Funny Nursing Dreams

I had a dream last night that my doctor friend was hanging out with me and noticed I had a severe chronic cough (which I do have and have no idea why I have it, but i've had it for as long as i can remember!) and she said my trachea was swelling shut so she did a cric on me and shoved and endo tube down. Then, after I had my airway - she left my apartment.

So I took a cab to the hospital where I work and they didn't have any beds (which has been a problem recently. Not only are there no rooms, but there are no more physical beds or stretchers!) and they stood me in the hall way and made me draw my own labs, handle my own ventilator and give myself all of my own meds. I was very upset about this and wrote down "WHEN CAN A NURSE GET TAKEN CARE OF TOO????" and everyone said "It's just cheaper this way!"

... then I woke up feeling very frustrated!!

I had a dream where I was admitted to the psych ward where I worked at the time, I had a headache and needed some tylenol, and went to ask the nurse for some. I was told since I had worked there and I knew where everything was I could go ahead and get it, and while I was at it, I could go ahead and chart my cares too. So, I walked around the psych unit taking care of myself while a patient. And when I woke up, I tried to find my chart so that I could chart that I had given myself the tylenol and the PRN effectiveness.

I had a dream once where I heard an IV pump beeping but could not find it. I walked up and down the hall for eternity looking for the pump, only to realize it was my alarm clock, and it was time to get up.

A few weeks ago, I dreamed I went into labor at work (I'm 37 weeks), and no one would agree to take my patients. I was told I couldn't leave, or they would report my to the board for patient abondonment.

I have woken up walking down the hall looking for a beeping pump

My husband has had the pleasure of being awoken during my attempts to reposition him...can't let him breakdown!

But, I think my best dream was the day I passed boards. I dreamed 3 weeks into my new job as a nurse, my DON informed me that I would be sent to work in the hospice ward (which we don't have!), because those patients were going to die anyway, and I couldn't hurt them. So I was going from cot to cot (it was a big room with cots, like in old civil war movies) with a 500 cc syringe full of morphine giving it all the patients. Strange.

I work in the OR, and last summer I worked with the Ortho Trauma team. I had a dream that because of the busy summer accident season, team members had to host surgery in their home if needed because there weren't enough OR slots available. I was to help perform open acetabular fracture repair in my bathroom, either in the bathtub or with the OSI fracture table. Not a good dream, but when I told one of the MD's about it, she said, "It's getting nearly that bad," and had a good laugh.

What a great thread! I've had several strange dreams related to nursing, but I think that the best ones came from the last semester of nursing school when I was so frazzled that I almost fell apart. One night, I woke myself up because I was sleeptalking so loudly to my fiance. I was telling him, out loud, that his 7 year old daughter (he has no children) should stop eating so much pineapple because she was just diagnosed with diabetes and might go into DKA.

This second one wasn't a dream, but I think it's pretty funny in retrospect. One night, I woke up because my fiance came home from work, got into bed, and gave me a kiss. My internal clock was destroyed at the time because I'd been doing overnight doubles. I got very upset and told him that he wasn't authorized to kiss me because we hadn't paged the on-call doctor to get an order for it.

I had a dream that I was taking care of a psych patient in the ER (never worked ER before) pt was in 5 point restraints, and was yelling at me, trying to get out of the restraints. I was the only nurse taking care of him, but my 21 yr old sister was there. I was attempting find some ativan to draw up give him to calm him down. I think he was yelling at me and my sister to let him go, and my sister turns to me and asks, "Shouldn't we let him go?' and goes to try and unstrap him from his restraints. I tell her no, we DO NOT want to let him go, I call for help as I am still trying to find the ativan to draw up to give him when I wake up.

Had a dream that my patient from work was in our spare bedroom and I knew that when I woke up, I had to go hang my vanco piggyback. Then, I did wake up and for a few moments, I was thinking about going into the bedroom . . . aaarghh!!

I used to work nights, and was sleeping one day when my DH told me I all of a sudden jumped out of bed and headed out of the room. He asked me, "Babe, where you goin'", and told me that I responded,"I'm going to stop this IV from beeping, I'll be right back.", and scooted on out the door, only to wake up in the hall and wander right back to bed.

Still swear that was the most REAL dream I ever had, right up there with my cash register dream, where I wake up tapping the keys on my pillow.