Best Hallucinations Thread

Nurses General Nursing

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Cmon, what's some of the good stuff?

I had a patient who spoke only Russian and finally when I was assigned to him, I think I might have been the first person who understood him (I speak Russian). Turns out he'd been hallucinating for God knows how long! It was sort of sweet because he was comforted by the baby bear and his mama bear in the corner. Bears are a common animal in Russian folklore. One of my favorite residents got her nickname 'Baby Bear' that way because the patient pointed right at her to indicate where he thought he was seeing it.

I had another patient who hadn't slept in days and was demanding every sedative/narcotic/benzo we could give but fighting terribly to stay awake so we couldn't say she was too sedated for the next dose. It was nuts. By the time she had a psychotic break, she was accusing me of plotting to run away with her boyfriend and that there were puppies in the hallway.

That also reminds me of the lady who said she watched a wedding procession in the hallway.

There are so many of these, right?

Specializes in ICU/ER.

I worked on an end-stage dementia unit and there was a sweet little old lady across from the nurse's station with a serious poop fixation. I didn't realize how bad until Valentine's Day rolled around... The aide came out of her room and told me something stunk...like poo and I walked in and wandered around but all I could see was the very LARGE heart-shaped box of chocolates sitting on her dresser. Seriously, without scrutiny, it all appeared to be in order but that smell sure didn't belong, so I started to wander around the room and was following my nose to the source of the stench. Yet, each time, my nose brought me back to that innocuous looking box of chocolates. Finally, out of desperation, I glanced down into the open box and the only expressions that could have crossed my face were disgust and horror. It appeared each time she consumed a chocolate, she had been replaced it with a similarly shaped piece of poop. I would venture to guess that 25-50% of the box had been substituted when we had discovered her unpleasant little hobby.

The box of chocolates was immediately disposed of and I spent the rest of my day fielding 101 questions by said resident regarding the whereabouts of her chocolate. I still have a difficult time eating chocolate out of those heart-shaped boxes...

It bears mentioning this wasn't our first time dealing with this resident and adventures with poo...just the first time they involved food. Yes...the first time.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

I once took care of an eighty-something hospital patient who seemed very much A & O.....she was able to talk about the events of the day, discuss treatments, remember staff names etc. Altogether a very reasonable and pleasant lady, who wore a darling little bed jacket and knitted an afghan in between cardiac tests.

Then, about midway through the shift, I heard her scream.

I ran into the room to find her literally running in place in her bed, sobbing hysterically, and pointing to the corner of the room near the closet: "There's a MOUSE over there! Please, please kill it---it's going to come up here and bite me!"

Being the sort of nurse who always checks out peoples' stories (no matter how delusional I may think they are), I went over to the area in question and of course, found no mouse. I shook the curtains for good measure and said "Nope, there's no mouse here", not yet realizing that my A & O patient might not be as O as I'd thought she was. She continued to run in place and scream, "Yes, there is, I saw it! Kill it, kill it, it's going to bite me!!"

Well, I wasn't going to fix this by trying to re-orient her, so I fetched a broom from the janitor closet and began smacking the floor with it so my patient could see I was trying to kill the "beast". Unfortunately, I hit the over-bed light on the other side of the room and broke it, which made a horrific crashing sound and brought one of the nurse-managers into the room on the double. There I stood, broom in hand, and there the patient stood, still on top of the bed but now calm.

"I was killing a mouse," was my lame explanation.

Whereupon the patient sat back down in bed, pulled the covers up, and resumed her knitting. "Thank you, dear," she said, beaming happily. "I was bitten by a mouse when I was a child and got very sick, and I've been terrified of the creatures ever since." And that was the end of it. :lol2:

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.

When you work detox, you have a lot of these patients...

My favorite is the one with alcoholic encephalopathy who thought his pet turtle moved in and was roaming the halls. He would have full conversations with it and "point" the turtle out to us every now and then...however things took an ugly turn for the worse when he began to think we were holding it hostage. Sad part was that when he first checked in he was fairly lucid for a couple of days, after he sobered up that is.

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I had a patient with hepatic encephalopathy tell me to get all my children under control pointing to an empty corner and she also said "look at all the little kittens" while pointing to the floor. First experience with hallucinations, my face was like this :eek: lol

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I had a lovely man once having hallucinations all day, which he knew were not real. The best one was when he said (in his English accent) "I've just seen a great chicken gumbo, floating above my head."

He'd never even eaten a gumbo before!

Or the not so aware hallucinator who was hearing offers of sexual favours over the hospital PA.

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Had a guy seeing beetles crawling on the ceiling and walls. Much like the huge ones in the Mummy. This guy was really freaking out over it. I told him not to worry that they were healthy bugs since they were in the hospital. It worked.[/quote']

After major surgery, I hallucinated spiders for quite some time. Thought they were in my bed, crawling in my husband... It was like the house in Archnaphobia. Horrible! I even smacked my husband on the head in the middle of the night - hard - because I "saw" a spider on him.

Morphine. Dr. said it was the morphine. And good thing, too, to have a logical explanation because I felt like I was losing my mind!

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Specializes in PACU, Oncology/hospice.

Being a student, I haven't had the chance to see a lot of these. I have experienced one patient though, he told me I was a big black dog that was going to eat his foot off..... He then told the charge nurse that I had taken amazing care of him that day. After this he started staring at the mirror, I asked him what do you see? He responded with a big old car that they are selling. This man sent me for a loop that day (it was my first ever clinical experience) He asked me if I would place the remote on his member and told me I had a nice rear end.... It was an experience that is for sure!

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There was the elderly lady who kept talking about boxes. She would ask us to "put that maple box over there. Or that blue box looks nice". This conversation about boxes went on regularly. We had no clue what it was all about. Guess what the boxes were? Caskets. She and her husband were funeral directors. We found this out from a niece who came in to visit. LOL

Had a pt with DTs. Held my fingers up as if I was holding a string taut. Asked him what color the string was. He said purple and red.

Time for more meds :)

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

A hospital I once worked at had those IV 'rails' above the bed - an oval-shaped rail you could hand an IV bag from .My little old lady patient one night had a very amusing evening betting on all the 'races' that the 'mice' were having on that 'racetrack'.

My dad was once critically ill with encephalitis (from which he has completely recovered). He had served as an orderly in an evacuation hospital in the Philippines during the Korean war in the 50's. The unit he was hospitalized on had a Filipino gentleman in the housekeeping department - and every time this poor man walked past my dad's room, Dad was ready to rumble with this guy. To the point where they had to re-assign him to another floor for a while.

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I glanced over and there actually was a mouse just sitting on top of the vent by the window.

That's the best. Reminds me of how we realized we had a gnat problem. Patient kept complaining about flies in the room and we ignored it until it was undeniable.

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Specializes in Gerontology.

I had a pt who was determined that there was a sniper on the roof across from his window, ready to shoot. Every time I went in, he told me to duck, and watch out! By the end of the shift, I was ducking! The next night, we talked about it. He realized that it was a hallucination and we laughed about how convincing he was.

Then there was the little old lady who screamed she was in labour for most of the night. Around 2:00, I had had enough, and "delivered" the baby. The nurse with me thought I was nuts! I "showed" the baby to the pt, then said I was taking him to the nursery for the night. Pt went to sleep right away and the rest of the night was quiet!

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