Tag: Out of Body Experience

Anaesthetic Recovery Room – Tibetan Temple Dream 21-11-2025

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is Friday’s dream had around 14:00 – 15:00 hours CET time as I transferred out of operating theatre after hip replacement surgery and into the post operative recovery room.

I had the distinct sensation of being in a Tibetan style temple at a monastery or other religious centre. The inside of the building consists of a main chamber and a smaller “sanctum” or “sanctuary” at the back. The main building has mats on either side of and aisle leading up towards the sanctum. The floor level in the sanctum is higher than the main building. The ceiling is lower. The “wall” going down from the higher main building ceiling to that of the sanctum is very white. It is decorated in whirling relief design top and bottom. The designs form a row at the top and bottom of the partition. There is a sense that they are or have been golden. The craftsmanship is exquisite. For a Tibetan themed place, it is surprisingly light and airy.

Sat in rows either side of the aisle in the main building are monks in largely magenta robes. There are around twenty of them all special invitees. They are roughly equally spaced either side of the aisle.

In the sanctum there are two raised boxes / benches aligned perpendicular to the monk’s rows. These boxes are higher and decorated in fancy cloths or hangings. Looking into the sanctum are three monastics sat to the left and three people to the right. The one on the right furthest from the main room is me. Everyone else is wearing Buddhist ceremonial hats, yellow. I alone have no headgear. I understand the others to be high lamas. I am dressed in magenta robes.

At the back of the sanctum facing out into the main building is an even higher box / throne upon which is sat a chunky Tibetan man in more yellow / gold robes with the yellow ceremonial Gelug hat. He is younger than me. His robes are brocade and he is Karmapa. I am closest to Karmapa.

There is incense in the air and chanting. I know it to be of Tibetan flavour because of “benza” as in “om benza pani hung”  the chanting also has heart sutra, guru Rinpoche and medicine buddha to go with the Vajrapani. The “Benza” is very distinctive. The medicine buddha is for me.

As I come to, I expect to find myself in the temple but am actually in a high specification operating theatre recovery room with lots of kit and women younger than me in blue scrubs. I am disoriented and genuinely surprised. It takes a while to adjust.

The experience fades into normal post operative routines.

What is on my Dance Card?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Most of the preparations have gone ahead. I had an argument with a loo seat yesterday. I was trying to fit a replacement one and I could not get the old fitting to budge. Erring on the side of caution I did not force it. It is a bit of a botch but it will have to do. The nurse had said that I should not do DIY in case I get a cut and thereby raise the preoperative risk of infection.

Tomorrow I am due an operation with general anaesthetic.

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Which means this time tomorrow I am scheduled to have had my replacement hip fitted. I might be back in my room. This schematic looks benign, the one below less so.

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I suspect that I will have a lot of bruising and maybe my leg will be a little blue…it does not look dainty or genteel. I will be wearing sexy stockings and be on the heparin injections.

The hospital bed has arrived and is installed downstairs here in the office and physio appointments are in the diary.

I probably won’t be adding to the blog for a while and will have to make old-school paper notes of any dreams.

I don’t know how well I am going to respond to the general anaesthetic. Ten years ago I had post-operative recall of watching the surgery from above. This was either an out of body experience or a dream. I have done even more meditation since then including things which you will not find discussed anywhere. I am sure that I will be physically unconscious, I am  not sure what my consciousness as a whole will do. In principle and assuming nothing goes wrong the surgery should take less time than the laparoscopic colectomy for the T3 tumour I had in 2015. I am less likely to wander off as it were.

I am going to be relying on people, those at the hospital and the wife here at home. The estimate is that it will take a couple for weeks for me to be able to get into a normal car. I will be on the compound during this time. I will be on crutches.

In the near future it is the hospital tomorrow and here thereafter. Maybe in a couple of weeks we can go for a hobble up at the seaside. I should be back at the stove cooking by then…

So not a lot on the dance card…

Dual Colonoscopy Dream 21-12-2024

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This is, for me, one of the weirdest dreams I have had, because it is so matter of fact and “normal”. The last time I had a medical themed “dream” was when I recalled seeing my laparoscopic colectomy from above. They were removing my T3 colon cancer. I was in theatre for around six hours and had an OBE. I speculated that I died briefly on the table. The after care in recovery for me seemed much more attentive than that for the others in the room. Before the dream I had a very strong visual / connection with someone I knew about 20 years ago whose surname is Colon.

The dream opens with me on an operating type of bed. I have a blue medical gown on with a hairnet. My knees are up towards my stomach and the gown is open at the back. I am lying on my right side and viewing a computer screen which shows my colon from the point of view of a colonoscope operator. They are withdrawing the instrument because this first attempt at a full colonoscopy has failed. They have decided to try a different instrument. The instrument is withdrawn. I observe this.

A nurse comes around to speak to my face. She tells me what is going on. She administers some sedative via the catheter in my arm. She tells me that they are going to give me a brief general anaesthetic. The doctor inserts the colonoscope and I can see it moving into the sigmoid colon and up towards the splenic flexure. The colon looks free of polyps and cancer. As he approaches the splenic flexure the nurse administers the general anaesthetic. I know from before that passing the flexure is the most uncomfortable part. I wait a few seconds. Then in the dream I can feel the anaesthesia come up and I become unconscious in the dream.

I wake up in the recovery room. In the dream I am puzzled as to why I am having this life like vivid experience of colonoscopy.

The dream ends.

On waking I make a note that maybe I should arrange to have my next colonoscopy early in the new year.