Exams Examined Examining

If your dream relates to exams or being examined, it usually points to some uncertainty in yourself, or perhaps some sort of search for deeper understanding if it is a positive experience. If there is anxiety in the dream it may relate to a way of feeling about yourself that you learned at school, due to exams and their results.

Being examined can also show you examining yourself to see who you are.

Self criticism or attempts to live up to moral or intellectual standards or habits of concern over accomplishments. Also worry about some coming test of self value, such as a new job or new sexual partner.

Exams can also be about feelings of competition, or even fear of failure. Exams can mean so much because of all the hopes and the future you hang on passing. Do you regard exams as a kill-or-be-killed competition: if you are slow you go under?

Example: I gave birth to a healthy, happy, and smiling baby boy (even though I looked barely pregnant in the dream and gave birth at home with no pain). I was very happy and felt a lot of warmth, care, and protection towards my baby and cuddled him a great deal. Then I was led away by a strange nurse through a sea of people (apparently in a shopping mall) for some sort of bogus medical exam. When I returned to my room, my baby was gone and no one would tell me where he had been taken. My mother had been in the room and other people I trusted. I woke up feeling very sad with a sinking feeling in my chest /stomach.

I believe this dream is about love that you gave birth to easily. Then you trusted others to care for it as you did yourself – but they were not, and probably are not to be trusted.  As the dream says, the examination was bogus. Love, like a new born baby, is such a precious gift you need to protect it with all you can. Your inner baby is not lost forever, so reclaim it.

Example: I am back at the college at which I took my degree in English in 1942. 1 wander between the four floors and along the lengthy corridors, searching for my old room. I feel panicky when I can’t find it. Sometimes I’m aware that I’m about to take an exam and I’m terrified of failing. I’m a retired teacher, still doing private coaching. I am a childless divorcee. I live alone with my cat but have a devoted male friend who is an artist. My hobby is writing. I’ve had some success but desperately want more before it’s too late. At present nothing has been accepted, I suffer writer’s block and am losing heart.

I have come across similar dreams so many times. What happens is that the years in University or school and the taking of exams sets up a pattern of feeling. It can be a feeling of uncertainty, of fear of not succeeding, or failure – or other responses to facing the course. Once this pattern is set up it will be repeated every time you feel stressed – or whatever you felt during exams. So you dream it to remind you that you are feeling the same response. It is an instinctive way of warning you, but it is only a reminder.

What you can do that might be helpful is to sit quietly and remember as clearly as you can the feelings that occurred at university. Then talk to your self and the instincts within you saying something like, “Okay, you and I met some difficult situations back then, and we have developed a conditioned response. Now I know it was made a habit by repeated exposure, but understanding it we can change it. So we do not need to feel the feelings we felt then every time we meet them. That only makes us worse and feel at a low. So every time those feelings emerge we will change it to feeling good about ourselves.” See Conditioned Reflexes

It is also worthwhile to sit and visualise yourself back in the dream and change the ending so you get out of the building. You may need to repeat it for it to establish a new way. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Examined by doctor: Concern over health; desire for attention. See: Test.

Useful questions and hints:

What is the exam about, and how do I feel about it?

Is this about a coming situation in which I feel I will be judged?

Am I examining my own ability in some way?

See Associations Working With – Inner World – Life’s Little Secrets – The Slow Breath