Occasionally I have what are called lucid dreams – in certain dreams I can actually change what is happening during the dream, and then I often remember the details of the dream very clearly. These dreams usually occur right before I wake up and often leave me feeling totally wrung out by the experience. Last night I had one of those and thought I’d share since the University of Iowa Hospital was involved. Feel free to comment and let me know if you think my subconscious is trying to say anything about our world!
The very beginning of the dream is hazy. What I remember clearly is knowing it’s the middle of the night, maybe around midnight, and I am in a room I cannot leave. As I look around the room, I suddenly realize that there is a very small black spider in the room with me, one I immediately know is poisenous and will kill me if it bites me. The room is about living room size, but has no windows or doors. I have a thin nylon beach bag with me. The bag is black with a solid bottom, but the top part is a net, so if I catch the spider in the bag I know I have to push it to the bottom of the bag so it won’t crawl back out of the holes.
I spend all night following the spider around the room, trying to manipulate it into the bag. It is a very intelligent being and knows I am trying to capture it, but is not afraid to suddenly become aggressive and go on the attack if I get too close. The spider keeps getter larger and larger as the hours go past, and it’s appearance changes, becoming more scorpion than spider looking, and beginning to get some red accent colors on it. However, I still think of it as a spider. As it keeps growing, I realize it will soon be easier to catch, as it will no longer be able to slip out through the holes in the net part of the bag.
As morning approaches I am finally successful!! I’ve smashed the beach bag right over the large black and red scorpion-looking spider and can feel it contained in the bag!! I am rolling the creature up inside the bag when suddenly I feel a sharp sting in my arm and realize it has bitten me through the net part of the bag!! How stupid I’ve been. I immediately drop the bag and spider and as it goes to scurry off, I stomp on it as hard as I can with my shoe and immediately kill it.
Now the dream suddenly switches to the University of Iowa Hospitals. I am outside lying on a typical red wood picnic table moaning about my impending death. There is a nursing station beside my picnic table, behind which stands a large nurse dressed in the traditional white uniform with a white nursing cap on her head. She seems to be listening to my story while all the time writing and reading a pile of documents in front of her. Finally, without even looking up, she says she’ll give me a shot of 1000mg of steroids and I’ll be fine. I tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, as I definitely need a shot of spider antivenom. She pays no attention to what I’m saying, and keeps working away. After a while, without making any eye contact or facial expression, she walks over, jabs a needle in my arm to give me a shot, and walks back to her desk and papers.
As I am immobile on the picnic table, maybe because of the spider venom, the nurse has to do everything for me. I keep insisting she call the pharmacy and ask for the anivenom. She just keeps working on her pile of papers and ignores me. Finally after tiring of my complaints, she calls the pharmacy and I hear her asking them about the antivenom. After hanging up the phone, she says the pharmacy doesn’t have the antivenom and they say I’ll be fine. I don’t believe it. Next I’m insistent that she call the poisen control center, which finally she does. Again she replies that they say I’ll be fine. Now I’m really panicking, as I know I must receive the antivenom within 7 hours of when the spider bit me. I’m frantically trying to calculate the hours since I was bitten and I’m running out of time. Now I insist she call the Mayo Clinic and see if they have the anivenom. She finally does, and they have it!!
Suddenly there are other people with me, sitting around my picnic table. They are trying to figure out how to get me to the Mayo Clinic. We don’t have time to drive there. Will the hospital fly me there in the helicopter? There is a huge discussion going on above my head while my mind seems to be in a fog, constantly trying to figure out just exactly when I got bit and when my seven hours are over.
The nurse comes back over to the table, looking tired and bored. The Mayo Clinic called back. They are wondering why the hospital doesn’t just give me a shot of 1000mg of steroids, as all the studies show that works just as well as the anivenom. However, you must receive the shot within five hours of the spider bite.
Of course!! And that was what the nurse gave me this morning. I wake up, alive.
Grandma's Travels and Thoughts 