For years, I have had a recurring dream about France. The circumstances vary, but the underlying emotion is the same. I am trying to get to France, or to leave France in a hurry. I cannot find my things. Or I miss the plane, forgot my passport or my ticket. I get in the country and cannot get out. Or I cannot bring back my books.

I also have a recurring dream about a house with several rooms. I purchase it, and it needs lots of work. There are many more rooms than I realized. It is a good surprise. Years ago, in the dreams, I wandered from room to room, finding valuable things in them – boxes of jewelry, lovely furniture, paintings, old books, extravagant cloth. Nowadays, the rooms are majestic, but they are bare. Like ballrooms. There are kitchens and attics and piazzas. Each time in each dream the house is beautiful, but needs work. They are reminiscent of the Victorian homes in New England. Large kitchens, tall windows, hidden corners of comfort. You could live there, but you’d have to go back to a different time.

Another one I have all the time: I keep forgetting to take the final exam in college math class. I don't attend the class in my dream. I forget to show up all semester, forget to drop the class, don't take the exam. The professor agrees to give me an incomplete until I can take the final. Then I forget. Years go by. By the time I get back to UMass, he has retired, his office has moved, or he is gone on sabbatical.

This past dream, I went back with my kids. My professor, Dr. Ross, had retired. A nice portrait of him hung on the wall in the academic center. Very few people in the department even remembered him. The math department now conducts aerospace engineering research. So, my chances of getting that incomplete fixed are quite low. My undergraduate transcript is incomplete. My degree is rendered invalid.

Last night, I dreamed it was the last day of high school and all the kids were lining up to clean out their lockers. There was a big crowd, and everyone was in line in the academic building or waiting in the parking lot in their cars. I went to get my stuff from French class, but I had to sort through all kinds of piles of clothes and books and athletic equipment. Then I found the contents of my locker - just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and I wondered why I went to all that trouble to get them. I turned around and realized I was blocked in by all the cars. I shouldn't have bothered to go to all the trouble for the stupid t-shirt and shorts.

While I was waiting in line to leave the parking lot, I took a minute to look at my report card. It was all wrong. My grades were far too low. I kept turning it over and over, trying to remember what went wrong. Then I realized that I had someone else's classes and grades on MY report card. I hadn't taken any of these classes and if I had, I would have done much better.

Now I had to get out of there and go to the office to straighten out the misunderstanding. I figured that if I had someone else's classes and grades, that other person might have mine.

Funny thing, I never took college math. Dr. Ross is not a real person, as far as I know. I never forgot to take a final and I have never misplaced my passport or missed the plane to France. I do have kids are, though. Even in my dream, they run wild in the aerospace engineering lab, jumping on the telescopes and knocking over valuable equipment. Some things never change, even in the realm of the subconscious.

Dreams. So exhausting.