Recent dreams about W*rk

[RunningBum]

I seem to be having more vivid and memorable dreams recently. A couple this week have had to do with work.

First one, there was some technical issue that nobody could figure out, and it was up to me to come up with a solution. As I was waking up and coming out of the dream, I had a moment of stress and thought to myself, I've really got to get going on a plan for this. A moment later I was more fully awake, and realized, no I don't! And I never will! I think next month it'll be 10 years I've been retired.

Another dream, last night, I just started work some place, seemed like it might be a government job. I think I did get into the building once, but mostly either my badge didn't work, or I forgot it, or someone was there to stop me. Once they took me to another room and I think it was basically like being water boarded, where I wanted to scream but couldn't talk and was definitely under water or water being poured on me. I woke up out of breath, and knew it had been a dream. I have some sleep apnea if I sleep wrong and I have some dream where I can't talk but I don't remember water being involved before.

Not sure why lately my dreams have gone this way. I don't think I've eaten/drank/taken anything new lately, and no new stressors. I had a non-work related one that was odd but felt very real, and when I woke up my first thought was that I needed to remember to look it up on google or wikipedia to see if it was real, and then woke up enough to know it was a dream and certainly was not. Can't remember what that one was.

Anyway, the best part is to have a work dream and realize I'm done with those problems! Plus I don't even have to worry about my alarm clock buzzing 5 minutes later to get me up for work.

Anyone else with dreams from their work days? Don't respond if it'll cause you PTSD!

[Montecfo]

I do. Very vivid. But also commingled with other people and situations. I write them down so I will remember.

[pacergal]

Not dreams, but Nightmares! Lol.
Not really any more. Had a few when I first retired.
But I keep going back on call to work for specific issues, so maybe my brain just doesn't realize I am retired?

[Brett_Cameron]

me too, less frequent now approaching 10 years retired.

[harllee]

I have been retired for 20 years but in the last few months I have had very stressful dreams about work--almost nightmares. I think it is because of the general stress of life now.

[statsman]

It's happened far more times than I would like. Probably stems from having been pushed out the door after 30 years with the company, at least two years before I was ready to leave. Being able to leave at a time of your choosing may make it easier to separate from everyday work life.

[UnrealizedPotential]

I had work dreams the first year or two after I retired. They were pretty vivid. After that though they seemed to fade away and I have not had any since then. I remember that when I awoke from my dreams I was glad I didn't have to deal with that stuff anymore and it was no longer my reality.

[Stormy Kromer]

I worked in the same office for 31 years and I worked in my sleep. I couldn't shake it.


I was also on the local volunteer fire department for all those years.


I quit both on the same day. 1/1/2016. I had dreams of wor% all those years but never the firefighting. Now I don't dream of work but have one heck of a time firefighting in my sleep. To the point I may need help.


I don't miss the days of working in my sleep. I was exhausted for 31 years,

[easysurfer]

I've had those type of dreams (well really nightmares) often.

A recurring theme in the dream is I've been w*rking for megacorp for "free" for years on my spare time, not even collecting a paycheck in return. Or that despite all these years retired, my telecommuting credentials still work as megacorp decided not to deactivate them.

The good part though is usually I realize that I'm FIRE'd just before waking up.

[Exchme]

The "can't breathe" can be a symptom of sleep apnea or other breathing issue. I suffer from allergies and often can't breathe enough through my nose, but will clench my jaw in my sleep and wake up with heart racing because I wasn't breathing. If waking up unable to breathe is persistent, you probably ought to see a doctor.

[Andre1969]

I haven't had one lately, but I'd tend to get recurring dreams about my current job, and two of my former jobs, which were waiting tables and delivering pizzas.

I haven't waited tables in over 30 years, and the last time I chauffeured a pizza around was just before Columbus Day, 2001. These dreams usually just involve me going back to work, and if it's waiting tables, everything goes wrong, issues in the kitchen, food mix ups with the customers, a couple tour buses coming in, etc. The pizza delivery dreams usually involve strange neighborhoods that I've never been too, but are instead manufactured in the dream, me getting lost. I'm almost always driving at night, sometimes in the rain. The customers never get mad at me or cause trouble in any of the dreams, but the focus on the dream tends to be things going wrong, and orders just taking too long.

With the dreams at my current job, it usually involves losing something, or some computer or office mix up. I can distinctly remember in one of the dreams, I got moved out of my office and put out in a cubicle in an open area, like where we have our receptionists. The cubicle was a mess, and I was trying to re-organize it, while work was piling up, and just hating it in general. But then, someone comes by and says "Maggie isn't going to like what you did with your work space."

I can still remember, that almost pulling me out of the dream. I was thinking wait...Maggie retired years ago. And if she was here, she wouldn't give a damn what I did with the work space. It was weird...I wasn't able to wake up from the dream, but at the same time realized it WAS just a dream, and stopped worrying about my job!

Hmm, maybe the dream was trying to tell me something, there...

I've had a few other jobs in the past...doing house and yard work for one of my grandmother's friends when I was a kid, working part time at a veterinary clinic in high school, and working for a department store in college and a few years after. But, I never had bad dreams about any of those. Actually, with the exception of my grandmother's friend, I can't remember any dreams at all. And with the dreams that involved her, it was just me back at her house, cleaning it.

[street]

I did in the first year quite often. Now after 4 years I still do but only a few times a year. After doing a job for 35 years I can see it happening.

[JoeWras]

Thanks for the thread, you triggered a dream for me last night!!!

I'm mostly laughing about this.

I participated in another thread about work dreams in the past, and every time I did, I'd get more dreams.

So last night, I see this thread scroll by, and I'm like: "Don't click, you'll have a dream." Darn it, the title was enough to give me a dream!

Last night's dream was about my last day of w*rk. I had to do a bunch of IT type stuff on PCs in our lab. Replacing hard drives and stuff. This is w*rk I didn't do in my final position. But for some reason, in my dream, I was the go-to guy. I w*rked late into the evening on my last day trying to get it all done, and then became dream-aware and woke up, and had a laugh.

[Lsbcal]

I have had several anxious work dreams. The last year I worked was 2003!

The dreams usually center around something like I cannot find my desk. Or I am in a building and don't know where the job is located or whether I am in the right building. Or I cannot find the men's bathroom followed by waking up and going to our bathroom.

I think the triggers for these dreams are general anxieties about current life events. The emotional side of my brain reaches for the easiest expression of these anxieties.

I regularly tell myself that I don't have to solve other people's issues (work or otherwise) or world problems. It is enough to be a good citizen i.e. vote, pay taxes, lead a decent life.

Maybe a habit of going to bed and thinking about the good life we have before drifting off is worth developing further. Hmmm...

What I will do is put a reminder on my phone for each night to do this good life pep talk. Should be an interesting experiment.

[retire-early]

oh wow!
I had a dream about work last week.
Then last night I had a really vivid one where I went to work for a company that skimped on desks and such. Really odd.

Not sure what my subconcious is trying to tell me.

The last day I worked was Dec 20, 2019 on 1099.

[WestUniversity]

Same here. About two or three times a week. I have a whole new appreciation for veterans with PTSD. I could not imagine reliving battle experiences over and over in my dreams. Reliving my work years is bad enough...

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by retire-early Then last night I had a really vivid one where I went to work for a company that skimped on desks and such. Really odd.

Some of us didn't dream it. We lived it. It was called "The Open Workspace."

[Qs Laptop]

Quote:

Anyone else with dreams from their work days?

I have the strangest dreams about my job as a research engineer that I left 31 years ago! These are recurring dreams, I'd say 5-6 times a month, on a consistent basis, for decades.

In my dreams I'm not working but simply walking around visiting people. Sometimes I'm carrying lab equipment, sometimes I'm carrying my lab notebooks. A frequent theme is that I'm asking the scientists I work for for something to do. Many times I'm in the semiconductor processing clean room wearing my bunny suit and observing people doing the various tasks I used to do--photolithography, thin film deposition, silicon wafer processing. I'm not lifting a finger, just watching.

Over the years, (decades!) of having these dreams they have evolved into very lucid dreaming. I know what's going to happen next, I interrupt people in my dream and cause them to do something else, make suggestions to myself, etc.

One of my favorite recurring "scenes" is when I'm meeting with my department head and he wants to go over my performance review. The first couple dozen times this went as 'usual' (if there is anything usual about having a performance review inside a dream!) until one time (years ago) I blurt out at the guy, "The fact is that I don't even work here. I haven't been employed here since 1990. Look up my payroll information, I haven't received a check since 1990." Whereupon my boss looks into his files, is astonished and replies, "You're right. Whenever this scene comes up now and again, I just stop the guy and say, "remember, I haven't gotten a check for 30 years." "Oh, yeah...," he replies.

If anyone has seen the HBO show "Silicon Valley" there is a character called "Big Head" that has something very similar happen to him. He's got a three year employment contract at Hooli (think Google) and Hooli no longer has any use for him, but in order to get his salary of $600K per year he still has to show up for work. They take away his office and he ends up wandering the hallways all day long. Man, could I relate to that! One day he stumbles onto the rooftop and sees a half dozen guys sitting around in lawn chairs drinking beer and barbecuing. Turns out these guys are also contracted employees with nothing to do.

If anybody wants to take a crack at interpreting my recurring dream, go for it.

[Lsbcal]

Hi Qs Laptop, I lived and worked in Silicon Valley for 25 years. Never felt very secure as there was always the changing technology and people in general were very smart and wanted you to know that. I don't know if this is just a condition of our competitive society or honed to a fine sharp point in the tech industry.

Anyway that has been a source of bad dreams for me. Sounds like you had a smoother ride.

[travelover]

14 years out, I still dream about w*rk, but the dreams tend to be about things I did when I'd just started in the early 80's. W*rk was a lot more fun then.