Psssyyyychhh!!!

Ok so my dreams...I usually don't and won't talk about them. I very much so believe in the power dreams have, the power unique to every individual. For some, they have the power to show clips of the future. For others, dreams bring people back to certain memories, so rich and real that they wake up and wish they could go back again. Other dreams bring an opportunity to talk to someone you miss, whether they still roam on this planet or not. Others let you try an experience that maybe you always wanted to try or were too scared to try, and boy does it feel real. Others let you have a conversation with a celebrity, or someone you've been wanting (or avoiding) to talk to. Others just recreate an image of what your underlying subconscious is trying to say, just in a sometimes funny or scary fashion.

Well last night I had this dream that I was at work. (If you don't already know, I am currently employed working as a nurse aide in a hospital). It was busy on the floor, I had been seeing a lot of patients. I started not to feel well, and I realized that Matthew was on the floor too...as some type of employee (aide, security, transfer..etc.). Whatever he was, he was working with the same patient I had to see. Matthew asked me to bring him something, across the room. Except when I tried to walk, I felt so, so drunk. Now mind you, I've never been drunk so I can't actually say that thats what it felt like in the dream, but If i had to guess what it felt like, I'd say that. Everything was spinning, and I couldn't seem to put one foot in front of the other, it was surreal. Everything was so funny...I remember laughing a lot at the fact I couldn't manage to walk across the room. In my dream however, I knew that I wasn't drunk. I was at work, I hadn't had anything to drink. To me, It felt like a medical condition, that something was terribly wrong with my body (neurological). That's when I asked Matt to carry me away. To my surprise, he did. He brought me into an empty hospital bed and let me lay down. I wanted him to lie with me, but before I could remember anything else, I guess I fell asleep because the next thing I know, I wake up (Still in the dream!) and Matthew is lying on the floor. I am still in the hospital, but my bed had moved to this crammed space where all these back up supplies were kept. I slowly got up, since I had felt a lot better. Then Matt disappeared, and the door to the room opened, with a stretcher coming through with a patient on it. I immediately got up and went to help transfer admit this patient...I did my assessment, did the usual, got him comfortable. It was an older man AAOX3, so I wasn't too alarmed. THen i realized his bed didn't have a fitted sheet, so I asked Matt to grab me one from our supplies cart. But they were gone, so i ran to our closet and they were gone too. Then I realized the bed I had been sleeping on hadn't had one either. Then this nurse came running to me and told me patients weren't allowed to help with admissions or roam the halls without permission, and that I was supposed to be in bed. We were on a psych ward. There was no matt, it was an aide that had carried me to my own bed, everything was a hallucination...The "drunk" was a side effect to a knock-out medication. Then I woke up. For real.

I know...This is why I usually don't share my dreams because people think I'm on drugs. I always have had the gift(I think its a gift anyway) of having magnificently vivid dreams. They mean a lot to me. This one...well, you can see why they give me a lot to think about when I wake up. My rationale for it is that it is a reflection of my underlying fear of going to the psych ward this semester for clinical rotation. I know I shouldn't be afraid. Out of all people in my class even, I should be the least afraid, right? I have had multiple nurses, patients, co-aides tell me that I am so great with psych patients. I have this natural ability to calm them down, when they aren't too far gone. I can calm anxiety attacks down very well. I can help dementia patients come back to reality even for just five minutes. It comes natural to me...the psych ward this semester shouldnt be anything I'm not used to one bit...but that doesn't mean I'm not scared. I've mentioned this in another blog before, I hate patients being unpredictable...One minute they can be completely calm and the next they lash out and grab you. Some of our nurses and aides have been sent to the ER from this. Scratches, bites...they come easy and all of us have our scars. Its not that I'm scared of being hurt...thats not it. I guess I don't know what my true primary fear is. Something I have to think about. Maybe that will help my anxiety in terms of this coming semester (for Med Surg and psych).

Well, I have to go read for my Psych class now actually. Corny introduction stuff (yay).

For now, with love,

~A Writer in a Nurse's Body

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