Temporal Sequence Went Out the Window

In my memory, for more than a year before my accident I had a recurring dream, or perhaps flash of clairvoyance would be a better descriptor.  It would sometimes come in the early morning hours, and other times it would hit me as I buckled in my seatbelt and started the ignition.  It was always a flash of information, like a text coming in over the wires, and it was, basically, driving instructions. 

I had several different routes by which I could drive to work and the inspirational message always told me which way NOT to go, and then it told me why.  The problem was always with one particular route and the message told me to not use it that particular day because there would be an accident at a certain location on the route, and I would be in it.   

My last version of this dream had occurred to me on Thanksgiving Day in 2007.  The dream told me that it was okay to travel on that road over the Thanksgiving Holiday; the accident was not scheduled for November.  It was a week or so later, in December, that I would have to worry about.  December 11, 2007 was the date of my accident.

In the hospital, as my memory of time and events began to turn back on I know that I was confused.  I did not know why I was in the hospital.  I did not know what had happened to place me there.  I did not know why half my head had been shaved.  But I do remember asking whoever came in with my food or with my medicine or to take my blood pressure, each and every one, “Why am I here?”

They were all polite, and, to a degree, sympathetic in their response, “You got hurt.  How do you feel?”

I also know that I must have asked my wife the same question on each of her daily visits and finally the answer registered; “You were in an accident,” she told me.

“Thank you for clearing that up,” or some other similar response must have been my reaction, but that answer spawned new questions like, ‘what type of accident,’ and ‘where are my keys,’ which led to ‘I want my keys so I can go home,’ which led to the nurse allowing me to sit in my chair and watch TV at three o’clock in the morning as she watched me chew some pills she had just given me, along with the ice cream.

After one or two more sessions with my wife the story expanded.  It was not just an accident, it was a car accident.
           
“Where?” I had to ask.

Even in the hospital, even without having more than a modicum of synaptic functions in play I was amazed at her response.  It was at the exact location my long term recurring dream had told me to avoid. 

I had never told anyone of this particular dream before but now I, as a TBI survivor, saw a connection.  I know I tried to tell everyone about my dreams, but no matter how I relayed what I had experienced dream-wise for so long, those that listened nodded their heads and then asked, “How do you feel?”
           
Months later, in cognitive rehabilitation sessions, various aspects of the brain function were discussed especially how the brain responds to trauma.  It shuts down.  The three dimensional reality that is put together by the interaction and growth of the nodes in the cortex, disappears.  Then slowly, as one section of the brain after another is turned back on, the 3D basis of reality is woven back together.  Where do people go, you may ask, when they meditate?  They pass through their constructed 3D realm and fly off to wherever a dream or thought might take them.

That is an amazing trip for those skilled in the art, but the questions I had after discussing this reconstructive process were quite simple in cotext, but unanswerable in todays understanding of the system.  Did I dream that same recurrent dream in my coma, or during the restructuring process?  Or was it, as I first imagined, a running warning light that flashed at me throughout the year before my trauma?  Of course I do not know.  I do know that I have not had a similar flash dream since learning I was in an accident, but then again I also know that I did not have any memory of dreams of any sort for quite a while after my release from the hospital.  I was heavily medicated at the time but if it was the drugs causing this lack of dreaming when I was out of the hospital, how could I of had them while inside the hospital?