[abraham_s]

An anecdote and a poll. I grew up in India in middle class family where education was considered important. A recurring nightmare (autual dream I see during sleep) I see even in my adulthood is about me about to take an exam and not being prepared for it. I do not see this nightmare often but I still remember it since the amount of panic I feel when I see it. I discussed with my wife and she also have these nightmare of similar nature. I wanted to check whether anyone out here see this and whether it is more prevalent in culture like Indian culture or is it a universal phenomenon?

[existencebox]

American also born to an education-focused set of parents.

I've been out of school well over a decade and still have those nightmares. Usually correlates with work-stress for me now, but at least once or twice a year I wake up terrified out of a dream where I'm walking around my highschool (always highschool, never college, oddly, despite my college courses being MUCH harder; I think because the artificial stakes and utter lack of autonomy) trying to find the classroom for some test I didn't realize I had.

I had this same conversation with my wife recently as well. It still blows me away that I'm hard pressed to think of situations where I felt as stressed/panicked as I was in parts of highschool, and I've not shirked challenges by any means. I both respect and would not want to be a kid growing up nowadays.

[praneshp]

I commented up in the thread too, but talking about it to my doctor helped me. I have a recurring dream of waking up two days before chemistry exam and not having prepared anything. I don't know why it's always chemistry, I'd pick another subject that I really struggled at like physics if there was a choice.

[lyk]

That happens to a lot of college graduates I know. They stopped for me around a year or so after graduating.

[phrz]

I can attest that, as an American, my parents (college educated) would always bring up that recurring nightmare whenever the topic of dreams came up. They casually noted that it happened frequently in their adult lives, and that it would inevitably happen to me once I graduated college. Notably they didn't see it as a negative, but a sign of a "conscientious personality."

[univalent]

Me too :( I'm almost 40 and I have the same nightmare.