Intuition and Nocturnal Dreams: the Lived Experiences of Private Company Executives in the Light of Hermeneutic Phenomenology

This empirical study questioned the experience of intuition among private company owner-executives from a phenomenologically informed perspective. The study included three participants from Brazilian organizations operating in the service provision (technology and education) and agribusiness (rice farming) sectors, who shared their experiences through written reports and interviews. The reports showed that nighttime dreams were presented as intuitive episodes, and the participants engaged in meaning articulation between dreams and waking life. The interpretation of the research results was placed in dialogue with central phenomenological concepts. Accordingly, the article argues that the relationship between the being-a-manager and the organization is marked by the character of care (Sorge) (Heidegger [1927]1996), and that oneiric–intuitive episodes can be understood as expressions of an ethics of care. In this sense, aspects of Tronto’s (1993) ethics of care were mobilized and articulated in order to illuminate intuitive experiences.