Friday, July 11, 2014
Dream Seminar
I was teaching my Lorca seminar. We began by introducing ourselves around the room. There were about 40 people there, more than our actual seminar room would fit, and nobody I recognized. One severe looking woman of about 40 was a visiting professor specializing in Gabriel García Márquez. I thought of making a joke about "Federico García Márquez" but thought better of it. When the time came for me to introduce myself a woman standing to the right began to talk instead. I cut her off. But when I started to explain who I was, that I was the professor for the course, I noticed that many of the people had left the room for a break. Given the length of the introductions, an hour had passed and it was time for our first break. There were only 10 people left, so I started to teach the class to them, trying to explain first why I hadn't ordered books for the course.
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4 comments:
Gosh, I have to go Do Things but would love to sit around and contemplate this dream. It seems like a bad dream to be dismissed as a teaching anxiety dream (and I have actually had just about precisely this happen in a real life seminar) but I think it is a good dream.
You don't have books yet and did not present self as professor and are about to invent course with the 25% who did not leave. Something new is going to happen...
I did not order books, in fact, since the seminar won't take place until 2015. That part of the dream is true. It is the typical teaching anxiety dream (at least I had clothes on) but combined with anxiety of a meeting I have to run on Monday on Social Media.
In Jungian terms, everybody in your dream is an aspect of yourself. Cutting off the woman means you are trying to shut up the female aspect of your persona right now. And the people who leave are the qualities or aspects of yourself that you feel you need to get rid of to do what you want to do in your seminar.
I'm not a Jungian, but I'm sure you're right anyway.
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