at the Sorbonne in Paris studied a large group of students taking a medical school entrance exam, harvesting their dreams the night before and relating them to their results afterwards. About two-thirds of the respondents dreamed about the exam, with nearly 80% of these dreams being negative in some way – usually involving the dreamer being late, or not remembering the right answers. Yet those who dreamed of the exam were more likely to perform better. Therefore, the authors hypothesised that such dreams provide some sort of ‘cognitive gain’,” the report read.
Do you have similar exam-related dreams? Tell us!