Dreams about work

I've been retired since 2001 and still (occasionally) have dreams (actually nightmares) about work. The best part of these dreams is waking up and realizing it was just a dream. Guess it was such an important part of your life it never goes away from some corner of your brain.
 
Whether you realized it at the time or not, some of those stressful work situations shook you to the core, but you were probably too busy at the time to dwell on, or heal from one before another came along.

Your brain is just finally processing through these days, and hopefully deleting them from memory.
 
I now and then dream I'm back in the cockpit of the A-6 Intruder I flew off of carriers. I was the navigator and had to bring up all the comm and nav systems. So here I am in the dream and my pilot is asking me why the systems aren't up and that we are going to launch in 5 minutes. I know I haven't done it in 30 years and have no idea where any of the stuff is anymore and I get into an argument and he keeps insisting I get all of the systems going.


Man am I relieved when I wake up!! Too old to be doing that stuff anymore LOL
 
Oh my God I thought I was the only "crazy" one. For years as I worked I had the college nightmares...never attended class, couldn't find my schedule, finals approaching. Then 3 1/2 years ago I retired. NOT ONE COLLEGE DREAM.

Replaced by work dreams but from only a certain period from 1980-1993 when I was in the R&D center of a major corporation. Dreams are always similar, they put me in a remote location with an IBM 286 computer (remember those with expanded memory and floppy disks). I complain how can I get my work done with this equipment but nobody listens.

Well at least I seem to be getting straight A's on my college finals now.
 
I am relieved to see how many people also have the dreams of being at college and being unprepared in some way. I have them occasionally and they include the same themes of not having enrolled in the right class or not having read the material or not having enough credits to graduate. I also occasionally show up to class completely naked and interestingly enough, I am usually not embarrassed but just annoyed that I forgot my clothes. 🤗 IRL I was actually a very good student who always wore clothes so where does this come from??

My most common dream though is being back to work as an RN and being VERY incompetent! I either don't know what procedure I am supposed to assist with or I haven't a clue how to care for a patient. Again, IRL I was pretty darned skilled and never recall feeling as overwhelmed at work as I do in my dreams. I always wake up with such a sense of relief that I am retired!
 
ckelly78z said:
Whether you realized it at the time or not, some of those stressful work situations shook you to the core, but you were probably too busy at the time to dwell on, or heal from one before another came along.

Your brain is just finally processing through these days, and hopefully deleting them from memory.
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+1
After 2 years of retirement, both school and office dreams have been some of my worst dreams. Weirdly, there are always people from different times of my life commingled. Kids from Chicago and Sunnyvale are in my dreams about TX adults or some version of that. :crazy:
 
I rarely dream about either work or school.

SCHOOL DREAMS:

The few dreams I have about school are never bad ones, though. I guess it's because I am one of those who (due to no particular expertise, brilliance, or valor) happen to "test well". That shows up mainly on standardized tests, but also seems to make a difference on my final exams. Added to having a slight edge due to testing well, is the fact that I am a bit of a perfectionist and study like a maniac, whether it is necessary or not.

Anyway, I don't worry about being underprepared for tests. I go in there with confidence in my level of preparation, and severe determination to power through the test, always. On the rare occasion when I dream about going to a final exam, it's with a feeling of VICTORY. I know I am prepared and at last I can nail it and put it behind me forever.

OK, there was ONCE (in real life, not a dream) when I was 17 minutes late for my Thermodynamics final exam because I had to pick my kid up after school and get her to an unfamiliar by-the-hour daycare place, which I never had done and hated having to do. At the time I had no choice for a variety of complicated reasons. Anyway, by the time I got to the exam building all the parking was gone. I had to park blocks away and run. So I was late, but you know what? The proctor gave me 17 minutes extra at the end of the final to make up for it, after he had collected everyone else's test. I never in the world expected that and it sure renewed my faith in humanity. I nailed that test too, so if I ever dream that I am late, I am still confident.

As for arriving naked..... nope, never dreamed of that! I can't even imagine.


WORK DREAMS:

Hardly ever dream about work, but if I do mostly it is just boring, hum-drum stuff. Sort of like work in real life. ;) If anything catastrophic happens in the dream, I just say, "Sorry, you will have to handle this alone! Got to go!" and wake up. Good time to pull lucid dreaming skills into the mix.
 
I retired from the local Fire Department the same day I ER'd from work.


While working I had dreams about work, lots of them, I worked all night long.


Lately I've been having dreams about firefighting. I wake up in a cold sweat and think to myself "that really happened". Dreams about something that actually happened are much scarier than dreams about things that your mind makes up. They don't go away when you wake up.


I never had firefighting dreams during the 23 years I was on active duty, they didn't start til a couple years later.
 
I'm 13 months into retirement, not too bad with the work dreams. But I had a terrible two part, all night dream last night!

Dreamed I took an interview on a whim at some mystery company. They hired me on the spot and I started working immediately, for 2 hours.

Woke up the next morning (can you sleep in a dream?), had a commute (which sucked) and everything! Arrived at the campus and it was really some creepy guy's house where everyone worked in bedrooms and hallways. Bunch of nerds doing Linux kind of work in a sweatshop atmosphere. He then came over and started lecturing me about working hard and not using gmail for security reasons and things like that.

I woke up in a cold sweat.
 
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end of HS/beginning of college I worked as a deck hand on excursion boats on Lake Superior. We had one smaller boat (38') that we frequently used for evening cruises that got back to port after sunset. This boat was set up with two rows of seats with a center aisle similar to a commercial airliner. The boat captain sat on the left and the deckhand would sit on the right. At night the gauges (mostly center located) would light up the boat. My bedroom at the time had two twin beds with a lighted stereo in between. One night I sat up in bed and sat on the edge of my bed (while basically asleep) for over two hours thinking I was on the boat. We werent allowed to sleep obviously so I was paranoid. After a few hours I realized I was NOT on the boat but in fact in my bedroom. I unplugged the stereo so the lights would be out, layed down and went to sleep angrily because I loved sleep at that age.
 
I still have them once in awhile and when I wake up I'm so damn grateful.
 
I've been out of college a LONG time. Still occasionally have the "late-for-class, can't-find-the classroom, skipped-class-all-semester, don't-have-paper-or-pencil, don't-have-the-credits-to-graduate" dreams. Sometimes have work dreams. But lately it's 'I can't find where I parked the car" dream !!! Had that one a number of times lately. Don't know what that indicates.
 
Momcpa said:
I've been out of college a LONG time. Still occasionally have the "late-for-class, can't-find-the classroom, skipped-class-all-semester, don't-have-paper-or-pencil, don't-have-the-credits-to-graduate" dreams. Sometimes have work dreams. But lately it's 'I can't find where I parked the car" dream !!! Had that one a number of times lately. Don't know what that indicates.
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Yep. And the "I showed up for class and there is a test I didn't know about". Or it's halfway through the semester and I realized that I signed up for class I have never been too. Graduated in 1986!

I have work dreams too. Most are more about the people than the place. But occasionally funny ones where I am at work, getting pressured to do something and then realize, "Oh, I'm retired! F-off!!!!" lol
 
Out of the blue, last night I had the classic work nightmare. I woke up in a sweat full of anxiety. First bad dream like this in a year. Where did this come from? I forgot most of this stuff but in the dream it was like I was still there.

The nightmare went like this: the boss starts looking over my shoulder and absolutely must know why our new technology isn't working yet. "When will it work?" Next thing I know, I'm in a conference room, drawing a flow of progress on a whiteboard, explaining to a bunch of executives.

What's the date?

What's the date?

When will it work?

What's the date?

Ahhhh!
 
Dreams about w*rk seem to be fading faster than dreams of my college years. I don't quite understand that, though I would say, in many ways, college had more "nightmarish" realities than w*rk did (with a couple of exceptions - there was that fire in my lab... and that big explosion in the plant, well...) I have heard that 4 or 5 years around age 20 seem much longer - and may make more impressions than 20 years later in life. In some ways, I think that must be true. I can more-or-less date things that happened in college within months to a year while things at work are more confined to decades. YMMV
 
I occasionally have dreams about the Navy, which I left over 34 years ago. But I have never had a dream about any work I've done since then.
 
YVRRocketSurgery said:
I'm sitting here laughing because I didn't realize how common the missed classes, unprepared final exam college/university dream was. I have that dream a few times a year and I'm stressing out in my dream that I don't have my degree because I'm short credits. :LOL:
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It's been fun reading this thread.

Count me in the college dreams, just as described above.

As far as w*rk, nope, not at all. In fact, a couple of months after retiring, something prompted me to think about a former colleague. I'd worked with this woman on a daily basis for a couple of years and within a matter of weeks it was an effort to recall her name. :D
 
I haven’t had dreams about work that I can recall. Recurring college dream though. I dreamed that it was finals week and I had completely forgotten to go to a class all semester. That dream was more common at the end of the summer.
 
EastWest Gal said:
I dreamed that it was finals week and I had completely forgotten to go to a class all semester.
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Surely some doctoral student has done a thesis on this, right? This crazy dream is so pervasive, it has to say something about the human condition.

I had that dream up to 10 years after college finished. And reading this thread, I know I'm not the only one.

Who do you know actually "forgot" to go to class, but suddenly remembered last day? Nobody, right? You know people who intentionally didn't go to class though. I knew a few.

But this "I forgot I had a class and suddenly remembered during finals week" is just crazy crap, yet so consistent among students.
 
EastWest Gal said:
I haven’t had dreams about work that I can recall. Recurring college dream though. I dreamed that it was finals week and I had completely forgotten to go to a class all semester. That dream was more common at the end of the summer.
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JoeWras said:
Surely some doctoral student has done a thesis on this, right? This crazy dream is so pervasive, it has to say something about the human condition.

I had that dream up to 10 years after college finished. And reading this thread, I know I'm not the only one.

Who do you know actually "forgot" to go to class, but suddenly remembered last day? Nobody, right? You know people who intentionally didn't go to class though. I knew a few.

But this "I forgot I had a class and suddenly remembered during finals week" is just crazy crap, yet so consistent among students.
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1970's were a long time ago, and I still have that dream. I usually forget dreams upon awakening, but that one stays with me. Each dream for me has a new twist in my case.
 
The "forgot to go to class" dream, yes! Also the "lost on campus and can't find my classroom" and the "can't remember my locker combination" dreams. The latter came true to some extent this week when I realized I couldn't remember the combination to my padlock for the gym because I hadn't been there in months.

I was a teacher for 10 years, and sometimes dream that it's the first day of the quarter, I'm on in 20 minutes, and haven't done any preparation. I'm not sure what to talk about, there's no syllabus to hand out, and I forgot to send my book order to the bookstore so the students can't get their books. I'm wondering if I can stretch a "let's go around the class and introduce ourselves" segment out to 50 minutes.
 
I graduated from college in 1977 and had the “ forgot I registered for a class and it is finals week” nightmare for decades. Probably have not had it for 5 years now. My twist was that it was my last semester of college and I needed the class to graduate. The class was always high level math, my worst subject and no way to B.S. your way through the final. Just awful!
 
I had one where I was in a meeting, trying desperately to convince the powers that be not to do something because it was a big mistake. I don’t know what is was but I just has the gnawing feeling that it was a potential disaster. Then I suddenly realized, Hey! I don’t even work here anymore! Do whatever you want! And that was it. LoL .
 
O2Bfree said:
The "forgot to go to class" dream, yes! Also the "lost on campus and can't find my classroom" and the "can't remember my locker combination" dreams. The latter came true to some extent this week when I realized I couldn't remember the combination to my padlock for the gym because I hadn't been there in months.
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"Forgot to go to class" would be generous in my dream, Mine was more like skipped class for the whole semester. At finals my problem is I can't even remember where the class meets. Had it for decades. I agree that somebody must have done some research on this.

My question for others who have/had this dream is do you or did you also suffer from the impostor syndrome. I did to a mild degree and my dream relates because my feeling in it was how the hell am I going to pull this off even if I find the class. For those unfamiliar with the term, the impostor syndrome is where successful people feel like they are one step ahead of the sheriff. That eventually they will be caught out and exposed to be incompetent or at least less capable than everybody else thinks they are.
 
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