Dreams About Losing Your Job Can Tell You A Lot About How You're Feeling

The study of dream interpretation goes back ages, and if you've done any dream decoding yourself, you likely know they typically don't mean exactly what we'd expect. Rarely literal, dreams offer us an insight into our subconscious realm to let us know where we might be overlooking an important seed of advice or have emotions that need to be processed. Many of us have dreamed of loose teeth, tidal waves, running in slow motion, or perhaps even more realistic scenarios like losing your job.

So what does it actually mean to wake up in a sweat after a dream where you were fired or let go from a job? It's natural to worry that this dream is a premonition, but don't fret — that likely isn't the case. Chances are, you're feeling too much pressure at work, anxiety about the responsibilities in your life, or a lack of leisure and play in your day-to-day experience. Let's take a closer look at what dreaming about job loss can tell you about how you're feeling.

The presence of a dream like this could mean you are feeling overwhelmed in your life and that as much intention as you put into your job, household, or relationship, things are just out of your control — almost as though your efforts are wasted. While this surely isn't the scenario in waking life, the dream could also mean that you're at a crossroads professionally and will perhaps have some larger decisions to face down the road.

The feelings of stress over the reins being out of your hands could be a signal to surrender and trust in your path. If you are doing all you can, then step back and let life unfold as it may. Alternately, if you do experience feelings of fear in your dream, as though you could actually be doing more in your career and need to step it up, then listen to those messages also — and perhaps look at whether putting in a little more effort in your waking life will address those feelings of being out of control. Remember, while dream interpretations from others are helpful in most cases, your gut intuition is always your truest guide.

While a job loss dream probably isn't a premonition, it's possible that this particular nightmare could be a literal depiction of the real fear that you may lose your job in the near future, and your brain is trying to prepare you should that reality unfold. "So you can go into work feeling confident that if you get fired, you know how to do it. I mean that in a weird hyperconscious sort of way," Michael Lennox, Ph.D., a psychologist and an expert in dream interpretation, told Business Insider.

Another perspective of the job loss dream is that you may not be fulfilling your duties the best you could, but isn't due to a lack of energy or motivation — it's a lack of support from your work environment. If this is the case, you likely wake up feeling stressed out and as though the situation is unjust. Again, listen to your initial emotional landscape when you first wake up; this is typically when we are most closely tethered to the truth of the dream and the unconscious space. If your in-dream firing leaves you with the feeling that you were set up for failure, take it as a nudge to examine whether you're lacking the proper support to fulfill your obligations in your waking life.