How could I be so wrong about making pancakes? (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I watch this freshman college kid give an older woman dictation. He rattles things off quickly, just assuming that she's going to record all of his long, extremely detailed notes for him. She does take some notes, but they're pretty much her own, and at times, she crosses her arms and doesn't do anything. He doesn't notice. He just keeps talking. 

At first, she thinks his arrogance has made him dumb, despite how smart his notes are. Because he's not paying attention to what's going on with her. But when he finishes, the notes the woman took turn into a beautiful stack of strawberry-filled pancakes with whipped cream. The gaps she left in the notes turned into areas where strawberries are. 

Did he plan this? Because he's not at all surprised, while she's shocked.

INTERPRETATION

I think my insecurities about being too dumb to accomplish anything are rising to the surface.

I transferred to a local STEM school after I recovered from my first major schizophrenic episode, and I met the kid in this dream there.

He was the lab assistant. I went up to him with a question about the directions, and he angrily looked up from doing his own homework and said, "I can't read the lab for you--you have to read it yourself!" 

I was very angry, but I realized almost immediately (and I don't know what tipped me off) that this was probably a gifted kid with overexcitabilities and social problems, which I am not used to dealing with except with my dad. I am used to gifted kids being really nice, but I know that "profoundly" gifted kids are rumored to struggle to fit in. 

Later in the semester, I was still pissed off about this incident, and I was in a professor's office in which this kid was a student. The professor just happened to have some of this kid's work on his desk. I looked over and was like, "He better be really fucking gifted. It would be so easy to get him in trouble for that lab thing." 

Perfect scores on a hard quiz. I was like, "Shit, I was right. I can't get this dumb smart kid in trouble for being angry and confused about why he's surrounded by idiots. It's like a disability."

Unfortunately, my brain doesn't really process STEM subjects well. Whereas some people work perfectly well with the gaps in knowledge that textbooks leave (turning into strawberries in the dream) those gaps just inspire dozens and dozens of questions for me, and I often cannot move forward until I answer those questions for myself. I sometimes get unpredictable, out of control moments of insight (whipped cream), but again, I feel as though some people just really work well with these kind of issues. They're not a problem for them, and everything turns out well. It's a surprise for me, but not to them. (The stack of pancakes materializing out of the notes.)

I'm about to take a large STEM exam, so maybe that's why I'm revisiting this experience with this annoying gifted kid who wasn't being helpful with someone slower.