These Dreams

I experienced some fairly intense nightmares and hallucinations during the first week and a half of my time in the hospital. To this day I can only remember a few fragmented minutes of reality from that time period, but I remember the nightmares and hallucinations vividly. The strangest thing about them is the fact that I never remembered dreams before the accident; never. The last dream that I remembered before the accident dated back to when I was about twelve years old. Since then I would sleep soundly at night and wake up in the morning without any memory of the things that my mind had worked out through the night.

This has changed completely since the accident. I now remember dreams often when I awake. I always forget the content of these dreams soon after, but I do remember them upon waking. It’s a fairly big adjustment for me because it has changed the way in which I function mentally after more than four decades. It’s a strange thing to have my subconscious thoughts played out in short stories as I lay asleep and unable to direct my own thoughts. The whole concept seems so strange to me after living the majority of my life dream-free. It can be distracting to me at times, but life’s a freak show.

Anyway, back to my time in the hospital. The nightmares that I experienced all had to do with me being in a hospital, with many of the scenarios having to do with my inability to move freely in one way or another.  They seemed so real to me that it took several months for my wife to help me in distinguishing between fantasy and reality. The strange thing about it all is that my rational mind knew that the things experienced through my nightmares and hallucinations were impossible, but the intensity and vividness of those things had me holding on to the various experiences as though they were all true (well, that and the drugs that kept the pain under control). In one case, I would speak to my wife about a certain nurse that I thought had been particularly evil, but in truth the things that had happened within my mind concerning that nurse were very much impossible. It all was.

These things bother me to some extent to this day, and I’m not even quite sure why. It almost feels as though I actually experienced those things and consequently hang on to them as a valid part of my past. They are the uglier side of the time that I spent in the hospital because the actual realities of that time period were simply a matter of daily coping and adjustment. The dreams, however, were a source of torment. I try to ignore them when they arise within my thoughts now, but they remain a part of me that just won’t let go. I realize that the power to let go of these things lies within me, but I can’t seem to relegate them toward being the mental drivel that they truly are.

The mental impact of these dreams and hallucinations has diminished somewhat over the past years, and I’m certain that they will continue to be minimized over time. Until then I’ll try to shift my focus when they arise within my mind. Well…that, and I’ll be hoping that someone invents some type of IV drip that produces the sensation of buttered popcorn so that I can enjoy my newfound dream world to a greater extent.