That I had a book report due and I was not ready and I felt very embarrassed.

What a stupid dream, huh?

First off, why am I don’t dreaming of something cool, like flying in the air or starring in a really cool movie where I play a no nonsense cop who plays by his own rules and has a chimpanzee as a sidekick. Oh no, I can’t dream about anything cool like that. I have to dream about homework.

Secondly, who actually reads the book for any book report? I don’t think I read any assigned book cover to cover. Sure, I would read snippets of paragraphs and go more in depth with Cliff Notes or Spark Notes, but what masochist actually took time from their life to read every word of the Scarlet Letter when they were 16? No one should feel embarrassed if they didn’t read the book. If anything, be embarrassed if you DID read the book!

Finally, and far more importantly, why in the world am I still dreaming about schoolwork? I am a 46 year old man who hasn’t had to do a book report in over 30 years. How in the world is schoolwork still infiltrating my mind’s eye when I sleep?

That is the crazy thing about school; we still have dreams about it even when we are older. Some of these dreams involve going to school with no pants, some are about not being prepared and fail a test, some are about losing face when presenting a book to the class you clearly have not read. Regardless, I do not think I am the only person in the world that still has the occasional dream about being in school.

And all of these dreams are about anxiety; feeling awful about failing and being publicly embarrassed about it in front of your peers. Even if none of these actual events happened in our lives as youths, we still have the ability to conjure up a hypothetical situation where this may have happened, and how we would feel about it.

As adults.

Damn those formative years, huh.

So the conclusion is not that I should be more prepared when given an assignment. The lesson is school is a place that will torment you until the day you die.