‘I’m still having O-Level nightmares’: Singaporean shares exam stress years later

SINGAPORE: A local Reddit user said in a recent post that three years after taking their O-level exams, they’re continuing to experience nightmares. They wanted to know if anyone else still gets O-level nightmares too.

In their April 20 post, u/eeeb_deee explained that they graduated from secondary school six years ago. Because they went to a polytechnic school, they did not take A-level exams, which meant that the last national exams they sat for were the O-levels.

“Now I’m in uni, and it’s currently exam week,” they wrote, adding that it’s been a pattern over the years as exams approach or are ongoing, they begin to have nightmares about their O-level.

“For example, I’ll dream that I completely flunked them, or that I forgot to bring my circle template (which actually happened during my chem exam),” wrote u/eeeb_deee.

When this happened while they were still in poly, it wasn’t so surprising, as they had taken O-levels recently at that point. They seemed taken aback that this is still going on even now that they’re in university, and asked, “Is this a common thing, or is it just me?”

A common nightmare

The post author is likely to be comforted to know that exam nightmares are very common, and people may experience them for years or even decades after they take the actual exam that they dream about.

The primary reasons why people get nightmares are anxiety and stress, according to Psychology Today, and exams often cause both.

For exam-related nightmares, what’s behind exams needs to be looked into, such as being judged, evaluated, unprepared, or fear of failure.

“Examinations can be among the most stressful experiences in life, so it is hardly surprising that they make frequent appearances in our dreams,” wrote psychologist David Fontana in The Secret Language of Dreams. He added that there are common themes to these dreams, such as arriving at an exam without being adequately prepared, or arriving late and panicking while looking for the examination room.

What Reddit users are saying

Commenters on the post told the post author that they are not alone.

“I’m 46 and still dreams of getting to statistics exams in NTU, and realising I haven’t studied for it. It often happens in particularly stressful periods in my life, like when there are project deadlines at work,” one wrote.

“I’m gonna be 30 soon, but once in a long while I still get nightmares about not finishing my exam papers in time and I panic in my dream as I look at the clock in the exam hall,” added another.

“I am over 40 and I still have recurring dreams where I am sitting in my college exam hall and totally stressed about being unable to recollect why and how I am there with absolutely zero preparation for that exam,” wrote a third.

Another shared: “I’m also over 40 and also have these exam nightmares every time I’m stressed about something, typically work related. Either I forgot to study maths the whole year or I late and lost my way to the exam hall. My husband also, but for him it’s Chinese exams haha. The kind of relief I get when waking up from such dreams is really… so grateful I’m no longer in school!” /TISG

Read also: Woman who failed O-Levels shared how she bounced back through grit, determination, & a lot of hard work