Math Phobia

I was disappointed yesterday when all I could remember from my dream was that someone was yelling and screaming. The girl looked terrified in a funny way. You know, like those scary comedy movies.

---

So anyway, it's amazing how we can remember real memories for life and dreams fizzle out as soon as they are taken over in our minds by real-life thoughts. My take on that is dreams don't have physical anchors (they are not actual memories in the physical world) and so their chance for being recalled is weak. Not like when you're visiting grandma and you can actually smell the stew in her house. In dreams, you see things but never have the support of other senses, which matter a great deal in the foundation of memories.

---

And so before I forget (I can sense the information fading away again...) I might as well make a note of last night's dream.

I dreamed that I was still in college (seemed like it) and that I needed to go to my classes and I kept forgetting that I had some kind of intense math class that I FORGOT to attend for three consecutive weeks. In my dream, I was sure I was going to fail the course and I was contemplating of dropping the course just in time before I failed. But my professor (a really nice lady who seemed like one of my highschool teachers) kept on wanting to talk to me and I kept on trying to avoid her.

Weird.

I know there was so much more in that dream, unfortunately I can't remember them all.

The theme seems so typical of me, just being scared of my math courses -- doing so badly and failing to be in the dean's list in some semesters when I could have been just because of my math abilities, or lack thereof. I was surprised that I aced them in my graduate studies and even found myself tutoring some classmates. It was more of my fear being on the first layer before recognizing my real abilities. I also had very poor study habits for math, because of a pre-programming in my head that I would suck at it. Fearing before seeing the real picture. Surprisingly, I can conquer it! But the memories of days past -- especially the nerve-wracking math tests -- still surface once in a while. And perhaps because the death of my spiritual director in college recently brought me back a flood of memories from my college days...

I want to remember the many good times! Not the fear of math!!! LOL

But ain't it rather so typical that we humans automatically remember the bad first?