I frequently have bad dreams, even nightmares about teaching, and I have not taught in over 4 years. Always I am unprepared for class, don't know where my class is or what's going on. Sometimes I am not fully dressed. Scary.
Do you experience this?
Yes, all of these.
Me too! As a student I'd have the "you have a test in the class you didn't know you'd registered for" bad dream. Now, I have the "you're trying to run a meeting/teach a class and you can't write on the board" version.
Your psyche is just tossing up scenarios to help you take your prep seriously.
Say thank you, check to be sure you're not about to actually do any of the things it's warning you about, and go your way.
Minecsings a low-level annoying song when I've forgotten some crucial task, usually a bill to be paid or some such.
I figure it's just some very old, inchoate part of my brain that communicates in ideograms instead of words.
Or maybe not....
M.
All of those as well. Plus being behind the podium and realizing that I'm not wearing pants. I think many, many of us have imposter syndrome . . .
Every year. I'm trying to teach a class that's scattered throughout several smaller rooms. Or only a handful of the computers in the lab work. I start the first day of class and realize I don't have my materials so I'm trying to "fake it" until I can get the syllabus copied. I can't get the students' attention. I'm wearing only a towel and it keeps slipping. I find out someone who used to bully me when we were kids is registered for my class...
For a long while after I moved from K-12 to university, I had a recurring dream that my class was made up of clones of the one or two students who were constantly disruptive and I could never reach. That, thankfully, ended after I ran into one of my "worst" and found out he'd turned out okay!
Not anymore, although I used to.
I had a boring and dumb dream about collaborating with someone I follow on Twitter, though, who is NOT in my field at all. I was talking to her about possible interdisciplinary collaboration projects, and that was it. Sum total of the dream, and even in the dream I thought it was boring.
My teaching dreams anymore tend to center around retirement (and I'm about 10 years away from that) so I think I'm a little burned out, rather than anxious at this point.
Quote from: statsgeek on August 24, 2019, 05:05:36 AM
I start the first day of class and realize I don't have my materials so I'm trying to "fake it" until I can get the syllabus copied.
Me too. I frequently have bad dreams that I forgot to write a syllabus for the first day of class. It's weird, because we don't have a rule that a syllabus needs to be distributed on day 1, and I could easily, on the fly, make up a pedagogical reason why we're going to talk about the subject on day 1 and save the syllabus/organizational stuff for day 2.
Never.
As a student, however, I had the exam dream twice. And I had a dissertation defence dream, although it wasn't really bad; I just dreamt how it would go.
My stress dreams pretty much all involve my teeth crumbling or falling out.
You guys! Just last night I had the most amazing unprepared teaching dream! I will share it here.
I was teaching a new class on fantasy literature*, and I hadn't prepared anything for it. You know, same old, same old. But! Because I actually know quite a hell of a lot about fantasy literature, I decided on-the-go that we would spend our time reading texts and talking about their use, subversion, or aversion of tropes---using TV Tropes as a companion text! And then a student complained that the course covered how to edit fantasy novels, and I apologized for the incorrect advertisement, but explained that we would not be covering editing, but instead tropes in fantasy novels. And then I told the rest of the class that it was only the first day, they had lots of time to do add/drop, and if they were disappointed to learn that the class wouldn't cover editing fantasy novels, they were welcome to leave and find a different class that would better suit their interests. And a couple of people left, but the rest stayed, and then we started talking about tropes in fantasy novels! It was amazing!
*Not in any way at all related to my own expertise
Quote from: Liquidambar on August 24, 2019, 08:01:42 AM
Quote from: statsgeek on August 24, 2019, 05:05:36 AM
I start the first day of class and realize I don't have my materials so I'm trying to "fake it" until I can get the syllabus copied.
Me too. I frequently have bad dreams that I forgot to write a syllabus for the first day of class. It's weird, because we don't have a rule that a syllabus needs to be distributed on day 1, and I could easily, on the fly, make up a pedagogical reason why we're going to talk about the subject on day 1 and save the syllabus/organizational stuff for day 2.
The no syllabus dream is my most common one, followed by not being prepared and winging it (not very successfully).
Quote from: Bede the Vulnerable on August 23, 2019, 05:00:36 PM
All of those as well. Plus being behind the podium and realizing that I'm not wearing pants. I think many, many of us have imposter syndrome . . .
You lecture "commando"? Then I might understand the dismay. Well, keep the podium "above the waist," hmm?
My only 'underwear-in-public' dream came the night before I was to teach my very first class in grad school.
Since then I occasionally have the 'I-can't-remember-what-class-I-am-supposed-to-teach' dream.
Same basic idea, but my bad dreams are more likely to be about not being able to find the session in which I am supposed to be presenting at a conference, or not being able to find my paper, laptop, or handouts, or realizing I have the wrong paper.
Quote from: Myword on August 23, 2019, 08:45:46 AM
I frequently have bad dreams, even nightmares about teaching, and I have not taught in over 4 years. Always I am unprepared for class, don't know where my class is or what's going on. Sometimes I am not fully dressed. Scary.
Do you experience this?
Before every semester starts I had a teaching anxiety dream, in which my class was out of control. Talking over me, walking in and out, challenging me on stuff. Every freaking semester.
I have only rarely had classroom management problems, so I guess this is my worst fear.
I'm amazed that so many of you guys have these too! I have at least one before the start of every single semester!!! They're the usual ones, nothing prepared, forgot laptop, markers (actually did forget these my very first lecture), and students just getting up and walking out as I start talking. I'd kinda hoped they'd go away after several years of teaching but no luck yet.
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on August 24, 2019, 08:19:53 AM
Never.
As a student, however, I had the exam dream twice. And I had a dissertation defence dream, although it wasn't really bad; I just dreamt how it would go.
My stress dreams pretty much all involve my teeth crumbling or falling out.
Me too! Haven't had one recently, but my teeth are always falling out in my dreams. I used to have a lot of dreams where I was being chased too.
While I do get to have the "bad day teaching" themed dream at the beginning of the semester like so many of us seem to, my brain does not do "regular" dreams. Here's the short version of this year's.
I noticed that my colleague was late for class. That is very unlike her, but I didn't have time to tell her because I had to get to my own lab. As I began my pre-lab lecture, I realized that my prep-person provided me only with mislabeled salad bar ingredients (One of the bags said "rabbit womb," something I neither needed nor wanted, but actually contained de-stemmed sweet peppers with tiny bits of cauliflower). As I lectured, the door opened and a bunch of students not enrolled in my course started streaming in. I realized that my classroom was actually a small cafeteria and they were coming in to eat lunch. This was never going to work, so I tried to figure out how I could get this dining room shut down without getting in trouble for doing so.
I'm reasonably sure that none of this is going to happen this year.
Quote from: Chemystery on August 26, 2019, 10:29:49 PM
One of the bags said "rabbit womb," something I neither needed nor wanted
In the context of the dream, or generally? I mean, haven't we all had cases where what we really needed was some rabbit womb?
All right, then what do these dreams mean? Why are we dreaming this nightmare?
My dreams usually include losing my car and having no transportation.
Every year without fail, a new beginning of term anxiety dream. My favorite:
I show up to the wrong room for the final exam, but so does the whole class. So I have to lead them across campus (I don't teach in a multi building college now) like ducklings. Everyone gets settled and I ask everyone to hand in their cans of tuna and put up the exam question on a power point "Is it moral for Dorothy to bake a cake in Kansas?" I collect the tuna but keep dropping cans loudly, disturbing my students. At one point the fire alarm goes off but no one wants to leave and I resort to pulling the exam sheets from their hands screaming "You can't pass if you're dead" and herding the class of 250 people out into a snow filled field.
Quote from: chemigal on August 26, 2019, 11:41:21 AM
I'm amazed that so many of you guys have these too! I have at least one before the start of every single semester!!! They're the usual ones, nothing prepared, forgot laptop, markers (actually did forget these my very first lecture), and students just getting up and walking out as I start talking. I'd kinda hoped they'd go away after several years of teaching but no luck yet.
Chemgal, I've had variations of most of these dreams before the first day of every semester; more aggravating is the fact that they're usually accompanied by waking up every 20-30 minutes the entire night before that first day. (So much for going to bed early and being well rested on Day 1!)
If it's any encouragement to you, this past First Day (Aug. 19) is the first time I've ever NOT had a bad dream or woken up repeatedly the night before--it was great! I didn't even have the butterflies when I walked into class that first day, as I always did in the past. I'm starting my 16th year FT here, so maybe that's it.
(Then again, it could be as my colleague said: It might just be that I truly don't give a @*$^ anymore. )
I've had several dreams of the sort where I have to teach two classes, back to back, 10 minutes apart, on totally different topics, so I need to carry two sets of materials with me to class. And, of course, my campus has mysteriously grown exponentially in size with the classes being in different buildings, miles apart, and I keep running and running in hopes of reaching the second class but never manage to get there on time.
And right before this semester started, I had a dream that a colleague and I were both scheduled to teach at the same time in the large lecture hall that seats 200. We each had 100 students in our classes, so decided to split the room in half and both lecture at the same time. Yeah, like that would work!
Quote from: AmLitHist on August 28, 2019, 09:51:01 AM
Chemgal, I've had variations of most of these dreams before the first day of every semester; more aggravating is the fact that they're usually accompanied by waking up every 20-30 minutes the entire night before that first day. (So much for going to bed early and being well rested on Day 1!)
Yep, that's me right now. Up 2.5 hours past my normal bedtime, fretting about the first day of class tomorrow. It's not even a big class. I so dislike teaching. I'll take research, writing, committee work, and faculty meetings over this stuff any day... even ordering and reimbursement paperwork!
I never had these dreams until after I retired, when I started to dream that I kept forgetting to teach my T/R class. Also, for some reason, I was teaching history (I'm a biologist), as well as taking a history class that required a large project that I didn't want to do, so the person teaching history flunked history.
The bad dreams about teaching got far worse after I stopped teaching - so i'm very much like the OP. (not even sure if i had them whilst i was still teaching. ) The dreams seem similar too. Usually it's that i'm unprepared for a lecture and i try winging it as best I can and it feels dreadful. But there was a worse series i had for a while in which i realized i had an extra class to teach that I wan't really showing up for. So i missed a bunch of lectures, and then i'd remember only the night before or the morning of and then it merged into not be prepared.
Had one last night....I'm retired!!
So, not only do I suffer now but it'll get worse when I retire????
Since both me and nebo didn't get them until we retired, perhaps you will stop getting them once you retire.
my award goes to the cans of tuna dream but close call- lots of great dreams people reporting
btw, like nebo, i also now after retiring for first time get a dream that i'm taking classes - usually math (I was a dual math major as an undergrad) but I haven't turned in any of the assignments and mostly forgot all about the class so will likely fail. in the dream, i think this is so unlike me, and its stressful.
on the forgetting to teach dreams, I've figured this is my brain's way of trying to figure out why on earth i am no longer doing what i did so often for so many years. Did you forget? Also think the dreams after something is over is a way for brain to purge unneeded things as part of the general efficiency that the whole body practices.
Quote from: chemigal on October 31, 2019, 05:59:02 AM
So, not only do I suffer now but it'll get worse when I retire????
Fortunately, it doesn't happen often!
I've had plenty of bad dreams about committee meetings. But not teaching. Yet.