Heart problems and surgeries (dreams)

snickie · Feb 06, 2016, 08:36 PM

Oh the joys of having heart problems - in your sleep.
Open heart surgery
Needing open heart surgery but the drugs haven't been able to knock me out
Being conscious during open heart surgery (astral projecting?)
Being told I need open heart surgery but refusing because ???

I've had a number of these over the years. Aside from the obvious meaning of "there's something wrong with my figurative heart that I need to sort out", ...

Anyway.

Undated, probably sometime in 2009

Possible trigger:

So. This was just after I'd found out that my friend had to have the thing in her mouth to make it bigger. So in the dream, I had learned that it had to be surgically implanted, and I had to have my wisdoms out anyway, so we were all in [large town] getting ready to meet the oral surgeon who would be performing the procedures. We were in a hospital food court-like area like ones at malls (although why this was in my dream is something I've yet to decipher), and we were on the crowded second story. Some basketball star or something and his basketball star dad were there too with their balls, so they decide to show off by doing these spectacular tricks while tossing the ball back and forth. Well the son accidentally hits me in the back of the head and knocks me over the railing face-first. I fell on a table below, breaking it in half (amazingly) and making a mess. I remember something about the doctors saying I had broken ribs and they were penetrating into my heart, so they were going to have to do open heart surgery. They had me strapped to a gurney and moved over to an operating table quickly. Somehow my shirt was removed in the process. They gave me anesthesia through the mask, and I remember them making the first incision across my chest as the anesthesia caused me to black out. Then I woke up.

This one isn't specifically about my literal heart, but it seems relevant to the one after given they're close in proximity.
Trigger warning: suicidal ideation
23 June 2010

Possible trigger:

[23 June 2010
This may be the weirdest and most disturbing dream I've had yet. Basically I was trying to commit suicide by not breathing, not eating, cutting, etc. I was so close, too, and then paramedics and doctors came to dissuade me. Finally, as I was about to kick the bucket, they revived me, though not happily. They made me eat again and nourish myself. Later, I was in some mall, and I heard tons and tons of gossip about who I'd tried to kill myself but even failed at that. Then, somehow, I was outside in some pool-like thing that fat people were swimming in even though it was actually blue tarp. But somehow they were swimming in it. I really don't remember much else. But it was really, really disturbing.

30 June 2010
Trigger warning: suicidal ideation

Possible trigger:

30 June 2010
There was some conflict between my high school's band kids and… the French? So I eventually ended up bringing in the most French band geeks and stuff, and the captured were playing volleyball. Then at the end of the whole thing, we all had this concoction stuff to eat, and the DJ dude announced awards. Then one of the cat-bloods got sick and started rolling around frothing at the mouth. The DJ then realizes that the concoction was actually poisonous to cat-blooded people, which made me glad I hadn't eaten it. Finally, though, after the awards had all been announced, I was mad because he had neglected to recognize me for bringing in the most of the enemy, instead recognizing someone who had brought in way fewer than I had. So Olivia the cat-blood, who had recovered quickly from the poison, told me the effects of the poison on a cat-blood, and I drank the last of everyone's. I then proceeded to collapse unconscious onto the floor and have a heart attack. I woke up in the hospital being told that I had been worked on for 15 minutes and that chances were it would take over 54 weeks to recover. The blood tests had been sent out a week ago, but I was allowed to travel the hospital in my gurney. So I went outside and enjoyed the mountain scenery briefly before I woke up.

I somehow managed to go several years without remembering any heart-related dream, though not without dreams of various other body parts needing surgery or whatever. Also there are a few months' worth of missing dreams from when my phone crashed and I had to replace it and was unable to recover that particular file.

4 May 2015 (amid finals stress)

Possible trigger:

I was having some kind of heart condition and so I was to have open heart surgery. The Doctor from Star Trek Voyager was heading the surgery but there were others of course. I don't think I was actually in a hospital but it was a suitable enough operating area. Using 21st century technology, they were trying to knock me out but somehow it wasn't working. They started with a clamp on some vein and I watched as the blood through the tubing went from mottled red and blue to bright red, and all that happened was that my left arm started to tingle. They tried some other techniques including a series of needles, one in my neck but that didn't work either. They started drawing little tiny drawings on my fingers for some labelling purpose and trying to see those was apparently also keeping me awake. Eventually I went outside, still hooked up to all of this stuff, and asked another doctor for something. He handed me what looked like a dishrack that would fit a human head and chest in it, with a few well-placed ridges. Apparently it used pressure points to sedate people and also to keep them from moving while the doctors did their needles and stuff. I took it back to the place and tried it and it still didn't work. So I resolved to bore myself to sleep. I told the nurse I was going to go watch and bore myself in the waiting room. While I was in there I watched a girl and two smaller twin boys yelling at another set of twin boys (they were actually quadruplets) from around the corner about how they were all going to die unless they prayed or something. I started typing stuff on my computer about Robert Picardo and his "llinearzsenior" girlfriend and then got really bored with that but not enough to put me to sleep. So I opened fanfiction.net and almost immediately everything faded from view. I immediately woke up.

11 Sept (about a week before Concerto Competition)

Possible trigger:

So I don't remember what I was doing leading up to this doctor's visit or whatever. But I was lying on the exam table (though the setting seemed far too casual for a clinic, dark furnitire and open windows and stuff). Or it might have been a couch in a lounge where two doctors happened to be present casually and with surgical equipment available to them. Anyway they were doing something and suddenly my heart starts seizing up though painlessly, but I can feel my consciousness ebbing. I hear the woman saying, "Her pedagogy's seizing. Abbyyy..." (my name isn't Abby but anyway) as she looks down at me apparently trying to get me to snap out of it. It takes me a minute to respond, during which they're suddenly prepping me for surgery. I'm like, "You know I'm still coherent," as they have the finger thing on and trying to put some kind of line into the back of my left shoulder. It turns into a "just do it." So they cut into my chest (still in this lounge room, and also about this time I start astral projecting or something because I can see and painlessly feel what they're doing to me). Anyway my chest is scalpeled open and then retractors go in and reveal my heart and lungs (apparently they don't have to saw through my ribcage?...). Female doctor ogles at what good shape my heart is in as she takes it out of my chest and then injects a small tube in the heart with something in a syringe. Then she puts it back in my chest. I guess I pass out or zone out or something around this point because I don't remember them closing me up and then doing something else to my stomach. I remember sitting at a roundtable in the lounge area again and casually talking about whay had happened to me just hours before and being careful not to laugh too hard, lest I tear my stitches, which I can feel underneath my shirt. It suddenly hits me that I probably can't play clarinet for a while and so I ask and the doctor says not for a week at least, and I lament that I won't be able to perform in concerto competition. I walk over to the doctor who's over watching the video of the entire procedure and I watch for the first minute or so before waking up.

This one might have been foreshadowing that I was going to struggle in pedagogy class. I nearly failed. I should have failed. Anyway.

18 Sept

Possible trigger:

My parents and I had been in some kind of accident. Dad needed a new hand and I was told I needed a new heart. One of the veins leading into it was crushed but they had already set up a temporary bypass. I was more interested in discussing my dad's hand than my heart, debating the moral and ethical issues and also how high we were on the transplant list. I didn't want to do it; my dad and I weren't high contributors to the world. My mother of course was upset but told me it was my decision.

I could feel my O2 stats were slowly dropping, like I wasn't getting enough air even though I was still breathing fine. So I confined myself to the room (which resembled my grandparents' room somehow) which had access to an oxygen mask. I'd use the mask for a minute at a time and be okay again for a few minutes before I had to use it again. I put myself to bed and they showed me what they were going to do with my new heart. I sat and thought about it for a long time.

In the end, I decided I wanted the heart and went to the oxygen mask to knock myself out. A few seconds later I opened my eyes again and they were wrapping a discharge band around my wrist and slapping stickers on my hand. Apparently it was never my heart that needed a transplant but my voicebox. My throat suddenly felt fragile as I realized they had already done the transplant without my consent or knowledge so that I wouldn't go into the moral and ethical conflict (but why the gibberish about a new heart?). The dropping O2 stats had come from a slight rejection which they had fixed with drugs or something. Despite the deception, I ended up being so happy. I was discharged with a nurse to set up an oxygen machine in case it happened again, and was running and flying around excitedly even though they were telling me about I was going to pull my stitches and get dirt in them.

Any ideas?

Feb 06, 2016, 09:09 PM

(((snickie)))

snickie · Feb 07, 2016, 09:51 AM

Lol ok
I appreciate the support in this and the previous thread.
But that wasn't the intent of the post.
Although looking back now I can see how that might've been intuited.

I'm more interested in the meanings behind these dreams. Why do I keep having dreams about open heart surgery? I mean it seems there's something in my figurative heart that needs to change but what? Can the context give some kind of idea of what that might be?

Thunder Bow · Feb 08, 2016, 01:11 PM

Dreams has everything to do with our feelings. In these dreams you were dealing with what was within your heart. You were dealing with things of the heart. Also about getting feelings off and out of your chest. Your mind was processing the events and your feelings around them.

snickie · Mar 02, 2016, 07:46 AM

I recently had a dream where I was the surgeon instead of the one on the table. I stood to the unknown patient's right, by their shoulder. The OR was a bright orange room with large circular windows that looked out into a postmodern half-dystopian cityscape which kept moving up and down because apparently we were moving down and up, like a giant elevator.

Also I showed these dreams last night to a friend of mine who has had heart surgery (not open), and she kind of freaked out over the 'incision into my chest' imagery.

medkev13 · Mar 02, 2016, 01:16 PM

So, considering you've already requested not including the "what's going on in your metaphorical heart"...

The recurrence of the mall scene is kind of fascinating to me (and frankly, why TB didn't point this out I don't know -_*) The repeated use of the mall is something reminiscent of dream symbolism for your physical body. What has your health been like? Do you have any -actual- heart problems???

The heart symbol generally represents some concern you care about, or something central/vital to you as a person. It's been damaged (or tainted depending on how you want to view the concern), and now your subconscious is trying to find a way to reconcile it... Now on to the detailed semantics :P

You're frequently being shown either being prepped for, or actually being, cut open. Quite literally, people are forcibly opening you up. -> Has there been some recurring concern making you feel vulnerable? <- (I'll get back to this, I think, shortly...)

What's to note here is that in many of these dreams you come out the other side fine, if not changed. Change isn't necessarily a bad thing though (I'll get back to this too)...

What was your emotional/thought response to the mountain scenery? Typically seeing scenery represents a shifting in perspective (like being able to see the bigger picture).

-----
Now, relating to the being forced to open up, and to the being changed...

I noticed that you list autism as your primary concern... If you're autistic, all of this might simply be relating to the issue of having to socialize like everyone else does. While every person on the spectrum is different, there are a few commonalities that the dream themes relate to. First, as I said, is the issue with difficulty in building social relationships. If you're typically closed off and you're being asked to socialize that may be the literal translation of being "forcibly opened up" (which, honestly, would make most people feel vulnerable).

The other commonality is the preference for routine. If things change, it puts a heightened amount of stress on the mind and emotions. Remember though - change can be a wonderful thing. Embrace it as much as you can. ^_^

Thunder Bow · Mar 02, 2016, 02:20 PM

The heart surgery dreams are about opening your heart to others. Medkev you done well these long older dreams.

snickie · 04:01 PM

Medkev, thanks so much for that analysis. That's the kind of post I've been looking for and I think it will be helpful. Bring on aaallllll the detailed semantics!

To my knowledge, I don't have any actual heart problems outside of a rapid heartbeat caused by my anemia (so I just have to take iron pills and eat lots of steak). This didn't actually come to light until August 2013 though, some time after many of these dreams.

I know the mall-and-basketball dream was my mind processing my friend's mouth problem. But why did I have to fall over the railing and need heart surgery to repair the damage at the very end of the dream?

I looked into the mall imagery, and as far as I can read in this post, it was just that one dream. I have had other mall dreams, but they were mostly flying dreams rather than surgery.

Regarding the 'heart as something important to you' symbolism...
I know the concerto competition dream had to do with concerto competition (obviously). A little background: I was playing the second and third movements of Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 1, but I had originally wanted to play the first movement. I switched because my applied instructor told me that someone else was doing that movement and we couldn't have multiple entries with the same piece. I later found out that he was doing a different piece, the Finzi Five Bagatelles, which I loved even more, and it pained me that he didn't seem to be playing it the way I liked (I had played it back in early 2011). I'm a bit possessive over that piece...
Also I've been told many times that I sound like a robot when I play clarinet - good technique, non-existent or forced musicality and expression. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Re: mountain scenery
I don't distinctly remember my reaction to the mountain scenery, though I can't help but think that I had to question at least a little bit as to why I was outside in a gurney. In the mountains. How did I even get to a mountainous area? I live in flatlands (mostly - we've a few hills here and there).

Re: imagery
One thing I think I ought to mention is that I have always had an interest in medical sciences. I watched a lot of Discovery Health Channel from 8yo on. The imagery of being cut open isn't random or disturbing because I've seen it before. And heart surgeries aren't the only kind I've had in my dreams, just the most frequently reoccurring ones. I've also had my feet chopped off, my appendix out, a tracheotomy, breast surgery, et cetera. I'm also a bit of a hypochondriac in that I'm usually very well aware of what is going on with my body.

My grades aren't good enough for medical school (procrastinator extraordinaire) and I haven't taken a proper science course since 2011, not to mention I'm frequently distracted by my other interests, namely music, drawing, crochet, and maths - I'm a music and maths double major right now. Last semester I spent a lot of time in the Career Services office trying to pinpoint what it was I really wanted to do with my life - music is fun and good but probably should have never been allowed to grow out of the hobby stage; art is definitely not allowed to become more than a hobby; maths came mostly easily to me but it isn't as fun as other things; sciences have always been interesting and satisfying, but there are moral consequences now that are stressing me as well. My interests are so wide and varied that I feel like I'm being torn apart by them.

Re: autism
I've taken a number of autism quizzes which all said I might possibly maybe have Asperger's or HFA. Borderline. Years ago I might have gotten a diagnosis. Now I think I've learned to cope too well. So that might not even be a contributing factor. But who knows.

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Heart problems and surgeries (dreams)

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