Dreaming about work?

[kool-aide, RN]

Hello Allnurses!

It's the summertime and as you know, pt census is usually down in hospitals. Lately, since I've not been getting a lot of my hours and haven't spent much time at work, I have subsequently been dreaming/nightmaring(is that even a word? LOL) about work! Sad, I know.

I've had several different kinds of dreams/nightmares lately... Mostly about having an absolutely IMPOSSIBLE amount of work to do and in a short period of time(think about 150 total care bed baths in 20 minutes:eek:).

Or, having bed alarms go off and literally jumping out of bed to run to the pt's room, boy did I feel foolish!

Last night, I dreamt that I was doing some sort of sterile procedure, and for some reason today all I can think about is putting on sterile gloves... Don't know why...

Share with us your freaky, weird, scary dreams about work!!!!

[chicookie, BSN, RN]

I get the alarms are going off all the time. I used to hear them everywhere as well. My family thought I was going crazy at one point because any time I heard some kind of beep I would automatically reach out to shut it off.

I've woken up many times thinking that I had to shut alarms off. Never have I gotten up to turn them off though.

I usually don't dream of work, mine are usually that I am late for work. So then I wake up in a panic only to realize its 2 or 3 in the morning. -_- I hate when that happens.

[Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN]

I live with my parents (yeah, I know...but boy do I save money!) and one day my mom tried to wake me up for dinner or something. I sat up, said to her, "I JUST gave her pain medicine!" then rolled back over, completely unaware of our conversation.

One night (well, day!) I knew I was going to be following a...well...less than competent nurse, and I dreamed that one of our patients decannulated himself. I went to work that night, and, seriously, I'm not kidding....he had done just that around lunch time!

I have had the "I just remembered I have another patient and it's already 6 AM!" dream a few times.

I've also dreamed that I've come in and all of my patients were either dead or lying on the floor!

My favorite was the dream in which a long term patient (placement issue - you know the deal) was adopted by my friend's aunt and uncle in Georgia. He sat in their living room in his hospital gown.

[brownbook]

I have nightmares!!! I often have the, "I just remembered I have another patient and it is already 6 AM." dream. I now work in a clinic that is (usually) closed nights and weekends. I dream it is almost time to go home and I am suddenly told there is one late case and I have to stay all night to care for that patient!!!

I am the most calm sweet natured always say yes nurse you could find. In my work nightmares I am cussing, swearing, etc. Doesn't take Freud to figure those out!!!!

[rnsrgr8t]

I have random dreams about work all the time. Sometimes they are funny and include various randomness about some of my frequent flyers and I wake up like, "what the heck was that?". When we are having a stressful period at work I get those freak out dreams, (came into work late, wrote the wrong script for a patient, forgot about a patient, misdiagnosed something etc).

I do remember during a VERY stressful time at my first job out of nursing school (talk about nurses eating their young, it was a nightmare). I was on vacation with my family and some family friends. I was sharing a room with two of my friends. They woke up one morning to tell me I had been talking in my sleep (I do that a lot) all night and it was all about work. The scary thing was I was NOT having dreams about work. I think my subconcious was trying to work things out in my head. I ended up quitting that job a month later.

[mazy]

Let's see

Dreamed there was a foley coming out of my bath tub drain, patent and draining clear yellow urine.

Dreamed my med cart was possessed by the devil and was chasing me around the facility.

Dreamed I lost my med cart and found it out by the dumpster, said, it's too late now to pass meds, I'm going home.

Dreamed the eternal, never-ending med pass, but in my version, I gave everyone a pink vitamin pill, then discovered at the end of pass that the "vitamin" was actually morphine.

Also, when I was working days, I had dreams where I would come into work, get a full report, then someone would come and tell me I was working at another unit, I would go get report, then they would tell me I had to go back to the other unit, so several hours had gone past and I hadn't gotten around to passing meds, couldn't find my patients, and didn't know any of them. That actually happened a couple of times so I stopped working days.

[military spouse]

When I worked in hospitals, I would always have trouble sleeping/nightmares the night before. I was fine once I got there, but I DREADED going so much that it affected my sleep. I've never had that problem in any other setting

[Double-Helix, BSN, RN]

I usually dream about work the night after a particularly stressful shift. They usually involve me not knowing who my patients are, not being able to find supplies, or forgetting to give medications. My last work dream involved a kid crashing while ventilator alarms went off all over the unit.

That dream had me so frazzled that when I took a shower the next morning, I stepped out to dry off and realized I had only shaved one leg. :smackingf

[nola1202]

I used to hang my ugly uniform skirt for clinicals over the back door knob and run around in my white nylons before work (black dog) I kept dreaming I showed up at clinicals without the skirt. I'd get out of my car, look down, no skirt. What do I do?

Drive home through the snow and get the skirt or go into clinicals (before cell phones) If I was late, I'd be sent home with a zero for the day.

[Rabid Response]

I'm always dreaming about work and sometimes AN. Its sad. My most recent nightmare was when a pt. was being carried out by the undertaker but then opened his eyes and starting talking.:eek:

I had a similar nightmare recently. In the dream I was in attendance at some bizarre educational post-mortem the attending MDs were holding for the new residents. There were three bodies laid out on gurneys. The one closest to me was the body of a young woman who still had an ET tube in. At one point during the presentation, the young woman opened her eyes and started moving her hands. I yelled for the doctors to do something, that she was still alive, that we needed to start bagging her or remove the tube or SOMETHING. But the attendings just said, "Oh we declared TOD an hour ago, we can't revive her now." Everyone was just standing around watching. I was so frantic and horrified that I woke up with my heart racing. Then I went back to sleep and swear I had the same freaking dream two more times that night with no resolution. Ugh.

[nursinger]

I had a wild dream one night. I dreampt I had given a resident a fleet enema and he let loose a giant stool bigger than he was!

[casi, ASN, RN]

I've had frequent dreams about work .

The most memorable is I dreamed I was doing post-mortem care on an individual. As I was getting the gentleman in the body bag something reached out and touched my arm. I work up sitting up in bed with my heart racing. My cat was next to me reaching out pawing at my arm trying to wake me up to pet her.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

I have frequent nightmares and weird dream about work. I'm late or forgot a patient or I live elsewhere near my extended family and work at a different hospital. Sometimes I dream I'm at my grandmas house and it is full of patients that I have to take care of. Lots of weird hospital dreams. One time we were talking at work and just about everyone had these type of dreams. Some would jump up and get out of bed trying to fix a patient and their husband would wake them up or talking in their sleep frantic and be woken up.

I really hate the alarms the most of all. I just like peace and quiet and keep the noise level down at my house. Sometimes just want to throw something at the alarms to make them stop. Drives me crazy! I'm only glad I'm there only 3 days a week so I don't have to hear them so often!