Acey83's blog post - Dark have been my dreams of late...

It's now mid-November, and there's not a lot in the way of work that's much better. Every time I think I do something right, after proof-reading the thing for the fifth time I find all sorts of niggly little errors that the postgraduate examiners would mark down harshly if they found. It's almost worth going back to doing exams for me; that way I wouldn't have this guillotine hanging over me, threatening to cut my academic dreams in two.

Speaking of dreams, I don't often remember mine, often to the point where I sometimes think I don't even have them for long stretches. But last night was different. First I dreamed my father was dying; he had left the house after we had had a big argument, and was about to drive the car away from the house, before he fell out of the driver's side door, hacking and choking and loudly coughing up blood. I have never really thought about what life would be like without my parents in the world to coddle me when I am at my weakest, and it shook me for a while.

But even more disturbing for me was the next dream I had some hours later. I was walking through the corridors of what appeared to be the Music Department I study in at university. As I was handing something in, the administrator turned to me and said, "You'd better get going to your performance exam, they must be expecting you by now." Not knowing what the hell he was talking about, but eager to figure out what was going on, I turned and left for the room where the recitals were happening. An Asian girl was just finishing her Schubert performance when I walked in, and the three lecturers told me to be quiet and wait for a moment. Sure enough, half a minute later, the girl finished her piece, and began happily discussing her performance with the judge on the right-hand end.

A moment later I heard, "Next is... Alex!" The female judge in the middle smiled and said, "Good to see you, you may start any time." My head started to swim as I tried to recall any knowledge of my participation in this paper. "There must be some mistake," I said, "I didn't enrol for this. And if I did, I must have withdrawn within the first week." The smile faded from the judge's face, and she said, "Now, Alex, we know your attendance has been... well... non-existant, but we're still prepared to hear your recital."

The judge at the left side of the table handed me a piece of paper, folded in half. I cast my eyes over it, and immediately groaned in disbelief and despair. On the paper was written a list of music, in my own handwriting, which I had hoped to learn and perform. Some of it was 12th-century troubadour songs, some was 19th-century piano music, and a couple of guitar pieces were added in for good measure. I recognised the list as being a set of "objectives" I had set myself in the first performance class of the semester, the only one I had attended. One of the judges said, "Come on, Alex, we only need an honest attempt." Through tears, I admitted to them: "But I don't know any of these", and wandered to the back of the room, crumpling up into a ball and sobbing pitifully. The last thing I remember of the dream was that the room was filled with the other performance students, who were enjoying a post-recital afternoon tea, casting scornful eyes over at me every so often as I wept in the corner, perhaps for ruining their 100% student pass record, or perhaps for just being a personal waste of space.

This is what I fear most: becoming a failure, who contributes nothing to society by my existence. It is what I have been led to believe repeatedly through my early years, and what I am determined to defy now.

They say that dreams such as these are intended to show you the opposite of what will actually happen. There is a Pacific legend that says that if you dream of a funeral, you will soon be at a wedding, and vice versa. Strangely enough, this is indeed the case for my first dream; I will be attending the wedding of my old friend Lindsay this Saturday. She will be marrying a guy named Jeremy, who seems a charming fellow, though I've only ever spoken to him once. But I can only hope that this stays true for my second dream, and that I am not doomed to failure as foretold by my tempestuous mind.