Requesting Help With Dream Interpretation

“Now that my life is nothing short of being continually enjoyable, my dreams are more serious in nature.”

Interruption:

Your life is now enjoyable and you are somewhat afraid that will change (ie waiting for the shoe to drop).

In real life, you were very attentive and caring as a nurse and hope/expect other nurses to behave the same way that you did, and they did not.  You want the other Nurses in the dream to be “Dave’s”, to care as much as you did and pull their own weight. And, although you were a diligent and caring nurse you now wonder if part of the stress you endured was self inflicted, was there really a need to follow p/p every time, did I really need to CYA so much, did I do the right thing by spending so much time with that patient who didn’t even care, much less know I was trying to help (ie he was a robot), should I have spent that time more wisely. 

We all second guess ourselves and I think your subconscious is speaking to you. I would advise you to just enjoy every day that you are able to knowing that you were a great nurse who did the best he could to help the people who were put in your path; while simultaneously telling yourself that you are not responsible for the actions of others. 
carpi diem

Going to be introspective with this here...

The three Dave's are various components of your psyche. One is more serious and the moral compass for your actions. The second is chilled out and chooses to worry as little as possible. I bet he was the one who cracked a joke about the names. The third is your subconscious, hence the silence. 

The dirty patient is a culmination of your frustrations in nursing. These are the figurative and literal messes that incompetent colleagues and administrators have left you to clean up. You are left with little to no resources and are forced to drag your patient and improvise to meet patient needs. 

The patient falls but turns out to be a robot. These are the incidents or near misses where no harm was caused but you still feel guilty about them, hence the fall report. You feel that you take your job more seriously than others and question their lack of involvement in the care of patients. 

Perhaps you feel guilty about your new found freedom. This dream occurs now as a reminder to why you are happily retired and to assure you that you did your job well as a nurse in impossible situations. 

My interpretation is that you are not done with processing your nursing career with your conscious mind.

I have spent three months dismantling a barn. During this time I have consciously gone over my nursing career with a fine-tooth comb. My previous stoic personality has given way to frequent crying spells.

I started a job at the farm store. I have had little to none nursing anxiety dreams. I'm learning the new job as a cashier, and recently I had dream about a pile of returns, and I was processing these through the computerized cash register.

One thing about returns is that the cashier has to reconcile what the customer paid. You don't want to return more money then they paid because the price might have gone up since they bought the item. So my cashier anxiety dream was that, "did I check the price that they paid?"? It made me realize that I have definitely made my transition out of Nursing, instead of worrying about the narcotics count, I have to worry about the till count.

I had a dream that I moved to a new (rural) area and decided to get a job in a critical access hospital. And somehow ended up on the 7th floor unit. Lots of anxiety about phlebotomy and IVs.. and.. really not sure how a critical hospital had a 7th floor unit. ?  It will be hard for me to swap out of my specialty to going back to bedside.

21 hours ago, Emergent said:

My interpretation is that you are not done with processing your nursing career with your conscious mind.

I have spent three months dismantling a barn. During this time I have consciously gone over my nursing career with a fine-tooth comb. My previous stoic personality has given way to frequent crying spells.

I started a job at the farm store. I have had little to none nursing anxiety dreams. I'm learning the new job as a cashier, and recently I had dream about a pile of returns, and I was processing these through the computerized cash register.

One thing about returns is that the cashier has to reconcile what the customer paid. You don't want to return more money then they paid because the price might have gone up since they bought the item. So my cashier anxiety dream was that, "did I check the price that they paid?"? It made me realize that I have definitely made my transition out of Nursing, instead of worrying about the narcotics count, I have to worry about the till count.

Nothing wrong with crying spells! Seems it was a good way to process your nursing career and ‘let it go’. I do wonder though why the cashier anxiety dream. Are you really that anxious about giving the wrong change or is it an extension of nursing dreams (like a trigger PTSD response). Either way I am sure it will get better over time as any job does! I was a cashier at a drug store many moons ago so I do remember having a little anxiety over those issues but it definitely got easier with time. Back then we had to use a charge machine, you remember those kind that you placed the card in, placed the paper over and imprinted it. I know, I am showing my age LOL. Good luck! 

@Daisy4RN

These cash register machines are quite sophisticated these days. It's like learning an EMR

12 minutes ago, Emergent said:

@Daisy4RN

These cash register machines are quite sophisticated these days. It's like learning an EMR

Yeah, I thought about that. I honestly don’t think I would be up for that at this point. The registers I used are definitely antiquated at this point. I can see how the news ones would be difficult to learn. I admire you stepping out of nursing and saving yourself. Good luck with the new cash register technology!

@Daisy4RN

They aren't that bad, but it is learning curve. One thing I have to say is that it is easier for the cashier if you use a card.

One thing I always loved about nursing was connecting with the patients, and finding their sweet spot no matter where they were coming from. At a farm store, you cannot believe how much better the customers are than patients. We have a lot of tradesman come through, and a lot of the old timer farmers. We give out free coffee so it is a social scene for a lot of those folk. These customers are the greatest!

@Emergent

Sounds like a great place to work. When I worked in Insurance it was kinda like that too. People respected each other and no weird female thing going on even though the office was full of women, no gossiping, back stabbing etc. It was a great work environment. Same when I did HH, patients (for the most part) were very appreciative of the care they received. I couldn’t stand hospital nursing at all, not too bad at first but over the years everything just went downhill. 
I always said my retirement job would be a Walmart greeter bc I figured how mad could they be just walking into the door and getting a cart. 
Really happy for you that you found a good place.

We are running away with Daveys thread but I don’t think he will mind.