At this year’s conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams in Asheville, North Carolina, one of the best presentations was on dreams at the end of life. Monique Seguin and Nicolle Gratton, from Montreal, gave the talk. Ms. Seguin was kind enough to send me a copy of a paper she wrote on the topic for Dream Network. They also have a book in French about it: “Les Reves en Fin de Vie.” (They are looking for a translator and publisher; if you know of any who might be interested, please contact me.)
Dreams as an Aid Dying Process
by Monique Seguin
“We Create Our Tomorrows By What We Dream Today”
This statement is on a poster that I purchased with my first pay as a licensed practical nurse (LPN) in 1969. The poster is still hanging up in my home because I deeply believe in the words and realize those words as a reality today!
I always wanted to work in a palliative care milieu, especially after taking several courses and reading numerous articles on the subject. In 2002, I had the opportunity to work at the West Island Palliative Care Residence in a suburb of Montréal in Quebec as an evening shift LPN. We take care of up to 9 patients and their families at a time. Much of my time is spent giving support to the families of the patients. For me, it’s a privilege to have a chance to work in an environment where we have to face death every day.
When I started to work there, I often thought to myself, ‘It’s as if I’m living my OWN dream’—since I wanted to work for so many years in a place like this. I quickly learned the philosophy and approach that we use with every patient and family. This view of the patient, called ‘whole person care,focuses on the many aspects of a person’s life, including his physical,emotional, social and spiritual being.
We try to look at all these ‘parts a person and how they relate to and affect one another. Allow me to give you an example. While medicine can control physical pain, how effective will the same medicine be if the person’s pain is emotional or spiritual? This is where an interdisciplinary team approach to providing whole person care really helps us to alleviate any symptom a patient is experiencing. Our psychologist and pastoral personnel will often work in tandem with the medical and nursing teams to alleviate all aspects of a person’s pain. And what about another scenario: can a person’s emotional pain be addressed if his physical pain isn’t being alleviated? Not likely. How does one reach a patient on the emotional level, without being too intrusive? These are very common and very challenging questions that we face every day with our terminally ill patients.
I knew that reviewing my own dreams were helpful in my personal life and I started to wonder if patients at the end of life had dreams. If so, what do their dreams look like? While working as a home care nurse, a patient shared a dream with me. A routine Saturday afternoon visit to her apartment in April 2002 would forever alter my approach with patients and my feelings about caring for terminally ill patients. While I was alone with her, I got the idea to ask her if she ever dreamt. I didn’t even expect her to pay attention to my simple question, ‘Do you dream? She said, “Yes, I dream. I asked her if it would be OK with her to share a dream with me and like a gift—without hesitation—she began telling me about her dream, the dream which would change my career!
(Part II will appear in the next post.)
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