Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I dreamed a school nightmare.

With a new academic year about to start, students should heed this warning about The Dream. It first visited me while I was a student during the 1960s. I woke panicked and shaking.

’I had The Dream last night," I told my wife one morning last spring.

"Aren’t you getting too old?" she said. "Your students are the ones who should be having The Dream. It’s close to exam time. You should warn them."

She was right; later that day I told my students (two classes of statistics at the University of B.C.) to watch out for The Dream. I asked if any of them had already had it. Half-a-dozen hands went up. Heads nodded. Those unhappy few at least now knew they were not alone.

The Dream comes early in life. It first visited me while I was a student at UBC during the 1960s. I woke panicked and shaking. I have had The Dream at least once a year since, but it took me until middle-age to realize there were others who had experienced it. I also discovered that The Dream comes in several versions.

My original dream, Version 1, runs as follows: I have registered for a university course and then skipped both classes and readings. My neglect has haunted me all term, but I have done nothing about it. In The Dream, I have two days until the final exam. I am ferreting through my mind, looking for ways to learn a whole course in 48 hours — when I wake up.

Version 2 came years later, while I was dabbling in amateur theatre and found myself in a one-act play. Actors’ ability to learn the many lines a play demands has always impressed me, but I was surprised how quickly I memorized my own lines in time for opening night. But for weeks after the play closed, I dreamt I had rehearsed with an open book, delaying the actual memorization of the lines. The Dream ended as I was walking on stage, completely blank, in the futile hope that the words would come back to me or that the other actors would miraculously prompt me.

I know that I am not alone in this dream. Many of you have had it. In fact, it has reached pop culture.

Fans of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer know how gleefully its writers exploited every horror theme and movie cliché. In one episode, students of Sunnydale High School suddenly find their worst nightmares coming true while they are awake. One student is covered in spiders; another finds himself at school, naked; Buffy is buried alive. Those are standard nightmares.

But early in the episode, Buffy’s version of The Dream comes true when she runs into her social nemesis, Cordelia, who reminds her of an imminent history test. In the exam, Buffy barely manages to write her name before her pencil breaks and time is up. Buffy’s dream — Version 3 — is similar to Version 1, except that the dreamer actually makes it to the exam.

The alert reader will have noticed two common threads to all versions.

First, The Dream grows out of guilt. It is founded on procrastination and avoidance. I should have gone to class, done the readings or learned the lines. And I always meant to, but I kept putting it off. The sin is neglect.

If the missed course promises to be attractive, that exacerbates the guilt. Once I dreamt that I had registered for a course in the philosophy of science. Since I like both philosophy and science, I was looking forward to the course. I just never got around to going to class.

Second, there is a slight ray of hope. I just might be able to pull it together in time. I have the weekend to study. But hope is dim. I teeter on giving up.

Those two emotions (guilt and its treacherous companion, hope) dog students who are desperate to succeed, but overwhelmed by work. The temptation to skip a class or avoid a reading is like the first cigarette or taste of alcohol. It leads to unconquerable addiction. Slack off once and you are done for, says The Dream.

My dream has evolved over the years. The Dream I told my wife about this spring was a new version. I was not taking the course, I was teaching it. But I had neglected to make up a final exam. The exam was the next day and I had not composed a single question. But perhaps, I desperately thought, if I stayed up all night, I could make up just enough questions. Then I could get into the office early and copy the exam. So long as the copy machine did not break down, I would be okay. That’s Version 4.

In the penultimate week of lectures last spring, I ran into one of my students heading for the 9 a.m. class. "I had The Dream last night," she said. "The one you talked about."

"I hope it isn’t true."

"I had this great pile of notes for all my courses, all mixed up. I knew I had been skipping one course but I couldn’t remember which one it was."

Version 5.