Recurring Dreams

I assume most people have at least one recurring dream that invades their slumber at least occasionally. My longest running recurring dream is of a plane crashing while I watch from the ground below. Sometimes the incident is in the middle of a city; sometimes it is in the middle of a pasture out in the country. I'm never on the plane, which may be because I started having these dreams before I was ten and I never got on a plane until I was nineteen. However, because of these dreams, I always hold my breath when I hear a plane flying low overhead, bracing myself for an explosion that might follow.

Yet, as somber as this little introduction to my entry may be, this is not the dream that is plaguing me right now. You know those college dreams in which it is the end of the semester and you discover that you are registered for a class that you haven't attended all semester? Or, you dream you slept through the final exam - or that you got your schedule screwed up and you showed up too late for the final exam? I've had those ever since college, but I'm not having them now. Instead, I keep dreaming that I'm back in high school and that I keep forgetting to do my homework. Sometimes the teacher is Mrs. Straub, my favorite teacher from high school, and sometimes the teacher is one of my colleagues with whom I taught at Waterloo. However, I'm always a high school student, sitting in class when the teacher asks for an assignment that I forgot to do. And then, this chronic forgetfulness of mine always leads me to flunking the class. Tammy G., you haven't been the teacher in my dreams yet, but if you start yelling at me about my homework, I'm calling you. Upon waking up, I've had to reassure myself that teachers cannot collect homework before the first day of class and that the dream wasn't real. I will right down my assignments in my planner, I say. I will not forget to do my homework. Golly, I'm freaking out.