Lauri in Reader’s Digest: Why We Still Dream About School

In our words

What Lauri told Reader’s Digest

Reader’s Digest asked Lauri, along with two psychotherapists, why so many adults keep landing back in school in their dreams. Her answer: school is where most of us first felt the pressure of deadlines, grades, competition and fitting in, so the dreaming mind reaches for it whenever waking life puts us under a similar kind of evaluation.

Lauri walked through the most common versions. The unprepared-for-the-test dream usually lines up with an upcoming situation that feels high-stakes, such as an interview, a big meeting or meeting a partner’s family. Searching for a classroom you can’t find tends to show up when you feel you aren’t yet where you belong, often in your career. An old high school sweetheart rarely stands for that person; they stand for the feelings first love brought. Even a long-forgotten classmate points to a trait that matters to you right now.

She also noted that the stage of school can carry meaning, from elementary school for something just beginning to college for more advanced growth, and that a classroom dream can simply mean you are learning something new. Her advice: start from the feeling the dream left you with, not the plot.

This is our own summary. Read the original at Reader’s Digest for the full article.