The night after a difficult stress echocardiogram at the Mayo Clinic, I dreamed:
I am in my old red truck going up a steep hill.
I get to the top of the hill, and the truck starts careening downhill, crossing back and forth over the center line.
It is a very disturbing and scary feeling. Finally, it stops in a pullout on the left side of the hill.
In a stress echocardiogram, you get on a treadmill while they monitor your heart. Every three minutes the incline and the speed are increased. The images obtained provide data about how well the different segments of the heart are functioning, how thick the walls are, etc. One of “good” things about taking a stress echo at the Mayo Clinic is that the push you to the limit, in spite of any arrhytmias. (They always have a back-up team, AED, etc. if something goes wrong)
Because of a severe heart attack (www.heartak.com) I was left with frequent arrhtymias, particularly anytime the heart was put under stress. It is quite distressing and anxiety-provoking to have the heart go whoosh and swoosh and loop-de-loop when doing hard aerobic exercise.
Dreams are often about the emotional content of the day or days before. In this case, the red truck is metaphor for the heart and body going up the steep incline of the treadmill — the careening of the truck is like the careening of the heart….
There are some very interesting parallels between this dream and the dream in the next post.
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