School Dreams

I’ve had the most vivid dreams throughout my life and often remember them.  I enjoy most of my dreams, so I will lay in bed some mornings trying to remember them.  I believe dreams are a way for the mind to figure out how to cope or solve problems.  I dream in color.  Some of my dreams are repetitious. 

Here are three dreams I’ve had repeatedly about school. 

The first dream is about a tall, thin, white man who’s driving a model-T Ford.  The car is black and basic.  The top is down.  It has a lot of clearance between the ground and the chassis.  The man who’s driving the car reminds me of President Lincoln due to his build and attire.  He occasionally gets out of the car, runs around it and gets back in. 

The entire dream has the feel of a black and white silent movie without the dialogue screens or the herky-jerky motion of the camera. 

I’m dressed up and headed for school but the car keeps chasing me.  I fall down (I’m clumsy.) and the car runs over me.  I’m terrified I’ll die when the car runs over me but the clearance is so high, it doesn’t hurt me. 

I dreamed this over and over as a child.  My mother and my youngest son have both had dreams with a similar theme; only the cars and drivers were different. 

A second dream I had around the same time was that it was my first day of school, ever.  In actuality, I believe it was the first time I was going to be riding the bus to school.  In my dream, I was all dressed up and ready for school when I walked out of my home.  When I begin to step up into the bus, I realize I’m stark naked!  Horrors!

This one happened for a short period of time.

The third dream started when I was a bit older.  I would dream I was on my way to the bus stop when one of two things happened.  One, I would forget something important at home and have to run back to get it or I would see the bus arriving at the bus stop early.  In either scenario, I ended up missing the bus.  Then, I would run to the next bus stop to try to get ahead of the bus and not miss it entirely.  Often, I would see the bus arrive at stop after stop, then drive away, with me running at full speed, frantically trying to catch it!  I dreamed this again and again until I obtained my driver’s license and purchased my first car.

One of the things dreams one and three taught me was that I could somewhat control the ending of my dreams by thinking about a different way to handle the problem while I was lying awake in between the dreams.  I would then fall back asleep and dream it again, and dream the ending differently.