For many students, exam dreams, or more precisely exam nightmares, are a fact of university life. What's lesser known is that alumni may suffer recurring exam nightmares years after graduation. And yes, there are scientific theories why. Theories abound, yet no one knows exactly why we dream. They tell us that REM sleep occurs every 90-100 minutes, three to six times a night.
Dreams can be an important clue to the state of the unconscious.
In his essay, On the Nature of Dreams, Carl Jung commented, Significant dreams are often remembered for a lifetime and not infrequently prove to be the richest jewel in the treasure house of psychic experience. It's not proven that alumni recognize exam nightmares as jewel-laden, and while Jung believed in collective archetypes common themes regional variations seem to apply. One prevalent feature appears to be the universality of dreams, or that common dreams can be shared by many people. McGill alumni, welcome to your clan. According to dream researcher Tony Zadra, BA'88, MSc'91, PhD'95, recurrent nightmares are those which re-appear more than five or six times.