Dreams, Fears and Weasels

The newest series of dreams are relatively straightforward things.  I walk into the chemistry classroom. Sometimes the chemistry classroom is on a bus, sometimes on a cliff, sometimes, for reasons that are passing understanding, it is located halfway up a tree or in the men's bathroom at work. Never is class actually being held in an actual classroom in my dreams. I suspect this is just my brain entertaining itself.

In any case, in the dream, it is always exam day, which is rather terribly stereotypical of me, I'm afraid. I have not yet had the whoops-hey-I'm-naked dream, I suspect because being naked holds very little in the way of actual fear for me. In fact, given my recent bouts of vacantbrained forgetfulness, I would not be surprised if someday I forgot my clothing on the way to the bus. My clothing, but not my coffee. I'd never forget my coffee. Happily naked at the bus stop, wondering vaguely why everyone is staring and why the bench seems colder than usual but not dwelling on it too much because hey, there's coffee.

There's priorities for you.

So yes, exam day. And I sit down and suddenly realize that I have been somehow transferred to an advanced physics class instead of Basic Stupid Person Chemistry 101, or the professor suddenly develops a kind of narcissistic madness that causes her to demand that instead of chemistry, our exam will be about her favorite things to eat, or the exam is abruptly in a language that has never been heard of on this planet, not even by anthropological linguist advanced academic people. And of course, because we're being terribly stereotypical, everyone else is having no problems whatsoever. They all love advanced physics, they studied the professor's favorite foods over the weekend, and the language that nobody has spoken since before the dawn of time they promptly start chattering in fluently. And anthropological linguist advanced academic people the world over would be amazed, except on some level they are aware of being people who exist in my dream and my dream only so instead they just shake their heads and mutter, "she's at it again, must be an exam coming up."

And so I sit there, surrounded by people who understand what's going on, mind filled with dumb incomprehension and sheer panic.

My fears are fairly easy things, really. Fear of being alone, fear of failure, fear of spiders and heights, all standard fare, and to be perfectly honest I've made an awful habit of facing those fears regularly, as if to prove something to myself or the world. I've failed more times than I've succeeded, I've held tarantulas, I've jumped off of cliffs with naught but a very expensive and carefully-stitched bedsheet attached to my back, and I keep on walking away from entire social circles with never again a how-do-you-do. 

...In my defense, they weren't the best social circles a lady could ask for, and doing so has done nothing to assuage my fears of being alone. Then again, I highly doubt I'm ever truly alone. I'd have to get rid of my characters first, wouldn't I? And that's not going to happen.

 But that's neither here nor there. Probably it's a thought for another post. Untangenting....

How does one go about facing one's fear of incomprehension? When the first thing you do upon encountering a thing you don't understand is endeavor to understand it and thus fix the problem, when you're actually proving to be quite intelligent and rarely run into a thing that you're incapable of grasping eventually, how do you face that fear?

I only ask because this morning, I awoke in a cold sweat because all the class had turned into weasels and, it turns out, would you believe it? Weasels have a much more advanced understanding of basic chemistry than humans. I wouldn't have thought it. They look so surprised all the time.

You see? 

Then again, perhaps that's just their balancing-equations expression. One never can tell, with weasels. Tricsky things. In any case, I have to get going. It's time for class, and I need to get my calipers and rope all ready to go. 

Today it's being held on Mount Everest. 

p.s. Hello, readers in South Korea, Indonesia, and Denmark, how on earth are you finding this thing? Are you just googlebots. Are you. ARE you.