Fast Company: How paying attention to your nightly dreams could impact your career
Originally found at Fast Company
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.”
Continue reading the original article at Fast Company.
Read the original research in Academy of Management Journal.
Read the Academy of Management Insights summary.
Learn more about the AOM Scholar and explore their work:
- Casher D. Belinda, University of Notre Dame
- Michael S. Christian, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill