BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Dreams dreaming about jobs

Let me start by telling you all a little bit about myself first and my previous situation. I am a single mother with 2 small children. One is in Kindergarten and the other is 4 yrs old. I recently resigned from my job of 8 yrs because I could not afford to pay daycare fees and make ends meet. I get a good amount of child support, which pays for my living expenses. My rent is paid a yr in advance. I don't have any money problems right now and I am better off than when I was working. I keep having these dreams that I am back at work or working somewhere. I don't know what this could possibly mean but it worries me. I feel like I done the right thing for now and am ok until my 4 yr old starts school. When I was working it was terrible financially. It eventually got to where I just decided that it wasn't worth it to keep paying child care, so I quit my job and decided to stay home with my kids. Can anyone explain the dreams about working? Am I just subconsciously missing my old job & working or is there going to be troubles in the future? I am not unhappy right now and am quit satisfied but I am really worried about the meaning of these dreams.

I dream about jobs I've had in the past -- when I was young I did hotel maid work and when I wake up I am worn to the bone! I know I don't miss maid work so that's not why I'm dreaming about it. Maybe there is something we need to work out concerning work or our relationship with it. Sheryl

Dreaming about job don't have a fixed value while revealing it. So think a little about your thoughts. In this case, we can assume that you often think about 'job'.
Note all dreams and point out the 'common' things.
If you are working well in baby care, so no need to worry about future.

Last night I dreamed that the salon where I work was purchased by the paralegal that works in my attorney's office. She was planning on changing our brand of hair color and I was arguing with her. ???

Hi Lynne,

ARe the dreams themselves disturbing (by that I mean does the content worry or make you feel weird while you are in the dream) or is it disturbing you that you're having the dreams in the first place?

What kind of jobs are you working in your dreams? This will probably give you a clue as to how to decipher them. The hair color dream is interesting as it has a number of themes--hair is often symbolic for life energy or even thought process and changing hair color can indicate a change in identity, thought, etc. That there is a law figure involved sounds to me like there is a part of yourself that feels it needs to defend (or prosecute) you for your decision to change your life.

There is the theory that all of the characters in our dreams are parts of ourselves. I don't always ascribe to this theory, but in this case it sounds like it could be accurate. It sounds like you personally aren't doubting your decision however, all we hear about these days are people losing jobs, you better keep your job, I'm afraid I'm going to get fired, etc. These messages might be sinking into your subconscious and are getting played out in your dreams.

I don't think these dreams sound prophetic, but that's just my opinion.

It disturbs me that I have the dreams in the first place. Most of the dreams are either about my previous supervisor, parking lots and working in a store somewhere. At my previous job, I worked as a parking monitor and wrote parking tickets. I did this for 8 years. This is the first time that I have never really had a job. I am satisfied with my decision for the time being because we are better off. I do worry about my future because I plan to go back to work once my 4 yr old is old enough to start Kindergarten. I don't think they prophetic either but they still worry me. I have been known to have prophetic dreams regularly but those kinds of dreams only occur once and usually before something is to happen in the near future.

How did you get along with your supervisor? Was s/he someone that you like or was s/he overbearing? My guess is that the supervisor is representing that part of the psyche that feels like it is either in charge or is expecting you to answer to it.

That you worked writing parking tickets is especially interested from a symbolic standpoint. Think about the action in waking life--you wrote tickets to people who had overstayed their welcome. You were the authority figure that people had to, in a way, answer to. Now, you have quit your job and my guess is that while you are consciously happy and feel confident in your decision, there is this part of your unconscious that worries and feels fearful--a part of you that feels as if it's not really doing anything but is just "parking" and is going to get a ticket if it doesn't get moving.

However, the important thing to realize that these are feelings, not necessarily omens or portents of the future. One of the functions of dreams is to either reflect our psychological state of mind or to compensate for something that is lacking. It sounds like it your case, the dreams are compensating for the unconscious anxiety over your job situation.

This happens to me quite often. I used to work on an inpatient psychiatric unit and I also managed a program for the homeless. What was interesting is that these jobs came with a high amount of stress and trauma, but the funny thing is that I never consciously felt the stress--not even when I was dealing with serious issues with my clients. I think it was a survival mechanism--shutting out anything that was going to interfere with me getting the job done. But all that stress had to go somewhere and where it went was directly into my unconscious where it was expressed in all manner of bizarre work related dreams.

If the dreams don't make you uncomfortable while dreaming, then I think they are probably dreams helping you process anxiety and probably some left over stress from when you were working. And just out of curiosity, do you have any unresolved issues with your supervisor?

I didn't really like my supervisor. No-one does.