Three mini-dreams

These three dreams arose quickly in succession after I finally got to sleep in my own bed after a two hour restless snooze on the Bali - Darwin flight.

One

I was in a multi-storey carpark, on the bottom level which appeared to be below ground as it was very dark and illuminated only by a few odd lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling. It's not a carpark that I recognise as having been to before.

I'm looking everywhere for the exit when I suddenly see Eric (as in Nowra ICU nurse) and another girl across the carpark. I walk over to them with the thought to ask Eric how to leave, when I realise he had her draped and prepped for a spinal anaesthetic, sitting over the edge of a little plastic stool.

He's holding a 2mL syringe and about to inject when I ask him (incredulously), why in the world are you doing this in the carpark?

He says "she's made a grave mistake and must be punished". As he injects she screams and I start running away as quickly as I can, and soon I see a lift. Breathlessly I jump into the lift and press a random bunch of buttons.

When the lift door opens I'm in the handover room at Darwin, and everyone's sitting there waiting for me. I grab the first consultant I see (James) and tell him "There's someone trying to murder a girl in the basement, we have to help them!"

He groans and rolls his eyes, "Oh, all right",and gets up reluctantly.

He retrieves a motorbike from behind the lockers in the handover room and we set off into the carpark. When we get there the girl is gone, but Eric is still standing here, and as we approach he chuckles evilly "You'll never get me!"

James says quietly, I'll drive by as closely as possible and you try to kick his head...
but when he does I totally miss and almost fall off the bike.

We try again and again, I try to punch and kick and pull at Eric, every time we are nearby, but he yields a little tiny knife which he keeps cutting my feet and legs with.

Just as I start to feel despair, James runs the bike up a straight part and up onto the ceiling of the carpark. As we are driving along upside down I look down and catch the shining gleam of Eric's knife in the dark.. and that's how I wake up.


Two

I'm sitting at my desk in ED when someone comes up to me and says "Excuse me, I'm just needing a bit of help with the inotropes, could you possibly come and help me?" I don't recognise the girl, who looks about 18, but I assume she's another ICU registrar I haven't met.

I say "Sure, I'll be over as soon as I'm finished here." On the screen I'm reading some food blog about how to make chicken satay sticks; I close the browser and stand up.

Suddenly the alarm goes off and there are flashing red lights everywhere. I wonder briefly if it's my vision going funny as the world flashes bright red.

I walk over to the patient and see that she is completely grey. A nurse stands by staring at the monitor, which is showing a row of flat traces including an arterial BP of 50 / 01. I shout "start CPR", then "get the arrest trolley!" "prepare adrenaline!"

The girl comes rushing up to me and says, I wasn't sure how to make up the noradrenaline and dobutamine infusions, so I started all of them at 1mg/min, is that ok?

The blood rushes to my head as I think about the ramifications of this bizarre situation, then I hear the patient groaning and realise she' s come back to life.

Then I realise she is one of the patients that I lost last year.. and wake up in a sudden fright.


Three

In this dream I am in my own kitchen back at home, and there are lots of plates full of food all around me, as if there had just been a party.

The plate in front of me has a large turkey breast, stuffed with pesto and crushed nuts, rolled and then roasted. It looks and smells delicious, though it has clearly gone cold. I'm wondering whether to heat it up or put it away, when my friend star walks through the doorway.

"I was wondering what happened to the turkeys! Now I know, you've eaten them all!" He says accusingly.

"I didn't have anything to do with this." I protest, "I just walked in and all this food was already here."

He starts shoving plates into the fridge angrily and says "I thought you were vegetarian, but obviously I'm wrong. There's the other turkey breast here, do you want to eat that too?"

Then my grandma shuffles into the kitchen and says "kids, kids, stop arguing, the turkey is already dead." She smiles at us, "I'm going to sleep now, you'd better clean all this up."

I make a cup of tea and sit at the table, wondering which pile to clean up next. There's no more room in the fridge and despite looking through all the cupboards the only containers I can find are a carved wooden box I bought in India (previously containing spiced tea) and an old mobile phone cardboard box, with an old sim card in it.

I'm just wondering which bits of food I can put into these random boxes, then my dad comes into the kitchen and says "What are you doing? It's 6am now! Have you been up all night eating?"

"No, no, I've been trying to clean up, but.." I protest weakly but my dad loses interest and instead drags my friend off into the living room. I overhear him asking "What city are you from? What do your parents do? Where do you work? How much money do you earn?"

I groan in my head and wake up.


(Even for me, this many vivid dreams in a night is too many, my head felt like it was going to explode at the end..)