Hospital Dreams

I’m about one day into my second round of chemo. I’m feeling okay and I’m the most optimistic I've been since the operation, which really set me back psychologically. It went from “i’m going home tomorrow” to “Off to the operating room”.

I thought I’d blog a bit about my dreams here in the hospital. The night of my breakout from the ICU, I had an absolutely transcendental short dream. They gave me some Ativan and I put on my iPod. A tune by The Cure came on. 

For those who don’t know this band, they were hugely popular in the post punk 1980s. They would create a huge wall of sound drone background and sing angst ridden lyrics. Those who aren’t too crazy about them (e.g. my wife) complain their music never goes anywhere. But, as with many things, their weakness is their strength. One (this one at any rate) can lose him or herself in the the lush, repeating droning wall of sound. 

That’s what happened in this instance. I was transported to some alternate universe where I was floating through some multi colored liquid at perfect peace. All of The Cure’s tunes are pretty long. I don’t know if something else by them or a similar band came on next, but I remained in this state for what seemed to be a long time. In any event, I came back to reality in a much more relaxed and mellow state. 

Some of my other dreams have been more on the humorous side. Early last night I dreamed I was an Olympic athlete. My sport was sort of undefined, but I wasn’t young in the dream. I must have been a marksman of some kind. What was fun, though, was wandering around the village and meeting famous athletes, who were also ill defined, at least in my memory at this point. Hopefully, I met Alex Morgan.

Another from last night had me making a couple of espressos on a machine that looked like the pole with all the pumps attached to it that is my permanent companion here in the hospital. Not a surprising dream, but where did the espresso come from? I told the nurse about this and she said they hadn’t made that attachment yet.