For years I’ve been afflicted with “academic anxiety dreams,” which go like this: I have an imminent final exam in college, and either haven’t studied for it, can’t find my way to the exam room, or am late for it. These dreams aren’t as frequent as they used to be (which was almost every night) but they still recur about once a week. But their precise form is always different.
Last night, for instance, I dreamed that I had final exam in introductory biology (the courses vary from dream to dream), but had not been at two lectures and so was missing the notes. During the entire dream—who knows how long they last?—I was wandering about trying to find someone who could give me the notes for those lectures. First I encountered my old college freshman-year roommate, who said he had the notes but then couldn’t find them. I then wandered into another building, and managed to locate someone who also had taken the class, and had the notes. This person, who had fluffy hair like Liberace, had a huge box of very elaborate notes: each lecture’s notes were put in a separate file folder, and pasted on the folder ‘s front was an outline of the lecture on a large blue Post-It note (if you wake up soon after you dream, you can remember many details).
Unfortunately, this person was deeply suspicious of me; he said that he feared that if I studied his notes, I’d do better than he would, and hurt the grading curve. I managed to wheedle the notes out of him anyway, and went back to my dorm to study. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find my dorm, but that’s another story. . .
I used to think that the profusion of these anxiety dreams, all connected with lectures and tests, was my own personal pathology, but over the years I’ve found that many academics have them. My old advisor Dick Lewontin, for instance, said he had the same dream—about being late for an exam—every night for decades.
Now I’m not a diehard Freudian (his Interpretation of Dreams is a real exercise in confirmation bias, as well as a real stretch), but I do think that dreams are more than just random firings of neurons. For reasons we don’t understand, but which I find fascinating, our fears, hopes, and personalities are all massaged by our brain into a coherent story while we’re asleep. Talk about the hard problem of consciousness: what about the even harder problem of where dreams come from?
At any rate, do any other readers out there have academic anxiety dreams? And, of course, if you have any recurrent dream, or simply had a really weird one recently, we’d all be delighted to hear about it.
Agreed, Jesper. We’re all in the same loony bin
🙂
I’ve had them all and still have them!
1. Signed up for a class and never attended. It’s Finals Week and too late to drop.
2. Signed up for a class, attended it once, then it’s the last week of school and I can’t find the room.
3. Tornado dreams where they appear on the horizon then right outside the window.
4. Airplane dreams taking off down a city street trying to avoid overhead wires and traffic.
5. Grant ran out and I haven’t started my research, yet. I have nothing to write up.
6. My instrument doesn’t work because I cannibalized it to build another instrument.
7. Backing up in a car and the brakes don’t work no matter how hard I press.
8. Driving fast down a road, come to a hill and go airborne. Really, really high. Then the road disappears and I’m on a swaying suspension bridge.
9. No shampoo in the shower so I walk back to my office soaking wet looking for shampoo and I’m aware that I probably shouldn’t be walking around the office like this.
10. Swimming underwater and find I can breathe.
OK, that’s enough. I need to make an appointment to see a shrink, although there’s no way I’ll ever find their office. I’m a mess. Where’s Kink?
…do any other readers out there have academic anxiety dreams?
No, not many. Just 181 at this viewing, plus one more by the time I opened the Comments.
I actually overslept by an hour for a freshman biology exam, and they kindly let me take it anyway, but I never dream about that.
My occasional dream is that I forgot to drop a class (something I never did but in retrospect should have) and never went to a lecture, but decide I have to go take the damn exam now. Somewhat similar to our host’s dream, but nowhere near as elaborate. I think I always wake up before the exam is handed out.
I agree that this is a very hard problem of consciousness. I suggest that every time you have one of these dreams, ask yourself, “What was my day like yesterday? Was there a particular reason to be anxious?” If the dreams correlate to actual anxieties, then maybe part of the “why do I dream what I dream?” question will find an answer.
About once a month I dream that I am trying to catch an airplane, and discover that I am a whole day late in doing so. However there is (some special circumstance) that makes it still just barely possible. I am walking, taking buses and trains and trying to get to the plane at the airport but it is always not quite possible. The buses and trains keep turning into other forms of transport, such as boats.
As I rose through the academic ranks, my dreams switched to a sudden realization that I had a class to teach for which I was not prepared. Even scarier in a way. Retired for over a decade, I still have these occasionally.
I also witnessed the “can’t find the right room” scenario in real life. Halfway through an exam we heard running footsteps approaching along the corridor, punctuated by doors opening and closing. Finally, the footsteps reached our door, a head pops in: “Is this the English 302 (or whatever) final?” “No.” Receding footsteps and doors slamming until out of range.
Funny story!
I am a musician (as well as many other things) and sometimes (rarely) in my dreams I get to play with some of my favorite musicians. And, as I explain to my wife in the morning, when I’m playing with (e.g. Bruce Cockburn) in my dream, I really kick ass, you should have heard me! 🙂
I have this type of exam-anxiety dream often. Usually it takes place in my suburban high school, but for some reason the building is conflated with the shopping mall across the street. Which could explain why I’d often wander and wander through the halls, never finding the right classroom…
Hell’s Bells, I thought it was just me!
I’m 69 years old, and I did a PhD in Particle Physics 45 years ago.
I get this dream, not all the time, maybe once a month or so, where I’m “re-doing” my first degree and it’s the day before the exam.
The bad news is that I seem to have neglected to go to any of the lectures during the year and know bugger all about anything.
I’ve been having these things so often that I now dream about “it doesn’t matter though, it’s not actually happening” – at which point I feel very relieved.
Brains eh?
I don’t remember any academic anxiety dreams. The dream that I’ve had that’s been most recurrent is that I’m in a big field and that if I get a good running start, I can fly. I then soar over alpine meadows.
As a less pleasant experience after seeing Pacific Rim, for a few nights, I had nightmares where I watched my father die over and over again killed by kaiju. After each time I watched him get killed I would become more powerful but it didn’t matter how powerful I became, I couldn’t prevent his death. In reality, he died in 2005 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
All of the above … well, nearly. And some more. Some are just “vignettes” rather than full dreams.
* Taking an exam in a subject I haven’t studied.
* Performing in a play without having learnt my lines.
* Performing in a band when I can’t play my guitar. (I can’t play anything IRL!)
* Being in a house rather like one I used to live in, but with no staircases to the upper rooms, or with gaping holes to the foundations.
* Ditto., but the house has extensive “hidden” rooms.
* Going back to a previous house or my college where there are still boxes of my stuff.
* Sitting on the loo in a room with no partitions/cubicles.
* Having to complete a bus or train journey with weird stations and bizarre seating arrangements (sometimes including open coaches).
* Walking out of town to visit an ex-girlfriend from uni., but the location “belongs” to an old high school girlfriend.
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I’m so relieved (pun intended) that others have the weird bathroom dreams. I thought that was only me.
I also have weird fishtank dreams. I suddenly realize I have something like 6 fishtanks and I’ve forgotten to look after them all but they have healthy fish & plants in them.
Yes, being in a play, and realising you don’t know the lines, or having to give a reading to a large audience, and you open the text at the right place, look up at the audience, look back down at the page, and it’s changed, so you repeat this, and repeat this ever more frantically while voices rise in the auditorium, saying things like ‘Who’s this idiot’ My wife would say that in that last respect my dreams were very objective.
Oh yeah, weird bathroom dreams…
In mine, the bathroom is a very large, oddly-shaped room (usually with multiple doors). And instead of standard toilets and urinals, there are strange mechanical contraptions that I can’t figure out how to use. And there’s no privacy, and there are both men and women around.
Usually I give up on this bathroom and head back into the hallway to try to find a more conventional one…
Yeah I too have tried to find better bathrooms in my dreams but never do. I usually just come upon more weird bathrooms. Mine are never set in their weirdness but I have experienced your variation as well.
Do you frantically rearrange all the toilet paper in your dreams??
The toilet paper is always correctly hung in my dreams.
Actually, it never comes up. The washrooms are so weird that I never notice the TP.
Probably isn’t any…
Typo ergo sum Merilee
>
A few months back I had one of those dreams – with a very disconcerting twist. I was on a country railway station and I conveniently found a genuine old corrugated iron ‘dunny’… I was just making use of it when I realised I was getting a damp feeling down there. The – umm, physiological part of my dream was real. Aaaaagh!
Since then, when I have to go to the loo in the middle of the night, I’m almost paranoid about making sure I really have got up out of bed and I’m not just dreaming…
I know I’m okay if after trying to use the terrible loos, I still have to go to the bathroom. It seems like just an irritating part of the dream, but I really just have to go to the bathroom & I eventually wake up.
Of course, there are real public toilets like that; e.g., on the waterfront near the airport in San Diego.
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After graduation from UVA I dreamed for years that when I went to pick up my real diploma (They gave us an empty tube at graduation, perhaps they were afraid now that we all had a degree we were smart enough to loose it?) they told me that I hadn’t really graduated!!
This dream probably germinated from the fact that I had to go an extra year (in 1977 way before the 5+ year plan was all the rage). This extra year was necessary to bring my GPA above the requires 2.0 needed to graduate (pathetic, I lnow).. I spent all my time working in the lab and cutting classes. Didn’t turn out so bad in the end…. kust retired after 35+ years in research.
Best to proof spelling before submitting :0
What a bunch of sociopathic jerks to make you go to a ceremony then give you an empty tube!
It’s so they don’t have to take care to have the right name among hundreds of graduates.
At my college graduation, we were given diploma cases that contained a sheet of paper with the message, “If you have not received your correct diploma by mail within two weeks, please notify the university office.” So, yeah, that’s it.
The worst one I had was when I had to do two supplemental exams a few weeks into a new term. I had a dream where I was with my family on holiday after the term ended when I realised I still hadn’t got my results for that term yet. And for that matter, I hadn’t got the results for my supplemental exam. And I didn’t even remember taking those supplemental exams! I woke up in an absolute panic and I ran over to my computer to check the calendar.
Worst nightmare of my life.
I am a violinist, so my version of “academic anxiety” has tended to center around orchestra concerts. Always, I find myself scheduled to play in a concert but there are problems. I’m running late, and something is keeping me from getting there on time. My violin case is locked and I can’t find the key. I can’t find the concert hall (common). I don’t have any music. I usually wake up before the crisis occurs, but one time I didn’t. I finally got to the hall only to find the audience streaming out because the concert was over!
This one too. In addition to being an academic (106 above), I am an amateur horn player. I have variations in which I forgot to bring my horn to a concert, can’t find my music, can’t find the concert venue, etc.
No academic anxiety dreams come to mind – I experience enough academic anxiety while awake! – but I do have a recurring bad dream about driving cars and discovering there are no brakes.
I wonder what the common anxiety dreams are of those who are not necessarily academics.
Politician? Find out your speech-writer is Sarah Palin?
Preacher? Find only Monopoly money in collection plate?
Songwriter? Have an earworm “Oo ee oo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang”?
Hey, this is fun!
For years and for several years after retirement anxiety dreams involved walking into the lab. And realizing I had not looked in the incubator for several days(weeks,months) and just wondering if the cultures could be revived. Cell lines I had spent much time developing -and then getting balky and making up spurious reasons for continuing the neglect.Or the sterile hood would be totally cluttered etc etc etc.
Also not anxiety but more longing-a person with whom I had an intense relationship and who had died would show up in my dreams and I would question him-‘I thought you died’ are you REALLY alive and he would assure me he was. That dream could get very elaborate.
My dreams virtually stopped when I actually went back to school.
You’ll be out of luck when, at graduation, they say “Follow your dreams!”
Maybe that’s a good thing though. Judging from these dreams here, he’d be wandering around without his pants in some messed up house looking for a bathroom that will be weird. Not much of a future in that! 🙂
It’s amazing to me how much real life is often now like those old dreams…
A couple of my recurring dreams match those of other commenters. In my academic dream, I’ve just realized that I’m a couple weeks into the quarter, and I haven’t attended any classes yet. (Sometimes I haven’t even signed up for any.) In my no-pants dream, I have absentmindedly removed my pants and left them somewhere, and I need to find them and put them back on before anybody notices.
Oddly, though, I don’t feel very anxious or stressed in these dreams. In the academic dream, I figure that I can make up a couple weeks of classes — I’ll just have to study a little harder. And in my no-pants dream, I’m only a little embarrassed. I’d be more embarrassed if anybody did take notice, but nobody ever does.
Maybe the pants dreams are our brains practicing for senility. It is like your left brain saying, “ok, one day I’m going to retire and it will just be you and righty so you will probably forget your pants. No worries though as righty doesn’t feel embarrassment. Ok, wake up now.”
Similar experience. Less frequent now since I don’t remember many dreams as I age but they happen every 4 months or so.
Mine tend to reflect exaggerated versions of actual events, both from first/second year in college. First: I’m late for a biology test because they moved the location of the final exam across campus (arrived 10 minutes late by bike in a sweat). In the dream, I am unable to find the test location. Second: I struggled on an advanced calculus test and got a C- (one of my worst grades). In the dream, nothing I do can prevent me from failing this test and the class and destroy my GPA.
And I thought I was alone in this sort of dream! I received my PhD in 1969 but had not had any formal classes on-campus for the previous 2 years as I was teaching at a small college while finishing my research and writing. “The Dream” didn’t begin until 2-3 years after my graduation.
Somehow I discovered that I had to have a particular English course on my graduate transcript; I went to the class and the professor told me it was only a formality, all I needed to do was show up for the final exam. So I went about my business, but when exam time arrived and graduation approached, the classroom had been changed and I had no idea where it might be. As I searched around the multistory building with balconies and exterior doors all around, the dream ended. I had the dream perhaps 8-10 times over a period of 4-5 years and it progressed along the same script every time.
After a few repetitions, I realized it was a dream but could not fathom why it would appear years after my degree was awarded. I can remember every detail but have not had a recurrence since the mid-late 1970’s.
I started getting these dreams after I went back to uni to do my masters degree, and now that I’m doing a PhD I get them occasionally too. Usually I have just realised I have an exam for a subject I had forgotten I was even doing, and I haven’t been to any lectures and I’m toast! For some reason it’s usually a maths subject which I didn’t even do at university level. I’m doing a lot of statistics lately, but stats isn’t really maths.
I used to have flying dreams but I don’t get them any more. I also used to get a lot of tidal wave dreams where I was in danger from a series of huge waves. Dreams are interesting, but I usually find that when I figure them out they only tell me stuff I already knew.
I’m actually surprised to learn people wake up every morning being able to remember their dreams. I rarely wake up knowing what I dreamt about the night before.
I do remember one dream related to my profession (organist), and it was exceedingly odd. The setting was an organ practice room at the Eastman School of Music, where I earned my MM. What was happening was Ton Koopman (a Dutch and somewhat controversial organist/harpsichordist/early music conductor) was performing J. S. Bach’s A major keyboard concerto – on a typewriter. Dressed as a clown: rainbow ‘fro, floppy shoes, red nose. But he was also wearing an ill-fitting A-shirt and sporting a rather hairy, flabby midriff.
LOL! That one dream is worth several of our ho-hum, everyone-has-them dreams. 🙂
Frequent scary dream of mine: I’m descending a staircase in a stairwell in a multistoried building, winding down the stairs from landing to landing to landing; then I suddenly come to a place where the stairs end and there’s nothing but a bottomless void where my next step would have been. This dream comes with all the acrophobia & vertigo one might imagine…
Back in the 80’s, my MSc exams held a lot of anxiety, as they were unrepeatable.
The night before one of them I had a vividly realistic dream that I was taking the exam and confronted by some unusual questions that I had no idea how to answer:
Advanced Animal Physiology
1. Moving squares (a picture of three plain squares overlapping). Which squares convey the greatest sense of movement?
2. This is a picture of the space shuttle in orbit. Add any modifications as you see fit.
(I added a tub of ice cream for the astronauts to eat, some seatbelts and a fire extinguisher).
For the next exam, I had an even more realistic dream of waking up and discovering I was an hour late for the exam. I got dressed in a panic and leaped through the door, only to suddenly find myself standing in the dark at 3am in my wardrobe.
The darker aspect of this is that I still remember students sitting in the stairwell of the science building late at night having a little cry while they mulled over whether to drop the exams and try again next year.
Everyone sat and everyone passed, as it turned out. And those who were sure they would probably fail did quite well indeed.
One of our lecturers had a series of slides depicting him marking one of those stairwells with grades on each step, throwing the exam papers down from the top and then sitting down to note which step they landed on.
I’ve had dreams like that on occasion.
BUT – on a different note and by sheer coincidence – the title of this post burst on me because at the moment my brain is full of “I Dreamed a Dream” – Fantine’s song from Les Miserables. Specifically, Lea Salonga’s version from the Broadway production, on auto-repeat in my head. Alternating with Eponine’s “On My Own” (and guess who’s singing that?**). I know I’m 20 years behind everyone else but that’s just me, wandering around in Youtube. 🙂
It happens – I discover a new song or a new singer and I OD on it like a junkie. Youtube is a fantastic garden of delights (musically speaking). It leads to all sorts of new discoveries (and happy rediscoveries). The wife knows the symptoms – “Are you falling in love with that girl on the Internet?” “Yes dear, have a listen”.
OK, thoroughly derailed Prof CC’s thread, but I know he likes music so I hope he’ll forgive me.
** Also Lea, of course.
The tube is great for random listening. 🙂
Well, you find that when listening to one track, Youtube suggests a lot of other similar tracks. (That’s how I came on “I Dreamed a Dream” and “On My Own” – I was looking for versions of Memory (from Cats) – and came on Lea’s version and random-walked from there…)
The first music I thought of when I saw this post was John Sebastian’s I Had A Dream, which he performed at Woodstock.
I make a practice of turning my anxiety dreams into short stories. Here is one I prepared earlier:
ALL’S ILL THAT ENDS ILL
It was a sepia engraving of a city of the Italian Renaissance. Piazze, palazzi and Corinthian columns everywhere. The caption at the bottom of the screen said Verona, 1514.
Bernard at first thought the images of people dangling by one hand from the dark, arched windows must be some kind of grotesque statuary; but the longer he scrutinised them, the more convinced he became that they were real people. The hand in each case was evidently fastened to the window-frame. The bodies hung down, facing outwards. Some were clearly dead, their heads drooping onto their chests. Others’ faces were twisted in grimaces of pain. A disturbing scene – like one of Hieronymus Bosch’s depictions of Hell. Bernard felt a prickle of excitement.
He googled History of Verona, and soon came upon a site where the bizarre scene was explained:
In the early Sixteenth Century, the council of Verona established an unusual and barbaric punishment for traders found guilty of fraudulent practices. They were hung by the right hand from an upper storey of the building where they had carried out their trade, and left without food or water until death occurred. The bodies were then left hanging for another three weeks, as a warning to the populace at large. If family or friends attempted to free or feed them they were subjected to the identical punishment. The city was notorious among travellers for the stench of rotting corpses in the financial district, until the statute was repealed by Duke Viktor III in 1524.
Yesss! Bernard said, punching the air. When he’d begun googling he had not expected anything so perfectly tailored to his purposes. It was a godsend. He took out his mobile and phoned Matt.
He heard the phone ring, and his chest tightened with tension. Matt had the power to crush his idea while it was still an embryo. But why should he? Any unbiased judge must admit it was a stinger of an idea; and Matt, as the producer, presumably wanted the production to succeed.
Hello? Matt said.
I’ve got the most amazing idea! Bernard began straight away. It’ll give the play a whole new dimension – totally original, never been done before.
What is it?
Meet me in the pub in half an hour. It’ll blow your mind.
You have got to be joking, Matt said. Actors hanging by their hands from high windows for
the whole performance?
That’s it!
They really did that in Verona?
At exactly the right period for the play! I googled Verona to get some images for the set design – and stumbled on this.
Hmm, I don’t know, Matt said. He scratched his dense, bushy black moustache as if the answer might be lurking in there. Bernard had always been intimidated by that moustache. Why can’t we do it with dummies, if they’re supposed to be dead?
They’re not all dead. We want a few live ones, moaning and groaning. Show the cruelty of it.
This is a crazy idea, Bernard. It’ll distract from the performance.
I don’t think so. It’ll be integral to the performance. And it’ll get people talking. Lots of publicity.
Yes, the wrong sort of publicity.
Come on, Matt – you know as well as I do there’s no such thing as the wrong sort of publicity.
Matt sighed. He took a long pull at his pint of Guinness. Creamy foam clung to his black moustache. Bernard fought down an urge to reach out and wipe it away. I don’t know, Matt said. I just don’t know.
It’ll work, I know it will!
Isn’t it asking a lot of an actor, to hang there for two hours? It’ll pull the poor bugger’s arm out of its socket!
I’ve thought of that. We’ll need to construct a foothold at exactly the right height, so he can rest on that – the arm’ll be extended, but there won’t be much weight… depending from it. Bernard felt a fierce joy at his cleverly accurate use of the word.
But is it in tune with the spirit of the play? It’s not just a gimmick?
When you do Shakespeare, you can’t just play it straight. And this is not only totally historically accurate, it’s in keeping with the themes of the play. Because it’s all about crime and punishment, isn’t it?
Well – sort of…
It is – and that’s the aspect I really want to foreground. Trust me – it will work!
Matt drank more Guinness, souping up his moustache. Bernard took a gulp of his pint. It tasted strangely sour and insubstantial. But he could see Matt was wavering.
It’ll add to the wage-bill.
They won’t speak, so we won’t need to pay them.
I thought you said they’d moan and groan?
Not words – just inarticulate noises. We won’t have to pay them – just expenses.
I’ll have to look into that.
But in principle…?
Well… you’re the director.
You won’t regret this, Matt!
I’m trusting you, Bernard, remember that. If this fucks up…
It won’t! Bernard drained his curiously unrefreshing pint. Another?
Hammering and drilling filled the auditorium. The set was going up. It took shape with remarkable speed. A facade, in relief, of a Renaissance palazzo, with arched windows and Corinthian columns. The lighting engineer had drenched it in a sombre, yellow-ivory light.
Sam Dillon appeared at Bernard’s elbow.
Looks great, doesn’t it? said Bernard.
Yeah, spectacular. Erm… There’s just one thing bothering me.
Bernard looked at him enquiringly.
These miscreants who are going to hang from the walls…
What about them?
I’m supposed to be a merciful, forgiving Duke, aren’t I? I mean, I’m the good guy.
Sort of, but it’s more ambiguous than that.
Yeah, but this – He gestured at the Palazzo. It was complete now and the extras had taken their places. Their faces were masks of agony and their hollow groans echoed through the auditorium. Their clothes were in rags, and one had breeches so ragged his genitals were exposed to view. That wasn’t a good idea, Bernard realised, especially since it wasn’t just the one person whose genitals were on display; now he looked closer he saw the whole crew had it all hanging out. What the hell were they thinking of? That was just the sort of thing the critics would seize on, and pillory him for making a sensationalist statement about masculinity or men’s cocks or something. Cover yourselves up! he shouted angrily at the dangling men. For God’s sake. The men all moved their one free hand and placed it over their crotch.
We’ll have to get their trousers sewn up in that area, he said, returning his attention to Sam. I’ll speak to Wardrobe, get her to sew a patch or something. Christ, this isn’t a nude revue! So – will that solve the problem?
No, that’s not the issue. The real issue is, how can Duke Antonio be a merciful, forgiving Duke and let these poor buggers hang up there in plain view?
As a matter of historical fact –
Yeah, but Shakespeare wasn’t writing historical fact. He was writing a drama, with characters. And my character –
How we present your character is a matter of interpretation, and that’s my department, Bernard said with an edge in his voice. He wasn’t going to allow Sam to start coming on like some kind of literary expert. This adds a new element to your character – it deepens it. Shows you’ve got layers. On the surface you are mild and merciful, OK, but underneath there’s this streak of… severity. Which makes the character about 110% more interesting in my view – and that’s the view that counts, I think you’ll find.
But I have to say I am good friends to every citizen. How can I say that with a straight face, with those poor bastards moaning away behind me?
It is supposed to be a comedy, remember.
But the laughs aren’t supposed to come from me pretending to be a good guy when in reality I’m a rank hypocrite – are they?
Bernard felt as if he was being pinned. As if Sam had got hold of a forked stick, like a
dowsing rod, and was jamming it up against his neck, pushing him back against a wall so he
could barely breathe. And now other members of the cast started swarming round – there was Carl Blunt, who played Orsino, the Duke’s devious scheming brother, and Ellen Wiggs, who played the part of Hypatia (the third biggest female role in Shakespeare, as she was fond of pointing out).
What’s with those little men hanging up there? Hypatia demanded. The men weren’t little; but she was like that, always trying to belittle others in an attempt to be funny. They’re cluttering the place up.
They weren’t there in rehearsal, Carl said. Why didn’t you tell us about them?
Bernard raised his hands. OK, OK, I’ll explain about it later. I want to have a word with Sam, the rest of you take ten. If he could win Sam over, the rest would follow.
The actors flopped down to rest where they were, except Hypatia and Orsino who went outside to have a fag, and the unfortunate wretches hanging from the windows, who remained in position and carried on moaning. Decidedly, they were getting into role a little too zealously.
Bernard led Sam to the back of the stalls. They sat in adjoining velvet seats. Look, said Bernard, I’m trying to do something difficult, something complex here. I want to show that it’s no use being a good man, a benevolent man, if the structure of society is unfairly skewed against the weak, and held in place by the iron bands of tradition. Bernard saw Sam’s face change, soften, and he knew that his words had found their mark. It’s the iron bands of tradition that are responsible for these poor wretches hanging up there. You’re powerless to change that, you see.
But I’m not powerless, am I? I’m the Duke, why don’t I change the law?
The guy was being deliberately awkward, Bernard realised. Using facts and logic like weapons, rather than the humble tools they should be. You may be a benevolent dictator, but you’re still a dictator, right? You can’t give way to merciful impulses. You have to keep showing the masses who’s boss. Otherwise you’ll be toppled.
So – Sam’s forehead crinkled. I put up with this barbaric method of punishment because it’s popular with the people?
Don’t forget you’re not far out of the Middle Ages, it was a cruel time –
So I just have to sort of tolerate this barbaric tradition for the time being –
For the time being, that’s it! You can’t introduce all your reforms at once.
But I don’t like it? If I could change it, I would?
That’s right. And if you could contrive to put that across in your performance…
Like, wince every time I look at them?
That sort of thing, yes, but you have to be subtle.
Oh, I can do subtle, Sam said. He put his head in his hands and sat hunched for a while. Bernard stared at the small patch of pale scalp visible at the crown of his hair. Eventually Sam straightened. OK, I’ll go with it.
Excellent! Bernard slapped him on the back. If anyone can make it work, it’s you! He realised he was underselling his idea. I mean, not that it’s hard to make it work, but you’ll do it exceptionally well.
There was a flurry of loud banging and hammering and the whirr of an electric drill. A group of workmen were busy on stage. Bernard ran down the auditorium and vaulted lightly up to join them. What are you doing?
The leader of the workmen was a tall, stringy fellow with a ragged moustache and a shifty air. He reminded Bernard of Blakey from On the Buses. We’re putting these footholds up, like you asked. For the chaps hanging from the windows. That’s what you asked for and that’s what we’re doing.
But I thought you’d already done that?
Oh, no no no no. We’ve had a million and one other things on our plate this morning, believe you me.
So they’ve been hanging there unsupported all this time? No wonder they were moaning, Bernard thought. They must be in genuine agony. How long will it take to get the footrests up?
We’re working as fast as we can, Blakey said peevishly.
Well, look, hadn’t we better take them down while you’re working?
Blakey sighed. OK, but that’s another job to do, it just means the whole thing will take longer. He began to slouch off the stage.
Where are you going?
To get a bandsaw. Those knots are tight and the rope is more than a little bit thick. A Stanley knife won’t cut it.
Wait, said Bernard. He thought. Everything would take twice as long if the suspended men had to be cut down, the footrests installed, and then the men put back up again. And might it not actually add to their suffering? They’d still be savouring the relief of being freed, massaging their bruised, swollen wrists, when they’d have to be put back up again. There was something unpleasantly cat-and-mousish about it.
He walked deeper onto the stage and tilted back his head. Listen, guys – I’m afraid you’re going to have to stick it out a little bit longer up there. The chippies are working on the footrests right now. It’s gonna be OK, OK? The suspended men looked in a bad way. The one directly above him had a purple, mottled face and his eyeballs had rolled up so only the whites were visible. I’ll never forget what you guys have been through for me, Bernard said. Tears sprang to his eyes. I’m really sorry for all you’ve been through. The pain. But it will be worth it, I promise you. I’ve never met a bunch of guys I admire as much as you. I mean that. The only answer was a chorus of agonised moans.
Bernard turned away. He put his hand on Blakey’s shoulder. Get those footrests up as fast as you damned well can. Those men are suffering – big-time.
Whose fault is that? Blakey said. It was your idea to hang them up there. Everyone else thought it was a shit idea.
I never intended any harm, Bernard said, choking back a sob. I never wanted anyone to be hurt and that is God’s honest truth. He took Blakey’s hand and squeezed it to convince him of his sincerity.
Blakey bowed his head. Well then, I’ll get me tools.
Bernard wandered off the stage. The theatre was beginning to fill up with early birds. As
he walked up the aisle he kept having to dodge people who loomed up in front of him. I wonder if they know I’m the director, Bernard thought? I wonder if they care? They were making clearly, perhaps deliberately audible comments about the men on display.
Some sort of gimmick. I don’t like it. Why do they always have to mess about with Shakespeare? Those men look to be in real pain. Cruel, I call it.
Bernard accosted one of them. I did it with the best of intentions.
I’m sure that’s a great comfort to those poor, suffering men, the woman replied sarcastically, and Bernard realised that he knew her: it was Alison, a friend of his wife’s whom he’d always vaguely fancied but who had once been extremely rude to him in a restaurant. She was wearing a semitransparent top through which the swell of her breasts and the dark nubs of her nipples could be seen. Bernard found this arousing and annoying in equal measure.
I’m taking steps to alleviate their suffering, he said. I’m not a monster.
You could have fooled me. She walked away before he could think of a riposte.
The problem, Bernard reflected, was that the men were on public display. That fool Blakey still hadn’t got the footrests up and in the meantime the safety curtain ought to be brought down. The stage crew had slipped up. He would have to sort out the safety curtain himself. The public shouldn’t be viewing these scenes before the play started.
He turned and made his way back towards the stage again. There was a side-door. Bernard went through.
He found himself in a gloomy, dusty corridor. An iron spiral staircase led up to the control centre, from where he would be able to lower the safety curtain.
He went up. The staircase had no handrail, and he had to climb pressed against the wall for safety. He looked down and saw the dangling men, oddly foreshortened from this height. He climbed more slowly, putting his hands on the steps in front. One false move, and he would plunge to guaranteed destruction. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. How terrible if I were to die here, he thought. Smashed to pieces on the stage in front of a theatre full of people: a tragedy instead of the comedy they had come to see.
It was becoming harder and harder to advance – even to haul himself up a single step demanded a huge effort of will. His hands and feet were only millimetres away from the edge of the steps. The staircase was creaking and trembling – the whole structure was unsafe. A death-trap. Perhaps he should go back down now, while he still could. But there was no space to turn round on this cruelly narrow staircase – he would have to inch down backwards. Well, but when he got to the top he’d have to do that anyway, and the sooner he did the shorter the distance he would have to retrace. But then, he had to get that curtain down…
All the while he had been disputing this he had been very, very slowly advancing, and now the gantry was at last in sight. If he could haul himself up these last few steps without falling… Forcing down his fear, he continued on his hands and knees, gripping the ironwork with all his strength, moving with infinite care. At last, he was able to pull himself up to collapse on the gantry, a narrow walkway of wrought-iron, hundreds of feet above the stage. He still didn’t feel safe enough to stand. There was a console with an array of buttons and switches. He crawled towards it on all-fours. A man was sitting at the console.
Excuse me, do you know which of these controls operates the safety curtain?
The lighting technician looked familiar. Very familiar. It was Bernard’s father. About time you got here. I’ve been waiting ages. How am I supposed to manage up here all on my own?
Sorry, I’ve been extremely busy and the truth is I’m not here to help, I came to operate the safety curtain.
I see. I have to do all the lighting and sound alone, unaided. Par for the course, I suppose.
Please, Dad, don’t start trying to guilt-trip me now, I have a play to direct, the auditorium is filling up, my lead actor’s not happy, the set’s not even finished yet, I have suffering
extras on display who will seriously distress the audience if I don’t get that safety curtain down pronto, in fact it’s probably already too late in fact –
It sounds as if you’ve made a complete balls-up of the whole enterprise.
Well, Dad, you can call it that, but –
I call a spade a spade, me. But if you want a fancy Italian word, it’s a complete fucking fiasco.
Bernard went quiet. His dad often made cutting or critical remarks but he had never spoken to him in such an ugly manner before. All right, his father said, I’m sorry for swearing. It’s only that I’m concerned about you. I want you to do well. I’m proud of you, don’t you know that?
Yes, said Bernard huskily
You’d better get on and do what you have to do – that play won’t direct itself!
But will you be able to manage the lights on your own?
Trust me. And if it all goes tits-up, it’s not the end of the world, is it?
It’ll be the end of my play, though, and my career, Bernard thought, but didn’t say, not wanting to spoil this rare moment of rapprochement with his father, a stern, harsh man who hid his vulnerability behind a carapace of derision.
Bye, Dad, Bernard said.
Goodbye, Bernard, goodbye – and his father contrived to inject those words with infinite significance, as if they were a declaration of love, a confession of failure, an apology for past misdeeds, an adieu forever and an epitaph, all rolled into one.
Bernard set off back down the perilous staircase. It creaked and rocked beneath him. The steps seemed further apart on the way down, so that he had to stretch from one to the next over a yawning chasm. Overcome by vertigo he had to sit down. The step was just too narrow, so that his thighs and half his buttocks overhung it. In the gap between his legs he could see the auditorium far, far below, and the audience buzzing around, clambering over each other to get to their seats like bees in a hive. He had to get downstairs before the play began. He needed to talk to his cast, especially Sam. But he felt unable to move; one slip and he would be hurtling downwards like a stone, accelerating at thirty-two feet per second.
Them, with a cool gush of relief, he remembered that near here, providentially at this very step, there was a passage that led to a proper solid staircase, one that was actually part of the original construction of the building, not thrown up later like the flimsy piece of creaking ironwork he was perched upon.
The opening to the passageway was a square black aperture to his left. He crawled in. It was low and narrow, so that although he proceeded on all-fours, his scalp scraped the ceiling and the walls pressed in on his shoulders. Dangling cobwebs trailed against his face. It seemed he had swapped a bad situation for an even worse one. If the tunnel got any narrower he would be trapped. He could not turn round. If he tried to get out backwards he wouldn’t be able to see where he was going and would fall when he reached the opening. Also the tunnel seemed to be going in the wrong direction, away from where he had expected the stairway to be. God, he said to himself, I’ll never get there now; everything has gone wrong. He was tempted to give up and stop where he was, all bunched up in the tunnel. But something drove him forward. I can’t go on, I’ll go on. A light appeared ahead. He tried to crawl faster. For a long time it got no nearer. Then, quite abruptly he tumbled into a small cell, lit by a yellow light-bulb.
Sam was sitting in a chair, his head in his hands. He looked up at Bernard’s approach, but did not seem surprised.
Sam, what are you doing here?
I don’t think I can do it, Bernard.
What?
I’ve been going over and over my lines and they just don’t ring true. Especially that last speech – the quality of mercy is not strained – how can I possibly say that? With those poor buggers behind me getting their arms pulled out of their sockets –
It’ll give those lines a flavour of irony which is totally new, Bernard said.
But it’s wrong for the character. If you turn the Duke into a callous hypocrite you take away the play’s moral centre – OK, so you get a new interpretation which gives the critics something to write about but it makes a nonsense of the Duke’s motivation, and of the themes of the play!
So what are you saying? You won’t go on?
Not unless you can write some extra lines into that last speech, saying the malefactors are pardoned and will be released from their torment –
I can’t tamper with the text – it’s Shakespeare, for Christ’s sake!
You’ve already tampered with it by putting those poor bastards up there.
Look, we haven’t got time, the curtain is due to go up in – Bernard’s hand flew to his mouth. Oh my God! The safety curtain – I never put it down!
So the stage has been in plain view of the whole audience all this time?
Bernard ran to the balcony and looked over. The theatre was full. The audience sat in shocked silence. The only sound was the moaning and groaning from the poor wretches hanging from the palazzo windows. An icy hand clutched at Bernard’s entrails. This is a… catastrophe, Bernard thought. I must be the worst director in theatrical history.
But wait. If he followed Sam’s suggestion that might turn everything around. The shock and distress the audience was now experiencing would be soothed away by a happy ending in which the dangling wretches were freed. Yes, it could work!
OK Sam, I’ll indulge you, we’ll insert a couple of lines in that final speech.
Great – if I could say something like, This needless suffering must end, cut them down! Only it’ll have to be in blank verse.
I know it’ll have to be in blank verse, Bernard said irritably. Let’s put it in after that line about tempering justice with mercy – let’s see – In earnest of the same, let these poor sinners/ Be set at large and liberty forthwith/ Their lesson learned, their lives are now redeemed.
Hey, that’s pretty good!
There’s no need to sound so astonished. Bernard felt tears prickling his eyelids – everyone underestimated him, nobody valued him at his true worth. We’d better get down there fast, while the audience is still there.
Together they ran down the stairs, taking them two and a time, then three at a time, then four, until eventually Bernard was leaping down whole flights, miraculously without hurting himself. He emerged from the dark into the bright theatre. Light sparkled from the enormous chandelier.
The audience were already rising to their feet. They were streaming to the exits. He heard them muttering disgustedly.
Barbaric. Completely unacceptable. An outrage.
Don’t go! Bernard shouted. The play’s about to start, it’s got a new ending –
A woman poked him in the chest. You’re going to be in big trouble over this. It was Alison. Her nearly-visible breasts joggled as she spoke; her face was bitterly serious. I’m going to report you to the police. The suffering you’ve inflicted on those poor people is appalling. You’ll be charged with Actual Bodily Harm.
But they did it voluntarily!
Yeah? Tell that to the jury. Then she was gone. The last he saw of her was her pert little arse flouncing out of the door, as if it had an independent existence of its own.
Matt loomed up, his big black moustache louring at Bernard. I trusted you, Bernard, Matt said. I supported you and your crazy ideas – and now you’ve wrecked the production single-handed!
But – it was a good idea, it could have worked –
I’ll see you in court, Matt said. Then he, too was gone.
The theatre was empty now. Even the actors had gone home. The only ones left were the dangling people on stage, still softly moaning. Bernard sat on the edge of the stage and gazed at the rows of empty seats. This must be the worst theatrical disaster ever. The critics would have a field day. He’d let Matt down. His career was finished. And he had a possible police investigation to face. He heard footsteps and looked up, deliberately keeping his face a mask of dismay. He wanted everyone to know how much tonight’s events had hurt him. It was Blakey. He was holding two long triangular lengths of wood, like magnified Toblerones.
I done them footrests.
A bit bloody late, isn’t it?
You asked for ’em, I done ‘em.
And there’s only two, that wouldn’t have been enough in any case.
I can do more if that’s what you want.
It’s too late, you stupid bastard! he shouted. If you’d done it earlier everything would have been all right. He felt a cruel determination to make Blakey see exactly what he was responsible for. Thanks to you this run has ended before it began – and these poor men have endured hours of extreme suffering for nothing!
Blakey stared at him unblinkingly. It weren’t my fault.
Well we might as well cut them down now, Bernard said, suddenly tired. The dangling men had all stopped moaning now. The auditorium was eerily quiet.
I’ll get me bandsaw.
You do that. Bernard moved towards the nearest of the danglers. He was motionless. Bernard touched his foot. The man swung slightly, arms hanging by his sides, head sunk on his chest.
With a rising sense of nausea, Bernard scanned the whole line. It was as he had feared, as he had known: they were all dead, every man jack of them. The ordeal had proved too much.
Bernard sank to his knees in the middle of the stage. There was no escape now. His failure was complete. The police would cart him away and he would deserve it. He wept. The misery and guilt were, in a strange way, almost a relief from the anxiety. Almost, almost.
If Jerry permits, I can put up a link to the blog – sorry, website – where I post these anxiety dreams. It is called Bernard’s Anxious Nights.
Umm, brandon, mate; I’m pretty sure Prof CC would be fine with a link, but he’s gonna hate that you posted the whole story.
Oh. Oh dear. Well, I didn’t mean to break any rules, but will certainly take it down if I have gone too far! Thanks for the warning.
I used to have repeated dreams (not nightmares) about a magic place, a footpath up a narrow valley by a stream, that led to a small footbridge across the stream right underneath a big arch bridge. The sort of thing that’s magic for kids. I thought it must be a fantasy concocted by my brain.
Then, a couple of decades ago, I was visiting Hastings UK (where we lived till I was three years old) and I bought a street map and out of the blue, the name ‘Old Roar Ghyll’ rang a bell. (A ghyll is a narrow valley). So I walked up it – and there was the exact bridge out of my dream. Now I know my grandfather used to take me for walks in the park, and I seem to remember we only got up that far once or twice, though I wanted more. Then we moved away (and presumably left me with an unsatisfied longing).
I haven’t had the dream since. But I don’t mind, it’s kind of reassuring to know my dream was real.
During the seven years I was a professor, and for about a decade afterwards, the student anxiety dream was replaced with a teaching anxiety dream: I had forgotten I had scheduled an exam, I had forgotten where my class was, I had been assigned a class but not been told about it (this actually happened to a friend of mine) etc. Only in the past several years have the student dreams began replacing the teacher dreams.
While I’ve had one recurring nightmare — it disappeared years ago, I’m still not sure why — let me quote the following which I ran into last night, while reading John Sandford’s “Silken Prey” (I’m an addict of mysteries, what can I say?):
“Lucas Davenport was having his hockey nightmare, the one where he is about to take the ice in an NCAA championship game, but can’t find his skates. He knows where they are — locker 120 — but the locker numbers end at 110 down one aisle, and pick up at 140 on the next one.
“He knows 120 is somewhere in the vast locker room, and as the time ticks down to the beginning of the match, and the fan-chants start from the bleachers overhead, he runs frantically barefoot up and down the rows of lockers, scanning the number plates…
“He knew he was dreaming even as he did it. He wanted nothing more than to end it, which was why he was struggling toward consciousness at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning…”
I have the recurring dream approximately once a month that I am a Masters or Undergrad student (I am currently doing my PhD). It is the end of the semester and I haven’t attended lectures or completed any course assignments. The dream usually involves me panicking over the fact that I won’t be able to further my graduate studies and trying to find a loophole to repair the damage done to my grades. But probably the most bizarre recurring dream I have, and I always get it during times of workload stress or when a major milestone is approaching, is one where I am back in high school. The dream usually involves me returning to high school to increase my average. It always goes horribly wrong, since I’m completing my PhD (or MA as I’ve been having this dream for years now) and have no time for high school courses. In the end I try to find a way to get out of the endeavour without adding poor grades to my transcript. Why high school I have no idea, but I guess that these dreams have to do with some of my poor undergrad grades. I had three semesters where mental health seriously affected my grades and overall average. I had to do an extra year to make up for them and even now those poor grades negatively affect my applications for external scholarships. There is hope this will change as my MA grades and first PhD grades have been strong and hopefully that will put an end to these nightmares!
Great string of replies.
Read “The Mind at Night”
by Andrea Rock.
Loved this book!
I dreamt I was covered in gold paint – the psychiatrist said I had a gilt complex…
That reminds me of the psychiatrist who told his patient, “Your anxiety, depression, and nightmares are caused by what we call ‘chronic low self-esteem’; it’s very common in losers like you!”
I had the “typical” dreams back in High School and college of (1)Realizing that I was late for an exam (a variation on this was the additional realization that I’d forgotten to even ATTEND the class all semester) (2) being unable to find where the exam was being held (an odd, recurring theme was that, when I DID find the classroom, it had a screen door on it, rather than a regular door) (3) finally making it to the class only to realize that I’d forgotten to put my pants on!
Although I DO believe that these types of dreams are often triggered by underlying anxieties, and I DO believe that there is a certain amount of subconscious “problem-solving” that occurs in sleep (a great example is the discovery of the “benzene ring” as a result of a dream), I feel that the majority of “sleep-thinking” is probably just “mind-garbage”: I’ve found that, as I’ve found ways in my life to defuse anxiety, I have almost no dreams of this type anymore, although I have vivid, surreal ones that are very entertaining.
The research into “lucid” dreaming is fascinating: I had a “lucid” dream once, after reading a book about it- it was one of the most amazing experiences I ever had, and “bore out” several of the findings and common aspects of lucid dreaming that were discussed in the book, such as writing changing every time you looked at it, and “going back to sleep in the dream” when it seemed about to end, in order to continue it.
I tell my students to review, quickly, just before going to sleep at night, any problems or questions they’ve gotten stuck on, from their homework, or things they must memorize, because the brain, unencumbered by all the distractions of consciousness, can focus, during sleep. I often sleep on a problem and wake with its solution or sleep on something that must be remembered and struggle far less with it the next day.
So, if I may offer a suggestion, JAC, in your case, I would recommend creating a solution first, then going to sleep and enacting it as needed.
It’s a dream world, so feel free to use magic (and think Penn and Teller, if that helps). For missing notes, whistle, so they come flying right into your hand. For oversleeping on exam day, try clicking your heels together, each click backing up the clock by one hour, so you can get back on time. Decide your solutions before sleep, then sleep on them to make them stick and work.
Once your scenarios are successfully resolved, they just might go away.
It is amazing how similar all these dreams are. From time to time I have both kinds of anxiety dreams–I have somehow failed to graduate from high school even though I have three degrees, and I have to take a final exam in a course I have never attended.
I have also had this strange dream a couple of times, but not recently: I am having two different dreams at once, and when things get boring or sticky in one dream I decide to switch to the other. The scene goes all pixilated and then the other dream emerges.
Although I have not set foot in a lab for nearly 40 years, I have the following dream several times a year.
I have been invited back to my old college to undertake some post-doctoral research. Somehow I understand that it is a great privilege to have been asked. When I arrive, the geography of the college and the university have subtly changed (in some variants of the dream I increasingly panic because I can’t find my way to the lab, or to my college room). Once in the lab, though, I realise that I have forgotten how to carry out even simple chemical processes, much less how to prepare and carry out a research programme. Everyone else seems to know what they are doing, but there is no-one I can ask for help, and I cannot admit I am there under false pretences. Finally I have to give a presentation on my results, which of course are non-existent. Usually I then wake up in a cold sweat.
I have to wonder sometimes if my sub-conscious is simply having a laugh at my expense!
a bbc documentary on dreams and dream research. it includes footage of cats acting out their dreams.