MELISSA BLOCK, host: Now to your comments about last Friday's program.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: The story that brought in the most mail was our interview with dream expert Kelly Bulkeley about how often people have anxiety dreams about school and graduation.</s>Mr. KELLY BULKELEY (Dream Expert): Just like other rites of passages in other cultures, graduations have aspects of an ordeal, of a trial by fire. So I think it makes sense in that regard we continue to have dreams about that kind of experience throughout our lives.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: Well, that brought sympathetic mail from apparently sleepless listeners.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: For years, whenever I'm feeling overly stressed, I have my school dream, writes Lauren Arnfield(ph) of Elizabethton, Tennessee. Happily walking across campus, I pull out my worn class schedule and realize I've not been attending a math class all semester, and then the awful truth hits: I'm scheduled for a final in just a few minutes and don't even know where the building is. Yikes!</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: And apparently, dreams about school don't only arise from the experience of being a student. Steven Hirschhorn teaches at Rutgers University in New Jersey.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: I have dreams about failing to show up to show up to classes that I'm supposed to be teaching, he writes. I also have dreams of an impending class and knowing that I'm completely unprepared to teach a lecture.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: And finally, Ruth Swanson of Washington, DC wrote us to share her solution. I started a new evening ritual that included silent time to remind myself that I had graduated. She continues, it worked. I haven't had one since. Unfortunately, they've been replaced with other more upsetting dreams involving work, pets or family.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Well, whether we put you to sleep or keep you up and night, we'd like to know what you think about our show. You can go to npr.org/contact.
Listeners weigh in on an interview with dream expert Kelly Bulkeley — and share their own experiences with bad dreams.