My dreams are never subtle

My dreams are always a really good indicator of what I have going on in my life. It's really obvious when I'm anxious or stressed about something. Sometimes I don't even realize that I'm overly anxious (it's such a common way for me to feel that I don't think I always identify it as such), and then I'll have an "anxiety" dream as I call them. Last night I didn't have an anxiety dream - I had a dream that I quit my job because one of our competitors made me an offer and promised me more work. That's right to the point, isn't it?

I have these recurring anxiety dreams. They take on one of two forms. In the first type, someone is trying to get me. I'm running around a house trying to lock windows and doors before they get in, or I'm hiding in a closet or an attic hoping not to be found. It's kind of scary actually. Only once has the person ever gotten me - it was actually very frightening. I was sleeping at a boyfriend's house on this particular occasion, and in the dream I was sleeping at his house and everything was just the way it was in reality. This dream was so scary that we had to check the entire house and make sure someone actually wasn't in there. Seriously, it was that real. You know how sometimes you can smell something specific in a dream (well, I do anyway)? Imagine feeling the weight of someone on top of you, breathing on you and holding you down. I really thought there was someone in the house.

In the other type of anxiety dream, I'm still in undergrad and it's exam time. I find out that there is a class that I'm still registered for, that I had intended to drop, and now I have to take the exam because otherwise I will fail the class. Naturally, the class is claculus, because, you know, that would be the thing that I'm the worst at, and of course I haven't been to a single class because I thought I dropped it. This never happened to me in real life, but, in law school once, I did register for a class and then not attend it, purposely. It was at an inconvenient time and after I skipped the first couple of weeks, I guess I just didn't want to go back, besides, I was taking it pass/fail. In law school, at least at mine, probably most, the whole class comes down to one exam and that's your grade. That's it. Some teachers say they factor in "participation," but you don't have any choice as to whether you participate - they just call on you. I suppose she could have failed me for not showing up, but she didn't. And I hoped for the best because I was about to graduate and how could a professor fail someone who was about to graduate just because they didn't attend a single class? That was possibly really stupid of me. But, I passed.

So, in my dream last night when I went to tell the partner that I was quitting and going to work for a competitor, I realized what a huge and horrible mistake I was making. Lesson, don't even think about jumping ship right now (I wasn't really consciously thinking about it actually, but my subconscious obviously was).