Nursing Dreams and Nightmares

[Joe V]

It probably happens to every Nurse ... the dream about the constant beeping of the IV. Almost every Nurse takes their job to bed with them and dreams about some of the craziest things. Nurses can't get a break even when asleep. Is this you? Have you had nightmares? Tell us about some of the off-the-wall dreams you have had.

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[brownbook]

All of the above, except being taken out by the dresser!

I have dreams kind of like sevensonnets where I work in a least 7 - 10 story hospital with a nightmare of a floor plan. I leave my unit or am trying to find a department and wander up and down ramps, hallways, up and down elevators, grand circular staircases, sometimes even go outside thinking if I can find the front entrance I can get back to where ever in my dream I am supposed to be.

I don't think I ask for help either.

[Julius Seizure]

LibraSunCNM said:

I'm sure this is very common, but dreaming that at the end of a shift, I find out I had a patient I never knew about or saw once.

Back when I worked nights in the ICU, I would dream that the way things worked was that the nurse slept between the Q2 hour assessments. I would dream that I did my 8pm assessments and then went to sleep and didn't wake up again till morning. I would wake up in a panic because nobody had seen my patients all night and what if one of them was dead??

[NotYourMamasRN]

I have this dream that keeps happening where I go to work and it sucks.... Oh wait, my bad, that is real life :-/

[TriciaJ, RN]

brownbook said:

All of the above, except being taken out by the dresser!

I have dreams kind of like sevensonnets where I work in a least 7 - 10 story hospital with a nightmare of a floor plan. I leave my unit or am trying to find a department and wander up and down ramps, hallways, up and down elevators, grand circular staircases, sometimes even go outside thinking if I can find the front entrance I can get back to where ever in my dream I am supposed to be.

I don't think I ask for help either.

In some of my dreams I am trying to get back to my unit but the staircases are all rickety and the elevators are unreliable. Some even go sideways. I'm always trying to figure out the safest way to get back to my floor without falling through a staircase or down an elevator shaft.

[sevensonnets]

Or you have to go outside and down the block to find your patients and then you can't get back in the building!

[sjalv]

I've dreamt before that a patient of mine started coding and I knew they were, but my body couldn't perform compressions. I could yell for help, push the code button, position the bed supine, but my arms were like jelly when I went to do compressions. It's like that stereotypical dream where someone is chasing you but you can't run, or you fall and can't stand up.

[NursingNapsNetflix]

Definitely have had the one where I found out at the end of the shift I had a patient I didn't know about! I am so glad I'm not alone in that.

I have dreams all the time that I drop a newborn I am caring for or see someone else drop him/her. Then I have dreams that I'm in labor!! Or getting External Version or having triplets! ugh its tiring to dream of work in between shifts, that's for sure!

[bungee]

I have a recurrent nightmare as an ECMO Primer. For some strange reason my patient is on circuit while being in my garage. There is no one around while the ecmo machine is either "cutting out" or has air entrapment within the pump head. Drives me nuts!

[AJJKRN]

bungee said:

I have a recurrent nightmare as an ECMO Primer. For some strange reason my patient is on circuit while being in my garage. There is no one around while the ecmo machine is either "cutting out" or has air entrapment within the pump head. Drives me nuts!

Maybe it's just me but being in the garage makes perfect sense!

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I hung up my stethoscope three years ago and haven't worked in a hospital in a dozen years, but I have frequent nightmares that I'm back on my old unit and can't find anything, including my patients! I bumble around and my co-workers laugh at me, without offering to help me or even acknowledge that I'm stressed to the max. It's as if I weren't even there...until the nurse manager hunts me down to ask why I haven't done any assessments or passed my meds. {{{shudder}}}

[choughlesRN]

The two dreams that take the cake for me are 1) a dream in which our hospital had us "pre-admitting" patients in a house: no meds, no vitals machines or labs, just us.

The other dream was one in which I forgot to enter an order for a patient, and I woke up attempting to enter orders on my phone. I opened 3 or 4 random apps before realizing it wasn't possible...

[AlwaysLearning247, BSN]

When I did night shift I would wake up on my nights off in a panic thinking I didn't give someone their medication. I would think I was sleeping at work and forgot about my assignment, only to realize I was in my bed at home on my night off!