I am feeling more at ease with life and myself. Hooray! I’ve noticed that I am not walking on egg shells any more. You know that feeling, don’t you?  That any minute now something is going to happen. Or the feeling that you should have done something but you haven’t. It’s hard to rest wrestling with all those fears. Now that they are gone, Sheba and I don’t have to keep watch over our shoulders. We can move on.

Having said that, it is a bit strange that I am having some vivid dreams lately and remembering some details. Last night the guy had to reassure me it was a dream. I was screaming. I think I let out 2 or 3. A man was coming in through the basement window. I could see him putting his leg through. I couldn’t find my voice at first and had to work very hard getting the screams out. Apparently I succeeded! I wonder if my dream came from the book I’m reading, John Irving’s Last Night in Crooked River. It is a very good read. I’ll try not to read the ending first as often I’m unable to wait.

I seldom dream about work but last week I did. I dreamt that I had mixed too much potassium into an intraveous bag. I was trying to retrieve it and prevent it from being administered. That was all that I could remembered. I’m not sure why the dream showed up. It’s been 4 years since I’ve stopped working. Such an incident had happened many years ago. Only then it involved a dialysate solution. It was a REAL nightmare. I was happy I had good instincts and paid attention to my unsettling nerves.

The order for amount of potassium to be added did not feel right. I was assured that was what was ordered. I paced and muttered to myself all night. I had lined up the vials of potassium on my drug counter. I couldn’t make myself break them open, draw them up and put it in the solution. I checked and checked. It wasn’t till morning before I could detect the error in transcription from the Doctors Order to the medication sheet. I had not yet started the morning cycle of dialysis. Big sigh of relief.

I wonder how long things stay in our psyches to pop up in our dreams years later. I hope my psyches is cleared now and no more bad dreams in the night. It is very hard to bring out a scream in a dream. Maybe I am twice as scared in dreamland. I used to dream about ghosts sitting on and paralysing me. Only it felt very real to me. I couldn’t scream or move but I could blink. I would blink furiously to prove that I was awake and not dreaming. I would struggle to reach the lamp. If I can turn the light on, it would scare the ghost away. I would stretch and stretch. The lamp is knocked over. The cat jumps from the bed. The weight is off me. I could move. But when I looked over at the lamp, it was not knocked over. It was where it should have been.

The mystery is still a mystery. Were my ghostly visits dreams or were they real? I’ve had no more dreams or visits from Casper or other ghosts since. It was been a long time ago. I guess we do lose our sensitivity to their presence as we age.