Monday, August 6, 2007

Side effects of sleep

I generally sleep using one of two methods. Two to three hour spurts that leave me almost as tired as when I laid down, or six or seven hour periods of comatososity when the non-sleep catches up with me. Neither of those methods promote REM sleep. Hence, I rarely dream. And I never remember them when/if they occur.

I have discovered that when one spends the better part of a week in a Percocet-induced sleep state, coupled with unfamiliar pain about the eyeball region, one has bizarre dreams. (No, I shall not share them with you. They are quite disturbing. Some people shouldn't be naked. That's all I'm sayin'.)

Last night I skipped the Percocet and instead had a more natural Guinness and Football induced sleep. Alas, the dreams continued.

Apparently, my subconscious sees me as a cowgirl (complete with dress and horse) nurse, riding the range taking care of the sick and injured with my bag of thoroughly modern medical supplies. I swear, I had a miniseries worth of things happen in my mind last night, and I remember many of them vividly.

Bizarre.

BTW: In my dream world, if you fall off your horse and break your leg, you'll be dragged into the old-fashioned doctor's back room via a couple of roughneck cowboy-types, and put on a modern gurney, where I'll get you a blanket out of the blanket warmer, start an IV with modern supplies, hook it up to an old fashioned looking IV stand and pull your meds out of hand labelled, big, brown bottles. And then we'll splint your leg with sticks and rags.

10 comments:

Ron said...

Sounds like the makings of a wild mini-series:
Doc knows where?
Each episode has a medical professional wake up in a different time/place and has mixture of ancient/modern equipment.

OK, maybe not....

MarlaQuack said...

Well, gosh, I'm glad I'm not in your dreams.

Barbara said...

Gee. And I always used to dream about falling asleep at work...

mielikki said...

were you lasso'ed by the IV pole in your dream? hee hee!

911DOC said...

are there scantilly-clad nubile nurses wearing chaps in your dream?? i think i may have had the same one.

Anonymous said...

My sleep patterns are like yours. I would guess that years of working a 28 day swing is the cause.

scalpel said...

I've never taken Percocet, but I was surprised to read on one of those online drug conversion calculators that oxycodone and hydrocodone are equivalent analgesics as far as mg to mg strength.

If you've ever taken hydrocodone, would you comment on your take?

911DOC said...

i disagree with the calculator. i've taken both after major surgery. percocett is slightly stronger to me personally and, i thought, was generally considered to be so pharmacologically as well.

MonkeyGirl said...

I actually thought that neither vicodin nor percocet were worth a tinker's damn. I only used the percocet to enhance the telling of my story.

When I took vicodin after my wisdom teeth were pulled, and the percocet this time after the laser eye goring, the same thought occurred to me...

"People like this shit why?"

Neither of them ever made my pain go away, even when I doubled the dose.

On a side note, I have 18 Percocet tabs for sale....

Mr. Fixit said...

When I quit smoking I was using the nicotine patch. Wearing it all night gave some really realistic and amazing dreams. Lots of fun, that.

Mr Fixit