I suffered a near fatal illness with amnesia several years ago, and I was for weeks in two different hospitals. The only memory, at all, I have of the first hospital is in the following dream. I was being moved from my hospital where I had my operation, to my new hospital where I was to receive basic rehab. In the dream they were moving me down the hospital corridors, and my nurse went with me. Although in my dream she is faceless and nameless, she gave me something priceless...namely she had coaxed me to try to live again, even when I was more dead than alive. Thank you God, and thanks to my nurse for all you did. Then they brought me to the ambulance, as they called it, although it looked more like a small bus than an ambulance to me. At the next hospital I learned to talk again, and I learned how to get out of bed and into a wheel chair, and actually how to walk for a short distance if I clung to furniture. To be back to where I am today is an answer to all my dreams. Later, I went back to that hospital, and I thought it would stir up some old memories, but it did not. I have zero memories of ever having been there.
How fascinating. Are you back to your old self now, or do you continue to have problems related to your illness? I hope you are OK now? It's possible that during the time you were in the hospital, part of your mind was alert and paying attention to what was going on around you. According to the continual activation theory our memories work differently when we are asleep than when we are awake. So although you had amnesia when you were conscious, your memory was working when you were asleep.
reply I am fully recovered, and I just hope to stay that way! The dream that I had was not long after I came home from the hospital, but it made a big impression on me, and so I remember it well. I have talked to several people like myself, who had brain operations and reported that afterwards for some time that they had no more dreams. I know they must have dreams, but perhaps they have trouble remembering them.
I'm glad you are all recovered. People actually can stop dreaming as a result of brain damage. There is more information about this at https://www.dreaming.life/dream-theory/solms-dreams-protect-sleep.htm But you would only be able to know if they were really not dreaming at all or if they were just forgetting their dreams if they were tested in a sleep lab and woken throughout the night so that they could recall their dreams as soon as they woke up.
reply Really? Surely having no dreams would be serious. I have not noticed as many dreams since my near death, but I had one just a few weeks ago that I remembered when I woke up, and actually did plan to post on this forum...but I have now totally forgot it. It interested me far more than the hospital dream. I have also had a dream that came true, since my illness and I will post that one later. Those are all that I remember in the last five years or so.
Yes. Having no dreams at all is very serious. People with that kind of brain damage would have other serious problems. There is a syndrome called Charcot Willbrand syndrome in which people stop dreaming after they've had a stroke. Most people who think they don't have dreams do have them, and just don't remember them.