How long will I keep having dreams about high school?

Well, you spend a damned long time in school. I still have dreams in fact, I’ve just woken up from one about people and places from my second school even though I’ve been to 4 in total now. Probably because I was there for 7 years.

I would expect it will diminish over time as increased experience in other areas intrudes upon your brain.

You are doomed to dream about random shit for the rest of your life. It is what it is.

@mowens – Not entirely true, I often control my dreams.

There’s usually a good reason why people have recurring dreams about the same thing. It is probably imprinted in your subconscious (for either a good reason or a bad reason), and chances are that it will be that way for a very long time. I mean, I still have dreams or having things pop up in my mind that happened more than ten years ago, when I was still a kid, and most of the time it’s because of something bad that happened to me that I just never forgot.

Until you cast some spells.

Since I started college, I’ve never had a dream about it.
But I dream about high school scenarios/friends all the time.
Like @daemonelson said, I think it’s because it was such a big part of my life.

Do you have an idea of why high school is on your mind? Are there unresolved feelings or issues about your high school experience?

I don’t think what you are describing is all that common.

I don’t have dreams about high school (Heaven forfend) but I have had recurring dreams about the house I grew up in. They continued over many years with variations and were usually centered around moving back into or re-living in that house. The dreams have dropped off over the last 10 or 15 years. I think I had unresolved feelings about that house and wanted to return to it; now that period is behind me.

High school beat the shit out of me. So badly that I dropped out at 17. But I have never dreamed about the agony that was high school.

Interesting. I think it does probably does have to do with all the big changes and loss of innocence that happened just as I left high school. High school probably is bound up in my feelings of childhood happiness and home. I had a weirdly great time in high school.

Sometimes Fluther is an extension of high school, so you haven’t really left if behind you. And that’s okay. We elected you class president, and Andrew was voted “most likely to…”

I do too… but it was a bad time for me… was it particularly good or bad?

Feel lucky that it’s high school you dream about. I often have dreams about work and they are always negative ones. Usually the sun is setting and I’m just getting started on my route or something similar. I wish I could dream about my HS years instead.

I’m over 50 and I still have school dreams, even grade school dreams, often involving being unprepared for tests. I also have dreams about old stressful work places. The commonality seems to be that my dreams put me back in places that made me ill at-ease. It’s as if my brain is still trying to come to terms with the awkwardness of those old situations, maybe trying to equip me to deal with those deep-seated social fears.

For most people the high school years had a major impact on your life. For some it was about great social and athletic success or challenges. For others it was about academic achievement and important friendships that shaped your character or anxiety about the possibility of failure or social isolation. For most, it played an important role in how you functioned in dating relationships.

With so many issues tied up with those years, it is no surprise that day to day event years later may evoke thoughts or dreams about similar issues and the dreams may be set where those issues first seemed important in your life.

For those who spent 10, 15 or even 20 years in University, that setting may eclipse the “good old high school days” as the setting for dreams.

The significance of dreams for most people is the content (what they are about) more than the context (where they are set).

The issues that may be still unresolved may push their way into your dreams must more than things that are not that meaningful or important to you now.

I don’t advise anyone to worry if they still have dreams set in high school. If you can identify the important issues and figure out what they mean for you now, they can still be helpful to you!

I will always have high school dreams because i was bullied in highschool and still suffer the emotional consquences of it everyday…

i have revenge fantasy and all kind of things..its crazy emotional..

I graduated 13 years ago, and I still dream about high school. It was an okay time for me, some great things, some terrible things. I think maybe that’s why I still dream about it, every memory is either great or terrible.

I have the same kind of dreams, and I have been out for 15 years. I think for me it stems from quiting school, like my brain knows that I should have finished and makes a big deal out of it in my dreams.

Unfortunately that is your destiny. You must accept it.

Glory days. :P

As someone else stated: I’m over 50 and still have the occasional highschool related dream. Grade school dreams aren’t that uncommon and younger-aged dreams iin general still happen, too. Most usually they are uncomfortable and awkward scenarios involving conflict with no resolution. The ones that make me wake up screaming always involve my mother terrorizing me somehow.

I have delusions from school…. does that count?

I think that’s where you do most of your developing and learning about yourself, when you start recognizing things, etc. It doesn’t sound like a bad thing that you’re remembering these things. High school didn’t suck, did it?

I find it somewhat comforting to hear that others still have school dreams. I have been out of high school for almost 20 years but am still haunted by these dreams. I went to a very snooty highschool in a wealthy suburban community and was very uncomfortable there, often having panic attacks and eventually refusing to go altogether and experiencing a profound depression. I would love if anyone could share any books that helped them, or any other techniques. It was suggested to me by a counselor that the reason I find myself back in highschool in my dreams is that I still have unresolved rage about being judged by others…or just feeling invisible, and I need to somehow release that rage. I think of all the things I would like to go back and say to these people. For some reason, I was never able to really comprehend why friends from elementary school all went their separate ways in high school, and I still feel confused and abandoned by this as well. It’s like I am stuck and not able to fully grow up. I would love to put it behind me because those memories waste my time and don’t deserve my attention in the present.

Hi @sawa, and welcome to Fluther. Maybe you could try writing letters to those who hurt you. Not to send, just to vent, and get it all out there. Keep working with a counselor, though. You surely deserve a life focused on the present. Good luck!