Something that I have found bizarre during this time are the dreams that I have had. I remember my first dream that I can recall after waking up in the ICU. It was an incredibly fluid dream, and incredibly realistic, although the dream itself was pretty trippy, for lack of a better term. I was floating around this outdoor area, sometime in spring. A soprano was singing a beautiful song that I did not recognize (it may not have been a real song at all). I had this euphoric feeling the entire time.
As my sleep patterns normalized, and after I started using a CPAP machine (I have sleep apnea) I began to have dreams with a recurring theme: walking. It doesn't take Freud to determine the reason for these dreams. My mind was focused on a number of things during my stay at the hospital, but one of the foremost subjects was the idea of walking again. I had a number of dreams where I was in the hospital, and was walking around the floor, talking to the nurses, as if nothing had happened. The first time I had the dream, the nurses in my dream were very surprised to see me up and about so soon. But in subsequent dreams everyone I met seemed to see the walking as normal.
On a subconscious level, my brain always kept the hope of walking again alive, even if my conscious mind wasn't so sure it would happen. In fact, on a number of occasions, after having a particularly difficult day in therapy, I would have one of the walking dreams, as if my subconscious was cheering me along, telling me that it would happen, I just had to hand in there and work on it.
I've only even had one dream this whole time (that I remember) where I was in a wheelchair, and even in that dream, it wasn't long before I was up and walking. I've had a number of dreams where I am using some sort of forearm crutches or a cane, but I am always doing something more that I can now, such as climbing large stairs or running.
My friends and family may be my biggest cheerleaders, but my brain is obviously a close second.
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