I Keep Dreaming of Failing Exams and It Reveals So Much About My Life
Here’s why I’m using my dreams to work better and be my best
I woke up this morning and lay in bed quietly, too tired to wake up and start my daily routine. As I lay there, trying to muster the energy to get out of bed, I was also starting to recall my dreams from the night before.
Let me tell you what I dreamt of. Someone — a new, eccentric teacher was distributing graded exam papers at school or college or wherever I was.
In my dream, I was confident that I was going to score well on my test. The test subject was ‘English’ and I felt sure that I would get at least a 35 out of 40. I got my test paper and looked down in dismay to see that I had scored a 2.
That’s right. Dream me failed miserably with a 2 out of 40.
When I told my friends, some of them seemed shocked and others didn’t seem too surprised. After staring at my paper in disbelief for minutes, I desperately went through it to see if there had been any correction mistakes, but it seemed to be fine. It was just me and my errors that had resulted in failing the test.
This is the third time I’ve had this dream in two months. Knowing that recurring dreams are typically messages to my conscious mind, I had to dig deeper and unpack this.
What Does Failing a Test in Your Dream Mean?
While symbolism is highly subjective, the meaning of this particular dream is actually pretty straightforward.
Dreaming of a test where you’re unprepared or you’re performing poorly usually means that you feel anxious and underprepared about a situation in your waking life.
“We’re taught that exams are important life challenges we need to overcome to succeed in life. So our subconscious mind uses this symbol to represent life challenges in general.
Seeing this dream usually means there is an important, upcoming life challenge you’re worried or anxious about.”
The best way to go about this would be to interpret it as a sign that you need to prepare well for whatever is making you anxious. In some cases, you can feel inexperienced and unsure even when you’re actually well-equipped to face the challenges ahead.
A study found that students who had negative exam dreams the night before the exam performed better and had positive exam results. This study, along with several other research, shows that these exam dreams do not have to necessarily mean doom.
Such dreams show that you actually care about what lies ahead and they push you to do better and perform as well as you can.
How Are These Exam Dreams Linked to My Life?
Well, I just quit my job.
Just yesterday, I had an awkward, uncomfortable discussion with my manager who questioned my life choices almost sarcastically. He dropped a few passive-aggressive comments on how he hopes I don’t regret my decisions, to which I replied without missing a beat, “I won’t.”
But it did hit me hard. I don’t regret it, but steering away from a tech job in programming and development, for a freelance writing career, is uncommon and frankly, scary.
I had a couple of calls with some amazing CEOs and business leaders just in the past week, discussing how my services can help them. And almost all the work involved is outside my comfort zone and is going to be a steep learning curve for me.
When I took it on, I felt confident and took a leap of faith, just like the dream version of me thought she was great at ‘English’ and would ace her test. But then, dream me failed. Crashed and burned, to be honest.
I May Not Be the Best, but This Will Be One Hell of a Journey
I quit my job. And I’m going in on these new projects with all my energy, in a field that I haven’t worked in full-time before. It’s incredibly unsettling to transition into something so different at such a rapid pace. It’s like I’m experiencing life at the rate of 10 quick lessons a day, and it’s overwhelming. But I’m not going to take my dreams as a sign of defeat. I’m going to listen to my subconscious and go with the experts on this.
My dream simply means I care a lot about these assignments and I want to be prepared enough to deliver results for my clients. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to work hard so that I look back one day and realize I was like those students who saw great outcomes even though they had negative exam dreams.
The goal here is not to be the best, but it is to be my best. So, I’m going to learn, adapt, and grow into the person I want to be.
This experience showed me that sometimes, you can’t afford to brush off your dreams as irrelevant to your work. Listen to your dreams, because they have a lot to tell you.
