I think I'm losing it

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Last night, I dreampt that a patient, who was my age, called me and asked me if I wanted to go "hang out" just like any of my girlfriends would.

This patient died over a year ago. Died a slow, painful death after being a patient on my floor for several months. I watched her go from a bubbly, optimistic young adult to a ventilated shell of a person in mutli-system organ failure.

We probably could have been friends in another life. In a life where I wasn't the nurse and she wasn't the patient. In a life where her prognosis, which started in the single digits, didn't slip more each day with each new sore or abnormal lab result. In a world where cancer doesn't exist.

I thought about her a lot initially. Her death really bothered me given the proximity of our ages, given the hope I knew she had, and given that she is to date the youngest patient I have lost. Her family is still very involved in fund raising, causing me to be reminded of them occasionally, but I haven't thought about her much lately. And I'm never thought about her as a friend.

It bothers me that after such a long time, my subconscious is still obviously trying to cope. It also admittedly bothers me that someone who's dead asked me to "hang out."

So what do you think? Anyone ever have this happen to them? Am I losing it?

[BEDPAN76]

No, you're not losing it. This patient had a huge impact on your professional life, especially since the ages were similar. Don't worry about it. You will have dreams from time to time about your job. After I had worked in newborn nursery for a few weeks, I dreamed I dropped a baby on the floor. I woke up totally freaked out. A few days later I told my preceptor. She said it happens to everyone new. Hang in there!

[Flightline, BSN, RN]

I think dreams, especially the strange ones, have messages in them. Perhaps her calling you and asking you to hang out is the central symbol that must be figured out in order to get the message.

Personally, as I have studied what you wrote in the OP, I think you are supposed to come to a personal decision about what happens to people after they die, but maybe even more importantly--what is a life? What is your life? I think you are at a spiritual turning point.

On the surface, you are 23 and probably entertaining thoughts about losing your youth, especially as you do the old-soul work of being a nurse. This girl who was your age is permenantly young, and beckoning you to come hang out with her, and you would like to, but life keeps marching forward. Time keeps ticking past you, so you can't.

But that's just the surface psychology--maybe. The deeper issue is existential and challenges you to face the very hard question of what is a "life?" What is your life? What is your life for if you are condemned to watch it empty out bit by bit, day after day?

I think you will be haunted until you answer the question, and once you have answered the question, you won't be young anymore.

OK, so you posted, and I took a shot at an interpretation. :thankya:

Good luck to you.

[JB2007, ASN, RN]

I do not think that you are losing it. Some patients deaths will affect you more than others. I do not know why it is that way, but it is. I can remember some resident's passing more sharply and the death affected me more deeply than others. Sometimes, I was not particularly close to the resident, but for some reason how they died touches something (my soul) deep inside of me. Other times it is something about the person being gone that moves me.

So no I do not think you are losing it. I think anyone that has to deal with death needs to be able to accept these feelings as normal because it really makes a person realize that you are not going to live forever. Also, try not to dwell on this person's death. Sometimes there are worse things than death.

[leslie :-D]

i'm the last person who analyzes dreams, or anything else, for that matter.

but i liked flightline's post, esp where s/he suggests reviewing your feelings about death, afterlife, nothingness, etc.

this is a journey we should make, esp being nurses and dealing w/life/death/close-calls.

however you end up feeling about death and dying, should bring you fresh new perspectives about further interactions with deaths and even dreams.

for instance, when i have a dream about one of my pts (they all die/hospice), often i am comforted by the thought they came to visit me.

i wouldn't read so much into the dream but would encourage some soul-searching and just 'being'.

you'd be amazed with the enlightenment one can experience during these times.

wishing you the very best.

leslie

[LuvMyGamecocks]

After seeing my first code in clinical, I had nightmares about seeing his eyes. You know that look where the lights are on, but nobody's home? I dreamed that I was standing in the middle of his room (like I was when he coded), and he was staring at me with that look (like he was when he coded). Only, in the dream I stood there frozen while everyone moved frantically around me. I had that feeling where you feel like you want to move, but can't. It took a good three weeks before I started dreaming other things.

I talked with my clinical instructor, and she said that it seems to be a common thing for nurses to have similar dreams. She said she dreamed that she fell asleep on the toilet at work and woke several hours hours later to several dead patients, and that another instructor dreamed about getting to the end of the shift to realize she had accomplished nothing and hadn't seen the first patient.

My theory lies in the intelligent mind of a nurse. Our brains work and work and work, apparently even when we're sleeping. Maybe our subconscious takes the time at night (or day) to work through some issues that we have to push to the back to get through the day.

[oramar]

I think the dream is a good sign. When I start dreaming about things it means I am at least starting to deal with the situation. In some cases it means I am starting to accept the loss. Even when the dreams seem negative at the time, later on when I looked back I realized that was one of the first steps to leaving go.

[catshowlady]

I can't say that I've had this with a pt, but I have had three dreams about my mother still being alive. Mom's been gone since 2002; she died of multiple myeloma. In one of the dreams, it was as if she never died; in another, she had come back to life. Not that that makes sense, but they were dreams.

Seeing Mom alive in my mind renewed my sense of loss when I woke up. The first time it happened, I woke up wanting to go see her, until my brain woke up completely.

I don't really know why I had the dreams. Maybe just that I was missing my mom at the time, beats me.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

amazing - I read this post today a few hours after having a conversation in my head with a dead doctor. He used to come to our floor almost every day and was killed in an MVA years ago, but I still think about him. And some patients. I am glad to see that this lady touched you in some way. Try to live like someone would want to think about you after you are gone. Have you read "The Shack" yet?

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

i think we've all had dreams about work in one way or another. i've had the dreams where i fell asleep at work and woke up to find both of my icu patients dead. i've had dreams about people who died . . . sometimes they were patients, sometimes they were co-workers and once it was a visitor who went into the visitor's bathroom and blew his brains out. (yes, that really happened. i had never met the gentleman beforehand, but i -- and most everyone else involved in that situation -- dreamed about him often afterward.) if you can figure out what your dreams are trying to tell you, it will help you work through whatever leftover stuff you need to work through. journaling helps.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

When I was a newbie I dreamed about doing shifts with limbs cut off, running around trying to do tasks at the same pace/talent as experienced nurses and constantly failing. Then just as I'd think I could sit and chart they'd assign me a new admit. I'd think (in the dream) can't they see my frigging legs are gone?? How am I supposed to get all that done?? It was exactly how I felt at work, but couldn't express.

Nursing is so personal it gets under your skin and your subconcious has to have a way to work it all out. You may get some great insights if you can reflect on how your feelings mirror your dreams.

[getoverit, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

As everyone has said, you're not losing it.

I remember flying out to a car wreck one morning and finding a 2 y.o. in traumatic arrest with an open skull fx. We resuscitated her and she lived for about 3 hours. What stands out most in my mind is her tiny little hands and how cold and lifeless they felt as I put the sat probe on her thumb. I've had dreams/visions about them, I can see and feel them right now as I'm typing this....part of what we do is honor the memory of those who have died. We do this every time we remember them or tell a story about them, and I believe on some level the departed know that they are remembered.

canoehead put it well, this is personal, it gets under your skin and your subconscious needs to work it out. Your not impersonal if you don't dream about patients but the fact that you did is a reflection on yourself (and it's a good one).