It did not take long into my first semester at NAIT for me to experience sleep disturbances brought on by stress. The stress of finding classrooms, meeting professors and peers, studying and memorizing course outlines and carefully charting fast-approaching deadlines is a lot for a seasoned student, let alone a new one. My stress typically manifests into either bouts of insomnia or nightmares. This gave me pause as I thought of a clever quip. What if what I was experiencing was not a typical nightmare? But rather…a NAITMARE!
I define a NAITmare as a sleep experience induced by the stress of being a student at NAIT. These dreams will look and sound different for everyone. They may be lucid or may take place between classes. Regardless, I believe that every student attending NAIT has or will experience a NAITmare during their time here, and I took to the halls to find out if my hypothesis was true.
For Drew Waddel, his nightmares are seldom but claustrophobia-inducing. “Well, I just get super scared, and I feel like I am trapped in a little box, like I just can’t get out. I wake up in the middle of the night and scream, and that’s it”
Terrifying yet relatable.
But not all NAIT students feel trapped. Thomas Mastromatteo doesn’t feel much stress until finals week. “We are in the trades, so all of our courses are compacted into two months, which isn’t bad at all. It is a heavy course load for the time. It’s mostly just the last week when you’re trying to refresh your memory,” he said. “That does get a bit stressful…a little bit of a NAITmare.”
Craig Robertson certainly feels the pressure when exams approach, “For me, it was a combination of anxiety and not feeling prepared. I remember waking up and sweating like crazy. It was good times.” Exams and deadlines are a repeating theme with students. Robertson added, “You always have that fear of showing up, no pants, right?”
As for Erin, a student in Medical Radiologic Technology, the thought of a missed deadline wakes her up at night. “I guess I just always have dreams about missing assignments. Like I wake up in a panic, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, it is 12, I need to submit it.”
Similarly, Abby Slater feels the pressure of unwittingly forgetting a due date, having spent most of her reading break wondering if she had something important to do; however, she has not had the NAITmare experience. Yet. “Not really any dreams necessarily…I just freak out when I accidentally miss a due date.” Haven’t we all…
For Josh Crabbe, DMIT student and bartender extraordinaire at the Nest, his NAITmare came true. “My nightmare is coming back from reading break and having a lab that you need to do and it is due in tonight. That is my NAITmare and that’s my reality, honestly.”
I have always had visual dreams, and a recent NAITmare of mine took place in a classroom on campus. I could see my assignments in the form of folders and binders piling up beside my desk as I desperately tried to finish them before the timer on the wall got to zero.
In all seriousness, school can be very stressful, notwithstanding your course load, efficiency, studying habits or commitment. Deadlines and exams are meant to test our knowledge, and that is a lot of pressure to experience, especially as many students have one or more jobs, and some students have families they provide for or are parents.
We expect a lot of ourselves. We want to succeed and find a great career after graduation. Academic success is important. But, so is your mental health. NAIT has many great resources available for students to access to help with stress. Between NAIT Mental Health Resources, NAITSA Peer Support and Learning Services, there are various methods for students to seek support. A NAITmare is not a reflection of the quality of this school, its staff or its instructors. Rather, it is a reminder that parts of the student experience are universal.
Cover art by Macy Jackson
