Jess Berry, written on April 8, 2013, DAY 15 after traumatic brain injury and emergency brain surgery
The more time that passes since my surgery, the more details I can remember about what I like to call, “The twilight zone,” or the first two or three days post-op when I was in a drug and injury-induced haze of semi-consciousness.
With every day that passes, I remember something that was previously a bit of a mystery to me, whether it was an actual physical event, or an internal journey that was previously forgotten.
For example, I tend to block out certain embarrassing characteristics of my early post-op behavior; having to pee into a plastic container from my bedside and the fact that my modesty was rather shattered when I was sponge bathed by nurses for the first day or two fall into this category.
In stark contrast to this purely physical set of embarrassments, sleeping became more than just bodily rest for me during this time period.
Sleeping became a never-ending vision quest of incredible complexity, during which I traveled so far from my body that waking felt like being given the first breath that a near-drowned person feels when they’re pulled from under the water’s surface. Sleeping felt like traveling mythical places of legendary proportions and battling constantly to prove that I deserved, and
chose, to be alive.
My family’s and Tori’s ever-present love felt like the only ties I had to the physical world while I dreamt, the only things tethering me to this physical plane. I feel that the depth to which I dove into dreamtime whilst I slept was the main reason for the incredible confusion and disorientation I woke up with every time I was pulled back to Earth from slumber.
