How my dreams are shaped by chronic illness

Chronic illness has changed the shape of my dreams entirely, both because of the traumatic event as well as neuroinflammation.

I’ve always had a special connection to my dreams. I felt like I could use them spiritually and for my personal development.

But since I got ill my dreams have changed. They are incredibly stressful and they repeat themselves — I go through periods of similar dreams and the more active I am within the dream, the more physically painful they are.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

 Here are some of the different kinds of dreams I have that are shaped by chronic illness.

The getting stuck somewhere dreams

I am able-bodied and I’m out somewhere. Sometimes I’m at a party, other times I’m out and about on the streets. Then after running around for a while I discover I am actually ill and then my body stops working. I can no longer walk, I have no energy left in my brain to speak or yell, and there is nobody around to help me, or there are so many people that no one sees me needing help. 

I try to move but can’t and after doing this for a while I wake up, often sweating because my nervous system has been doing a lot of virtual walking followed by the stress of getting stuck.

The body out of control dreams

One of the worst ‘body out of control’ dreams went something like this: 

My catheter (for receiving IV saline and magnesium) was infected. The infection had eaten into my skin and exposed my heart, I could see it thumping, and funghi was growing around it (I have no clue why the funghi was there). The funghi was neon yellow and it was almost beautiful if it wasn’t for the fact that it was eating my insides. Lots of pus was gathering inside my bandage and I had to prevent the bandage from leaking and bursting open with my hands. All of this was happening while I was running around an airport trying to find a doctor.

I was elated (and in pain) when I woke up from this one. 

The hospital/shouting dreams

I had a very traumatic hospital visit back in winter 2020 and for a year after I had dreams of hospitals where I would wake up at 4 am in the morning screaming or shouting inside my mind.

One dream involved a doctor who refused to give me the necessary dosis of IV magnesium I need to not get cramps (this happened in real life, too) and I started shouting “Give me the fucking magnesium! Give me the fucking magnesium!” until I woke up in a sweat and neuropathic pain from all the effort of shouting in my dreams.

Another dream involved a hospital visit where I had trees growing out of my feet and the doctor kept saying they had to cut off my legs, and I kept telling them the trees weren’t my problem, but they insisted and wouldn’t listen and so I screamed and screamed until I woke up — again, sweating and in neuropathic pain. 

The wheelchair gone amok dreams

Ever since I got my electric reclinable wheelchair I have had dreams where my wheelchair (with me in it) would go amok. The dreams are hard to remember because there really isn’t a plot or a narrative set of events, it’s just my wheelchair not doing what I need it to do, like going backwards when I want it to move forwards, or going at warp speed when I need it to go slow. In one dream, my wheelchair even started climbing walls. These are always stressful and I find them useless, because I absolutely love my wheelchair.

Technicolour, loops and rejection dreams

The other recurrent dreams I have are such as hallucinogenic dreams where everything is in technicolour and immensely trippy, like large neon-purple worms emerging from neon-red soil. This usually signals that I am more sick than usual. 

Then there are the annoying loop dreams. These are playing out some version of me trying to put a square peg into a round hole over and over and over. These dreams feel like my brain has run out of creative content and has nothing better to do.

And then there are the rejection dreams. These are emotionally tough and often leave me feeling blue for the rest of the day. They involve some form of rejection, like nobody wanting to play with me, or being left somewhere, or shouted at for being disgusting. These are very personal and emotionally painful dreams as I have experienced a lot of rejection since getting ill — I guess it’s been too much for my conscious brain to sort through.

 What about you? 

What kinds of recurring dreams do you have?

What are they shaped by? A particular event, illness, stress, etc?

How do you feel about your dreams lately?

Do you have any of the same types of dreams that I have?

One last thing: It would make me (and hopefully other people) incredibly happy if you shared this post with your friends.