WEBVTT - School Dreams 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:07.360 You're walking down the hall alone, your shoes squeak against 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:12.560 the hard, seamless flooring. You have a sense of otherworldly dread, 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.920 a feeling of looming over a drop so far you 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.799 can't see the bottom, but you can't remember why. Where 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.639 are you? You can't remember that either. The feeling of 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.160 dread is absolutely oppressive. It's weighing you down, as if 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:31.920 to pull your soul into the underworld. But wait that feeling. 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:36.160 It's not dread weighing you down. It's a backpack full 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.680 of heavy textbooks. You're in your high school. You're alone 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.720 in the hall because you're late for class. That's right now, 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:47.920 you remember you had to go back to high school 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.159 because it turns out you never actually finished. There was 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:53.880 an error with the paperwork in the high school office, 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.040 and somehow they let you graduate even though you never 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:01.600 took the final exam in your hardest class, Russian calculus. 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.360 You have to go back and take the exam, and 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.160 if you don't pass, you'll be stuck in high school forever. 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.640 Let's see what do we learn in Russian calculus? You 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:15.320 can barely recall some vague cyrillic operating symbols. What was 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.760 the division symbol. No time to think about it, you 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.160 sprint to the classroom where they're holding the exam. Once 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.560 you get there, you remember you're not the only one. 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.840 Your next door neighbor Jimmy, who's seventy four years old 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.120 and illegally burns trash and a metal drum in his backyard, 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.040 he also has to come back and take the Rustcal exam. 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.760 Jimmy asks did you study? You did not. And that 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.920 coffee shop barista with the Optimus Prime tattoo who you 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:42.800 went on a date with a couple of years ago, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:47.080 they're here too, except now they're dating your childhood best friend. 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.640 And who's administering the exam? That's right, it's your old 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:56.520 rust Cal teacher, Christopher Lambert. Mr Lambert is asking everyone 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.160 to take their seats. The panic rushes up from your 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.720 gut into your wrote. Is there any way out of this? 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.800 Your hand bolts up. Mr Limbert calls on you. He says, yes, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.000 when is it? And the whole class turns to look 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.960 at you, scrutinizing, crinkling their noses in pity and disgust 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.480 at what they see. Then you realize you're not sitting 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.200 at a desk, your pants are down and you're sitting 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.799 on a toilet in the middle of the classroom. Why 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.200 would they put a toilet here? But no time to 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.239 wonder about that. The class is laughing viciously at your shame, 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.240 and Christopher Lambert is passing out the exams. You didn't 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:35.160 bring a pencil, Sandra Bullock won't let you borrow one, neither, well, 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.880 Ken Griffey Jr. The test is starting. Mr Lambert, yell's 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.640 eyes on your own paper. A single tooth falls from 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:51.120 your mouth and lands on page one. Welcome Stuff to 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.240 Blow your Mind? A production of I Heart Radios has 0:02:53.240 --> 0:03:01.519 Stuff works. Are you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind? 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.200 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.720 obviously you can tell that we are going to be 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:11.600 talking about the one, the only, the high school Horror Dream. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.040 the which is really the worst. I have a lot 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:19.560 of disdain for the high school Dream because and I'll 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.040 get into more of it later. But but basically, it's 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.120 like when you when you go when you dream, you 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.079 can do anything, You can be anything, Like this is 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.880 the place where lucid dreaming is possible, where all the 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.000 boundaries can dissolve, and all the limitations that you know 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.200 in the waking world can just be swept away and 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.120 you can ascend into the skies of being of pure 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.120 light and energy. Uh. But instead, what does our mind 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:47.920 do when we slumber? So much of the time we 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.960 have dreams like this, We you know, dreams that are 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.040 just cobbled together out of the mundane garbage of our 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.480 lives into a form that does not fill us with 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:01.120 wonder or even even terror. You know, like for a 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.360 lot of people, it fills them with terror. It depends 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:05.800 they're sort of like they're sort of like low stress, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.400 low anxiety, high school dreams. But when you read a 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.680 lot of people's accounts of these, they're like they wake 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.440 up in a cold sweat, they're absolutely petrified. This is 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:16.800 something that I think is worth discussing a little bit 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.640 because when you when when you look at the surveys 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.239 of what people have dreamt about, and there are different 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.200 ways of conducting those surveys, so it's there's gonna be 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.039 a fair amount of variety there anyway, and it's a 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.080 lot of it's also gonna depend on who you're talking to. 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:34.240 As we've discussed on the on the show before. A 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:38.640 lot of studies like this, especially psychological studies, they're often 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.599 conducted with college students in small sample sizes, and that 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:44.840 brings a you know, it brings a lot of limitations 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.640 and what kind of life experiences the dreams then are 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.080 are ascending from. But but I was looking around a 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:55.080 little bit thinking about Okay, it seems like we're often 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.880 not talking about nightmares. There's there's like a variety of 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.440 dream that is, you know, filled with anxiety or even 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.039 dread without actually really breaking over into this room that 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.440 we think of as the domain of nightmares. I guess 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.760 that depends on the definition you'd use, because I've always 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.320 thought of nightmares as including dreams that are not like, uh, 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.240 you know, like immediate physical peril. I mean, there are 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.039 violent dreams that people obviously think of as nightmares. Like 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:22.839 one of the most common themes of bad dreams is 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.400 being chased by something, right, but they're you know, a 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:30.479 huge number of people's really bad dreams are about like 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:35.000 or about like public embarrassment or about things like having 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.440 to go back to school and face some kind of 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.880 scrutiny or examination. Yeah, but yet when you look at 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.320 the surveys to deal with the content of nightmares. We 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.960 don't often see, you know, a real definite place for 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.520 the school dream. For instance, UH in the nineteen thirty 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.479 psychologist Wholesye case and conducted a survey of nightmares and 0:05:54.520 --> 0:06:00.000 found their contents to be UH like dealing with animals, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.880 him being chased, death and murder at twenty and then 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:08.279 it goes down to like two percent home and family falling, 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:13.000 and then miscellaneous nineteen percent, accidents seventeen percent. And you 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.080 see similar things with other surveys. There's a Harvard psychologists 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.960 Didra Barrett's survey and it UH said like being chased 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.080 with seventy two percent death of family members in for 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:29.719 sixty percent. Following UH, monsters and or animals made it 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.000 on their thirty three percent war, violent crimes, natural disaster. 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:37.680 And there there have been others that kind of match this, 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:39.640 this sort of thing, you know, it's like physical harm, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:44.240 physical danger. UM. I did find a two thousand uh 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.640 inten German study from the Central Institute of Mental Health 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:54.000 and Mannheim, Germany that said nightmares okay, forty falling, being chased, 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.440 feeling paralyzed, but also twenty four percent being late to 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.599 an import an event, which definitely lines up with a 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:04.559 lot of what we're talking about here, because so often 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.440 the content is I am I'm late to the exam 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.640 right um, or I have I've let time slip away 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.680 in advance of the exam. So yeah, it is going 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.200 to come back to like how do we classify nightmares? 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.200 And what do we think of when we think of nightmares? 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.760 And then after we've had one of these school dreams, 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.280 how we classify it. But I think there's a strong 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.480 case to be made that that what we're talking about 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.080 here isn't a nightmare, and yet at the same time, 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.119 I myself find myself at times wishing it were, because 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.760 at least if it were a nightmare, it would it 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.680 would feel more more potent, you know, it would feel 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.800 like it's maybe doing something that it's cathartic in a 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.400 way that matters, instead of being this just ridiculous rehearsal 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.560 for a thing that is that is not going to occur. 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:53.960 You know. Well, this brings us back to a question, 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:55.600 of course we're gonna have to touch on throughout the 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:57.920 episode today, and unfortunately we're not gonna be able to 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.600 answer in a definitive way, But like, what is the 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.240 purpose of the content of dreams if anything to begin with, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.360 I mean do that we know that like sleep and 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.040 dreaming are obviously important for some kind of neurological function, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.200 but we don't know if the contents of dreams are important, 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.520 and we don't know if they are important, why are 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.760 they important? What do they do? Right? And and yeah, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.119 once you you can sort of divide into two schools 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.600 of thought where it's either the contents of the dreams 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.400 do matter or they don't um and when you get 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.720 into the various arguments for them actually mattering, and then 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.640 you get into various divisions. On the show, we've discussed 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.360 the writings of Frederick van Eden in the past, who 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.680 wrote Study of Dreams, and this was a book that 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.480 outlined lucid dreaming, for instance, but you know he covered 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:53.160 everything from you know, ordinary dreams to symbolic dreams, demon 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:57.120 dreams and more so. Yeah, it depends on it depends 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.520 on which view you're taking. Either the content manners or 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.400 it doesn't. And then if it if it does matter. 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.120 There's so many ways to unpack that. But I would say, actually, 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.320 whether the content of dreams matters or not, like whether 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.200 what you dream about actually has adaptive value in life 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.160 or whether it's just sort of like a byproduct of 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:17.280 something going on in the brain. And you know, what 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.600 happens in a dream has no effect on life or 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.760 no positive effects, either way you split it. It's an 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.679 interesting question to ask, why do we dream about the 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.320 things that we dream about? Like why is that the content, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.000 whether it's adaptive or not. Well, it comes back to 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.560 the nightmare thing, Like so much of the time, I 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.440 feel like the school. You know, sometimes we we do 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.079 have dramatic events in our school history, but a lot 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.439 of times we don't. And yet that's the stuff that 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.640 still remains like so potent to us in our dreams. 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:49.800 And I think that can be the irritating thing, Like 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.280 why am I still dreaming about this thing? This thing 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.160 is solved high school, you know is solved. You know, 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.000 it's i've I've I've been out of it for you know, decades. 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:02.199 Why I still returned to it in dream? What is 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.040 it about that experience or that time in my life? 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:09.120 Maybe the plasticity of my mind that that makes that 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.079 the the the the the fabric of my dreams. Yeah, 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.640 so I want to talk about a few common variations 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.040 I think just from what I've read anecdotally. I've not 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:23.200 been able to find a rigorous study characterizing the nature 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.600 of school anxiety dreams, but I have found some informal 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.160 collections of anecdotes and based on that, and I have 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.800 to say some very common dreams are, uh, I have 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.200 to go back to high school and finish a class 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.280 or a test that I never finished and I don't 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.160 know in like, there's the knowledge that I am an adult, 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.320 but I have to go back and do this. Yes, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.920 I've definitely done that one. I've I've definitely had that one, 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:47.400 and I've done that one to a certain extent because 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.040 I went back after college and taught high school at 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.920 the high school that I attended. Wow, so I kind 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.720 of had this weird like I was kind of living 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.520 the dream the worst way possible. And so I will 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.080 sometime have dreams that are I'm sometimes a little vague 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.640 as to whether I am dreaming about teaching high school 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.520 and my old high school where I'm dreaming about attending 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.600 the high school, or having to go back and take 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:12.480 a class that I didn't finish, that sort of thing. 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.480 What age were you when you were teaching at that 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.160 high school? I mean, I was fresh out of college. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:21.560 So I was, oh, yeah, so that might come back 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.480 later when we talk about different periods of life in 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.800 the formation of memories, that that might be relevant to 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:31.040 your case here. Um. So another thing that is extremely common. 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.360 In fact, just before we started off, we were talking 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.240 to our producer today, Seth, and he was saying that 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.320 he's had this dream. I've had this dream. I've talked 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.120 to tons of people who have had this dream, who 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.800 have been out of school for decades, and it's this. 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.640 It's the end of the semester. There's a class that 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.040 I forgot I was enrolled in and I haven't been 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.560 going to and now I suddenly remember, oh no, I'm 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:55.520 in this class and I've got to go take the 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.559 final exam. Yeah. I I have done that one as well, 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.480 where I'm I missed the deadline to drop the class, uh, 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.880 and or just forgot that I had it entirely. And 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:09.240 and it'll like summon like a mental calendar of when 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.800 your classes are, and it's generally usually something like, oh, 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.440 it was a Wednesday morning class and it was it 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.760 was sandwich between two other classes, and somehow I just 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:18.960 missed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get the exact same 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.720 calendar effect. Actually, I think about like, oh, I wasn't 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:24.760 going because I was doing this other thing at this 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.400 time of the week, and I just forgot repeatedly that 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:31.000 I had this class. Now I suddenly remember, and uh, 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.200 and my chicken is cooked. I mean, they're like, there's 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.360 no way I'm going to pass this exam. Other common 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.720 things that I found reported are difficulty with navigating the 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.840 school environment, so being in high school or being in 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.439 college and being unable to find the classroom so you're 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.839 like running around, you're late for the class and you're 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.080 trying to get there, but you can't find the door 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.839 or you can't get in. I've never had that one. Yeah, 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.000 It's it's weird how you know that our experiences will 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.520 will vary like that one. I've never had, Like I've 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.719 never had a problem getting to the dream classroom and 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.559 a dream. Another big one I think is school based embarrassment, 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.200 dreaming about like being embarrassed in front of a classroom 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.600 or in front of classmates, or like having to give 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.760 a presentation in front of a class and not being 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:23.160 prepared or being embarrassed some way. See I I the 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.880 weird thing is I don't have any of those related 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:30.400 to actual class experiences. But but since I was in 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:35.200 um theater, I do have dreams related to productions that 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:37.520 I haven't learned my lines. Yes, I have the same 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.200 dreams I did theater in high school. And yeah, I 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.319 I very frequently dreamed that I suddenly remember, oh, yeah, 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.840 I'm in a play that's opening tonight and I haven't 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.600 looked at my lines yet. How about this one? This 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:51.840 is a weirder one, but I feel like I hear 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:55.240 this one pretty often, sort of blending of school with 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.800 the workplace or with the current friend group, and blending 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:03.040 of like old teachers with bosses. You get this, No, No, 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.200 I don't really get that one. I would get get 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.920 the blending of workplaces to a certain extent, because I'll 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:13.600 have dreams where I didn't actually fully quit my previous job. 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.000 I'm kind of like kept one foot in it somehow, 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.240 but I have to keep going back to do like 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.120 the bare minimum to still be a part of the 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:26.000 previous employers. And and I always just kind of analyze 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:27.760 that as being like, it's about fear of change. It's 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.360 about fear of like entering any kind of new phase 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.520 in life. This dream rehearsal in which I never actually 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:39.600 leave any step behind, you know, where I'm managing to keep, 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.960 you know, one foot on every stone that traverses the 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.840 pond or the stream. I can absolutely see that. Yeah, 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.000 general dreams about not just school, but school being one 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.520 example of like being drawn back into a previous stage 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:55.720 of life, like you can't you can't move on to 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:57.600 the next thing. Yeah, yeah, all right, Well maybe we 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.200 should take a break and then when we come back 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:04.680 weekend analyze the school dream a little more than alright, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.120 we're back. So, you know, in our cold open you 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:11.640 added the bit about tooth falling out and seth our producer. 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.560 He he mentioned that he has had dreams in which 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.200 is his teeth fall out in the school anxiety dream. 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.200 I've never had a dream where or teeth fall out, 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.920 which which is is weird because I mean, like dental 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.360 anxiety has was. It was kind of part of my 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.080 upbringing because you know, my father was a dentist. You know, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:34.280 I remember like seeing slides of awful teeth when I 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.160 was a kid, and and even today like I'll you know, 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.080 i'll you know, I you know, I'm I'm I'm getting older. 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.520 I think about my my dental health and I and 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:49.360 I regularly read articles that are discussing correlation between dental 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.240 hygiene situations and say things like Alzheimer's. So, I mean, 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.960 there's plenty of of of fuel there for the fire, 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:01.800 and yet that never happens in my dames. That's interesting. Now, 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.760 of course, the teeth falling out dream goes way back, 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.040 and you've got all kinds of like Freudy intakes on 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.920 that and stuff where it's you know, it's metaphorical for 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.920 some kind of like wish or anxiety that you have. 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.600 Weather dreams are actually metaphorical in those ways, I think 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.600 is an unsettled question. But but but it's certainly they 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.480 could be. And if they are, yeah, it could be 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.560 that maybe you don't really suffer from the underlying anxiety 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.480 that drives whatever causes people to think about their teeth 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.920 falling out in dreams. Maybe the teeth falling out in 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.840 dreams is not normally about teeth. That that's if the 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.400 like metaphor theory of dreams is true, which we don't 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:39.200 know if it is. And my hand has fallen off 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.520 in a dream before, but yeah, never the teeth. Well, 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.120 so back to the school dream, we know, at least 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.880 anecdotally just from talking to people, that it seems pretty 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.280 common for adults who have been out of school for 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.880 a long time to keep having these recurring dreams about school. 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:58.560 Uh even you know, I've I've talked to people who 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:02.520 are in their sixties who still have these dreams, which 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:04.840 is not I'm not looking forward to that for the 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.280 rest of my life. But oh well, uh, and so 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.480 the question is like, is it really all that common? Again? 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.280 We are going to be dealing here with the problems 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.800 that are common to all kinds of psychological studies, which 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.760 is often there is not enough data about say, the 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:22.800 entire world, and you know, we get like the weird focus, right, yes, 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.240 weird science, but not in the fun way of weird 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:31.600 standing for Western educated and from industrialized, rich and democratic countries, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.480 just meaning that like in lots of studies, especially lots 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.960 of psychological studies, there is a disproportionate representation of people 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:41.000 in that sort of category a lot of times because 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.959 these studies are done at like western research universities, and 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.199 that brings up the potential criticism. Well, of course, all 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.920 these people were having dreams about exams and exam anxiety. 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.040 They are college students. Right, there's not any mystery at 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:58.240 all why college students would be dreaming about uh school 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.760 and college and exams. And of course these find that yes, 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.240 college students do dream about that a lot. Just one example, 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.200 a two thousand three study in the journal Dreaming found 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:10.360 among Canadian university students that dreams about the category known 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.480 as school teachers and studying where the fourth most common 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.000 typical theme of dreams out of a list of like 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:21.480 fifty something common themes of dreams. But they're Canadian college students. 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.960 That just doesn't seem very surprising at all. But studies 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:29.080 including like older populations have also found that school dreams 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.760 remain very common. Just to cite one example from the 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:39.160 journal Dreaming in by Mathis Shreddle and Goritz called frequency 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.600 of typical dream themes in most Recent dreams and online study. 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:46.280 They had a big sample collected online. It was two thousand, 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.679 eight hundred and fifty three participants. They did a survey 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.000 about the themes of recent dreams people had, and this 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.280 was based on a common dream theme inventory that has 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.479 like a list of commonly cited themes and you can 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.760 check off which ones applied to you in recent dreams uh, 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.000 And they said that the findings were mostly consistent with 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.680 other studies showing prevalence of dream themes in different populations. 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:13.000 They ended up ranking dream themes by prevalence, and dreams 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.399 about school teachers and studying was actually the fifth most 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:20.520 common category of dreams by theme. Overall. I found that 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.119 the entire list of ten was kind of interesting. Yeah, well, 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.600 I mean six is arriving too late, which could be 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.560 very very well be couched in the same area, right, 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:30.240 and then if you have a dream that you know 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.560 more than one applies to, you can check both. Right, 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.000 So let's do the whole list. Number ten swimming, number 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:41.200 nine being physically attacked, Number eight, a person now alive 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.960 being dead. Number seven a person now dead being alive, 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.440 Number six arriving too late, number five school teachers and studying, 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:54.119 number four, sexual experiences, number three being chased or pursued. 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.919 Number two. Oh, this one hits home trying something again 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.640 and again. And then number one flying or soaring through 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.200 the air. See you know this list just it almost 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.160 just makes me enraged, because like people are people are 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:10.800 having flying dreams? Is their number one? Lots of people 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:12.960 have flying dreams. I do not have I've had like 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.159 to flying dreams I can remember i've and then the 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:20.840 sexual experiences. I've rarely have a sexual dream, and now 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.359 I should have. I should add the caveat here that 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.159 I remember. Big aspect of dreaming is you know, to 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.919 what extent are we able to then recall what we 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.639 have dreamt of when we wake up? I hate that. 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.760 The thing I definitely identify with most on here is 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.960 trying something again and again, like the dream about how 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.879 you just need to do something that should be really 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:44.560 simple and you should be able to do it, but 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:46.399 you try and you try and you try and you 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.800 can't and it just doesn't work. Yeah, or like like 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.199 one of my most recent dreams I will share with 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.119 everyone is that that I was trying to move a 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.720 horse across um uh you know, like from one city 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:01.719 to another in a horse train there, and Glenn Danzig 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.399 was helping me, or he was supposed to help me, 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.159 but he was absolutely no help at all, and it 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.280 was super frustrating and I kept having to to reattach 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.720 the horse hitch um, which is or the hitch on 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.399 the trailer with the trailer hitch which was you know, 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.320 which was extra frustrating because like nothing in this dream 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.440 had anything to do with what with with like actual 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.280 real life struggles, like I'm not dealing with horses or 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.439 horse trailers. Yeah, well that's that's interesting stuff again because 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.840 sort of like the school dream, Now it's not relevant 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.280 to your life at this moment. So what's going on. 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.040 Is it a metaphor for something that is relevant to 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.000 your life in this moment or is it just a 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.640 sort of like thought pattern or memory patterns being retrieved 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:48.639 for no good reason. And and I guess the perplexing 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.440 thing and about anything like this is that since we 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:55.440 we have this fan, this fantastic ability to to make 0:21:55.480 --> 0:22:00.280 connections and things and even like random assemblages, you know, 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:02.040