Daydreaming about your career can help you set goals. You can imagine the position you want, then set a plan to get there. But what about the dreams you have at night? While they often seem random and nonsensical, the dreams you have when you’re sleeping could impact your career and your productivity, says Casher Belinda, assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Notre Dame.
Working with Michael Christian, professor of organizational behavior for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Belinda conducted studies to measure the impact of dreams on employee workdays. Their report, published in the Academy of Management Journal, found that connecting the dots to find positive meaning in your dreams can give rise to the experience of awe, which directly impacts how you work.
“We saw connection between dreams and emotion,” says Belinda. “In particular, we thought that dreams might be an overlooked source of awe. That was the linchpin between the experiences people have when they recall and make sense of their dreams in the morning and the downstream of resilience and goal progression it can provide work.”
Awe provides perspective about the grand scheme of life and the fact that we’re all part of a greater whole. It reduces an individual’s focus on themselves and their concerns. It provides power to persist and helps people view stressors as less impactful. This mindset can influence how you think about things throughout the workday, helping you be more productive, says Belinda.
“Even mild levels of awe can be pretty impactful,” he says. “That emotional experience when you’re first waking up is sort of similar to epiphany. It’s ‘Oh, my God, maybe that matters.’ That feeling is not going to be so strong for long, but it tends to create this way of looking at things that persists longer than the emotional experience.”
How to Use Your Dreams
To reap the benefits of awe that your dreams can provide, Belinda suggests giving yourself opportunities to recall your dreams and to make sense of them.
“Thinking through these experiences gives you more opportunities to experience other potential beneficial emotions,” he says. “Whatever allows you to dream more and reflect on them more can be beneficial.”
One way to deep dive into your dreams is to keep a dream journal. You may not see meaning in the dream right away but having the opportunity to reflect on them and potentially draw connections between multiple dreams gives you opportunities to find meaning later.
For example, a common dream theme is being inappropriately dressed. You may dream that you arrive at an important meeting, and you forgot to put on your pants. When you wake up, you might try to make sense of the dream, deciding that it means you’re concerned about being ready for an opportunity. Dreams may hold the key on things you need to do or stop doing to be more effective at work.
“An employee who recalls and records their dreams on a given morning but does not find meaning in their dreams at that time may later see a connection between those and other dreams, resulting in attributions of meaning and heightened levels of awe,” says Belinda.
While thinking about your dreams can benefit you, sharing them with your coworkers may help others, too. Belinda says creating a workplace where employees feel comfortable talking about their dreams could be powerful.
“If there are dreams that you feel comfortable sharing, social sharing could be very beneficial from a relationship standpoint and potentially a creativity standpoint,” he says. “As a form of self-disclosure, dreams could help foster positive relationships and a sense of inclusion.”
Since themes are common, talking about your dreams may help foster deeper connections with your colleagues. You might also be able to help each other make sense of dreams.
If you’re someone who doesn’t put a lot of credence on your dreams, Belinda recommends giving them some attention. Dreams are internally generated, which means there’s no external input when you’re sleeping.
“They’re going to impact you, no matter what,” he says. “You may want to dismiss them as superficial, but you’ll often think about a dream throughout the workday, and that can impact how you feel. The fact that they’re coming from within makes dreams a process of self-reflection.”
