Meta-dream

All kidding aside, this really happened to me a few nights ago.


I dreamed I was giving a philosophy lecture using two underlined books instead of lecture notes. As the lecture went on, I started having more and more trouble locating the quotes I needed. Soon the lecture was getting more and more confused, and the students were starting to get restless. A couple of my best students came up and complained that they really could have gotten more out of staying at home and studying than they were getting out of this lecture. Roger Bell, the department chair, appeared magically in the back of the room. He looked friendly, as always, but his presence made me feel I better get this lecture on track soon.

Then I got a flash of inspiration. I started telling the students that what I was going through was very similar to what psychologists call an anxiety dream, and that many people have similar dreams. I then began to describe one of my real anxiety dreams, if you'll pardon the oxymoron. (i.e. I didn't dream that I dreamed this, I really did dream it several years ago). In my anxiety dream, I am supposed to be playing drums with the Rock band Jethro Tull in a huge sold out arena, but as in real life, I can't play drums at all. I figure that I will make somewhat less of an idiot of myself if I can at least reach all of the drums and cymbals. I spend the entire dream rearranging the drumset with the band and audience staring at me patiently in dead silence. I tell the class that the one difference between the dream and my current situation is that in the dream I wake up before I have to play the drums. I remark that I wish I could get out of this situation the same way, which gets a good laugh. Great, I think, they're with me now. All I have to do is tie that story back to the subject matter of the lecture, and I'm home free. So I pick up the two books, and once again I get hopelessly lost trying to find the quotes I need.

At this point I realize that I'm dreaming, and that acknowledging this fact will create a meta-level that really will enable me to tie this story back to the course material. The connection is right on the tip of my tongue, however, so I mark time with a few qualifying clauses, hoping that I will soon be able to explain clearly how all of this meandering relates back to the lecture. Then I realize "Wait a minute! If I'm dreaming I don't have to finish the lecture. All I have to do is wake up." So I do.