Your worst nightmare (Part deux)

Nurses General Nursing

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Nursingaround1's thread got me to thinking about the worst nursing related nightmares I've ever had.

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 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.

My funniest one is the dream I had that I was naked. I had a really fiii-iiine patient. Think Jason Momoa or Matt Bomer if he was 6'2" and straight. Yumm. Unfortunately, the patient noticed I was naked and proceeded to laugh hysterically. Ouch.

What are your worst nightmares? You get bonus points and a PM'd funny nursing .gif if they are nursing related.

I once had a dream that I accidentally walked in on my mother-in-law while she was consorting with Satan and sharpening her talons.

**awkward***

I have to stop eating Hungarian goulash before bed.

:lol2:

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Specializes in Behavioral Health.

I've had the patient I didn't know about nightmare, and when I was new I used to get the nightmare about mixing up meds - giving the guy with 3rd degree heart block the digoxin intended for his roommate, etc.

I haven't worked tele in like three years, and recently I had a dream that my old job called and begged me to come back because they had hired a bunch of new grads and needed someone experienced to help out. So I show up for my shift (400 miles away) and they've changed the names of all the rhythms and invented new ones. I keep getting asked, "Is this strip ?" by the new grads and saying, "I don't know... I don't know..." and then they send me home because I clearly have no idea what I'm doing.

I used to get dreams that my partner was doing mean things to me - waking me up over and over in the middle of the night so I'd be tired at work, removing the power cord from the coffee maker before I got up, calling all my friends and telling them lies about me - and I would wake up so mad at her... she'd be like, "What got into you?" and I'd tell her how she was a total jerk in my dream and I just needed a minute to stop being ticked off.

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I've had the patient I didn't know about nightmare, and when I was new I used to get the nightmare about mixing up meds - giving the guy with 3rd degree heart block the digoxin intended for his roommate, etc.

I haven't worked tele in like three years, and recently I had a dream that my old job called and begged me to come back because they had hired a bunch of new grads and needed someone experienced to help out. So I show up for my shift (400 miles away) and they've changed the names of all the rhythms and invented new ones. I keep getting asked, "Is this strip ?" by the new grads and saying, "I don't know... I don't know..." and then they send me home because I clearly have no idea what I'm doing.

I used to get dreams that my partner was doing mean things to me - waking me up over and over in the middle of the night so I'd be tired at work, removing the power cord from the coffee maker before I got up, calling all my friends and telling them lies about me - and I would wake up so mad at her... she'd be like, "What got into you?" and I'd tell her how she was a total jerk in my dream and I just needed a minute to stop being ticked off.

I've been pissed off at people after a bad dream. It makes me look at them with narrowed eyes for a bit.

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My PM machine is broken. If you didn't get your funny GIFS, check this link out.

A Day in the Life of Nurse Eye Roll | Nurse Eye Roll

And this one:

25 Funniest Nursing GIFs Ever | NurseBuff

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Fortunately, working in the OR means I don't have a patient tucked into some room down the hall to forget about. However, I have had nightmares about wrong site/patient surgeries and surgeries that go horribly wrong with complications.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
My PM machine is broken. If you didn't get your funny GIFS, check this link out.

A Day in the Life of Nurse Eye Roll | Nurse Eye Roll

And this one:

25 Funniest Nursing GIFs Ever | NurseBuff

They were awesome!!

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Specializes in LTC & home care.

I sometimes have dreams about showing up to work as a night-shift STNA in LTC. (I haven't worked as an STNA in about 15 years, so evidently I have some deep-seated issue that needs resolved. Add it to the list...)

I go to the time clock to check the assignments and see that I'm working West Wing. I haven't worked there in a long time. Even worse, the facility did some remodeling and West Wing isn't where it used to be, so I have to find a supervisor to tell me where it is. Of course, at 11:00p it's impossible to find the supervisor because she's on one of the units, and they were all rearranged. Usually, they moved West Wing to the south side of the building, but they still called it West. The only way to get to it was to walk through the kitchen, and we never had to put on a hairnet. I kept meaning to call the state about that but never got around to it.

Oh, and in these dreams I'm ALWAYS missing some part of my uniform. On a good night, it's just my name tag - sometimes it's my shoes.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

Once I worked LTC as the charge/med-nurse/ward-clerk/mediator, etc,etc,etc. You know the kind of place I'm talkin' about, 35 pt's on day shift with so many interruptions you can't complete a thought/sentence/task....

I dreamed I went to work WITHOUT my Maidenform bra. :roflmao: Not hard to figure out that dream: NO SUPPORT AT WORK!!!!

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Specializes in Neuro/ ENT.

I have two reocurring nightmares... neither are nursing related... well, one is school related, but I don't think that qualifies me for the nursing.gif :(

1) I have this nightmare that I am in a sports stadium, in nose bleed seats, and I fall off the stadium :( This one is similar to the one where I am a passenger in a car and the driver decides to drive onto one of those bridges that split in the middle and raise to let ships through (can't remember what they are called) while it is raised vertically, and we fall... another variation is driving on a highway and notice too late that the bridge is not finished and we drive off. I HATE these dreams.

2) I get lost in my school and can't make it to any of my classes on time and fall way behind in all my classes, I wake up from these dreams worse than I do the falling ones.

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Specializes in Hospital medicine; NP precepting; staff education.
I am oddly comforted by the fact that so many of us have the dream about not knowing about/forgetting about one of our patients. :blink::unsure:

Me too, I've have that dream before and it's very disconcerting.

I wonder why this is such a common theme? Pressure to do more? The fear that we didn't do enough?

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Three times in the last year I have dreamt that I was getting a central line, in my ICU, by one of the fellows. Three times. Always in the RIJ. I'm 11 months into my new grad year. Please, no more central lines.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

brandiep --

My 'falling' dreams always happened in an elevator.

During my first two years in nursing I worked in a Very Large, World-Renowned Big-City Hospital on the ninth floor. I actually would walk up the 9 flights if I'd recently had the dream and/or if the elevator floor hovered 6 " above or 6" below the floor outside the elevator, which happened too often for my liking.

In my elevator dreams the elevator would be ricocheting down the shaft, bumping against one wall and another. It was quite frightening. I would try to keep jumping up off the floor of the elevator, reasoning that if I was up when the elevator crashed, I would not get broken feet or legs (or pelvis or spine or....).

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