- Over three-fifths of US workers have nightmares about work.
- Common nightmares include being late to work, job loss, and romantic dreams about coworkers.
- Dreams are often a reflection of the inner self, therapists say.
For many people, work extends well beyond the standard 9-to-5. The pressure from their jobs can disrupt sleep, leading to restless nights and stressful dreams.
In a survey of 1,750 working adults in the US conducted by Each Night, a sleep resource platform, more than three-fifths of workers reported having a nightmare about their jobs.
The most common workplace nightmare is being late to work, according to an analysis of global search data conducted by the job search platform JobLeads. Losing your job, getting a new job, and colleague romances were also commonly reported dreams.
Annie Wright, a psychotherapist who operates boutique trauma therapy centers in California and Florida, told Business Insider that dreams are worth analyzing.
The fear of being late to work can signify a sense of uncertainty, she said. “It doesn’t terribly surprise me that that’s showing up because, you know, we have that classic dream in college and high school of being late for a test,” she said.
Through the lens of gestalt psychotherapy — a therapeutic approach that focuses on understanding a person’s present experience — every element of a dream, from the setting to the people, places, and objects, can be viewed as a reflection of the dreamer’s inner self.
Wright offered a hypothetical workplace dream in which the dreamer sees their boss, closest colleague, and a challenging client. The boss is yelling at the colleague about their interactions with the client.
Wright said she would ask the dreamer to describe the qualities they associate with their boss. “Critical, demanding, and hostile,” they might say, she said. Then, they would describe their colleague. “Supportive, kind, but incompetent sometimes,” she said.
She would ask the dreamer to think about all these aspects within their self.
“What does it say that the critical, angry part of you is attacking the, you know, supportive but kind part of you,” she said. Perhaps the person would realize that the dream was about something else entirely.
“I cannot turn off this critical voice about my inability to get pregnant,” she said, as an example. “When we unfold it from that lens, it can become less about the workplace itself or the workplace figure itself and more about what those different parts symbolized by the workplace or workplace figures represent.”
Stressful dreams often reflect a person’s sense of vulnerability in the wider world, she said. Whether it’s the workplace or the middle school hallway — the most common setting for a stress dream — the setting of a dream is like a subject that our mental state seeks out. “In other words, the state of vulnerability seeks that out and gloms on to it,” she said.
Here’s a closer look at the top most searched workplace stress dreams, according to JobLeads data.
JobLeads
