night of 09/09/09

I am at college. The dream is very extensive and there are snatches of episodes with cars, navigating the campus, talking with various students and faculty, and so on. I meet an advisor regularly at a table at Sam's Club. I find that A-- Ho--  a good friend from elementary school, does as well. Someone is cutting some embedded object out of the middle of a door with a flat chainsaw-like tool; he need only cut two sides, as two were cut previously as I had witnessed.

I have failed to notice that classes started already on Tuesday; it is Wednesday or Thursday. Around lunchtime I am sitting at a table with A-- Ho-- trying to find my class schedule among all the stuff in my backpack. I am emptying out various compartments, which are filled with papers, notepads, wires.

Earlier in the dream I have met with my biology teacher (who resembles a poetry teacher of mine, who is quite a good poet) to discuss how I will progress in the course. I may either take a test or do a project. (There is some resemblance of the test choices to the O-levels and A-levels discussed in the 7-Up series of documentaries we had been watching; the smart (and/or privileged) kid had taken a lot. Also, in my Master's at Buffalo, I had such a choice. I ended up merely taking the [PhD-qualifying] test instead of doing a proper Master's project, as my intended idea got no support from my advisor and I quickly gave it up.) I suggest that I do a project (which seems the more honest, or serious, or legitimate route) and am quickly urged to take the test instead; I tell someone about this later.

I discover that my biology class started at 1 pm. I look at my watch and it is 1:07. In a panic I start furiously cramming my things back into the backpack, shouting and cursing in frustration. It takes quite some time. When I am finished I look at my watch and it is past 5. I am dumbfounded. Alex Hoffman is sitting there and I ask how this could have happened and he doesn't know. (It is strange that in this single case I don't accept the dream logic.) I stagger backward with my hand to my head and ask aloud if I am insane. Finally I recover somewhat, cram everything into the backpack, and rush off to find the biology teacher.

She meets me walking through a great hall full of students. I am chagrinned because it will now seem like a lie that I was on my way to see her. I beg for a moment to explain. I say of the Tuesday class that I overslept, and then beg to be taken seriously as I prepare to explain the events of the afternoon.

However I am interrupted. She explains that I rely too much on improvisation in my work, and I am overwhelmed with the sense that this simply will not do, that I am simply unable to meet the basic requirements of the field. (Apparently I have been to class, or done a homework assignment, at least once.) She gives the example of my explanation of osmosis, portrayed by frogs suspended in sacs that are migrating along a river. (The image is vivid. Apparently osmosis has something to do with the frogs gradually darkening in a spreading blotch and then transferring this condition to other frogs.) I don't understand her explanation of the true phenomenon. (I am awakened by the cat.)

9/17: The most memorable (because it is unusual) part of the dream is where I didn't accept the dream-logic of accelerated time and feared myself insane. The dream is also unlike my usual college dream of having to take the final exam after having already forgotten to attend the whole of the course.