Note to readers I ended this survey on June 25, 2016. I invite you, still, to describe your recurring school dreams in the comments section here, but descriptions after June 25 will not go into the qualitative analysis reported in my next post.
It’s been many decades since I’ve been a student in any kind of school. Yet, just two days ago I had a dream that I was a student. It was the same dream I’ve had many times. I’ll tell you about it in my next post.
But before I tell you about my dream, I want to hear about yours. Do you have any recurring dreams about being a student in school? If you do, you are certainly not alone. Research on dream reports suggests that, for college students, dreams having to do with tests, teachers, and other school concerns are the most frequent dreams of all—more frequent than dreams about sex, or flying, or falling, or anything else. And even for us older people, who have been out of school for a decade or more, dreams of being in school rank among the top five of all dream categories.[1].
I’m doing a little informal research here. I’m wondering how many readers of this blog have recurring dreams of being a student, and I’m wondering what those dreams are like. Here’s what I’d like you to do if you are willing:
• Tell me if you have or have not experienced a recurring dream about being a student (a dream that you have had more than once, although it may vary somewhat from one occurrence to the next).
• If you have had such a recurring dream, please describe it. What happens in the dream?
• How pleasant, or unpleasant is your dream? Please rate it on a scale of 1-5, where 1 = very pleasant; 2 = somewhat pleasant; 3 = neither pleasant nor unpleasant (or equally pleasant and unpleasant); 4 = somewhat unpleasant; 5 = very unpleasant.
• Approximately how long ago was the last time that you had some version of this dream?
• How long has it been since you were, in real life, a student in the kind of setting (e.g. elementary school, high school, or college) in which your dream takes place?
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Please respond to these questions in the comments section here. (Not by email to me!) Of course, you can do so anonymously if you would like. In my next post, if there are enough responses, I’ll report on a qualitative analysis I’ll do of the results. And please pass this on to others; the more dream reports we get, the more interesting this will be.
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Note added June 1, 2016. Please report on your dream even if it is very similar to other dreams already reported in the comments here. The more dream reports the better, and one of the purposes is to see which dream themes, about school, are most common.
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Reference
J. Mathes, M. Schrdl, & A. Goritz (2014). Frequency of typical dream themes in most recent dreams: An online study. Dreaming, 24, 57-66,
