Dreaming the unthinkable

by Jason Digby
(Winchester, Hampshire, UK )

I'm from the united Kingdom and recently did a re-sit of my module 1 January English Language and Literature exam at AS level -in the summer- alongside my other module 2 exams.

I was convinced that English was not for me anymore as I had only managed a grade D in my January set and the re-sit was just a blind hope that I might pull the grade up a bit, as I had managed 3 A's otherwise (so it was a little embarrassing). After sitting the re-sit I thought I'd done terribly. Then a couple of weeks later I sat the second module and again thought it had gone awfully.

I do four subjects that are all written so it was weight on my mind that come interview time for universities, how was I going to explain my apparent success in the 3 other subjects whilst falling short on the one which makes up the basis of the others?

I was fairly confident about the other 3 exams and was happy that I'd done enough to get a good overall result for the year..
One night I dozed off and dreamt that I was opening my results. (Obviously, it was not the only thing I dreamt about throughout the course of the night, but it felt like a very short part overall) On the results page, I could see the other 3 subjects above English (subconsciously placing English at the bottom of the list) but I was unable to see them clearly and the actual grades were obscured. However, I could see my English result and it was a grade B overall. This was the last thing I remember before waking up. Now, only a few weeks after this it was results day. I opened my ominous brown envelope and inside were my other subjects listed in this order; History, Law, Psychology... BBB. That was what I could see on the folded half facing me. As I'm sure you can imagine, I immediately thought I must have failed English and that opening the page was going to be no shock. How wrong I was, as when I turned the page, there was English, at the bottom of the list... grade B overall. An A in the re-sit and a B in module 2.

Was my subconscious trying to inform me that I'd done better than I thought, or was I just having an "in your dreams" moment? I had said before that dream that I'd be content with a B for the year. One way or another, I remember feeling like I had been thoroughly taunted by my phantom results dream. I would NEVER have guessed that what I thought impossible was actually going to become a very surreal reality.