work

Dreaming Lens: Did the dream take place at work? Was it your work place or a fictitious setting? What were you doing there? Who else was present? Was the dream stressful or pleasant?

Personal Focus: We are a society built around jobs and work. Most people relate to their jobs as something that they have to do in order to make ends meet. In this way, your job and your workplace are symbolic representations of all of the responsibilities and obligations that life presents you with.

Very often, dreams about your work are to be taken very literally. You spend a great deal of time there and your dreams may be filled with images from your day; a dream taking place where you work may very well be a compensatory dream helping you cope with stress and wake up the next day to face it all over again. However, such a dream could also be a convenient way for your unconscious to express feelings surrounding other responsibilities and obligations that need attention.

Not all dreams taking place at work are stressful. If this is the case, use your feelings about your job, the environment at work and your coworkers to help you identify what elements of your own personality are being expressed in your dream. Many people have a very different sense of self in the workplace than in other parts of life. Consider your relationship to your work carefully when examining a dream that took place there.

Example: T am working in a hospital in outpatients. No­body is there. My two children appear. I know I have to find them somewhere to sleep. I lay them on seats, tell the only nurse I can find that I am going to find them a bed. I know where the children’s ward is but I can’t find it. When I even­tually find it all the side rooms are filled. I know I have been a long time so I stan to panic, worried my children are missing me, and worried night sister will have found them. I pass a military meeting. As I continue the men come out and I get caught in the cross fire and am shot in the leg. I am now terrified. I have to get back to the children. Night sister must have found them by now and if not what will they be doing. When I got back they are there with night sister’ (Laramie F). Laramie works as a nurse, was divorced just prior to the dream, and was obviously concerned how her work affected her children. This internal conflict (the crossfire) injures her confidence (the shot leg). Idioms: have one’s work cut out; set to work; worked up; work like a horse; work off; work out; dirty work; donkey work; spanner in the works.

clothes Working at something; attitudes concerning work.

A dream taking place where you work may very well be a compensatory dream helping you cope with the stress and wake up the next day to face it all over again. However, such a dream could also be a convenient way for your unconscious to express feelings surrounding other responsibilities and obligations that need attention. Not all dreams taking place at work are stressful.

If this is the case, use your feelings about your job, the environment at work, and your coworkers to help you identify what elements of your own personality are being expressed in your dream. Many people have a very different sense of self in the workplace than in other parts of life. Consider your relationship to your work carefully when examining a dream that took place there.