Dream: Coma

I really didn't like the dream I had last night.

I dreamed that I went to bed. My dream went over the exact things I did last night before I went to bed, so that I would relive it exactly as it was. I went to bed in my room. I was me, now. (that's already a horrible way to dream. It can be easy to confuse with real life.)

Then I dreamed that I woke up. I was no longer in my room in Cleveland, but in my mom's guest bedroom in New Orleans. I opened my eyes, but that was the only part of my body I was able to move. The guest room was different. There were machines around my bed, the type you'd find in a hospital. I wasn't wearing my Pjs, but rather a loose gown. I saw that Joseph, my cat that lives with my mom, was laying at the foot of my bed.

My mom walked in, but didn't look at me for a few minutes. I tried to say something, but I was frozen. After several minutes of busying herself around the room, she finally looked at me. She froze, and stared at me for a few moments. Then she began talking to me in that way people do when they know you can't respond.
"Your eyes are open again, Lizzy. That always disturbs me when that happens. It stops my heart and makes me think you're awake for a split second. They said it's normal, that most people do that occasionally when they're going through this. I brought some new flowers for you today. They'll look pretty in the window." She kept talking, hardly looking at me. She sat on the bed, and kissed my forehead sadly, before leaving the room.
I tried to move, to speak, to do anything. I couldn't.

I stayed like that, not sleeping, not being able to move for three days in the dream. Day and night I concentrated on moving my hand. In the meantime, my mother took care of me diligently. She changed the IV that was in my arm, changed the sheets once, etc etc. (While changing the sheets, she lifted me and placed me in a lounge type chair next to my bed. Our pug, Tookie, jumped on the chair and started licking my face. I couldn't move to stop him. Finally my mom saw what was happening, and shooed him away laughing. The laughing turned sad, and she began to cry. It was a really sad moment in the dream.)

After three days of extreme concentration, I was able to wiggle my fingers. It took another two more days for my mom to notice. She called the doctors, who told her I was starting to recover. She wept in relief. She sat by my side for most of the time after that. She told me that I had been in a coma for over a year. I had apparently not woken up one morning in Cleveland, had spent some time in the Cleveland Clinic, and had eventually been moved to my mom's house.


This dream was so disturbing, and set WAY too realistically in my real life. I keep getting emotional today whenever I thought about it.
I would categorize this as a category 2, but in the still-making-my-cry subcategory of nightmares, rather than frightening.
I never want to have a dream like this again.