You know what the occasional downside is when working in your “dream job”?

Sometimes it means that not only do you do the job all day, you also dream about doing it all night. 

No matter how wonderful and fulfilling your job is, having to do it even while you’re asleep is a bit much – and makes for a much-less-than restful night.

Last night – in my dreams, mind you – there was trouble in the newsroom. Coverage of a local meeting wasn’t panning out, and I was trying to coach a reporter – not our actual reporter, you understand, but a dream reporter – on how to handle the situation.

It wasn’t a wild, fantastical dream. Dragons didn’t attack the town, and we didn’t discover a cache of gold under the old pressroom. There were no aliens, or explosions, or massive conspiracies.

It was just like living through another ordinary workday. 

Does anyone else experience this? You have your workday; you go to sleep and have another workday; and then you wake up only to go back to work?

It’s exhausting.

When I decided to go after my “dream job,” I didn’t mean it quite so literally. 

According to Psychology Today, “Why humans dream remains one of behavioral science’s great unanswered questions.”

That’s helpful. 

Start to research dreams, and what comes to light is that we don’t know – really, truly know – that much about them. There’s all kinds of research and theories and postulations about the how and why of dreaming, but as to pinpointing one or more firmly established principles – dream on. 

Was my dream a manifestation of my unfulfilled longing to coach a staff reporter on better meeting coverage? Was it a prophecy, indicating I will soon have that very experience? Was it a way for my unconscious brain to sift through and categorize information about newsrooms and staff reporters and meetings and …

Whatever the answers to the many questions about dreaming, it appears you can never completely “clock out” when you have your dream job. 

At least my job isn’t a nightmare!