So I forgot the Pauli Exclusion Principle... sort of.

Yesterday morning I woke up remembering a dream. This one was an anxiety dream of the back at school and something is wrong type. This one stood out as it wasn't a matter of how I was (or wasn't) dressed or about to miss some exam, or about a forgotten locker combination. This time I was in class, evidently physics, and seemingly following along.

Then the instructor asked me some question about how many electrons there could be somewhere. I knew the answer and could describe why the answer was what it was - but I couldn't remember the name given to why it was so: the Pauli Exclusion Principle. It was a "tip of the tongue" situation. I could recall everything (or enough for the dream to work) except the name.

This bugged me for a while after I woke up. It's not that I really need to know the Exclusion Principle for anything I do. It was just the usual "tip of the tongue" reaction - once triggered, I really want to know the rest of what I'm trying to recall.

What really stood out, after awakening, was that nobody else in the dream seemed to be able to recall the name either. In that classroom situation it's normal for someone to say what was omitted. Maybe the instructor would say it, or it would be asked one of the students who would then fill in the gap. That didn't happen. Nobody said it. It seems that since it was me dreaming, if I couldn't come up with the name, then nobody else could either. Where would they get it from?