Dreamed I was in the store, wearing my cute navy-blue shorts and t-shirt ensemble. The main aisle of the floor was replaced by a huge, luxurious heated swimming pool (the water was also navy blue). I was told that I could go for a swim as soon as I’d restocked the merchandise that was scattered all around.
So I used the excuse of sidestepping a 14-piece set of stainless-steel cookware (it looked exactly like the ones we sell) to “fall” into the pool. Oh, it was so relaxing! And of course, they couldn’t make me keep restocking after that.
But then a customer asked me to fetch her some of the gadgets, like a pizza wheel and a pancake turner and so forth. She pointed down, and I saw that the rack of gadgets was in the pool, looking exactly as it does IRL, except it was at the bottom of the deep end.
I told her, apologetic as always, that I couldn’t go down there, because it was nine feet deep and I’m too bouyant (probably true) and I couldn’t possibly hold my breath long enough to find the stuff she wanted. Whereupon she got very irate and asked why I couldn’t just get scuba equipment or something. Then I think the dream changed. So much for not taking work home with me, though.
Now, that’s a colorful dream! And I love how the products in the dream are identical to the ones you actually sell. Pretty interesting!
I have dreams about my old hellish job too. More than is healthy, I daresay. I had one last night, as a matter of fact, but it was too brief and meaningless (not colorful, like your pool dream) to relate here.
My work dreams usually have an element of me doing something that I thought was harmless, thought was acceptable, but yet it’s not. I find that a coworker has twisted my actions around and is going to get me in serious trouble, even though I really didn’t do anything that awful. At the kind of job I had, this was a real possibility, all the time (it was an unusual kind of job). I didn’t realize how stressful and horrible that job was until the end. Gah.
I recently had a dream about having a baby (I don’t have kids) that was very clingy and needy. I couldn’t leave this baby unattended for a second—had to take the baby everywhere. “Man,” I thought in my dream, “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”
This dream doesn’t take on any signficance unless I tell you that the day before this dream, I’d been tending to a sick 20-year-old cat (that’s 100 people years) who had been shot with a BB gun (we suspect) by some neighbors. (The cat is old and I’m sure never left our yard, so whoever shot him must have aimed at him while he was in our yard.) Anyway, that cat’s in a fragile state and hates going to the vet, so we use some vet-supplied “dopey kitty pills” (sedative) every time we take him for a visit so he doesn’t freak out and have a heart attack. Anyway, this drug makes him confused and disoriented for the rest of the freakin’ day. You literally cannot leave this cat alone for a second, or he’ll get into some mischief and injure himself. And I was in charge with looking after him that day. Exhausting.
So it kind of explains the baby dream. When I told a family member about this dream, they asked, “Was this baby furry?” It was pretty obvious what the dream signified.
I used to have drams like that when I was in college and working at a restaurant as a server. Now that job was pure hell, but I really didn’t have much choice at the time. The hours sucked, the management was awful, the customers were demanding, and to top it all off, I wasn’t really all that good at waiting tables anyways, which was a constant source of stress for me. So when I got home (at 3:00 AM) after working a Friday evening, I would crash and have nightmares about work. I’d dream about the demanding customers, trying to get the orders right, and trying to stay caught up on all my tables. It was as if I had not left work! Then I’d have to get up (usually I would sleep in until noon or so), and have to go right back to work that afternoon.
I was actually happy that I got fired from that job.
You’re lucky. Last night I had a dream I was kidnapped by Benny Hinn, who tried to brainwash me in his large shopping mall complex (?!).
I’ve had work dreams before. My least favorite were the ones I had back when I was doing factory work. I’d dream I missed a shot. I’d wake up and calm down. Then I’d dream I missed a shot. I’d wake up and calm down. Then I’d dream I missed a shot… All. Night. Long.
Last night, I had a dream that I was giving an essay exam. I had enough copies of the question that each student would have one, and could simply write his answer on the exam. But just before handing out the papers, I realized that all but the top ten were goofed up! Words were scrambled, and some of the sentences were complete gibberish. Something had gone wrong with the computer file (my brain reasoned, in dream-logic mode.) Okay, no sweat, I thought, I’ll just put the question on the overhead projector, and they’ll write the answer in a bluebook. Then I couldn’t find enough bluebooks. In the middle of handing out sheets of looseleaf paper for the students who didn’t get bluebooks, I realized that I had just assigned an essay exam to 90 students, and how in the hell did I plan on grading these? About then it dawned on my that the question was something like, “Write down what you’ve learned about astronomy so far this semester.”
Oy.
I almost long for the days when I just had bad dreams about taking exams.
Before I moved to a smaller offsite facility I worked in a large office with row upon row of cubicles. On several occasions I have dreamt that I was lost and I couldn’t find my way back to my desk. Each time I turned down an aisle it would only lead to another endless maze of cubicles and aisles.
In another dream I had to have my mom drive me to work because it was raining so hard and my own car was submerged in floodwaters, but where my mom lives (a half mile away) it was dry. As she drove me to work we re-enterered the flood zone and we had to drive through water 2-3 feet deep all the way to my workplace. When we got there I discovered the all the lights on the bottom floor of the two-floor building I work in were all yellow. On the top floor all the lights were orange. It was still raining hard when I got out and had to find my way in.
In yet another dream a co-worker and I were exploring areas where we were forbidden (in the dream). We managed to find our way into the upper echelons’ (CEO and other top-level suits) board room and other facilities. The board room contained red plush carpeting. The meeting table had a large slick black onyx surface on it. The ceiling was black with track lighting. We wanted to explore the area some more and see what was in some of the back rooms, but we were afraid of getting caught, so we left.
I haven’t worked at OfficeMax in nearly four years, but I still have frequent dreams about working there. I don’t recall any of them clearly enough to describe them here. I’ve also been away from Burger King for nearly ten years now, but I still have dreams (nightmares) about working in that hellhole.
The best work dream ever was a friend of mine’s. First, a little background info. We work in molecular biology and often have to make modifications to proteins. One technique is to tack a protein onto your target protein that allows it to stick to another molecule. For example, by adding maltose binding protein (MBP) to protein X, you can bind MBP-X to a maltose column. Another way to do this is by adding what’s called a his tag.
So, her dream (actually, dreams): in the first one, she dreamt that she had been his tagged to her bed. She said that it was one of those dreams where you are kind of awake and she knew she was dreaming but she couldn’t move…because of the his tags! So, being the smart girl that she is, in her dream she covered the bed with imidazole, releasing the his tags and allowing her to move and wake up fully.
In the second dream, she was back in high school and met maltose-binding protein man. The MBP had formed a big lump growing off of his back. :eek:
I told her she needed to stop reading her molecular cloning manual before she went to bed.
I’ve had dreams about work. I’m a designer (draftsman,) and it sucks to have to work all night at a deadline and then get up and do it again for real! I never got to rest!
Lately I’ve been having a disturbing recurring dream. My late husband passed away 1-1/2 years ago. I am now remarried, and I keep having a dream that my late husband is alive and yet I’m remarried. I get all anxious and freaked out because I don’t know how to tell him that I have remarried. I hate that dream.
Wow. I had something along the same lines—when my dad died, my mom sold the house (almost immediately) and moved. I have had this recurring dream ever since then (less now, but for the first year or so, it was nightly). I dream that my dad didn’t really die, but he was just really sick, and now he’s back and he wants to know where the old house is, and why did my mom sell it.
I think the thing with the house reflects my feelings about change (changing the old house, leaving it behind), and how hard it is to make that drastic, irreversable change and let someone go. Do you think that could also be the reason you have the dreams about your late husband coming back?
I had a dream where I was at work in the lab as usual. Then coworkers started coming over wanting me to do certain jobs. I didn’t know how to do these jobs so that’s what I told them. Then they all started yelling at me for not doing the work and I told them I’d had enough, I quit. No need to puzzle over the meaning of that.
Another time, though, I was dreaming I was in the lab working when Thor suddenly manifested in the Hematology department and started flinging thunderbolts all over the place.
Yeah, I think so. Thanks for sharing that, it was really amusing!
Once I was doing lots and lots of ink and watercolor paintings. Lots of them, in a short amount of time. One night I had a dream where it was like an animated movie—everything was painted with ink and watercolor, but animated. Freaky.
For some reason, when I sleep naked, I’m frequently naked in my dreams. Last week I was doing this and started dreaming that I was naked at my office. People started commenting on it, so I just leaned back in my chair, looked them in the eye and said “yeah, I’m naked. You got a fucking problem with that?” and they stopped bothering me about it.
I guess I’m learning that audacity is a useful trait in this job.
My life has changed soooo much in the past year. When my late husband was alive, he was so sick with congestive heart failure. Our house was always dark because that’s the way he liked it. He was very controlling, and wouldn’t let me do anything - even shopping with a girlfriend. He was super jealous, too.
Now things are incredibly different. My new husband is a wonderful, giving, normal man. We are remodeling my kitchen, and clearing out old junk and making my (our) house light filled and airy. We will sell it eventually.
The dream is a nightmare because I don’t want him to be alive again. Maybe I feel guilty for feeling that way, I don’t know. I wish it would stop though.
It was pretty obvious what the dream signified.
