What is my brain trying to tell me?

May 30, 2017 9:29 AM

Why do I dream about high school most nights?

I'm 22 years out of high school yet I dream about high school most nights. These dreams don't have a nightmarish quality but are usually filled with a sense of wanting, desperation, helplessness. Yeah, they kind of suck. I am a happy, healthy, stable adult. My life is everything I would want it to be so why is my brain taking me to this time over and over and over? And, yes, I have done plenty of therapy and I am a therapist.

posted by rglass to Science & Nature (21 answers total)

My anxiety dreams often take place at my high school. I think I just associate high school with anxiety. I don't think I'm particularly obsessed with high school when I'm awake, so I think it's just some weird thing that got wired together in my subconscious. So I guess if you're like me, I would ask why you're having unpleasant-feeling dreams every night, because I think that's more likely to reflect something going on in your life than the specific content of your dream is.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:38 AM on May 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

Have these dreams been a constant recurrence in your adult life, or are they relatively recent?
posted by Autumnheart at 9:43 AM on May 30, 2017

I interpret school dreams as straight-up anxiety dreams. Mine are about either college (sometimes) or law school (very often). That's because I actually pretty much liked high school and things went horribly and dramatically south in college and I hated law school. So, yeah -- anxiety, especially if you had an angsty high school experience.
posted by holborne at 9:45 AM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Do you have any anxiety around aging/getting older, either physically or philosophically or practically (aging parents, children leaving nest, retirement starting to become a concrete thing in your future?). 40 can be tough not in the classic midlife crisis way, but a crossroads of "did I make the right decisions about my life? is this path the right path, I don't have much longer to change it?"

(I was in a group of high achievers who were literally sat down and told in 8th grade that we had a week to pick our high school schedules and that would pretty much determine our college prospects and the rest of our lives and stuff. Fucked us up something awful and, at 45, I still talk to a few of my friends from that time about it. We all did the expected thing, and most of us are not sure it was the right thing.)

What is high school to you? What was it to you at the time? I think for almost all of us it was a high-stress time, but for some it was the end of the security of childhood, for others the approaching escape from a bad (or even just ill-fitting) life. Some of us had our most intense friendships then, or barely any at all.

High school dreams are 98% anxiety dreams for me, but they do not always have the internal quality of anxiety during the dream. My "forgot about the class I registered for" dreams are always about college, the high school ones tend to be more about not understanding subtext or expectations or, many times, literally being lost in the building.

Also, are you American or British? Lot of free-floating anxiety right now.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:47 AM on May 30, 2017

I personally feel that I have college/ highschool era dreams because they are the time in my life with the most structure and you have the same routine and surroundings every day for years. Not to mention it can be nostalgic. I still have dreams about working in the mall 10+ years ago or going back to college.

Sometimes they're anxiety related. But I think our brains look for repetition and the thing that has the strongest memory and years in the same setting will do that - the same way if you play a lot of a certain video game or Tetris that will filter into your dreams.

Because even if you have a current routine or job for years it's not quite as structured as a school day nor are there the same level of emotions and drama in your "regular" life compared to high school. Also high school is full of possibilities for the future. So for me it feels like my brain goes back to when there was more freedoms.
posted by Crystalinne at 9:53 AM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

Almost all of my anxiety dreams involve high school or college, too. I have no actual anxiety surrounding either period of my life, both were a long time ago, but my current anxieties seem to like to manifest as dreams about anxiety-producing things related to high school, rather than my current adult life.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:10 AM on May 30, 2017

Response by poster: These responses are so helpful! Thank you!

ArbitraryandCapricious - That's very interesting. I do feel anxious at times in the present and might be having the dreams as an expression of current anxiety.

Lyn Never - High school was a time of shame, hiding, feeling unaccepted. I just felt so lost and uncertain for so much of it but tried to look I was holding it all together. My dreams reflect these feelings. I am American.
posted by rglass at 10:19 AM on May 30, 2017

I often have high school and college dreams that are full of intensity, sadness and regret, and that don't chime with anything in my waking life - strong feelings that don't match anything I'm consciously aware of. I often wake up feeling sad and then try to figure out whether I have anything to be sad about.

My sense is that it's more about finishing with those feelings than anything else, since they're some things that I feel like I've finally moved past. (So, for example, intense sadness and regret over someone I was in love with very intensely for years, but I don't have even the shadow of those feelings anymore.) They really don't seem like unlived-life dreams, since they're about things that I don't feel even a twinge of sadness or wishing about when I think of them when I'm awake. (Whereas at a past turning point, I did feel a lot of regret and longing in waking life when I thought about the subjects of the dreams.) All I really think of in waking life is "being in a relationship with that person wouldn't have done at all" and "I probably would not have been happy in that career".

I admit that I hate these dreams and wish they'd stop.
posted by Frowner at 10:19 AM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yes, I agree with Crystalinne that it's probably about the structure and repetition. I have a lot of recurring high school dreams that are specifically focused around the bell schedule. Like, I'm aware in the dream that I'm actually a grown-ass adult and shouldn't be in high school but I can't possibly go to the main office to explain this to anyone because I must be in my next class before the bell rings.

Also, for me, I think it may have something to do with the fact that end of high school/early college was when I first started noticing a speed up in my perception of time. Of course, things feel like they've sped up as I've gotten older, but for me, high school moved very slowly and not so much after that. So the 4 years of high school might feel more central in my brain than other times in my life for that reason...being a quasi-adult but with a child's perception of time.

As a datapoint, I have had recurring dreams of high school throughout my adult life and they've always been somehow focused around lack or loss of control..but they've never really seemed to correspond to good or bad events in my life as far as I can tell.
posted by eeek at 10:31 AM on May 30, 2017

I don't have a lot of dreams about high school itself, but I do have a lot of dreams that take place in very specific locations that were significant in my high school years, and I only tend to have those dreams when I'm going through a period of anxiety. In fact, sometimes I don't even realize that I have an elevated level of anxiety until *bloop* there I am having a dream that takes place in one of those locations. And yes, during my high school years I was extremely depressed and anxious, but did not receive treatment for those issues.

I'm inclined to believe that our dreams are often influenced by our subconscious minds working through issues that we're not dealing with well in the waking world, and in your follow up comment you mention having some elevated anxiety, so it's possible that this is your brain trying to process those feelings.
posted by palomar at 10:34 AM on May 30, 2017

there's a discussion happening now over at Reddit (usual warnings apply) that you might find interesting. High school dreams are incredibly, incredibly common.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 11:25 AM on May 30, 2017

Any specifics to your dream other than just that you're in high school again? Particular people, scenarios, events? Even something subtle might help clue you in to a more specific answer than "it's just anxiety." Look for an analogous scenario in your waking life (that at first glance appears to have nothing to do with high school.) The answer may surprise you.
posted by Crystal Fox at 1:03 PM on May 30, 2017

Response by poster: Crystal Fox - the dreams vary. The most common one that I have is that I've almost made it to graduation but then find out that I didn't complete required coursework. In the dream, I'm trying to find a way to get the work done but it's usually too late.
posted by rglass at 1:32 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I too have had these dreams. I had a particularly vivid one, and wrote one of my favourite songs about it. If you create any kind of art or creative output, might I nudge you in the direction of channelling the content of your dreams into it?
posted by greenish at 1:34 PM on May 30, 2017

Yeah, the school dreams. And like someone above said, I don't dream about high school as much because high school wasn't the most stressful - that would be when I was working full time and trying to get a BS/BA at night. I've had a few high-school related dreams since my kids got into high school, but nothing too awful.

My college dream was about signing up for a class and forgetting to attend any of the sessions. My college diploma is hanging up in my bathroom as a sort of inside joke to myself because I'd wake up from one of these and have to get really awake before I could convince myself that I had graduated, that what I dreamed about hadn't happened.
posted by randomkeystrike at 2:44 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

The most common one that I have is that I've almost made it to graduation but then find out that I didn't complete required coursework. In the dream, I'm trying to find a way to get the work done but it's usually too late.

I have versions of this exact dream alllll the time. Like, it's the end of the school year and I realize that I had one class, or multiple classes, that I just stopped showing up for and forgot about months ago, and now I can't graduate. These dreams are a close relative of "I'm starring in a play in drama club but I literally just found out about it 5 minutes before curtain."

It's always anxiety. I've been having a shit ton of anxiety dreams lately, for obvious reasons (I'm American). When I wake up, most of my memories are of these unpleasant anxiety dreams rather than any good or neutral ones.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:22 PM on May 30, 2017

The most common one that I have is that I've almost made it to graduation but then find out that I didn't complete required coursework. In the dream, I'm trying to find a way to get the work done but it's usually too late.

I have this exact dream and it is an anxiety dream for me. It may be for you too.
posted by Toddles at 8:46 PM on May 30, 2017

Are you writing down the dreams when you wake? Sometimes that alone can spark reflection that helps see different aspects.

Exam dreams are pretty commonly seen as anxiety dreams, yes.

FWIW, for very different anecdata, I'm someone who struggles with anxiety and yet haven't had a school-related dream in twelve years. That was when I started writing down my dreams. It also includes the period I worked on my Masters degree seven years ago. That's right – I did not dream about school while studying for my Masters and writing my thesis. *shrug* Try writing them down if you're not already.
posted by fraula at 1:59 AM on May 31, 2017

I have this exact dream too--I have shown up for an exam for a class that I didn't know I was registered for or thought I'd dropped. Since I don't know any of the material, I'm going to flunk the exam. I often spend part of the dream trying to figure out how to cheat (it never works, I'll try to read off someone else's exam and the words don't look right) and feeling guilty about that. 100% an anxiety dream.
posted by epanalepsis at 8:54 AM on May 31, 2017

Oh god yeah, I always have that dream about college* rather than high school, but it is always an anxiety dream when I have it.

*Remember that day I mentioned, in 8th grade when they sat us down to decide our lives? We had to plan our course schedule for all 4 years of high school, because the state requirements plus honors requirements plus awkwardly fitting in band or theater (for most of us, I opted out of both for flexibility) that was always specifically 4th period meant you really only got one shot to fulfill every requirement. So I effectively did not have any high school class registration. College registration every semester, on the other hand, was done first by basically trick-or-treating at tables with professors in the gym, for a sticker for every class you wanted to take, which went on an index card that you took to a cashier, and then later by scantron, and my senior year by phone. Total nightmare fuel.

I'm 45 and I still have those dreams. 90% of the time it's a class I signed up for and forgot and the final is tomorrow, 10% of the time a dog or baby is very sick and the only car around is a stick shift, which I cannot drive.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:52 AM on May 31, 2017

Response by poster: I guess we are all in great company :) Thank you all for your thoughts!
posted by rglass at 7:03 PM on May 31, 2017