Last week, the blog’s subject was about facing a nightmarish job and ways to turn it around. This week, your dreams about work could be sending you clues of underlying stress and what this might mean to you.
Dreams often reflect your daily life and according to research everyone has at least five dreams a night whether you remember them or not is different a matter. Nonetheless it’s common to dream about work, with some dreams being positive and others waking you up in a cold sweat just in time for the morning rush hour. Dreams can be ways your subconscious mind gets your attention.
A couple of weeks ago, the topic of being tired came up in a conversation with a project manager and led to a discussion about dreams. It turns out a he was having some terrifying dreams about missing important meetings and deadlines at work, and for several days he would wake up every morning recalling a dream about running late for a meeting or missing one entirely. Fortunately, none of this happened. However, it was bothersome for him.
According to Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, author of “Dream On It: Unlock Your Dreams, Change Your Life,” describes dreams about missing deadlines as one of the most five common stress dreams as clues that you need to manage your time more effectively or you could miss out on good opportunities.
Work dreams can provide you with some underlying clues as to what is happening during your waking hours and once you make connection with their meaning, they can be great teachers if you take the lessons from them to heart.
Recalling dreams and pondering their significance doesn’t require in-depth analysis in order to benefit from them. Take the work dream about not being prepared for a task at hand, it doesn’t mean you are incompetent rather it could signal you don’t allow yourself to ever go unprepared and unknowingly you could be more anxious than you realize.
What about the dreams relating to your boss? According to a survey of 1,000 adults conducted by learndirect, a British Education company, dreams about arguing with your boss ranked number one on a frequency list.
“Dreams don’t just happen to you, you create your dreams” according to Ian Wallace, a psychologist who is a leading expert on dreams and unconscious mind. By understanding why you create your unique dream content, you invariably achieve a profound understanding of who you really are, what you really need, and what you really believe, Wallace said.
Since work takes up the majority of your time, dreaming about work issues and challenges at night are normal. Even if you don’t buy into the idea that work-related dreams have a deeper meaning, they are interesting to ponder.
What have you learned from your work-related dreams?
