Wacky Nursing Dreams

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We've all got 'em, right?

My most ridiculous relates to something I call the 'baby escape vest.' In NICU, we stock adult-sized vests that have several pockets; in case of emergency evacuation, we are literally supposed to put as many kids as we can into the pockets before we run away.

So in this recurring dream, I'm wearing my baby escape vest, and I've got like 6 babies in the pockets. And all of the cardio-respiratory monitor alarms are going off. And we're running through the jungle, in the style of Rambo. And I just just keep thinking to myself, "Something about this situation just does not seem quite right, maybe these babies shouldn't be in the rain forest..." :lol2:

rambo-running-the-jungle-o.gif

Apparently many NICU nurses have a similar recurring dream in which there isn't any coverage on the next shift, and so the charge nurse tells them that they have to take some of the preemies home with them. I've never personally had that dream, but I've heard it from several different NICU nurses at different hospitals.

What's your craziest nursing dream?

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I got report that my patient was dead. I went in the room, and she was lying in a bathtub, dead as can be. Then one of the docs and I tried to drag her out of the bed by her feet. As we're doing this, I noticed her skin was really macerated and coming off in chunks. Then she opened her eyes and started talking.

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I got report that my patient was dead. I went in the room, and she was lying in a bathtub, dead as can be. Then one of the docs and I tried to drag her out of the bed by her feet. As we're doing this, I noticed her skin was really macerated and coming off in chunks. Then she opened her eyes and started talking.

I know it's terrible, but that first sentence made me laugh out loud. It's like a bad SNL skit. Can you imagine that bedside reporting: "This is Jane Doe, age 63, admitted for chest pain; she's dead," and the second the patient opens her eyes she interrupts report to ask for another pillow and a glass of water. :rolleyes:

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

I have the reoccurring dream that I'm working on a med surge floor, at night,

with oh, 4-5 patients, and I go the whole night without hardly seeing any of

them or even looking at their MAR's. And of course, all of them have

multiple IV meds and drips going. Then at the end of the shift, I'm always

at a medicine cart, scrambling to catch everything up before I have

to give report! And praying that I didn't actually miss any meds,

even though I haven't looked at the MAR all night.

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Specializes in NICU.
I have the reoccurring dream that I'm working on a med surge floor, at night,

with oh, 4-5 patients, and I go the whole night without hardly seeing any of

them or even looking at their MAR's. And of course, all of them have

multiple IV meds and drips going. Then at the end of the shift, I'm always

at a medicine cart, scrambling to catch everything up before I have

to give report! And praying that I didn't actually miss any meds,

even though I haven't looked at the MAR all night.

I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one having these dreams! Do you suppose it's a nurse's version of the dream about not going to class all semester and having to take the final (possibly while nude)?

I had the very dream you described last night, and was frantically trying to run through the unit and at least put eyes on each one of my patients before having to give report, knowing full well that I hadn't even looked at them all shift. I had assumed these dreams are related to the fact that I'm still a fairly new nurse, but since you've been dreaming like this for 13 years, I suppose I'd better get used to it. :)

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I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one having these dreams! Do you suppose it's a nurse's version of the dream about not going to class all semester and having to take the final (possibly while nude)?

Lol, in my version of that dream, it's 0645, and I'm trying to explain to my manager why none of my NICU babies have been fed or had diaper changes in 12 hours; by that point they're all severely hypoglycemic and need IVs to receive D10 boluses. I'm running around frantically with diapers and bottles.

On a side note, I've always been a very contentious student; I took all of the AP classes available at my high school, completed the pre-med track during my first degree, 4.0 average, etc. Through all of that, I literally never had the cliche dream about sitting for the final exam after skipping class all semester until I started nursing school. In nursing school, I had it all of the time. Go figure.

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Specializes in Hospice.

I once had a dream that I was taking a bubble bath in the middle of the nurses station while staff and doctors wee asking me questions regarding my patients. Weird!

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I once dreamed that I had a ward of 20 patients and I was the only nurse on the floor. All the beds were in one huge room with curtains between them, and all the patients' call lights were going off. So, I'm running from bed to bed, trying to take care of all these people by myself, and I keep having to leave to find things on other floors because no one bothered to restock the cabinets before I came on shift.

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
I once had a dream that I was taking a bubble bath in the middle of the nurses station while staff and doctors were asking me questions regarding my patients. Weird!

Hmmm! Whattaya know?!

I once dreamed I was asking this nurse questions about her patients while she was taking a bubble bath in the middle of the nurses station!

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.

Two dreams:

Forgetting about a patient all shift and remembering at 4am or 6am and trying to figure out how to catch them up on meds and such, and being afraid that I was going to lose my job or something.

Doing my 8pm rounds, and then going to sleep (because in my dream, that is how night shift works, you sleep between your q2h assessments in the ICU). Except that I don't wake up again till shift change in the morning and nobody has checked on my patients all night. And I'm just hoping they are still alive.

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Specializes in LTC, Rehab.

After having a conversation with one of my favorite co-workers about who does and doesn't do enough work, I had a dream a night or two later where we were outside, like at a park with several picnic tables and a bunch of our residents. I asked one of my residents why he'd asked so-and-so (one of the nurses who *doesn't* do enough) to do some trivial thing, which we were watching her do as we spoke, and he said to me "Well you and xxxxx are the only ones who do the real work, so I thought...". Ha ha... I told my co-worker about the dream the next time I saw her.

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Specializes in LTC, Rehab.
I once dreamed that I had a ward of 20 patients and I was the only nurse on the floor. All the beds were in one huge room with curtains between them, and all the patients' call lights were going off. So, I'm running from bed to bed, trying to take care of all these people by myself, and I keep having to leave to find things on other floors because no one bothered to restock the cabinets before I came on shift.

Hmmmm, kinda sounds like my actual job, not a dream...

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