I cheated my way through high school. I had a scam for every class, every test, every homework assignment. So yeah, I had dreams about school, but mine were more about me feeling guilty. They typically went like this: Some bureaucrat did an audit of all the school work from my high school during the late-80s and somehow identified me as a cheater, so the school revoked my diploma. My college found out, so they revoked my degree. My employer found out, so they fired me. The dream usually ended with all the other kids from my school laughing at me because I got caught cheating, and my life was ruined.
I eventually got over it. The dreams stopped. Once I got to a certain age, I just accepted I was a stupid-ass kid who made mistakes. Live and learn.
BTW, if you're still in school, don't cheat. Take it from me. I spent more time and effort on cheating than I would have if I just did the work as assigned.
I cheated throughout highschool (hacked school system for test answers) and college (old fashioned cheat sheets) and have zero regrets or shame over any of it. I resent the awful system our society has and I resent how awful it has treated me. I 100% encourage cheating for people like me and it was extremely low effort. It resulted in a pretty good start off to my career and I'm now quite successful on my own honest merits.
I never cheated through university but did a lot as well through high school and cegep (pre-college in quebec). Was more like cheat sheets but also just checking what people wrote next to me, or plainly just work with someone next to me where we would pass each other papers with answers.
I have zero remorse. Having to do so much memorization is just not how my brain works. Now employed, I rarely memorize anything but you can bet I can find anything very fast.
I stopped in university mostly because the stakes were higher (you can get expelled for real). I also had to work harder in university because engineering was just so much harder than anything I did before. Also, most classes in uni let you have a sheet of notes instead of wasting time memorizing all those concepts.
I cheated a lot, both in high school and in university (it was basically standard in both places, and I went to best HS in town and one of best CS universities in the country). Never had any regrets about it. I'm from Eastern Europe, so don't believe in a just and well-organized world, anyway - over here, we view it more as a jungle, so in you manage to get ahead without directly harming anyone, it's ok.
BTW I stopped cheating in university in later years, as the classes got more interesting and we were no-longer required to do brutal workloads (the university stuffs first two years of CS degree with a lot of math and physics, to weed out people who are not tough enough I guess).
> I spent more time and effort on cheating than I would have if I just did the work as assigned
You likely didn't. I've heard this many times from people who cheated or people who take steroids. It's just a rationalization about your shitty past actions.
I eventually got over it. The dreams stopped. Once I got to a certain age, I just accepted I was a stupid-ass kid who made mistakes. Live and learn.
BTW, if you're still in school, don't cheat. Take it from me. I spent more time and effort on cheating than I would have if I just did the work as assigned.