For all the new nurses: who has had crazy dreams about work?! :)

dutchgirl · Aug 19, 2005

I've been a nurse for thirty years (help me!) and I still have crazy dreams like that.

sweetyjen · Aug 20, 2005

Wow, this thread came at the perfect time!! I had the weirdest dreams last night! I dreamt I overslept and called into work at about 7:30 and asked to speak to our charge nurse. she wasn't there, so my coworker talked to me and told me it was ok, just come in when I'm ready. So I get there at about 9. No one had even seen my patients yet and all their meds were late and some were waiting to be discharged. Then my charge nurse and nurse manager showed up and I had to pray that they wouldn't find out what happened and wouldn't figure out the patients hadn't had their meds yet, etc...It was so real!!! I can still remember every detail!!! This was by far the weirdest, yet most real, dream I've had yet about work! Oh and I have been a RN now for almost 3 months!!!

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Aug 20, 2005

One time about 5 years ago I called in sick because I had a headache and was just generally in need of a 'mental health' day. I shouldn't have bothered. I rolled over, went back to sleep, and proceeded to work as hard in my dreams as I would have if I'd been at work! I had horrible dreams about getting admission after admission, forgetting meds, forgetting patients, running up and down the hall, turning and toileting and feeding and lifting.........it was awful. And when I woke up later that day, I was as tired as if I'd really done all that! :uhoh21:

Which is why I no longer take sick days when I'm not sick. :saint:

porterwoman · Aug 20, 2005

Yes yes yes! Last night I dreamt I was working in an old elementary school that had been converted to a hospital; all my patients were bizarre, but the only one I can remember clearly is a guy whose entire right leg was floppy without bones and he had to sling it over his shoulder to get around--wait, now that I think of it, how did he walk? Hm. My husband told me a few weeks ago I was mumbling in my sleep, "What's that patient doing here?" Sigh. I don't want my pts coming home with me inside my head!

babynurselsa, RN · Aug 20, 2005

When I first started in NICU I frequently got stuck in what we called the boarder nursery. It was a small overflow room Just big enough for 4 babies and me. It was somewhat isolated down a short hall on the side of the unit. Most nights I had virtually no contact with other staff. So each night it was feed ....feed...feed...feed. by the time I finished one round it was time to start over again.

I started having these dreams that I missed a feeding. Several times I woke up in a panick in my dining room and I knew exactly whose feed I had missed. When I would get awake enough to look at the clock, sure enough It would be time for baby so-and-so to be fed,just opposite shift time. Finally I got to where I could wake up and remind myself that someone else was taking care of the babies right then and go on back to sleep.

Indy, LPN, LVN · Aug 20, 2005

Oh my gosh. Yeah, there hasn't been a night since I started orienting that I haven't had work show up in my dreams somehow. Night before last, I had Santa Claus as my patient. He was in fluid overload and was busy having a pulmonary embolism. Oh yes, hx of diabetes, HTN, CAD, the works.

This AM before waking up it was some kid... some important kid at his high society birthday party, and me and some doctor were there just in case his monitor went off. (he was turning 18 months old. Not one, not two.) Sure enough, he starts having pvc's a little too frequently. The monitor is this fancy thing I've never seen before that will DIAL 911 and call a code for ya, and it kept trying to do this. The doc kept reaching over and cancelling it. Until the kid has some other funky rythym, and he starts barking out orders for ... I don't remember what. I woke up sweating.

Sadie04 · Aug 20, 2005

This thread cracks me up. I've been a nurse for a few years now, but I remember being stressed and exhausted while in nursing school full time and working 24 hours a week at the hospital as a float CNA. I worked the 3-11 shift and would sometimes fantasize about laying down in an empty patient room to take a quick nap during my shift. (Not that there were ever any empty beds :rolleyes: ) I kept having these recurring dreams that I would wake up with one of my patients lying next to me and realize that I had gotten so tired I had fallen asleep at work in a patient's room when I went in to do patient care :chuckle THe dreams would be so real to me when I first woke up from them that I would be in a panic and think I was going to be fired!

christvs, DNP, RN, NP · Aug 20, 2005

These are great! I'm glad I'm not the only one having them. :)

NurseforPreggers · Aug 21, 2005

I work in L&D. Just today I had the craziest dream that my hospital got rid of all the labor beds and replaced them with this one huge couch looking thing. So all the laboring women had to lay side by side on this huge couch. Everyone was complaining that they wanted privacy. It was the weirdest dream ever.

amber1142 · Aug 21, 2005

I've been a practicing RN for only one month now, but already I've had crazy dreams about the hospital at night. The funniest one I had-I dreamed that I walked into my unit at 3:30 AM (& I'm not even working the night shift!) & in my dream I wasn't even scheduled to work-I just pranced in to say hi to people! I then proceeded to page a doctor (for no reason of course-cuz I wasn't even on duty!) & when he called back-I literally ran & hid in the bathroom! How weird is that? Maybe I dreamed that cuz when I'm really at work-I will always think to myself "Hmm....I want to just take off. No one will even notice I'm gone, right?"
So who else has had crazy work dreams??
-Christine

I dream about checking the fetal heart rate strip! (OMG, it's been 15 minutes!)

ORSmurf · Aug 21, 2005

OMG! I am a new RN (about 2 months now) and dream about work almost every night... I feel like I should be getting OT sometimes I'm orienting to the circulator position (was an LVN scrub for 8 years) and I had a dream that I had to do the scrub breaks and was going into a room that had been opened already, there were tons of trays, so it must have been the ortho room, and whoever opened for me didn't open a table cover... all the trays were just sitting on the unsterile table!! I thought I'd have a heart attack!! I feel exhausted after dreams like that.

~ Christine

I've been a practicing RN for only one month now, but already I've had crazy dreams about the hospital at night. The funniest one I had-I dreamed that I walked into my unit at 3:30 AM (& I'm not even working the night shift!) & in my dream I wasn't even scheduled to work-I just pranced in to say hi to people! I then proceeded to page a doctor (for no reason of course-cuz I wasn't even on duty!) & when he called back-I literally ran & hid in the bathroom! How weird is that? Maybe I dreamed that cuz when I'm really at work-I will always think to myself "Hmm....I want to just take off. No one will even notice I'm gone, right?"
So who else has had crazy work dreams??
-Christine