Last night, I had one of those dreams of failure that I assume everyone has from time to time. It may be sitting down to an exam and realising that you know nothing about the topic whatsoever, or, in the case of my dream last night, trying to discuss a matter in dispute when it was clear my opponent knew everything about the topic, and I was totally unprepared. I have had missed deadline dreams too.
It occurred to me this morning that the consequences of failure of my job are no where near as spectacular as that in other, more dangerous professions. Does this mean that, for example, pilots dream of their plane taking a dive towards the ground because they forget to check the fuel before takeoff? Do surgeons dream of patients dying on the table in front of them for some really silly oversight? And, I wonder, do nuclear reactor operators dream of missing an obvious warning that leads to a meltdown.
Of course, it might just be that I am more insecure than other people, and such dreams are not as common as I expect. If that is true, just ignore this post. Otherwise, I would be curious to hear the nature of any other reader's failure dreams.
Make some comment, vast international readership!
Are failure dreams actually that common, and unambiguous?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have thought so.
Don't recall any failure dreams per se.
Most such concerns would reveal themselves metaphorically, and probably in broader terms, rather than specific situations.
Missing a train, for example - as in, perhaps, missing opportunities.
Or being inappropriate in an important situation.
Or hostile or dismissive characters appearing in a dream.
Being naked is supposed to be very common in dreams, but I don't think I've ever had one of those.
Not being able to speak is also not uncommon, ie, not being able to find one's voice.
Being unprepared, and so on.
Maybe straight forward failure dreams are more common for men?
But then, I know men who have amazing battle dreams, like sci-fi films, with the meanings not at all obvious.
Caz, welcome back. I guess being unprepared may be at the heart of what I called failure dreams. Still, that makes me wonder do pilots dream of sitting down in the cockpit and realising they don't know how to fly this aircraft?:)
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of the "unable to speak" dream before.
I was speaking to someone (a woman my age) at work the other day and said that it seemed odd that I cannot recall dreaming about my children. She said she was the same, though. Spouses feature from time to time for both of us, but not our children. Who knows what the brain is up to anyway...
Intriguing point: I have only had rare dreams of my daughter, could count on one hand, and in those very few she was little again. On the other hand have had a lot of dreams of my grandson both before and after he was born, which was rather cute, except that he was usually talking. It was like "evil talking baby"! Very freaky. Funny but freaky.
ReplyDeleteDon't dream about my mother either, except once or twice that I can think of.
Quite often dead father and dead brother turn up in dreams, but not together.
If dreams are the dregs of our worries and woes from the day, and sometimes our wishes and hopes, are children a subconscious taboo? Our brains bury those worries and even the hopes as being too scary, so we don't go there, even in dreamland?
Really intriguing! I'd never thought about this before. I wonder if it holds true for other people, ie, they don't dream about their children?
Although, let's not forget, we do in fact forget most of our dreams, so maybe the dreams of children are those during the night, the ones we don't remember and can't retrieve. It's only the dreams we're having - or if we're having - right before waking (or when sleep is interupted / disrupted) that we have some chance of remembering. Even then, many people don't ever remember any of their dreams.