[Dream Report] Cheating My Way Through the Halloween Library Maze Challenge

^source

This was an odd one, even as my dreams go. Not because the environment or events were sensational but because if you think about it long enough, it just raises more and more questions. Why would a school arrange the shelves of their library into a maze and reward students for solving it?

That's what they did in the dream though. It was Halloween themed with paper bats and pumpkins hanging from the ceiling. We were told some scary bullshit story about how long ago, a student got lost in the library maze and was never seen again.

We were then given a worksheet with a grid so we could color spaces in as we went, to map out the maze. We were meant to put stars in the boxes that corresponded to where we found copies of a fake book they'd mixed in with the real ones, and each fake book contained part of a message we would piece together.

The thing is, I'd come early with a buddy and watched them set up the challenge, through windows set high in the wall where they couldn't see us spectating. He and I had seen where they put a different book containing a completed map with the full message and fake book locations so they'd be able to remove all the fake books afterwards and restore the library to normal.

So when the challenge started and the teachers sent us off in groups of two, with one worksheet each, my buddy and I went straight for the "master book" with the finished map in it. Waiting to ensure teachers didn't see us doing it or follow us.

At some point TAs dressed in costumes would pop out to spook us. Some of the fake books contained candy. It was fun and I felt sort of bad for cheating. Soon we found the master book. We then just copied the map of the maze straight across, with the fake book locations, and copied down the completed message.

The message was "True horror is teaching 6th graders". Anyways we returned the completed worksheet to the teachers, but were scolded. "There's no way you could have gone through the entire maze and found all the books in such a short time" they said.

I explained how we knew where the master book with the finished map was, and argued that it was simply a more efficient solution than they intended, but not an invalid one. It achieved the results they asked for, but outside of the system of rules and obstacles they intended us to operate within.

"Should we be punished for thinking outside the box to find a better solution?" I asked. Well, we were. We didn't even get to keep the candy, haha. We did get to stay for the scary movie they showed on a projector afterwards, during which there was a lot of quiet gossip about how we cheated, and we received many sidelong glares from the other students.

I still felt we'd gotten a raw deal. The criteria of the challenge had been satisfied. We'd produced a finished map with all the fake book locations starred, and the complete message. We'd never been told of any rules. What is school for, except to prepare you for life?

In life, what actual rules are there for how to succeed except the ones you cannot get away with skirting? Isn't all fair in love, war and business? In their shoes I'd have rewarded us for creativity and boldness. What happened to "he who dares, wins"?

Anyway the dream ended here. If I had to guess I would say it's an expression of lingering resentment for teachers who heaped scorn upon me at a few points during my education for coloring outside the lines. For example the scene with Mr. Conrad scolding the main character of Champion of the Little People for exceeding the requirements of the science fair, accusing him of having parental help, really happened.

We weren't building robots, but I'd assembled a wearable computer based on a 386 laptop and an eyepiece from a camcorder. The teachers considered it implausible that I figured out how to get a video signal from the laptop to the eyepiece (as well as power it) without help.

The science fair, I was told, was mostly a self esteem exercise. We weren't meant to take it so far, and having one project leagues ahead of all the others made everybody but me feel bad, negating the entire point of it from the teachers' perspective. We were all given Bs.

It was the first in a pattern of similar experiences in which I learned I would be punished if I underperformed, but also if I overperformed. People on the spectrum often have issues with authority, and this phenomenon is part of the reason why.

Nobody should have that power if they aren't perfectly fair and objective. Punishing overperformance is neither fair nor objective. It's why I began to slack after that in highschool. Why put in serious effort if there's an enforced cap to how well I am allowed to do? Come to think of it, this is also the essence of high earners' opposition to progressive taxation. Why earn more if it means more will be taken from you?

Probably an overreaction on my part as in fact it was only a few specific situations where overperformance was punished, and during the course of regular assignments and tests it was in fact rewarded. But I felt very self righteous about it at the time and slacked thereafter out of spite.

Maybe the takeaway is that recognizing the constraints you're meant to operate within is an important part of solving any challenge? Or that one shouldn't let a few experiences like this sour them to authority, nor make them apathetic and no longer invested in pushing themselves.

I imagine there's a bunch of possible interpretations that would hold some sort of useful meaning and no way I know of to identify any one of them as valid to the exclusion of the others. So make of all this what you will.

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^{Stay Cozy!}