Anesthesia & Dreams
 

I had surgery on Tuesday with general anesthesia. Ever since getting home I have had the most vivid dreams I've ever had. Even the dreams I had while taking LDN don't compare with these. :eek: It's like watching a movie in 3D! Nothing really scary but just bizarre and things I haven't been thinking of (well, not consciously :rolleyes:). The last one was about my deceased husband and it was as real as it gets! I really had to lay there and think about it before I got up. Was it real? It sure seemed like it. I know it was just a dream but has this happened to anyone else? I sort of can't wait to go back to sleep to see what's in the next exciting episode! :)

I've had really realistic and long dreams.

Your body when it has surgery (a nurse relative told me this when I had my C-section), reacts in its own way while healing.
I had many unusual dreams after my big C-section. It was the long vertical incision...and a long recovery.

When you have surgery "down there" the tissues swell, and take time to recover. They may be sending nerve signals to your brain and while sleeping your brain is trying to make sense of its own.

Also I've read that you are not eating well. This can alter your brain chemistry too. Shamans often fast before important events etc. You can get quality protein for faster healing from Whey protein shakes. Sometimes those go down easier than food when you are not hungry.

Even chicken soup would help with the healing.

I have noticed that now that I am older, I have vivid dreams when my night-time blood sugar is low. They typically wake me up, and after testing many times, I know this trigger well. I have a couple of bites from a Zone bar (about 1/3 of it) and I can then fall back to sleep quickly. If I don't eat even a little bit, I am up all night as a result!

Interesting. I only had Fentanyl for my minor surgery 2 weeks ago today. mrsD - blood sugar that's interesting as well. I skipped lunch yesterday (drank 1 Boost), didn't eat as much as usual for thanksgiving (was at someone other then moms house/cooking) and remembered my dream, still do. I almost never dream & the other morning i woke to dream of small helicopter crashing into my parents steps. No body was hurt, just didn't fire to start. Put news on in bed, small helicopter crashed overseas with no injuries.

I'm eating a little. Trying to make it good food.....like chicken soup, applesauce, yogurt, ice water. It's really hard to eat when you don't want to!

I haven't napped today. Guess I'm getting stronger. I'm still sore and moving slowly but haven't felt the need to take any pain medication. I took 2 Loritabs in the frst 24 hours I was home and that was it. I've got about 18 of them left but figured I'd just keep them in case I need something in the future. I really dislike taking that stuff. :(

Wonder what I'll dream tonight? I figured that the longer it is since the actual surgery the less vivid the dreams will get. Last night one of them was a mansion that I was living in and showing company the kitchen! :rolleyes:

Narcotics may make it hard to go #2 ...straining is absolutely not allowed I would think in your case. Not eating much will also slow bowel actions.

Did they give you PeriColace or instruct you on this problem ?

No, nothing was said. But I do know narcotics cause constipation so I'm taking 2 Colace capsules each day in an attempt to make things easier. Plus, I only had 2 Loritabs and that was two days ago. I've gone to the bathroom since so I think I'm okay. I'm eating Activia, applesauce and drinking lots of water in the hopes that helps keep things moving! :o

That's what I was told to take after my bladder surgery, Kitty. That and lots of water...it helped alot!!

I had a vivid dream after I was anesthetized for back surgery. I have partial amnesia regarding that day and the next in the hospital, but that dream - unlike others that I've had - has stuck with me. I can still imagine how one of the characters looked. It was so realistic that I struggled for awhile to figure out how those events fit into my actual life, which of course they didn't.

The anesthesia seems to have affected my thought processes for about three days after the surgery. I can't remember much about that period, and I remember several things taking place that may have bee imaginary - like the other guy in my room keeping me awake by playing familiar African music all night.

When I was "coming to" after a previous surgery, I felt intense terror, like I was dying. It was worse than any actual pain I've ever endured.

I dread the prospect of ever being anesthetized again.

I rarely remember my dreams, but the ones after anesthesia are easily recalled :D. Like you they aren’t nightmares, well not really, freaky and vivid and bizarre scenarios where everyone I know outside of the dreams act exactly how they would, but just in truly bizarre situations. In one dream my mom (an avid diyer and weird project finder) anyways she was looking for a new car, my dad was trying to talk her into a sedan even though he knows she likes little cars and really that’s how it goes every time my parents have looked for cars over the years... but anyways she manages to find a shell of a Datsun... no seats, no dash, everything is ripped out of the car except the engine.

And she went on to say that was the car she wanted, she could make her own car seats, my husband could make her a custom wood dash... just really eloborate with her plans for essentially a car frame and engine. Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out why a junkyard Datsun is on the same lot as brand new Audis and trying to tell the salesman he really should be paying us to take it off the lot....

After I woke up, I told my mom dad and husband about the dream, and we all had a great laugh over it because my mom agreed if she could find the shell frame of a Datsun with a working engine she really would by it and even said the same ideas from the dream that I didn’t share in retelling it. My husband had the same reaction as the dream and my dad as well, though he did point out it had to be a dream if we were at the Audi dealership, my mom has a bad habit of backing expensive cars into poles. So I should have realized I was dreaming if I thought my dad would let her anywhere near an Audi dealership. ;)