Anxiety Dreams

I would say that all my dreams are anxiety dreams to a degree. I'm what you'd call an anxious person, sure. Some of my anxieties are extreme, others rather banal and boring. And sometimes the anxiety dreams are too.

Last night I had an anxiety dream that mixed the mundane with the totally bizarre.

It started out with me back in high school. Yup, one of those. It was a Wednesday, and I had two exams on Thursday and two on Friday, and I was ill-prepared for all four. Thursday was Math and GYM (gym???) and Friday was English and French. I knew I could bluff my way through Friday's tests but Math was really going to be a stretch. I borrowed a girl's notes (the girl who was best at Math in my high school) and felt rather guilty as I lifted what seemed like years of data on Trigonometry, Algebra, Calculus and something called Turdutrky. And then suddenly I was walking down the hall and the exam was about to begin and I hadn't had any coffee and I hadn't read any of her notes and I tried to sneak a cigarette and the smoke alarm went off.

Before I knew it I was back at my old job, or a conglomerate of old jobs, rounding up people to try and get them to go to Carnegie Hall for what I was promising would be a monumental and groundbreaking show. But when I walked inside the auditorium, it was empty, save for a few people I knew from college. On the stage was my nephew (in real life, quite a famous guy) and he was trying to sing opera but kept stuttering. Finally, he announced that he was having a panic attack and would have to revert to show tunes. Facing away from the audience, he began to belt out Disney songs.

I sat in the front of the audience, hyperventilating.