Tobin S. - what LocoNuts aspires to be

[BannedFromDU]

Star Member Tobin S. (5,947 posts)

I have a fear of public speaking: glossophobia.
It's something I'm going to have to overcome.

I thought I would tackle it head on last night in my math class at school. We were asked to try a difficult practice problem. The professor said that whoever got up in front of the class and solved the problem correctly would get some bonus points. Fewer bonus points would also be rewarded simply for trying even if the solution was wrong.

I was confident of my solution, but much less so of getting up in front of the class and explaining it to everyone. I've had a fear of public speaking for as long as I can remember. It's much more intense when I'm actually standing in front of a group of people. I have less trouble speaking up when I'm seated with the class.

I'm going into a field where I will probably be required to speak in front of groups, so I'm going to have to find a way to get over this. I do have to take a public speaking class at school. I suppose that might help, but I really need some tips to help me get over this fear.

I made it through my solution in front of the class alright and got the correct answer for maximum bonus points, but I was probably obviously nervous and I stammered a bit. Is this one of those things that you feel more comfortable with the more you do it? Is the key just to speak publicly more often?

Doesn't look TOO bad, huh? Well, except for...

Star Member Tobin S. (5,947 posts)

I still encounter my illness in dreams sometimes...
...usually nightmares. I had one last night and I fell out of bed in my sleep trying to get away from it. Thud! Scared the shit out of everyone in the house- me, wife, dog, cat.

It started out as a pleasant dream. I was gambling, playing black jack, which I used to do frequently before I got married and started to have to spend my money on more important things. Only I wasn't losing this time. I had won a bunch of money. I had stacks of $25 chips piled up everywhere. Then the dream turned sour.

The casino somehow swindled me into accepting only a couple of hundred bucks for my winnings. I had gone down to the casino on a weeknight and it was very late and I'd neglected to tell my wife. On my way home I had the feeling that I was being followed. I stopped at a diner and the feeling of being watched and followed intensified. I ran into someone I knew at the diner (someone I've never seen in real life) who needed a ride and I agreed to give him one. It was dark and when we turned onto a road it turned into an unlit, country dirt road. Suddenly I was on foot walking along the road and I could see a light in the distance. Silhouetted in the light were three figures that I thought were people walking toward me. As I got closer to them I could see that they were those classic grey-type aliens. I tried to run past them but was somehow caught. At the moment of being caught I started going into an incredibly bright light that drowned out all other images. That's when I knocked myself out of bed.

I used to have fanciful paranoid delusions like that dream all the time when I was ill. But back then I thought that stuff was really happening to me.

And then there's...

Star Member Tobin S. (5,947 posts)

A few ideas about the dream I wrote about last week.
Like I said in the other thread, when I remember a dream it is novel to me because I rarely remember dreams. If I remember them at all it is only for a few minutes after I awake and then they are gone. The nightmare I had last week is still fresh in my mind. To me that indicates something I should pay attention to and give some thought.

I've heard it said that dreams are deeply personal. If you describe a weird dream to someone they might be able to give you a general sense of what it might mean, but the exact meaning will only surface in the mind that created the dream. I'm also aware that some people might think the area I'm treading now is slipping into woo, that dreams are meaningless and the product of an undirected mind that is not aware of itself.

I'm of the opinion that dreams do mean something. A basic example is a dream of sex. Sexual dreams are usually pretty straightforward. You dream that you are having sex and it is pleasurable. That probably means that you desire and enjoy sex. That's meaning and it's hard to deny...honestly.

The beginnings of the dream are about personal issues between me and my wife. They are not all that important to me as they do not reveal anything that hasn't occurred to me before and we have resolved those issues. But they set the stage to put into context a transitional period. The pivotal point is when I pick up a friend at the diner; someone I appear to know in the dream world but who I don't recognize when I awake from the dream. The dream had a paranoid quality to it up until that point and then turns truly nightmarish.

I will now turn to what has been going on in my conscious world recently. I am a senior at Indiana University. I just turned 41 Friday so I'm not a traditional student, but I've been doing very well since returning to school a year and a half ago- nothing but 'A's. I am a business major and my academic efforts have been recognized and rewarded. I won a scholarship for this academic year over the summer; not a big one, but it will cover my books this school year, it will look good on a resume, and it is a great honor. Also, last week I was informed that I'll be inducted into an international business honor society later this month in recognition of my academic achievements. Again, that looks awesome on a resume, it's a great honor, and it will also give me a chance to network with professors, alumni, and other high achieving students who may have connections in the local business community that could prove valuable after I graduate- maybe even before I graduate.

While that is all great news it is a somewhat "alien" and "frightening" to me which is where I think the fear and alien references come into play in my dream. Also the dark, unlit, country road that leads to the alien event suggests that maybe I'm in uncharted territory, personally, and maybe I'm a little lost.

I'm a person who has spent his life trying to be inconspicuous. I don't want a lot of attention; while not anti-social, I'm certainly no social butterfly; and I am not comfortable in front of larger groups of people. But I am aware that if I want to be successful in the business world I'm going to have to learn to be more outgoing and confident in group settings.

So here we go. Trial by fire. The induction ceremony is on the 24th of this month. I need a new suit.

Nut. Bar.

[JohnnyReb]

A business major in an Obamaconomy that's killing businesses right and left.....mostly right. May I suggest a couple of semesters of "Burger flipping 101 and 102"

[DumbAss Tanker]

Cuckoo for Coacoa Puffs.  However, I see a great future for him as a Democrat economist.  Any connection to reality is actually a handicap in that line of work.

[BattleHymn]

I'm going into a field where I will probably be required to speak in front of groups, so I'm going to have to find a way to get over this. I do have to take a public speaking class at school. I suppose that might help, but I really need some tips to help me get over this fear.

Sometimes when I get nervous, I stick my fingers under my arms, and then smell them like that.

-Tobin S., or Mary Catherine Gallagher, you decide.   

[Karin]

Is there anything more tiresome that someone else's long detailed descriptions of their dreams?  Who cares? 

I once read an etiquette rule:  Tell your dreams only to those you wake up next to. 

[GOBUCKS]

Tobin S. is Dennis the Menace's buddy in the DUmp loonybin.

He is every bit as much a lunatic as Dennis.

DUmmy LocoNuts is crazier than Tobin or Dennis, but all three of them are at the very skinny left end of the sanity bell curve.

[franksolich]

Is there anything more tiresome that someone else's long detailed descriptions of their dreams?  Who cares? 

I once read an etiquette rule:  Tell your dreams only to those you wake up next to. 

Oh now.

Last night, I dreamed I was playing golf with Aimee Semple McPherson and the Duchess of Windsor; I won, but suddenly there were another eighteen holes in front of me, and I had to play the game with Haile Selassie and Maxime Weygand.  I won that one, but then there were another eighteen holes with Lord Curzon and Dolores Ibarruri.  I was getting tired by then, but ooops, another eighteen holes, this time with John Steinbeck and Louis Mayer.  It went on and on and on, with all these different personages, and at some point there appeared croquet wickets in front of the ball.

[biersmythe]

Oh now.

Last night, I dreamed I was playing golf with Aimee Semple McPherson and the Duchess of Windsor; I won, but suddenly there were another eighteen holes in front of me, and I had to play the game with Haile Selassie and Maxime Weygand.  I won that one, but then there were another eighteen holes with Lord Curzon and Dolores Ibarruri.  I was getting tired by then, but ooops, another eighteen holes, this time with John Steinbeck and Louis Mayer.  It went on and on and on, with all these different personages, and at some point there appeared croquet wickets in front of the ball.

 

[BannedFromDU]

     I dreamt once that I was watching the LA Philharmonic play Haydn's 34th. Want to know the deep, hidden meaning of it? IT WAS F***ING AWESOME.

[USA4ME]

I dreamed I was awake, woke up and I was asleep.

.

[Dori]

I dreamed I was awake, woke up and I was asleep.

Oh I hate it when that happens.  It happens to me a lot.

 

[biersmythe]

I dreamed I was awake, woke up and I was asleep.

.

HEHE

[JohnnyReb]

I dreamed I was elected presidents....all the DUmmie heads exploded and it took two WAL-MART shopping bags to hold all the brains.

[GOBUCKS]

I won that one, but then there were another eighteen holes with Lord Curzon and Dolores Ibarruri.

Which reminds me...how long since we've heard from Sarah Imaboobi?

Is she shacked up with a new boyfriend, beaten daily, until he finds something better?

[DumbAss Tanker]

Is there anything more tiresome that someone else's long detailed descriptions of their dreams?  Who cares? 

I once read an etiquette rule:  Tell your dreams only to those you wake up next to. 

Sounds like a "Miss Manners" response.

 

[AllosaursRus]

Hell, my dreams usually make me wake up with a "woody"! Aliens? Not unless they're sportin' a pair o' 38's!

Libs can't even dream in a beneficial way, go figure!

Is there anything more tiresome that someone else's long detailed descriptions of their dreams?  Who cares?  

I once read an etiquette rule:  Tell your dreams only to those you wake up next to.  

Ya really, really want me to get beat with a baseball bat, doncha?

Besides, it would usually be my Basset Hound, and I just ain't that kinky!

[Karin]

DAT, that it was.   

[delilahmused]

Why the hell does everything have to be an illness with them? Plenty of people are or have been petrified of speakiing in public. The first time I taught a beadwork class, I was so nervous, I thought I'd never get through the whole class. The second time it wasn't so bad. Eventually I thoroughly enjoyed it. Practice gets you through a situation like this. It's not a disease. If you can actually get up in front of the class and do it without a full blown panic attack, it's NOT a mental disorder, it's just simple fear every person feels when they do something scary for the first time.

I don't have a clue what I dreamed last night, but I woke up craving a baked potato. I'm sure there's a phobia or other psycholigical condition associated with that, but I've yet to figure out what it is. Maybe one of you with moles over there, maybe you can ask in the mental health forum so I can have a condition to whine about.

Cindie