Thanks. Yeah that was something I found interesting. When I called a prior instructor to tell him about this situation (the day after), he kept rephrasing what I was saying because he thought I meant something else, and it seemed like it took a while for him to realize how it actually was instead of thinking I was trying to explain a different situation. I also noticed this when I was telling my current instructor about the situation.
Usually, people interpret it as me saying that we lost our vacuum while in IMC, or that I was practicing partial panel in VMC under the hood or something. I don't blame anyone for not believing it.
One of my biggest issues is that I seem to treat every tiny bump or burst of wind as an emergency situation. For example, when I am climbing out after takeoff, if the speed drops even a bit, my mind is racing and I'm trying to diagnose the situation and my first thought is always that I've gotten way too slow and am going to stall (even when I am going 65-75). As a result, I'm basically white-knuckling it the entire climbout. Last flight though, I didn't, so I'm very happy about that!
The IMC situation actually happened years ago, and I am at a completely different school in a completely different state now. My current instructor is awesome, and I feel kinda bad sometimes because I will get extremely stressed and then afterwards, when I reflect on the situation, I will see that there's no reason to be stressed. I am guessing it's probably stressful being my instructor because I will go from calm to super, super stressed in a very short amount of time over events that have no reason to cause stress (even just a wing dropping from turbulence).
I should have time tomorrow, so I can come and post an update after the flight if I manage to spin. Thanks all for the insight on this situation.
regards,
ASweetOldMan