Did you ever feel like you could do your job – or at least some parts of it – in your sleep? Do you ever feel like you are doing your job in your sleep? Do you ever think you’re doing your job while you’re asleep?
Do you ever want to sleep while you’re on the job? Yeah, me too.
I guess it makes sense that a person might dream about work sometimes. Considering how much time we spend at work in our waking hours, it’s hard to imagine that it would completely leave our minds when we’re asleep. I’ve had dreams that take place in my workplace. I’ve had dreams that involve people I work with, or people I used to work with. I’ve had dreams in which I’m at work, but not anywhere or with anyone that I know when I’m awake.
But my most annoying work dreams seem to occur on nights when I’ve spent much of the day doing something fairly repetitive and tedious, and I know I’ll still be working on it the next day. I frequently find myself still doing it in my dreams. It also happens when I’ve left something unfinished because I was stuck on it somewhere, and will have to get right back to trying to resolve the problem the next morning. I wouldn’t mind those dreams so much if they helped me find the answer to my problem, but it usually doesn’t turn out that way.
Time’s Work In Progress blogger Lisa Takeuchi Cullen dreams about work too, and posted about it recently.
I awoke this morning from a disturbing dream. In the dream, I was…typing. Actually, I was cutting and pasting within a document in an effort to format it correctly for a blog post. I’m not kidding. I wish I was.
(I’ve had that dream too, actually.)
Various surveys mentioned in the post report that anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of adults dream about their jobs, and at least half of those dreams are anxiety dreams, if not outright nightmares. The most common work-related nightmares are:
1. Arguing with the boss.
2. Being late for an important meeting.
3. Lusting after a colleague.
4. Having to make an unexpected presentation.
5. Going to work naked.
6. Losing all their files in a fatal computer crash.
7. Getting fired.
8. Killing the boss.
The surveys were also mentioned in a recent Wall Street Journal article (as cited in this DWC Women’s Dish post), which also talked about when small-business owners get their ideas; 6.3% of those surveyed literally dream things up (or think best while in bed, anyway).
Those work nightmares make doing spreadsheets in my sleep look pretty good by comparison, I must say. I don’t think this is exactly what people have in mind when they talk about their dream jobs – I’m sure it’s not what I have in mind, anyway. What about you? Does your job invade your dreams, too?
I will have to pay closer attention to thinking about what I did the day before a work dream. I’ve had some interesting ones over the years, some better than others. My most recent one involved Barrack Obama. He was a supervisor in my office and was recommending changes be made. I’m sure that had nothing whatsoever to do with the massive media coverage he’s gotten recently or his campaign slogan having to do with change.
I can’t say any of the top 8 nightmares have made it into my dreams. My worst, however, was of a serial killer who was going around killing people as they were getting ready to leave work each night. I was scared to death to go to work, but my husband kept making me go. The bodies would be hunched over the steering wheels. My husband and I had been on a Law and Order: SVU kick that week and one of the episodes included a person found dead in that same way. I wasn’t too happy with my husband when I woke up from that dream. I always find it interesting how sometimes my feelings linger even after I’m awake.
This is a great topic, Florinda!
Literary Feline – Dreams are just fascinating, Wendy. I know what you mean about the lingering ones. Sometimes I know I’m having a dream while I’m dreaming, and will think “I have to remember this dream!” during it, which is quite strange.
I haven’t had any of those work nightmares either, but I don’t have nightmares all that often anyway. My husband does, though – and they frequently involve Godzilla. I have no clue what’s going on there.
I used to dream about running a cash register when I worked at the video store. Now, I have dreams that occasionally feature co-workers or take place at work, but they’re not really about work itself (like, I’ll be at work and an old friend will come by, so the dream is more about the friend than the job).
Pam – I’ve had similar dreams; it’s like the subconscious has no respect for context. 🙂
I have a lot of dreams that are set in the houses I grew up in, or at my old elementary school – but they take place in present time. Like I said to Wendy, it’s just fascinating to me.