Nursing Dreams

[2bnursescrubs]

Does your career affect your dreams? What dreams have you had that were a result of a different day at work or stress or the opposite, content? If you remember any I would love for you to post them. I just woke up from one of those that's why I've decided to start this thread.. but it was about my school not so much about nursing itself but served as a great inspiration. I remembered why I can't wait to go through all of this. So have you had any dreams where you are communicating with patients or working very hard or plain "partying" at the hospital? :) Do you dream about your work often?

[whipping girl in 07, RN]

One of the nurses I work with had a dream where she and two of our co-workers took several of our chronic vent patients (surgical ICU in a hospital with no vent stepdown unit) on vacation in a big RV and they were taking care of the patients while driving cross-country.

At my other job (I work in metabolic support at a different hospital), there's a patient who's in a persistent vegetive state on a vent who's been there for about a year and a half. We see him once a week to write a note about his tube feeding. When I was still a bedside nurse there, I took care of him a couple of times. The other night I dreamed about him. He had gone into renal failure and we were going to start him on CVVH. The nephrologist had come put a dialysis catheter in him and wrote some orders, but he didn't complete them. I kept paging him to get a replacement and dialysate rate, but he would never call me back. I called a different nephrologist, who wouldn't give me orders because he wasn't on call and yelled at me. Then this patient (who hasn't moved in a year and a half) just suddenly went crazy and jumped out of bed. All I could think of was "Don't pull out your dialysis catheter!" and I was yelling at him to lay down. So then I had to call the doctor who won't call me back for an Ativan order.

My other recent work dream was last night. I dreamed about a co-worker who was fired last year for sexual harrassment. I dreamed he was back and walking through the unit with a big smile on his face and no shirt on, just scrub pants.

I'm about 7 months pregnant though and everyone's been blaming that for this rash of weird dreams about work. I usually only dream about work once or twice a year (that I can remember, anyway). I do dream about the persistent veg state guy every few months though.

Konni

[nurse_clown]

[color=darkslategray]on the topic of dreams, i have a question. i feel kind of silly asking this question because i've tried to read on the topic. it just doesn't make sense. i understand about the rem bit. and we dream mostly towards the end of our sleep cycle. but do dreams mean anything? why do we have such weird and crazy dreams? does everybody dream in the same way? i find dreams weird, interesting and crazy at the same time. i can have some pretty wild dreams. my favorite dreams are the ones where i'm about to eat at a giant smorg. i love food dreams. i day dream a lot too and those can get pretty weird.

what are they?

[all4schwa]

i believe that dreams are the minds way of sorting things through without the conscience thought processes interupting. sometimes my dreams are just so totally bizarre that if they are reflecting anything lying hidden in the depths, I prefer it stay there!

[2bnursescrubs]

Hey guys. Thanks again for posting your dreams. And even posting a friends-dream Konni :) Congratulations on your pregnancy. If you have some time off right now could it be that you miss your work a little? Maybe your mind is sorting through everything that happened over the last "period" of your work. I think that dreams are just a reflection of what's going on outside and within us.. if we are ill we might have a nightmare or if we are very excited the dream might be "loaded" or fast-paced. I think it's our subconscious reflecting on what happened or how we feel. But thanks again for posting your dreams