A random post! Last night I had a dream that I got the proof back from one of the journals I have submitted a paper to. At first, they texted it to my mobile so I couldn't read it, but then when they emailed it to me I opened it and they had made a children's book out of it! All of the writing had been re-arranged so that it rhymed, and there were loads of really colourful illustrations covering every page! To be fair, it would probably be an improvement on what is a very dull paper! Any other crazy PhD-reated dreamers out there?! KB

I don't know if this is considered as PhD related, but since I have started my PhD and I have been reading almost exclusively English books and papers, I have started to dream in English... I mean all the dialogues are in English, all the signs are in English....
And my first language is not English...

I had a slightly embarrasing one a few months after I passed. I dreamt that my external examiner was giving a conference speech to a room full of 500 people in just her underwear. :$

I'll not say any more except that given she was a reasonably attractive woman in her early 40s at the time, it was actually quite a nice dream. :$

Emmaki - if you dream in a language that isn't your first that means that you are fluent in that language and have internalised it - that't what my French teacher at school said anyway - so I'd consider that a good thing!

I don't really dream about mine very often, but a few weeks ago I dreamt that I was doing some writing that was a mixture of my MSc dissertation and my PhD topic, all in 5000 words and I was really stuck as it wasn't making any sense. That was a bit odd and really vivid actually. I think yours sounds much more interesting KB!

That's cool KB - I'd be chuffed if my thesis got turned into a children's book! I've had weird random dreams involving data, supervisor, thesis (one was that it was too long and the other was that I had a cool title which was much better than my actual title!), viva etc... generally when I'm thinking about stuff alot or worried about it!

The coolest one has to be that I dreamt I was at a meeting which turned out to be somewhere like a castle but not quite as it was quite flat and open but perched on the edge of a high castle-like wall by the sea which was used as a Bond film set. I was discussing my poster with the organiser there! 8-)

I just remembered a very PhD-related dream I had a couple of weeks ago.
I was struggling with my literature review and particularly with Judith Butler and Foucault.
So, I had a dream, rather a nightmare, where Butler was fighting with Bourdieu! She was creaming "POSTMODERNISM" and he was screaming "POWER".....

Sad and scary, isn't it?

Emmaki that's a cracker! How vivid can your subject be?!

I can't remember any recent dreams (possibly due to lack of sleep) but I did have some absurd ones during undergrad; at one point I was working all hours, either in the library for my degree, or in a restaurant where I waitressed. One night I dreamt that I was in the restaurant, but instead of the usual menu I was serving people DNA, I was asking "would you like that ligated, or with ribosomes?". It all made prefect sense at the time.

Emmaki - I'm glad I'm not the only one on here who has to grapple with Butler and Foucault! I find that with Butler, as soon as I think I understand something she says something else that throws me again. The more you read though, you realise how repetitive her writing is...

Although I have never dreamt about her or other theorists (not that I can remember anyway), I did have a really embarrassing moment when doing a presentation and I referred to her as 'Juliet' Butler....a little blonde moment there!

It starts like a normal workday, where I go to school and enter into my office. However, around my desk there are my supervisor, my examiners, fellow students and more crowd gathered. My supervisor says to me " You are late! All these people are waiting for you". Then I realised that I have completely forgotten that it was my viva, so I started going through my notes, which were all over the place and I was trying to decide what to present! I woke up in sheer panic.

Another dream I get quite often is that a mistake in my high school marks is revealed and I have actually failed high school, so I have to go back and retake my A-levels, and redo all my undergrad and postgrad studies before I enter the PhD again. And there is nothing I can do, it is like a majesty's court decision...

Heh, I've never had dreams about re-sitting exams, those sound more like nightmares!

A couple of weeks ago I did dream that I turned over in bed, and my second supervisor was there, and he and my partner were asleep with their arms around each other. :$ I woke up in a really bad mood with my partner as well, which on reflection might have been a little unfair of me...

The viva dreams were the worst for me. But then PhD dreams can continue even after you've successfully passed, and graduated.

I had a dream a few months ago - nearly a year after my successful viva - that my PhD had been revoked. Aaarrrrggghh! Very traumatic dream that was. Do not want to have again!

Cool topic, KB! Not sure if this qualifies for this post (given that it’s PhD related dreams) but I had a very vivid dream during my MSc (this was a long time ago, but I still remember bits and pieces of it as it was so bizarre!) regarding my supervisor – I had an appointment with him and was waiting for him for ages to show up. He finally did after a very long time but was moaning and groaning that he wanted to go home. I didn’t think it was very nice of him seeing as he showed up so late in the first place! Anyway, he kept saying that repeatedly and when he uttered that inside his office while at his desk, he suddenly vanished! I was looking around bewildered as to where he had disappeared to because it was very important for me even in the dream to discuss the introduction of my thesis with him when suddenly a strange woman appeared at the entrance asking me what or who I was looking for. When I explained the situation to her, she groaned and exclaimed that there was an enchantment placed around this room that whoever uttered that they wanted to go home would disappear (and land inside a particular hospital or something). I was so desperate to discuss my intro with him (never mind that he was in a hospital!) that I hurried out to get some means of transport to reach there when the strange woman herself appeared next to me on a broomstick (!!!) and urged me to get on with her so that I could get there quickly and I decided that was indeed the best option!!! Well, I woke up as I was on my way there so I am kind of disappointed that I didn’t get to see the end! It was very hilarious at the time though (plus an indicator of how worried and anxious I was to get on with my thesis)!