Dream Theater

I experienced a bizarre Dream in Two Acts last night. In the first dream, I was a teacher administering a standardized test of some sort. I saw that we didn't have enough of the test packets, so I took the original packet and went to make copies. I got the copier all set up and started. After about two pages, though, I realized that it wasn't collating right, so I stopped the process to reset the copier.

The next thing I knew, I was searching desperately for the copies I had made. I couldn't find them anywhere—they weren't in the copy room, my office, the classroom, anywhere. Before long, I was sorting through the garbage in a panic, looking for the copies I had made. And I found them, but it didn't help. They were all crumpled up, and many of the pages had holes poked through them. Worst of all, there were many pages missing, most of the pages, in fact. I didn't know what to do.

Then, just before I awoke, I realized that I didn't need the copies I'd been looking for. They were wrong. I needed the originals so that I could make copies that were right. And I knew exactly where to find them: in the autofeeder on the copy machine.

At least in this dream I had ready access to a photocopier. That's more than I can say about my real job at the moment.

In the second dream, I was once again administering a standardized test. Rather, I was about to do so. I took a quick look at how many test forms we had, and found that we had more students scheduled for the test than we could accommodate. So once again I decided to make copies. I couldn't find an original, but we had some overheads, and those would work just as well.

I went to the copy room—which in this dream was in a trailer behind the school—resolved to make the copies quickly and efficiently this time. Yes, I was remembering the experiences of the first dream. Anyway, I got there, and the copier was gone. I looked in the room in other side of the trailer, and it wasn't there either. Then I saw one of the doors was open. So I went outside. One of the administrators was there, with the original copy of the test, along with all the copies we'd need. She said something like, "I appreciate your efforts, but we decided it had to be done right this time."

What does it mean? I don't know. Perhaps my subconscious mind is trying to prepare me for the rigors of being an educator in the era of No Child Left Behind.

Or maybe it was just the Ny-Quil.