Conducting sleep studies, alone, becomes very boring after wiring the patient and calling lights out. There exists a need to make movement notations as needed, yet after conducting so many studies, movements can be identified and notated after the fact by recognizing patterns in the various monitors – a certain chaos in all of the readings typically appears. This said to note the importance and the struggle of forcing myself to stay awake! I had previously worked in a sleep lab connected to a hospital where I worked with others and after leaving, we would often chat with each other on the phones at work as the interaction kept us alert. However, this night, a small 2:30am-ish nap became inevitable.
True to my unusual self, I managed to achieve a full fetal position in the seat of an office chair with my head resting on the arm of the chair, feet completely tucked under my body in the chair. This way I could still see the computer monitors as I never intended to actually sleep. But I did and to the point that I was able to have a very vivid, very short dream.
In this dream, I simply woke in this chair that I napped in, immediately aware that eyes were gazing upon me. The entrance to the office I occupied was to my left, so with a very slight pickup of my head, I looked into the doorway to see this woman standing in the hall way, facing me through the open doorway. I saw this joyous smile on her face which did not alter or fade as she simply extended her hand out towards me and gently motioned down, as if saying, ‘go back to sleep.’
I have never experienced anything in my life like the calm and peace that overcame me as I, without thought or hesitation, put my head back down on the arm of the chair and surrendered whole heartedly to blissful sleep.
Later, when I came to from the nap, I felt so light, calm, and peaceful – until it hit me that my patient woke up in the middle of the night while I slept. I panicked! The screen saver had appeared on the monitor and I became horrified at not knowing how long I had slept for and how long I had allowed this study to run without input being received.
I hit the mouse and became so thankful to see data recording. I thought to myself, ‘thank you, lady, for having the wits to plug the box back in to the computer after getting up and walking around, thank you, thank you, thank you!’ But now I wondered how long she had unplugged. I scrolled backwards through the study, not immediately seeing the disconnection point. I scaled the view of the monitors down to almost nothing, to the point where only a disconnection would show. Nothing. I scaled the data back up to normal, began at the beginning of the study and scrolled all the way to the current reading. No disconnect.
Words will not adequately express the state of content and confusion that I found myself in. Fear that I would get terminated for ruining a sleep study declined marginally, but there was still this huge uneasiness about the person I saw in the hallway. Who stood there?
Later, it would occur to me how oddly I reacted to waking up in the middle of the night with a complete stranger standing at my office door – to just go back to sleep – but in this moment, I decided to check the perimeter of the building. I had never visited the other rooms in this office building, but I cautiously entered each one. I checked the lobby door (which we never used at night) and found it secured. I walked to the back of the building and found that door secured. I found no signs that anyone had entered, and it should be noted that for security purposes, each door sounds an alarm when opened, and I could not recall hearing that painfully annoying door alarm at any point.
So, I went back in my office and checked my computer data again, just to be sure I could not suddenly find a point of disconnection. At this point, I began to understand the stupidity of my response to waking and seeing someone in the hallway. I remember the sensation that I felt when I saw her, the easiness she had about herself, and the ecstatic peace that she simply casted over me with a simple motion. Dreams get pretty weird, right?
Now the clock shows a few minutes past 4:00am, I have distracted myself with the sleep study and social media, and the phone rings – my friend at the hospital’s sleep lab. We have our usual ‘stay awake’ conversation, and I even shared with her that I had accidentally fallen asleep for a quick nap, sparing the dream sequence altogether. But before our conversation ended, she had some news to share. As my office extended from her office, she had access to my patients’ information. My friend spoke with a nurse at the hospital who shared a story about a patient she was caring for and my friend became able to link that patient to my patient.
She connected the lady in the hospital as my patient’s aunt. She had passed away just an hour or so previously.
My friend had to abruptly end the conversation at that point to attend to a matter in her office. I could only concentrate on the fact that my patient’s aunt had died, and I had seen her. As illogical as it seems, I could settle for no other explanation. I woke and saw her, shrouded in peace, to later fear my job over the sighting, thinking it my patient, and then, anybody – she existed so surely.
She did exist, and I knew she stood there in that hallway. She had come to visit her niece, possibly for the last time in this physical world, although she herself no longer existed physically. As I woke to her apparition, or even dreamed of her likeness, there existed an awareness that I would later decipher: she allowed me to see her and to understand that she needed to visit her loved one without the possibility of my interruption.
A couple of hours later, I woke my patient. Sleep technicians rarely loose patients or carry the burden of breaking terrible news. Technically, I should not have known of her aunt at all. I disconnected all the wires and straps silently. I resolved not to share the passing of her aunt, not wanting to explain how I even knew, not wanting her to drive away immediately after hearing such news. I had many reasons not to break the bad news to her. As many times as I have shared this story in words, it never occurred to me that maybe I should have told her, so I could tell her what I experienced. Maybe her aunt materialized before me so I could have told her that her aunt loves her still and exists happily even after her death.
I might never learn those questions before meeting my own demise, but I know certainly that she posthumously visited us in the doctor’s office that night – life does continue on the other side.
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