Do Work Nightmares Ever End?

[goneboarding]

It’s rare, but I still have dreams a couple times a year where I’m still in a horrific crisis at work. After almost 10 years, I’d think that would’ve ended by now. Again, it’s rare, but still

Never dreamt about work when I was working. And guess what?

Weird. Can't remember if I ever dreamed about work all my life... at least nothing that persisted once I woke up. I have now been retired (DW has a more genteel term - 'deadbeat' ) for just about a year. Then a couple of days ago, I had this dream. It involved a crisis where I was wrongly accused, set in a previous employer's environment. One that I had resigned from, 6-7 years ago on great terms.

 

[1242Vintage]

As part of my position I had significant involvement in the legal process as an expert witness for the defense in civil actions.

Most of the cases were motor vehicle crashes with one or more fatalities or severe life-altering injuries.

Didn’t like that part of my job and still have nightmares about it.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Has anyone ever had a nightmare about going out of the house to work completely naked? That was the only work nightmare I ever had. Otherwise it was the typical college nightmares about forgetting I was taking a class, final exams, etc.

 

[FreeBear]

Retired 8 years and I still dream about w*rk. I used to travel quite a bit for the job and most of my dreams are about rushing to airports, looking for gates, missing planes, desperately trying to get home, finding rental cars, losing my way in strange cities, etc. Most of them are nightmares.

I didn't want to travel for about two years after I retired.

Same! Spent the last decade of my career as a corporate "fixer", cleaning up other people's problems on the road in SE Asia.

I still occasionally dream of sitting in a 5 star hotel room while trying to book a last minute flight home, fighting the feeling that I could be stuck overseas if unsuccessful. Another fun one is nightmares about bad airline seat assignments, waiting for the cabin door to close so I could dyi "upgrade" to better seat. Fun times!

 

[Koolau]

"Do work nightmares ever end?"

Yes.

Reminds me of the George Jones song "He Stopped Loving Her Today" but I digress.

 

[Andre1969]

It's been awhile, but oddly I had a work-related dream last night. It was weird, and murky, and made little sense, but the gist of it is that I was back to waiting tables, something I haven't done since I was in college, in 1990. Normally these waiting tables dreams end up with the storyline of everything going wrong...long wait times, tour buses coming in, food orders getting mixed up, me screwing things up, etc, although oddly, in these dreams the customers never complain. This time though, I had forgotten how to clock out at the end of my shift, and asked a manager. He took me out in the back parking lot, with a bunch of my co-workers, and they started to tease and taunt me, for not knowing how to do my job. I finally went into a curse-filled tirade, basically saying thank God I don't need this job anymore, and walked away.

But then, still within the dream, I started thinking about another part time job I had, working at a department store, and how once I got to a certain point, it wasn't worth it to keep working it anymore. And then, suddenly, bam, I was back at that job!

I eventually woke from it, but then realized that dream triggered buried memories of other dreams. I'd had the department store dream before, but for some reason pushed it to the back of my mind. In the department store dreams though, nothing really dramatic ever happened. It was just me going there, in the evenings, when it was dark, and stocking/arranging merchandise out on the floor.

 

[Markola]

Nah, but I have “daymares” while reading the paper occasionally about some schmuck’s atrocious behavior in the work place and think, “Ha, yeah. Um, No.”

 

[Murph]

It’s rare, but I still have dreams a couple times a year where I’m still in a horrific crisis at work. After almost 10 years, I’d think that would’ve ended by now. Again, it’s rare, but still

I’ve been done over two years and still dream about work at least a couple of times a week! I hardly ever dreamed about work when I was still there! And some of those are downright wacked!

 

[Michael Moore]

My office dreams seem to be about lightly stressful scenarios of finding my office, getting lost in a building, situations with no solution that I am relieved to be waking up from.

Or being on the wrong floor without my ID badge . . .

I've been retired for almost 16 years and I have a work dream 1-2X a week. In many of them I'm deciding to tell them that I'm retiring at the end of the pay period, or I've gone back to work but this time I'm going to retire and not come back.

And then if I get out of the building I may not be able to figure out which bus/street car I need to catch to get home and end up riding all over town.

The other anxiety dreams are being at the races and I can't get my motorcycle to start, or I can't find my pits and they are calling my race, or something similar.

Luckily, true nightmares aren't common now, though I would have those when I was a child.

Some people claim to never dream, I often wish I was one of them, or if I've got to dream how about letting it be something fun for a change?

 

[gwix98]

It’s rare, but I still have dreams a couple times a year where I’m still in a horrific crisis at work. After almost 10 years, I’d think that would’ve ended by now. Again, it’s rare, but still

I’d like to hope so too. I wonder if it could have something to do with the stresses you were under while working? I worked in a high volume very stressful environment where I had little control over my day. It’s near ten years for me, and I still have nightmares. More frequently than I’d like.

 

[Koolau]

Or being on the wrong floor without my ID badge . . .

I've been retired for almost 16 years and I have a work dream 1-2X a week. In many of them I'm deciding to tell them that I'm retiring at the end of the pay period, or I've gone back to work but this time I'm going to retire and not come back.

And then if I get out of the building I may not be able to figure out which bus/street car I need to catch to get home and end up riding all over town.

The other anxiety dreams are being at the races and I can't get my motorcycle to start, or I can't find my pits and they are calling my race, or something similar.

Luckily, true nightmares aren't common now, though I would have those when I was a child.

Some people claim to never dream, I often wish I was one of them, or if I've got to dream how about letting it be something fun for a change?

Sounds a bit like the movie "Groundhog Day." Why couldn't it be THAT day when (fill in the blank) happened? YMMV

 

[aja8888]

Work was an escape. I have nightmares over bigger issues in my past. But the older I get, the less frequently they show up.

 

[anothercog]

I'm not retired yet but had one of my recurring nightmares the other day. This one is where I leave my job for another and it doesn't work out and I need my old job back but they already hired someone else.

 

[Matthew J]

I still occasionally have college dreams. The ones where I have missed a bunch of classes and can't find the room where the final exams are scheduled. Always very disturbing.

I have a similar dream. I'm walking around campus, I'm a senior in my last semester, it is exam week, and there is one class I haven't been to all semester, I can't remember what the class is, where it meets, and I don't know when the exam is, but I definitely know that I need to pass that specific class to graduate.

 

[Gumby]

In the only anxious dreams I ever have - and they are very, very infrequent -- I am back at the Naval Academy (so, 40+ years ago) and I cannot find all the pieces/parts of my uniform. I have never dreamt about work.

 

[kingkarmann]

I worked in a couple of massive automobile assembly plants.
I still dream I have been sent to get something in another area. I always get lost and can never find my way out.
Dr. Frued? What say you.

 

[Focus]

Thanks for making me realize those dreams stopped for me at some point in the six-plus years since retiring. But then I give such little thought to my last job that it seems like it was 20 years ago.

 

[maestro]

Great thread. Only out of high tech mega corp for 3 years now, but sometimes the nightmare of not being able to finish a particular task on time, or getting caught in a 'loop' for a problem task, within the dream itself, is overwhelming. Fortunately, my mind just lets me wake myself up. Then I have breakfast, smell the coffee, sit out by the pool, and praise God I'm not there anymore.

 

[Midpack]

Great thread. Only out of high tech mega corp for 3 years now, but sometimes the nightmare of not being able to finish a particular task on time, or getting caught in a 'loop' for a problem task, within the dream itself, is overwhelming. Fortunately, my mind just lets me wake myself up. Then I have breakfast, smell the coffee, sit out by the pool, and praise God I'm not there anymore.��

Great term. I’m caught in a loop, with no possible end, every time I have a work nightmare. I just have to get up and watch mindless TV to get my mind out of the loop. It’s not fun. But again, it only happens to me 2-3 times a year.

 

[old medic]

I was awoken about 2 hours ago by one of my worst.... Have given up on attempts to go back to sleep. Its been over 25 years ago, but it still pays me a visit..
It funny reading some of the posted "nightmares"
My description would cause some to have nightmares...

 

[zaqxsw]

I also retired ~10 years ago, August 2011 from an Engineering/Mfg./Executive position. I had responsibility for maintenance, engineering, and over $500MM/yr. in capital projects in 24 1-2MM sq. ft. plants in Canada and NAT for my last 14 years.

There was no doubt what I would face every single day. 24 plants can't go 24hr. without one of them having a serious problem. The negativity was something I numbed myself to, mentally. I was a rock. Mfg. was always the problem... But, we were a Mfg. company Until finance and sales took over...

Anyway, yes, I still have work dreams multiple times a week. Not all are nightmares, but I did some pretty serious damage "succeeding"...

I also got to retire at 57, very comfortably, but not sure if I've made the right choices in the past.

 

[aja8888]

I also retired ~10 years ago, August 2011 from an Engineering/Mfg./Executive position. I had responsibility for maintenance, engineering, and over $500MM/yr. in capital projects in 24 1-2MM sq. ft. plants in Canada and NAT for my last 14 years.

There was no doubt what I would face every single day. 24 plants can't go 24hr. without one of them having a serious problem. The negativity was something I numbed myself to, mentally. I was a rock. Mfg. was always the problem... But, we were a Mfg. company Until finance and sales took over...

Anyway, yes, I still have work dreams multiple times a week. Not all are nightmares, but I did some pretty serious damage "succeeding"...

I also got to retire at 57, very comfortably, but not sure if I've made the right choices in the past.

I had a similar job in a 6 plant U.S. (and Mexico) manufacturing company. We had "project lists" 200 projects long and worked off the top of each plant's list. When a Mfg VP would call and scream at me for not giving his "priority" project attention, I used to ask him which one off his list he wanted to remove and I would switch the effort to the new one. Yes, but when the Bean counters took over, everyone was screwed. Eventually, I left for a new job and within 5 years, the company went BK.

 

[zaqxsw]

I had a similar job in a 6 plant U.S. (and Mexico) manufacturing company. We had "project lists" 200 projects long and worked off the top of each plant's list. When a Mfg VP would call and scream at me for not giving his "priority" project attention, I used to ask him which one off his list he wanted to remove and I would switch the effort to the new one. Yes, but when the Bean counters took over, everyone was screwed. Eventually, I left for a new job and within 5 years, the company went BK.

Yep, our whole country was built on manufacturing. I always thought that making something from raw materials was the only way to add wealth to the nation.

That is now a absurd idea. Artificial wealth is now created by many, many derivatives in the economy...

Look out, China is coming!

 

[twigor]

Working at night

I too share your pain after 10 years of retirement bliss. I will wake up working through a stressful situation. I get mad at my self for interrupting my sleep and reliving unpleasant memories. The consoling part is is I tell myself thank goodness it's over. Now go to sleep!

 

[aja8888]

Yep our whole country was built on manufacturing. I always thought that making something from raw materials was the only way to add wealth to the nation.

That is now a absurd idea. Artificial wealth is now created by many, many derivatives in the economy...

Look out, China is coming!

I agree 100%. New tech (coding, internet stuff, social media, etc,) had it's day in the sun, so to speak, but that stuff has been transferred elsewhere to places like India, etc. Now most electronic products are made in China as we all know.

The industrial revolution created goods that we used every day and we lost that wealth creation. If you go to my hometown (Waterbury, Connecticut) and see what's left of the "Brass Center of the World", you will witness old brick factory buildings that cover the town and area and they all have plywood windows. The business of making basic sheet, tubing, rod, wire, etc is all overseas anymore. Even the stamping plants are gone. The largest employer in that town of over 100,000 is the City.