"Four decades later I still dream about my secondary school final exams as if it was yesterday. I can still sense the hellish, untameable anxiety that I carried throughout that unnecessarily demanding year when the smallest academic blip could launch me into a debilitating state of catastrophe. So it's no surprise that my heart goes out to those year 12 Queensland students who learned on the eve of their final history exam"
"On reading about this I had a visceral reaction like I would on hearing breaking chalk or finger nails scraping down the blackboard. I went cold. My breath shortened. These poor students and their parents. Their pain was mine. Anxiety's malevolent tendrils can grip us at the least convenient and logical of times. No matter how I might intellectualise a potentially challenging situation I've always found it easy to foresee the worst. A family member"
"recently advised me before a potentially challenging public appearance: Just imagine the absolute worst-case scenario and then when it doesn't happen you'll be really pleasantly surprised. I always know when I'm irrationally anxious because I experience the same dream. In it I turn up to my year 12 English Lit exam having read all of the novels on the syllabus many times. Bathsheba Everdene of Thomas"
A person continues to dream about secondary school final exams four decades later and still feels hellish, untameable anxiety from that demanding year. Year 12 Queensland students unexpectedly prepared for the wrong Roman emperor and faced acute distress when the test focused on Julius Caesar. The person reports visceral, physical reactions to news of exam mistakes and empathises deeply with affected students and parents. Anxiety can strike at inconvenient times and encourages imagining worst-case scenarios. A recurring exam dream involves arriving prepared for familiar novels only to find questions about unfamiliar works, provoking panic.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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