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Discussion » Questions » Jobs » Do you have nightmares about your job or a previous job? If so, what are the recurring themes?
sirena Martina

Do you have nightmares about your job or a previous job? If so, what are the recurring themes?

Posted - February 6, 2021
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Responses


  • 13401
     Best I can think of is a nightmarish scenario from when I was a brakeman for Canadian National Railway. We were running a train over miles of straight flat prairie so then the hog (engineer) asked me if I would like to take over for a while. "Sure!" Because it's easier than driving a car when all I have to do is mind the throttle and the brakes and whistle at crossings. Things were going fine then suddenly somehow we derailed
    and were heading through dense thick bush into a deep dark canyon..
      February 7, 2021 8:36 AM MST
    4

  • 883
    My only dreams about trains are a persistent nightmare.  I dream I'm in a car with a family member.  A different family member is driving each time.  The lights are flashing at the railway crossing, the gates are coming down, and the family member always speeds up to beat the train.  The freight train always comes from the right.  I always see it coming.

     
      February 12, 2021 9:33 PM MST
    3

  • 52584

     

      THAT has some type of meaning. I don’t know anything about dream interpretation myself, an expert is needed in this case. 

    ~

      February 12, 2021 9:44 PM MST
    1

  • 883
    I had that dream a few nights ago.  This time the driver was Livvie.  I wondered why she drove her husband's car to Argentina, but I got into the car with her.  She was driving on a street in Buenos Aires that had railroad tracks on the right side, and a train was next to us.  It was going in the same direction as we were.  The lights were flashing and the gates were coming down on the cross streets, so Livvie sped up and turned right to get across the tracks as the freight train came.
      February 12, 2021 9:54 PM MST
    3

  • 13401
    Was a neighbor and schoolmate kid who apparently tried to beat the passenger train at a rural crossing. Was a tie. Train was coming from the west on his right hand side, he did not survive. That was almost 60 years ago now.
      February 12, 2021 10:30 PM MST
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  • 883
    A tie is usually a loss for the car.
      February 12, 2021 10:43 PM MST
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  • 13401
    Yes the whole front end of the car was gone.
      February 12, 2021 10:45 PM MST
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  • 52584

     

      Was it in a dream or for real?
    ~

      February 13, 2021 7:51 AM MST
    2

  • 13401
    Was quite real, unfortunately. His dad's car, a 1957 Chevy only 2 years old, his own car was getting repairs.
      February 13, 2021 7:59 AM MST
    2

  • 52584

     

      Sounds eerily James Deanesque. 

    ~

      February 13, 2021 8:03 AM MST
    2

  • 13401
    'Zat right, I wouldn't know.
      February 13, 2021 8:06 AM MST
    2

  • 6725
    I have a company vehicle I didn't return for some reason.  Now I've lost the keys or I'm in a panic as to how to return the darn thing, wondering why I have it. 
      February 7, 2021 8:42 AM MST
    4

  • 883
    I've never driven a company car.  My only nightmare is that I rented a car a long time ago, but I forgot to return it, and I forgot where I parked it.  I wander around the city looking for it.
      February 12, 2021 9:36 PM MST
    1

  • 43650
    Periodically, I will have a dream about being back in a class room that is filled with double the amount of students than allowed. I am given no resources and the kids are all unruly. WAIT...that wasn't a dream.
      February 7, 2021 8:49 AM MST
    5

  • 883
    I think school is a nightmare theme for most people.  I also dream that I'm back in the classroom but I'm my present age.  My parents told me to repeat school and do better, but I haven't done any work for the entire school year.
      February 12, 2021 9:40 PM MST
    3

  • 10282
    When  I worked in a mine I would  have nightmares that there was a fire and I suffercated.  If  there is a fire in a mine it can create a long section with no oxagine then if you start walking through that section you can suffercate. Cheers!
      February 7, 2021 9:00 AM MST
    4

  • 883
    I think suffocating would be one of the worst ways to die, especially underground.
      February 12, 2021 9:41 PM MST
    2

  • 5355
    I left my job as a truck driver three years ago, but the nightmares remain.  I‘m driving down the highway, and when I look in the mirrors, I see that my trailer disconnected and is somewhere back down the road.  I get to my delivery, and there’s no milk in the tanker because I left a valve open.  I stop for lunch at a truck stop which is always right next to a canyon, and the truck always rolls into the canyon while I’m eating because I forgot to set the parking brakes.
      February 7, 2021 12:53 PM MST
    3

  • 883
    I see that rolling into a canyon is a common theme in the nightmares of transport workers.
      February 12, 2021 9:43 PM MST
    3

  • 52584

     

      I have to modify/edit this a bit. When I first entered active duty, and either towards the end of my months-long training or just after the training period ended, I had a nightmare in which I was being fired upon by the enemy, and as I tried to return fire, my weapon continually malfunctioned. I always woke up within seconds of the malfunctions, but even today, decades later, I can still remember how vivid the terror seemed to me. It carried with it a shameful feeling of not having applied what I had been learning, along with a fear of shoddy workmanship in weapon manufacturing.

      I can only recall having the nightmare twice, but it is possible I had it at least a couple more times. I spoke with someone about it at the time (quite reluctantly and full of shame), I can’t remember who he was, but I do know he was a seasoned veteran. He assured me that it wasn’t uncommon for some men newly indoctrinated into that life to have such a nightmare, and that I shouldn’t give it a second thought. It truly put me at ease, and I don’t recall ever having the nightmares again after that. In fact, all the years I carried a weapon as part of my duties, not once in my life did I ever experience an incident of malfunction in a true life-and-death situation.
    ~

      February 7, 2021 1:59 PM MST
    3

  • 883
    It's good that you only had that dream twice.  Did you ever have a true life-and-death situation?
      February 12, 2021 9:46 PM MST
    2

  • 52584

     

      Not an aggression such as kill-or-be-killed, but there were on-duty close calls related to vehicles, such as crashes, and one that almost went over a cliff. 

    ~

      February 12, 2021 10:04 PM MST
    3

  • 16016
    Being fired is the only work-related nightmare theme. I don't get them often, and it hasn't happened in real life often.
      February 12, 2021 10:18 PM MST
    3

  • 883
    I have my own nightmares about work, but I've never dreamt about being fired.  If the things that happened in my nightmares about work would happen in real life, then I probably would get fired if I didn't first get killed. This post was edited by sirena Martina at February 13, 2021 8:12 AM MST
      February 12, 2021 10:39 PM MST
    2