FYI - This issue with nightmares has since resolved. I am no longer facing test anxiety over the MCAT. It was probably my being unprepared and feeling stuck (taking the MCAT anyway) that led to all of this... (I was worried that I wouldn't get into medical school because I had to return to work with no time off and required overtime during the recession. That led to my first and only experience of severe test anxiety.)
#1
Prior to this nightmare, I had never DIED in a dream before. It all started when I was almost asleep at a very odd hour like 4:30a.m. I was sort of fluctuating in and out of a dreamlike state, when all of the sudden my dream started.
A symbol of failure, defeat, helplessness, and failure: All of the sudden it materialized, this big Berkeley Review graph right in front of me. My heart raced out of control and seemed a little off rhythm for a while. This potential heart attack-like rhythm scared me and then it raced even faster (because I was scared). I barely drifted out of this dream to a nearly awake state, then drifted back. In my dream (which was as disconnected as dreams often are), I then lifted my head off a counter and looked around the kitchen. It was night time, and even though all was quiet and calm, I felt spooked or very nervous like something bad was about to happen (or like there was a monster lurking around). I looked outside the large glass sliding doors, searching with my eyes, into the darkness, and returned by gaze back into a familiar kitchen, looking around. Suddenly, a tea pot on the stove loudly whistled. I caught my breath, and took it off the heated element. That's right, I thought, time to make myself some tea. And as soon as I stopped nervously monitoring and familiarizing myself with the room, that graph appeared in the distance outside the glass doors glowing in the dark peering in at me. Lurking out there. Then, in the blink of an eye it was right next to the glass door. In the dream, I knew it was all powerful and was about to get me. No door could stop it. I woke up catching my break with a pounding heart. That was the kitchen that Drew Barrymore was in at the beginning of The Scream or Scary Movie.
Intermission:
Then I thought I woke up in my room but wasn't quite sure. I had to pee, but I wondered if I was really awake or not. This had better not be another nightmare. To figure out if I was dreaming or awake, I turned on the light and looked around the room very quickly (faster than my mind could remember details). "Was everything I saw really like that in real life?," I asked myself. No, it wasn't. A door was in the wrong place so I had to be dreaming. Taking advantage of the fact I knew I was in a dream, I decided to fly down the stairs instead of walk. It was wonderful and eventually I woke up, and used the real bathroom. (Finding the real bathroom was the reason I tested the theory that I was dreaming.)
#2
Back to bed. I will not think of graphs, will not think of... zzzz. There before me, in my next dream, was a split screen. On the left side there was a creepy narrow dirt road in the dark/night time by a irrigation canal with rushing water and leafless trees with nasty branches that reminded me of spider legs; oh, and Freddy Kruger's house in the distance. On the right side of the split screen,... it was... it was... the graph! "Heck no, not that again," I thought, and went left to avoid the graph. (Somehow I got to pick my nightmare.)
"Okay," I said to myself, I just have to sneak past Freddy and his darn house and get out of here. At least I am familiar with him from his movies. He's tough, but NOTHING LIKE that supernatural weird unpredictable graph! Knowing SOMETHING about him, might give me a chance* at least. So here I go, walking down the path toward his house. When/how was he going to show up? Where would he be? I kept looking around, at his front doorstep, into the tangled tree branches hanging over my path, into the ditch with racing water, behind me... listening, walking fast, quietly, quickly. The road split and I had the option of taking the fork away from his home. Of course, I took that path. Just as I started to pass his house, I wondered why he hadn't appeared yet. Was I really that stealth? It was like passing a test. It just couldn't be. There was no confrontation yet. There's no way Freddy's this dumb. WTF. (I suspected something was up, and that I wasn't catching on because this didn't add up.) How did I get this far? Did I successfully sneak past him, no way? I stopped and looked at his house when I was right across from it in disbelief. (Just like a stupid character in a horror film would. I was inside a horror movie. As you may know, monsters like Freddy don't just jump out immediately, they give you time to get scared first. They let you know they're out there.) Why did I stop? What have I done? He appeared next to his house looking right at me and gestured. He smiled, shaking his head and his knife-like fingers as if to say, "no, you're not going to make it." Me, yeah right, "I'm not afraid of you. I'm sick of this game and these nightmares." Freddy suddenly disappeared and reappeared much closer to me. No, I thought, I'm going to fight you! (Just like in the movie.) Then he appeared right next to me. I saw his bladed hand quickly pass by my glasses on their way to my neck. A splash of blood hit my lenses. I heard a water-like sound coming from my neck and I woke up.
I looked at the clock and it was too early to leave the house. I opened an MCAT book and started on the next chapter.
Note, how many thoughts and themes in those nightmares are relevant to testing. Feel free to analyze this if you want. I know I have.
*I accidentally misspelled "chance" as "change" the first time writing this.
