Your worst nightmare (Part deux)

Surprised1, MSN, RN · Jul 11, 2015

Working in a setting where I couldn't delegate ADLS. I was playing candycrush in my sleep and when "sugarcrush" activated, I woke up in a world of relief.

You know, you're starting to grow on me! I used to get ticked off when I read your threads, now I just chuckle indulgently.

adventure_rn, MSN, NP · Jul 11, 2015

I also had one about the incredible growing cafeteria. I was on lunch break and the cafeteria kept expanding and shifting, kind of like a kaleidoscope maze, or Hogwarts. I couldn't get to the food, and I was so hungry I was ready to gnaw off my hands. Then, lunch was over and I couldn't find the way back to the unit. I was doing Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones type stuff to try to get out of there and was totally trapped. I actually had a panic attack in my sleep during this one. I was so traumatized I had to miss my shift. I couldn't stop shaking long enough to drive.

:roflmao:

Since starting in NICU, I've had these crazy, elaborate dreams where I'm either trying to abduct a baby or helping somebody else who has abducted a baby. Must be all of those Hugs tags exit/tamper alarms going off in my head. Spend the whole dream trying to evade the police, often in bizarre locales, like the Amazonian jungle or the camping section at Wal-Mart. Extra-crazy because I don't even want kids!

ktwlpn, LPN · Jul 11, 2015

I'm waiting for the elevator on the secured dementia unit...It never comes-I look down and realize I am naked but for a gown and a safeguard bracelet.....This one has made me wake up in tears.

I frequently dream I am pushing the med cart over the country roads behind the facility or down the 4 lane highway nearby-looking for those patients....And looking....looking....

benegesserit · Jul 11, 2015

I have a recurring one where I find out I've had a patient for several hours that I didn't know about. Nothing like discovering a patient to ruin your day. This one freaks me out every time.

I've had this one regularly.

I actually kinda had this happen the other day. Two residents from another hall had been moved to my hall while something in their room as being repaired. They were still the responsibility of the staff on their usual hall, and no one mentioned it to me. Sometime well after morning med pass, I noted them in the room and freaked out a little.

Not quite a nightmare, but when I first started at this job, I had a nursing baby. I'd be nursing her in the middle of the night, not really quite awake, and suddenly get all anxious because there's no way I'd be able to get meds to the other 30 residents if I spent all this time on the baby. Then I'd realize I was at home, and relax, nod off again, and repeat.

Farawyn · Jul 11, 2015

Being sure my baby is dead... then waking up 4.5 weeks later in ICU and finding out that she is already over a month old and doing as fine as a deep preemie might.
One time, I was given a combination of ketamine and a little Versed for anaphylaxis. The result was hallutinations of being group forcefully violated, which in reality were, of course, ETT, Foley, restrains, clothes off, pads on, etc., etc. Took me a few weeks to kind of force myself to sort reality from that nightmare.

Ketamine is one ****** up drug. I got to experience it during my emergency C section with my first son. All of a sudden whoooooooosh and I was in my childhood friends' basement with our little core group, playing with her dollhouse. I could smell the basement and feel the table the house was on. I heard a baby faintly crying in the backround and whooooooooosh, came back. I was having such hard tremors they had to restrain me. I had post partum for a few months, and I blame the Ketamine for kicking it off.

Yea, having a bad dream about your babies, no matter what age, is the worst.

I have recurrent unsettling dreams, but lately, not so much. Maybe I'm getting a handle, because I know what the dreams mean.

Nursing dreams have a lot to do with charting, seeing the words in front of me, and not being able to get ahold of anyone to help me take care of the patient.

And Evil Clowns. Always. Bozo, It and Poltergeist have screwed me for life there.

Farawyn · Jul 11, 2015

Extra-crazy because I don't even want kids!

Or DO you...? *adjusts my glasses*

Adele_Michal7, ASN, RN · Jul 11, 2015

This is so bizarre. Recently I had a nightmare that I was taking all these narcotic pain pills (I'm not in real life, lol.) At work one day I faxed my prescriptions to the pharmacy we use for refill. Then I went on break. I came back and my coworkers were gathered around the printer reading the fax confirmation sheets with looks of abject horror. It was so random and out of nowhere. Eeeek!

LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN · Jul 11, 2015

Recently, I had a dream that I got 2 5'ers (I work in ED) and kept getting do many pts gat I couldn't keep up...I then got a kid with four eyes-literally; a pair if human eyes and a pair of reptilian eyes bilaterally in the side of the head.

Totally freaked out about the experience, but later found out that it comes with the job.

adventure_rn, MSN, NP · Jul 11, 2015

I then got a kid with four eyes-literally; a pair if human eyes and a pair of reptilian eyes bilaterally in the side of the head.
Totally freaked out about the experience, but later found out that it comes with the job.

:roflmao:

... :alien:

nursejoy1, ASN, RN · Jul 11, 2015

I once dreamed i was cooking dinner and my (then) 6 year old walked up to me and started to speak and collapsed, no pulse/ respirations. i woke up as i was doing CPR to try to revive him. Horrible.

No Stars In My Eyes · Jul 11, 2015

Yeah I've had the one where I didn't know certain patients were on my assignment and the one where the paperwork was all wrong. But the oddest one is a recurring dream where I am both a Home Health nurse doing visits AND the med nurse on a hospital floor, both through my agency, both during the same shift. I am always late to the hospital and sometimes I decide to not even go; I don't call in, I am a no-show. At times I will show up a little late and I am wandering through hallways and past patient's rooms and can never locate my patients, or sometimes I do find them......all of them 'difficult' to deal with. Meds don't get passed, visits for dsg changes are missed...

The funny thing is that nobody at the hospital or in my agency,is the least bit upset with me for not doing my assignment, and even worse, they didn't know that I wasn't there!

I spend my dream being kind of horrified at my inadequate, undependable self, and fearful that I will REALLY get in trouble THIS time, and THEN what'll I do?

NightOwl0624 · Jul 12, 2015

When I was a new nurse, I also had the reoccurring dream that I forgot about one of my patients, or that I couldn't catch up to all the tasks no matter how hard I tried. After a while, those dreams stopped for the most part.

the other day I had a dream that I was on a new unit with tons of monitors and computers everywhere. One of the monitors was alarming and I knew it was an emergency, so I went looking for the patient. But there were no patients anywhere. And none of the other nurses would tell me where the rooms were, I just kept looking and looking...

i recently floated to a new unit that had different equipment than I am used to, maybe that was what I was working out in my subconscious.