Had my 1st viva nightmare last night. I had a dream where I took the first post-submission look at my thesis and realised I'd handed in a version where I'd illustrated manga characters onto every paragraph - like the guy from pokemon pointing at one of my bullet points - like a childs textbook. I had the horrible sinking feeling of having to explain to examiners that it was a mistake and I would remove the manga characters in the corrections.

It was really freaky - specially as I don't even like manga lol. :$

I'm try to be sympathetic but seriously I'm laughing:$

I was so chilled right up until the day before and then I had a major panic that lasted the complete day and night (went into viva having been awake for more than 26 hours!!!). I was then OK on the day as regards nerves and even the hour before but come the second question I was gone, shattered, a wreck, in a bad way and never really recovered during the viva but you know how I clawed it back? By taking control of the situation, if even only for the shortest of time, I was able to demonstrate that I had done the work, I provided examples of how the work was original, how it made a contribution to knowledge etc. I took control for the shortest of time but in that time I made it clear that the work was of PhD standard and provided evidence of why I believed it to be and the evidence I produced was hard to argue against. Just my experience and I'm glad I don't have to go through it again!!!

You go girl, you can do and you just need to show them that you did it.

I told my hubs and he burst out laught too :p

But i did wake up this morning convinced I'd illustrated my thesis!

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I actually got out of bed at 4 in the morning shortly after submitting and crept downstairs to check my thesis as I suddenly became convinced that I had submitted the version with 'track changes' on it including notes by supervisor such as "you're really losing the sense of the argument here", "not sure what you mean" etc etc. Thankfully I hadn't but it's a recurring nightmare. Then I thought I had submitted a version with some of my own notes such as "get full ref before submitting" and "check what you say is correct" :$ I hadn't done that either but I am convinced that there is something waiting to jump out at me the night before the viva itself.

My viva is around the corner and I am not sleeping and keep imagining the poor external's and internal's Christmas ruined by having to trudge through my thesis! Somebody wrote on the forum recently that their external is well known for not reading the thesis - oh I can only dream!!

i did laugh at this. reminded me of a nightmare i had frequently at exam time- i'm so horribly shit at even the most basic of maths problems that i would dream of walking into an exam hall, sitting down, looking at the paper which had the correct title page- something to do with ancient history or journalism no doubt- then i would open the paper and it would have some bullshit picture of a circle with a triangle in it and i had angles to work out- worst of all i couldnt tell anyone because speaking was forbidden. horrible. the key to understanding this fear is understanding how brain-crushing mathematics is to me.

still, i think u'll be grand!

LOL! That's the funniest anxiety dream ever! Maybe there's a positive spin...the next part of the dream is the examiners believe you've made a profound statement on Eastern postmodernism! They're dazzled by your brilliance! They alert the press! You're short-listed by the Nobel prize committee...!

*dreams about nobel prize winnings*

At least you weren't naked! Hope the viva goes really well and am sure your thesis will be excellent. Just think about it Sneaks...most of us dream of these things with the usual naked, in skimpy pj's or only in underwear theme running through...at least your anxiety dream was really imaginative!:-)