Warming Up

Sunday 15th June 2003

It is eighteen years since I took my A levels and yet every month or so I have a dream where I am about to take them again. It happened again this morning.
It is weird that I never recognise that this is a dream, even though it happens so often and even though I have lived half a life-time since those exams. In the recurring dream I have about witnessing a plane crash, I always think "Wow, this is just like that dream I always have." Not so with the A level one. It's never even been a possibility. I totally accept it.
Which is even more remarkable because in the dream I am nearly always my actual age. Which is what makes it frightening because I have my present day memory of History, English Lit and most often, Pure Mathematics. I have remembered nothing about maths, so having to do a complicated exam with only hours or minutes to revise is a literal nightmare.
In today's version I was telling my dad that I'd decided not to take the A level. He was worried that that would mean I wouldn't get to University. I told him I was nearly 36 and that I could do what I wanted and in any case I didn't think I needed to go to University. My comedy career was going quite well. Three years studying history might ruin everything that I had built up.
Why is my subconscious not clever enough to make the mental leap that this can't be true, especially after all the hundreds of times it has happened before?
Sure failing my A levels would have changed my life and doubtless they symbolise any challenge I have in my present life that I may not feel prepared for.
I think I might have to actually re-revise all my Pure Maths course work, so that next time this happens I am prepared, can take the exam, pass it and hopefully allow my subconscious to move on.