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Do You Dream About Your Job?

the cat's iao

00:55 / 28.08.04

I never used to dream about the jobs I was working. OK, not "never," but very rarely. Then, when I had to return to the workforce at the beginning of this year, almost immediately I started dreaming about the job I was doing. Almost evry time I could recall my dreams, there was something about my job in there somewhere. This really kinda' bothered me. I mean, not only did I have to spend this time at work IRL, I seemed to be doing it in my sleep as well! Sucks.

Recently, I have found a new job. I have been there for four weeks now, and while I have recalled several dreams during this time, not one has been about work. This, to me, is something I like. Indeed, I have only had one dream about this place, and that was before I started there, and it was about how I got the job. Since that dream, there has been no work related content to my dreams.

How about all of you? Do you dream about your job often, rarely, or never? How do you feel about that?

Dances with Gophers

09:43 / 30.08.04

Yeah sometimes it's a pain. The worst one seemed to go on for ever, I had this spreadsheet of numbers scrolling past my eyes. It was so boring it woke me up. When I fell asleep again I went back into the same dream.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:04 / 30.08.04

I was dreaming about mine this morning. I'll go into detail a bit later- it was just horribly depressing at the time, given that I've now got three weeks off and have to move house.

But yeah- in general, I do dream about my job. And it makes me feel cheated to wake up and realise that I've EXPERIENCED doing it, but haven't actually been paid anything for it.

Dances with Gophers

10:09 / 30.08.04

Sad thing is, with me on the whole, that the dreams are more interesting than the job!

Sekhmet

12:54 / 30.08.04

I dream about my current job very occasionally, usually when there's something high-stress going on (which means this usually happens in April or October, our heavy load times). Usually the dreams aren't about work so much as they're set in the office - which usually doesn't look like it does IRL. You know how dreams are. I particularly liked one dream version, in which the office had turned into this sort of part-open air greenhouse, with large tropical plants everywhere and desks sitting in this environment of lush growth and trickling water. Ah, if only.

I used to have a data entry job that I dreamed about constantly. I think it was because I tended to enter a semi-trance state while working - data entry being what it is, very repetetive, mindless, and tedious - so it just sort of fed into my subconscious. It did suck though; I'd spend all day at work and then all night dreaming about it, so it was as if I never left. Ugh.

Ganesh

12:56 / 30.08.04

Yeah, I dream about my job quite a lot, usually fairly generic low-level anxiety dreams but occasionally a stonking nightmare.

I suppose I see it as inevitable, since sleep and (anxiety about) work have always been linked, for me, in the form of on-call - and I've almost always dreamed that my pager's gone off when it hasn't.

Loomis

13:47 / 30.08.04

I only dream of work a tangential way. Part of my dream might be located at work, or someone from work might turn up, but I don't dream of actually working. Maybe because my work is stress-free so there aren't any specific things that might lodge in my subconscious so firmly. My dreams are mostly random mixtures of things that I've been thinking about. The other night after a day of drinking beer at the cricket, I dreamed that I was drinking with Ricky Ponting the Australian captain. He lamented that he had to drink a pint of water between each beer so that he could stay sober enough to keep playing. Probably not so far off reality, come to think of it.

Chiropteran

15:01 / 30.08.04

I tend to only dream about work when my duties center on a single fairly repetative task, and then usually only for the first week or so of the job (a couple nights of endlessly working the cash register, or stirring chicken on the grill, or whatever). Once the work is truly automatic, the dreams go away.

My current job is rather more complex and involves a great deal more thought and problem-solving than it does rote routine, so I didn't really do the whole dream-of-work thing here.

And now that I think about it, aside from those early adapt-to-the-job dreams, I don't think that I have ever had a (recalled) dream in a work-setting. All kinds of other places from my life pop up in dreams in one form or another, but not work. Huh.

I do still dream about school once in a while, though (and I graduated a decade ago!).

~L

gingerbop

23:06 / 30.08.04

I find it really confusing when I dream at my job, as I sleep at my workplace, because I'm an au pair just now. I've dreamed that I've put the kids pants on their heads and shoes on their hands and send them on their way to school before, and I wake up thinking 'what thefuck have I done?' It seems that the distinction between dream and reality gets more blurred when I dont shift place between sleeping and working.

sleazenation

23:16 / 30.08.04

I don't dream about work so much as what I'm working on - thus my recent dreams have taken on a decidedly Dickensian vibe, so immersed have I become in the 19th century.

the cat's iao

00:04 / 31.08.04

I can identify with that, sleazenation. I used to do this quite often when working with math and logic. I'd dream of strange neon grids forming the landscapes for geometric objects, graceful curves, formulas made material, etc..

Ganesh--you must find it hard to get a deep sleep when you are on call with the thought in the back of your mind that you could have to get up and go at any moment. No wonder you are a fan of napping!

I've noticed that a few people equate dreaming about work with how stressful it is. Is stress a strong factor in determining the content of dreams? Do we tend to dream about what is causing us anxiety? Perhaps these are questions for a different thread...*shrug*

Ganesh

00:15 / 31.08.04

Ganesh--you must find it hard to get a deep sleep when you are on call with the thought in the back of your mind that you could have to get up and go at any moment. No wonder you are a fan of napping!

Well, quite. In a very real way, my time as a junior doctor fucked up my sleep pattern: it tended to facilitate shallow (on-call) sleep, and irregularity, generally. Even though I no longer have to do on-call 'on location', I still find myself going for three, four nights on little or no sleep, then 'catching up' at the weekend.

Axolotl

11:18 / 31.08.04

I'm similar to a lot of people here in that I get two types of job dreams. The first type is when I'm working at a dull repetitive task, stacking boxes, filing, whatever. This is the one where having done something all day, you go home and dream about it and are unable to escape the tedium. The worst example I had of that is when I worked in a warehouse and lifted heavy boxes all day. After 9 hours of this I was always completely knackered and would go home and immediately fall asleep only to dream about it all night and that's all I did all week. I could only take about two weeks of this as there was no escaping the mind numbing boredom this job created. It still makes me shudder today.
The other type is the one where you have a job that has some kind of pressure or stress and these dreams are much more your classic anxiety dream. Much easier to deal with, and I only get them when I am very stressed.

Baz Auckland

22:38 / 01.09.04

Ever since I started working full time back in May, I've constantly dreamt of work... which to a large extent consists of shelving magazines. It was such an awful feeling to wake up from dreaming of magazines to having to go into work to shelve some more...

Thank God I gave my notice yesterday!

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