The Role of Dreams in Addressing Workplace Toxicity
The International Association for the Study of Dreams [Rolduc Netherlands, 2024]Conference AbstractEmily cookOne in ten employees work in a toxic culture. The disastrous impact of these workplaces is well documented. The health and personal lives of employees declines rapidly. The organizations themselves suffer in terms of innovation, talent loss, and overall financial success.
For these reasons, business leaders, together with HR professionals, are highly motivated to understand corporate culture. To date, efforts have focused on big-data, time-consuming survey and interview practices, and intrusive behavioural tracking.
Whilst traditionally the discussion of dreams had been unwelcome in professional environments, the tide is turning. The crisis of employee engagement, coupled with growing public interest in dreaming, is pushing organizations to experiment.
The collation and analysis of dreams offer a novel route to insights about workplace culture. For leaders, early warning signs of emerging toxicity. For employees, a voice to their authentic internal experience of the workplace. Utilizing dreamer-empowering approaches (e.g. Ullman’s Dream Appreciation) would reposition employees. Promoting them from trackable data points, to true partners in the depiction and repair of their workplace cultures.
Evidence to support this potential role for dreams is strong, but remains dispersed across multiple fields and disciplines. We need an integrated theory and approach that can drive dialogue between dream experts and business leaders. This presentation summarizes the existing research (including published psychoanalytical interviews, online dream diaries, and industry-academia research collaboration) and proposes a route to collaboration.
