I wonder if anyone else shares thus abiding memory from ICU and if indeed they can confirm my suspicions.
I actually have no real memory other than vague impressions of my time in ICU as I was still coming round from anaesthetic when The blood clot in my heart caused the problems which took me there.
Equally the first thing I knew about what really had happened was when I awoke in a step down ward a few weeks later.
My only short term memories were hallucinations. On reflection some of these were totally barmy really rather funny and had no connection to reality. But there were a few where it makes sense to think that they were an interpretation of what happened to me and so based on fact although sometimes very strange interpretations.
I remember a noise like being very close to a wind farm, like the sound as the wind blows against a cable on a ski lift. As a musician I recognised this as a sound known as the harmonic series. And it really irritated me how out of tune it was. I was convinced that the hospital must be very near a wind farm. In addition to this I was also hearing sounds like ships whistles and having done some sailing courses was interpreting them in my mind in this way.
I could never make sense of the wind farm as I know full well that there isn’t one near basildon hospital. Not in earshot anyway. Recently I have begun to wonder if this sound could have been the sound of a ventilator. And clearly the ships whistles were beepers on machines.
Actually I have never actually worried about any of it or seen records or any sort of diary. I have been quite happy just to accept that I am here now. As having been clinically dead for a short while and rescued I reasoned that I didn’t know what happened before I was born and that worrying about these things that were in the past and outside my control anyway was counterproductive and I had enough to do concentrating on recuperating without asking myself pointless questions.
But this consideration has led me to the conclusion that there definitely three types of memory associated with my experience,.
Real things that really happened, things that simply didn’t happen with my imagination running wild unchecked and things that did happen and I misinterpreted because I was not in charge of all of my senses.
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Tedsdad
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That's a reasonable assumption I think. I had a sort-of similar hallucination where I thought I was on an old fashioned ship because I could hear the ship's foghorn. I thought I was part of a reenactment of some historical event where I was playing the "crippled" person (I couldn't get up or even use my arms at the time due to being ventilated and sedated) being taken over the sea for treatment. It was a fairly benign hallucination but I clearly remember the sound of that foghorn, which I (like you) assume was something making a noise in the ICU. Another time I thought I was part of a display for the public about how ICU works. I attribute these hallucinations possibly to the fact that I was constantly exposed to strangers when I was being bathed/cleaned up/cathetered etc, which I found extremely invasive, not to mention the constant stream of doctors and nurses hovering over my bed and talking about me, so it makes sense that I felt like I was on display. It is funny how the brain interprets things to try to make sense of how you feel about them, isn't it?
Many patients think they’ve been on a boat or ship because of the pressure relieving mattresses. Of each 3 sets of cells in the mattress one deflates in turn causing a rippling effect. As far as the noises in your hallucinations some might be from alarms on the ICU equipment. If you want to hear some there is a 360 ICU bed available online where you can also hear some alarms. The link is kuula.co/share/726ZR.
We all seem to have different and similar experiences when ventilated and some of mine I think I now know what they may have been, Around noise I often heard a gurgling sucking sound and beleive this was a suction machine though I thought it was a monster! Most of my delusions were hospital based so must have had some recognition of were I was but mostly horrible.
One or two totally odd one based in a large open building above a lake with US soilders protecting the president and another when I am boarding a submarine (just thought maybe that was MRI or CAT scan). I also strongly beleive I had a near death experience calm and I remember it vividly. Odd how we get these but like a living nightmare. Best wishes,
I was absolutely certain I was near the sea or water ( the moving mattress) constantly being shot at ( the noise of the runners as the nurses yanked off their plastic aprons, I was frequently attacked by a plague of moths which had one grey wing & one luminous orange wing ( the little needle used to inject me with blood thinners had similar markings) - I spent hours trying to work out why someone had stuck black masking tape onto the ceiling in the shape of a huge flower - it was the grille on the front of the ventilation shaft. Many, many things made no sense
Likewise regarding the ripple mattress, I had dreams of being on a ship. An indoor hospital fountain played an important part in my dreams, the nearest I can figure that is something hissing nearby, maybe the ventilator.
I had the delerium both times in ICU in 2020. Some was more fantasy but the dreams I had with Covid were often violent. I found myself in Scotland, France and Cyprus and also Australia. Some in hospital settings others in war situations. The worst was waking up in a mortuary and suddenly two triangular lights would come on , one green one red. Then on all the dreams had these lights. Anyhow as you say we are still here, but I did get my notes as I had no memory from the time of arriving by ambulance and then waking up in ICU and wanted to know what happened. I am impressed how quickly the hospital found out what was wrong with me the first time. I then contracted covid on a ward, when out of ICU the first time. I was returned to ICU and ventilated and a trachy. The dreams stopped once I was awake and the nurse told me I had been in the hospital all this time.
I can relate to a lot of what has been said here. The places I went to were bizarre at best, but mostly terrifying where I would be either trapped or held to ransom. I was often placed in a medical experience game where family members were learning how to intubate people. I was locked in a burning hotel room. I was transferred to a different hospital where my family weren’t allowed to see me (then all hell kicked off) and I was held to ransom while a countdown timer ticked away on a large gas cylinder that I was hooked up to. There were lots of others.
I guess all of my memories fall into one of those three categories Tedsdad mentioned.
I found typing them up gave me some closure, but 2+ years later they are all etched into my memory and no doubt I’ll never forget what didn’t really happen!
Yes, also had the boat one twice. Once in my coma, when I was on a boat to Brazil, and it was hijacked by a bunch of England football hooligans and taken to Argentina instead (!)
Even though I can't swim I thought I had to jump overboard (as there were running battles between the hooligans and the crew). I remember it was a terrifying decision to make, but fortunately I landed in about three feet of muddy water.
I turned around to see the boat go up in a massive explosion.
On my other occasion it was in the delirium, post-coma, stage.
This was much more sedate, on a cruise ship, but I got into a great frustration waiting for my room-service order of coffee and croissants which never arrived (obviously).
Similar experiences. InJuly 2021 I was knocked off my bicycle by an electric Porsche. Thankfully the driver stopped, and he kept me alive with CPR until the ambulance crews arrived. Apparently I was struggling to breath so was intubated at the scene. I was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, and because of my breathing difficulty, I was placed in a medically induced coma for two weeks.
It took a while to eventually come round, but I too had some strange dreams and hallucinations. One day I was in Biarritz, then another I was in Bilbao - both times in a boat. The time I do remember was being on a hospital ship sealing from South Portugal through South Spain and on to Monte Carlo where it turned around and went back. I remember being on board with my son, and getting up and seemingly getting ready, my son asked where I was going. I told him we were docking in port and we had to be ready to disembark because my wife was collecting us - she would have had to drive from England to Portugal with which to do that. My son told me to go back to bed because I wasn’t going anywhere for months yet. But I was determined to be out by the be of August.
I also dreamt that the ward night staff, who were men; one of which wasn’t at all nice and was quite an bully, he looked remarkably like Neville off Harry Potter. The other was ok and I tried to get the ward sister to marry him…..after asking if she was already married or had a boyfriend. She was lovely too!!
Interesting what other people have commented on, being near and/or hearing water.
When awake but still on full life support in ICU, every time I closed my eyes I saw a constant stream of images of car accidents. Always high performance cars and always with occupants suffering horrific injuries. Before that when I was in between death - unconsciousness - drifting in and out of consciousness (around 3 weeks) I saw far, far worse. The pictures were images that rarely moved or interacted with. but the earlier hallucinations were full Dolby surround high-def 4K evil hell-on-earth - medical experiments on me, psychological and physical torture by doctors and nurses and more.
This was a few years ago now and there was no help groups and very little about ICU psychosis online.
I went to my GP to discuss these horrendous memories which, even now, are as vivid as if they happened yesterday. He told me that 'Doctors do not try and kill patients, they try to help them' which completely missed the point.
Offered no help at all, and I had no help at all, had to work through the whole thing myself.
I even drove round the car park at the hospital 9 months later when I could just about drive (!) looking for the doctor who performed the worst abominations upon me. I did that for weeks and weeks and am just grateful I never ran into anyone looking like him.
I would be serving life now if I had.
God typing this, ffs I remember why I buried this crap deep in my psyche to be avoided at all costs.
I thought the entire team planned to discharge me and laughed at the fact I coukd not walk.
I was a nightmare to handle for the staff. I feel bad about that.
I recently been back in hospital. I was very nervous. I Hooe to never have to go in a coma again. It's so hard to recover from. I keep telling myself I am not mad.
Oh no you're not mad - the brain - like nature - abhors a vacuum and will try to fill in the best it can in the absence of our senses, which are obviously switched off in a coma/life support.The part you say about being a nightmare for the staff, I am on the same page as you on that. When I came around after 3 weeks both of my arms were covered in bruises when the staff had had to physically restrain me to stop me pulling out all my lines and killing myself!
Apparently my wife sat on my chest whilst 4 doctors and nurses strapped me down the the ICU bed.
Funnily enough - and you gotta laugh at it sometimes - I can't bloody remember that part and that really happened!
You say that your glad to hear these stories as it shows you are not mad and that's great, perhaps don't read my descriptions then because I was fully away with the pixies downright cuckoo-bonkers for my stay and for a while afterwards too!
I tried to escape on a walking frame. I had a gown on and it was open at the back. I have no memory but apparently they gently made a uturn back to my bed. I also fell onto the floor as I was alone and want to wee. I had a catheter so had no need. My legs just did not work.
I was recovering in my own room. I do wonder if I would have been better on a ward. Most of my hallucinations were what I heard not what I saw.
Apparently I told my wife they played music of someone died. I heard the music all the time.
It wad all very strange. It's been two months and I am still dominant by what happened mentally. I need to have a entire night's sleep so bad. I wake at least once a night I wake with same dream. I use CPAP at night.
I wake think I can't move and I can't breath. I am ripping the mask off. Hopefully it will pass.
Not sure about the ward Larry, I think I spent around a week conscious on the open ICU having started in a side room (isolation due to unknown infection) - a small 12 bed intensive care unit.Every other patient was sedated and spent the day variously groaning, sighing, farting and beeping. I watched two people die which I am sure happened (one involved a priest so it must have) and I saw some lunatic drug addict who had escaped from Parkhurst threatening nurses until they gave him some hard drugs for his 'flu.
This boiled my piss in anger, mostly because I think bastards who consciously treat NHS staff badly should be refused treatment but also because I could have dearly done with some too! Eventually, for the sake of a quiet life I supposed, they relented and gave him the key to the medicine cabinet and told him 'to just help himself'. The silly sod overdosed and ended up needing to be resus'ed repeatedly. Eventually he coded and his heart gave out. I do remember saying to the nurses that they really ought to hide the xmas pressies under the tree if they were going to indulge ne'r-do-wells like him.
Another time the doctors decided to inject me with a special chicken-serum to see if they could get me to lay eggs. No fucking epidural either. I swear if I ever see that bastard head doctor .. Chickens - well bantams kept on appearing from my arse with all these nurses chasing them about the ICU whilst the doctors are ordering me to produce EGGS not chickens as they all wanted an omelette later.
I remember meeting an old friend who happened to be an intensivist nurse in B&Q some months later and asking him if it was possible for doctors to try out these bizarre experiments in ICUs and how they got away with it!
A buddy who was at the time living in Sweden came to visit and bought me a six foot tall teddybear/ rabbit, like Bugs Bunny with huuuge ears. He blagged some morphine from one of the nurses as he had a head cold and left.
I remember, by the time I was allowed to have a speech valve inserted in my tracheostomy, telling my wife what a dangerous place the ICU was and if she insisted on coming to at least keep an eye out for some of these dangerous goings-on.
Enough of my space adventures in the fantasy zone, does seem quite funny in retrospect.
I had much the same experience after thinking I had been taken by dodgy paramedics to Glasgow hospital instead of Aberdeen to be fed to a Cannibalistic cult worshiping a top Doctor.There was a restaurant at the far end of the ICU where elite people would come and feast on the people who were being tortured and sexually assaulted by the doctor and his girlfriend who was the head nurse. Terrifying horrible situations being crushed to death having my privates ripped off. First thing I said to my wife when I woke from coma was that I had’ nothing left down below ‘ but I am putting that down to possibly getting catheter fitted.
This all happened in July 2019 after respiratory failure . It never leaves my mind for long. I have managed to arrange a visit back to the ICU this coming Thursday.
I am hoping once I go back and see what it really looks like and see that the evil staff don’t exist I’ll be able to make sense of it.
I cannot say enough how good it was finding this site and reading of others similar experiences. I find it crazy how similar some of the stories are.
I think it perfectly rational that there should be similarities and also similarities based on interpretation through previous experience. The monitor on the bed opppsite me looked just like a German monitor on a train but the graph looked like Cyrillic writing. I couldn’t work out why we were going so fast all the time and what these russian words that Made no sense were about.
Was it ARI you were in? My stoma nurse was saying last week it would be worth me calling them and asking for an appointment with ICU after my experience. I also had the boat delirium and so many other crazy things.
Yes It was Andrea. I actually was invited back last week. It certainly helped me answer a lot of the nightmares. I am trying to put it behind me and just thankful I am still here. Does make you very nervous of any future ICU stays. I think your nurse is right and you should go back for a visit. The follow up nurse spoke with me and my wife about what was going on while I was in the coma and told me all the drugs that I had been given. I had not realised that even after I was well out of the coma I was still halloucinating around me. I wish you well and hopefully the craziness fades for you.
As I've mentioned here before I was in my coma a year ago when the euro football championship was on. The staff were obviously talking about it or watching it because my hallucinations were very much related, like me watching a group match from the stands in the 1966 world cup finals (they wheeled my hospital bed there on the train, lucky me), or me standing in the middle of a packed Wembley with no trousers on (yup, catheter - glad I worked that one out not too long after coming around).
A lot of it was much more sinister though. And yes, I thought many of the staff were trying to punish me.
I was also transferred between hospitals. I have no recollection of an ambulance, but I do remember being pushed on my bed through the streets of London being chased by an angry mob. We escaped and took refuge in the basement of a hospital, which turned out to be the 10th floor when my senses returned.
Some of what I experienced was far more abstract though, like being trapped in a parallel universe, which disturbed my sleep for months afterwards until I worked out it was just the nurses changing the sheets on my bed. So benign, but it was like my brain was missing vital information in a puzzle that had no beginning or end. Difficult to explain but I expect you will all understand this better than most.
I had a bicycle accident back in July 2021 - an electric car tried to pass me on a road that was too narrow for both of us, and being a regular and keen cyclist, had he sounded his horn or flashed his lights I would have heard him and seen him approach in my rear view blind spot mirror.
So after I woke from my 2 week coma, and spent a further 2-3 weeks in ICU followed by another 4 weeks on ward, I had strange recollections of being in Biarritz or Bilbao on a yacht, or South Portugal on a hospital boat that sailed from south Portugal to south France and back. I didn’t hear the ocean or a sound like a wind turbine, but maybe it was the ship’s engines I could hear. But I definitely heard a voice over the tannoy saying we were docking. When I was getting ready to go down to the embarkation ramp, my son, who was sleeping in the bunk below below me, asked me where I was going. I said that we were docking and had to get ready to get off as my wife was collecting us from the passenger terminal. He advised me I wasn’t getting off, and that I was on there for several months yet and to get back to bed.
It all seemed very real at the time, but to look back on it, highly amusing. Maybe it was my mind reconstructing what was being said around me, because the doctors were telling my wife that I could be in hospital for at least 7-9 months. However, through the miraculous work of the NHS and my own self-belief, grit and determination - I was discharged from hospital a mere 7 weeks after my accident.
12 months on, and I’m pretty much fully recovered from my brain injury. Just some afternoon fatigue to overcome now.
I wouldn’t claim much grit but having been to a boys grammar school in the sixties teachers who had been spitfire pilots and translators in Japanese POW camps and at Nuremberg trials prepared me well.
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