How does your work show up in your dreams?

I once had an anxiety dream that the large card file I had to file cards in (before computers) was in the middle of a frozen lake. As I tried to file the cards, the ice started cracking.

One of my first jobs some 35 years ago was as a nurses aide in a nursing home and I worked the night shift. Our main job was to check the patients every two hours, make sure they had not soiled their linens and turn the ones who were so immobile that they could not turn themselves.
The entire time I had that job, sleeping odd hours, I would dream that someone would surly come and turn me soon. I think I even peed the bed once, but those are the things one blocks out of their memory.

My stress shows up in my dreams.
Currently I am struggling to help my young adult autistic son.
My dreams reflect how hard I work to Advocate for him. How tried I am of his new adult program. How much I miss his expectational school.
I know that this new Teacher will learn because I will not accept less but; I am frustrated disappointed and angry.
My dreams reflect how well my son works with me and; how angry I am that these so called Professionals can not do the same.

Oh yes, I dream about work when I’m a bit stressed.

My most recent case of this (last week) where I dreamed about work (which involves making PPT presentations in front of large groups) was a very vivid dream about getting to the customer site, powering up my laptop and finding that somehow my presentation was deleted or blank.
No presentation. No 100+ slides I’d carefully prepared to talk to for 8 hours.. no nothing. The dream went on and on.. with colleagues asking me: “Didn’t you back it up? Are you sure you didn’t put it on an external drive?” ...and it was no where. No back up, no chance of recovery.

You can bet the next morning the first thing I did was locate several USB and external hard drives and back up my presentation (and even emailed it out to some colleagues—so it’d be on the mail server as a back up) several times. I took the dream as a cautionary warning message…just in case.

Always old jobs, it seems. I never dream about my current job, which I’ve had for 10 years now, but often about finding myself back in a kitchen. But back when I worked in a kitchen, I never dreamed about that. The brain always seems to be trying to reconcile this life with former lives, as if that divergence poses an irritating conundrum that it is compelled to explore in dreams.

Every time I start a new job I dream about it for almost a week. I’m used to it. I had a job at this Plastics factory once, all I did was stand in one spot, put plates in a bag and put one of those little things you use to close a bag of bread on it. That was my whole job and I did that for 12 hours straight. Then when I went home I was so tired all I could do was sleep, and I dreamed that I was still there doing my job. Scared me awake more times than I can count.

It used to happen when I was younger—in my 20s. The first time I felt really stressed out about a job. I was a canvasser and I had a quota to make or else I’d get fired. They gave you three days to make quota and then you were on old tomato. Excuse me. Ultimatum. No quota that night and that was that. No job.

So I would canvass in my dreams. Maybe it helped. I finally got quota.

But after those first few jobs, my work never made my dreams again, as far as I can remember. Then again, who knows? I don’t remember my dreams at all any more. Could be I dream about it and don’t remember.

Yes it does and I see it as a really big indicator that I am stressed. I find my brain going over certain tasks continuously. It’s like a loop. Usually it will wake me up and then I am thinking about things from work and I have to get up and do something completely different to shut it off.

It can be helpful if my brain has been mulling over a complex concept and I end up with clarity, often though it’s just my brain rambling over stuff that is bothering me or hanging over me.

When I was completing my PhD, I used to get chased by a big T-Rex (you know the one from Jurassic Park chasing the Jeep?). It would make that huge T-Rex roar as it chased me. I would wake up in a panic. Then I read a dream book and it said “you have some big project weighing on your mind” and it clicked what was bothering me! After that, the dream didn’t seem to come so often.

My work has never showed up in my dreams. My dreams are almost always take place in different houses I’ve lived in (I’m sleeping in an old bedroom and suddenly realize I don’t own this house any more and I’m gonna be in deep shit when the new owners come home and find me sleeping there), or on trains (don’t ask me why trains).

I dream about work that I don’t do anymore.
I used to go in manholes, and block streets and such, and I dream of that often.
Especially working in San Francisco.

My current job doesn’t show in my dreams but my old job did. I used to just dream endless columns of numbers. God but that one was boring.

The only time work seems to show up in my dreams is the occasional Airport dream where I’m stuck in an airport (usually Hong Kong for some unknown reason) and I can’t find my gate or my passport has expired. I wake up change dream subjects and the problems go away.

It is all very strange and only makes sense during the dream.

Last night I dreamed that I ate a turtle. I work as a street accordion player. Makes sense to me!

When I had a really high stress job where I had to juggle a bunch of things at once I would have the most real horrific dreams that I went to work without my pants or top. I would be in front of a bunch of people and try to sneak away unnoticed, naked.

This is recurrent. I dream that I’m late getting to school. I don’t have any lesson plans; I can’t find the room. They have remodeled the building and I don’t know where anything is. I meet the class and can’t recall any of their names. They behave even though I’m not prepared. I hate the feeling this give me. Finally, I dreamed that the principal fired me (nicely) and I haven’t had the dream since.

I mod in my sleep. ALL THE TIME.

@augustlan Just so you keep it to yours.

Now I need to invade your sleep, too, @6rant6. I will find a way!

Oh great. Now Freddy AND you.

Be afraid. Very afraid.

If you come into my dreams @augustlan can you just tidy up my desk a bit, do a bit of filing and the like?

Freddie can stay out. Eeek, nails that long should not be allowed.

@Bellatrix Honestly, if I showed up in your dreams, I’d most likely leave your desk a bigger mess than it is now. I am not terribly tidy. ;)

Anyone who tries to invade my dreams will just get chained up in my dungeon :-0