I dreamed I'm 30 but stuck in middle school math hell
Anonymous User
October 24, 2025
I’ve had this dream at least once a month for the past ten years. I’ll be back in middle school (or sometimes elementary school) but I’m never a kid in the dreams, I’m the age I am now (30s). Sometimes I’m eating lunch in the lunchroom with a group of kids I’ve never met, or I’m walking through labyrinthine carpeted hallways, or I’m in a math class. Usually these dreams are somehow distressing, with subjects like missing the bus, being yelled at by a teacher, getting lost in the halls, struggling with my locker combination, or being confused by class work. In almost all of the dreams, I will say out loud within the dream that I’m just going to drop out because I’m too old for this. Sometimes I have the understanding within the dream that I’m in some Billy Madison type of situation where I’ve gone back to school to re-learn the basics and get better grades so I can go to a good college and make more money, only for my hopes to be dashed when I’m presented with incomprehensible math problems. For context, in real life I was really sick through my high school years and had to do all of it remotely, so middle school was the last time I was “in” a school environment. I’ve always had math anxiety to a damaging degree and wound up in special education classes because of it and my inability to do simple math has seriously held me back in life and limited my opportunities. Now even when I’m asleep, I’m having dreams about not knowing how to complete a math test and I get SO angry in the dream about it that I’ll either go to the office to drop out right then and there or I’ll wake up absolutely furious. The anger is hard to get rid of afterward and I’m sometimes so sweaty that my body and sheets are totally saturated with sweat. Any idea on how to stop having these dreams or what is causing them? I can’t tell if I’m supposed to take these dreams as “go back to school” or “you’re such a failure that you can’t even succeed in your dreams.” I’m being haunted by math and I’m tired of it.

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