Anxiety Dreams

Teachers are notorious for anxiety dreams. The dreams start about the middle of August. They have thrilling plots like

• Can't find my lesson plan
• Standing in front of the class in my underwear
• Late to school
• Kids won't behave
• Etc, etc, etc.

We (teachers) laugh about how silly our dreams are when we all come back to school. The dreams tend to fade after the first week or so, once we get settled in with our new students and the new school year.

Part of my job is to provide professional development for the other teachers in my building. In other words, I not only teach teenagers, I also teach teachers from time to time. I have a big presentation coming up during an in-service day next Friday.

So last night I had an anxiety dream. It wasn't about problems teaching kids, it was about problems teaching adults. Thank goodness I was fully clothed this time, but I did have the following problems in my dream:

• The presentation started a full 25 minutes late and it was my fault
• The projector didn't work for my slide show
• I ran up to my classroom to get another projector. I mean, I tried to run. My legs were moving in slow motion, and no matter what I did, I couldn't get them to move any faster. 
• The teachers were mad at me because they didn't like the information I was presenting.

Hah! I guess we'll see how next Friday goes! Might be a good post for next Saturday.

How about you? Do you ever have anxiety dreams? What triggers them, and what kinds of embarrassing problems do you have in your dreams?