Despite being in your late 30s or early 40s, do you still find yourself dreaming about high school or college final exams?

No. I can’t remember ever dreaming about a long gone exam as if it will take place on Monday (or whenever). I’m not sure what it signifies but I would say it obviously relates to something that’s worrying you.

Oh, yes, and I’m a good bit older than that. I have several recurring themes, and this is one of the most common. It’s one of my basic anxiety dreams.

I don’t regard it as being about school at all; rather, that unprepared-for-the-test scenario and all its many possible variations are a very convenient dream-analog for real things in my present life that I do worry about. It usually doesn’t take me too long to figure out what current situation is causing me concern and being reflected in the back-to-school dream.

@Jeruba exactly what I thought!
Very disturbing when it happens, I wake up sick as a dog!

I’m 59 and I still have bad dreams about university exams.

I occasionally have these dreams even though I am retired. It is great when you realise it was just a dream and you will never have to sit another exam in your life.

I’m older than that and I still get that “Didn’t do my English homework” dream.
I also dream about:
– forgetting to put on pants.
– wild sex
– trips to foreign countries
– the ability fly
– wild sex

Must remember to not eat cheese before bed.

I have been retired from the Railroad for over 10 years, yet EVERY dream I have is work related! So I know what you mean!

I am 57, and I still have nightmares about high school tests.

Sure. Usually happens when I have to catch a very early flight. It’s either exams or having trouble getting to class to turn in my homework.

Years after he was off the farm, my Dad would have recurrent dreams that he had forgotten to feed the chickens.

I don’t have exam dreams but I do have other recurrent anxiety dreams.

I’m in my (early) 40s and still taking college exams. So, yeah.

I just woke from one… About PhD exams. Those were so harrowing that I might well be having nightmares about them in twenty years. I’m not really sure why we had to sit them except to humiliate us and demolish any trace of self-confidence we might have built up over the past three years.

Classic anxiety nightmares. I suspect our ancestors must have had dreams about going on a mammoth hunt without a spear. Talk about being unprepared…

No, that doesn’t happen to me. You are right about the cause. It is your fears speaking.

Yes, and I passed 40 a looooong time ago! Any kind of worry or stress in my present life often triggers uncomfy dreams about school or previous jobs like taking a test or being in a class I know nothing about, trying to find my locker, or having an argument with a former coworker.

Too much pizza before bedtime can do the same.

Yes, and I’m 50. I probably took all the tests and exams far too seriously. It’s both a good and a bad thing.

It is a recurring theme in most of our lives (or dreams). In the 1960’s Harvard Magazine did a short article about the recurring anxiety dream described here. For the next six months the editors were flooded with letters in support of this theory, including well-written descriptions of the theme and all its variations.

At that point, the editors wrote a long disclaimer saying that they were going to stop the discussion; they were going to stop printing the letters from alums; and probably they were going to stop opening the mail and use the letters for fire starters.

This became legend.

I once had a series of dreams of this nature. I hadn’t read the book; I took the exam and didn’t know how to answer the questions; grades came out and a crowd formed around the posted grades and someone turned to me and said, “Sunny2, you flunked.”
I don’t think I’ve dreamed about exams since.

Usually about math. And usually associated with cold sweats.

I usually dream that I am in some strange high school I’ve never been in and I keep getting lost on the way to classes—or forget which class I was supposed to take. The last dream I had like this, I suddenly remembered how old I was and I walked out of the building and drove home, thinking that I didn’t have to do this nonsense anymore..

@keobooks: That sounds like a dream about liberation :D

I just remembered, my earliest form of this dream was arriving at high school without my backpack and books. I was not naked, but I might as well have been. Horrors. I have been too scholarly for a long time…

Yes I still do… I’m still praying for an extra 15% so I can go back to university. I’ve even rewritten some exams and I rarely ever raise my mark. I feel like I am still in the denial at least bargaining phase of my grief.