{"id":87187,"date":"2015-06-30T16:45:24","date_gmt":"2015-06-30T20:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=87187"},"modified":"2015-06-30T21:23:28","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T01:23:28","slug":"anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/30\/anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Exam\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLast night I had a dream\u201d\u2014there are few sentences more ominous. And not in an interesting way, either, although people seem to think listening to dreams is the sort of thing friends are happy\u2014nay, obligated\u2014to do, like helping them move house or giving medical advice (if the friends happen to be doctors). Imposing them on a stranger is merely unforgivable.<\/p>\n

For my own part, I can bear dream narratives\u2014it\u2019s stories of drug-addled antics I can\u2019t stand. What I hate is that they\u2019re always supposed to be uproarious. But many of the problems inherent to an endless drug tale\u2014lack of relatability, the difficulty of conjuring the scene, the essential loneliness of the experience\u2014are the same. I won\u2019t say relating either a hilarious drug story or a dream is an actively hostile act\u2014but alienating, certainly. Maybe antisocial. Certainly solipsistic. <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

But back to my dream. It was a school dream, I think. Anyway, I was getting the results to some sort of exam. I knew I hadn\u2019t done well. But when the teacher handed the paper back to me, I saw there was a \u201c90\u201d scrawled at the top. Then I saw the name.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I said. \u201cThis isn\u2019t mine. It\u2019s my fianc\u00e9\u2019s. We have the same last name.\u201d\u00a0(Editor\u2019s note: we do.)<\/p>\n

So she handed me another. This one, improbably, had earned a 110\u00a0percent. \u201cA++!\u201d\u00a0the teacher had written. For a moment, I was elated, then I once again noticed the name written in the top-right corner: JoAnn Stein. \u201cThis also isn\u2019t mine,\u201d I said. \u201cI don\u2019t know who JoAnn Stein is.\u201d (Editor\u2019s note: I don\u2019t.)<\/p>\n

And, oh yeah: I was wearing a wedding veil, purple underwear, and nothing else.<\/p>\n

All of this seems straightforward enough; it\u2019s\u00a0textbook symbolism. But the real question remains: Why was this teacher so disorganized? And will she help me move?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review, and the\u00a0<\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cLast night I had a dream\u201d\u2014there are few sentences more ominous. And not in an interesting way, either, although people seem to think listening to dreams is the sort of thing friends are happy\u2014nay, obligated\u2014to do, like helping them move house or giving medical advice (if the friends happen to be doctors). Imposing them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[7009,18594,493,18595,18596,12334,9480,604],"class_list":["post-87187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-anxiety","tag-dream-narratives","tag-dreams","tag-drug-tales","tag-exams","tag-purple","tag-symbolism","tag-weddings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnxiety<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"June 30, 2015 \u2013   \u201cLast night I had a dream\u201d\u2014there are few sentences more ominous. 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