Many of my dreams are variations on the same themes. It’s the day of the final exam and I realize that I’m enrolled in a course that I haven’t attended all semester. Some scary person is chasing me through some weird video-game-like maze (this sometimes includes flying). But last night I had a new kind of dream that must somehow be related to my new status as a graduate student and the fact that I have finished my Fuller Seminary course work so recently.

I had this dream that I was enrolled in a Fuller class, taught by Marianne Meye Thompson, on top of my UCLA classes. I walked into the classroom and Prof. Thompson yelled out in front of the entire class calling me a cheater. Apparently, she found a sentence in a paper or final exam that was very similar to a sentence in some book that I had never heard of. She actually named the title and author, neither of which I recognized (my subconscious brain made up a title and author?).

Some other things happened. There may have been a chase of some kind, to connect it to my more common dreams. But eventually, she gave me a final challenge to fess up. I told her that I really didn’t do it. Then she said my whole Fuller degree would be revoked. Because it seemed to her that I had plagiarized, I wouldn’t be able to get my M.Div. that I have worked so hard on for three years.

Somehow, I found a way to get a hold of the piece of writing, which turned out to be a final exam essay. The questionable sentence was in a paragraph about a movie that I related to whatever the topic was (something I don’t think I’ve ever done in a final exam). I finally convinced some nameless higher-up person that this was some inconsequential movie description and that there weren’t many ways of describing the movie anyway. In the end, it all worked out. I got to keep my Fuller degree after all that stress and my name was cleared.

I find my brain fascinating. I should note that Marianne Meye Thompson is nothing like this in real life . I took five classes with her, so that’s probably why she was my dream’s representative for Fuller Seminary.