Needle and a Sheet

A story about memory

A few years ago I was telling my mom about a vivid dream I had had some years before. The dream started with me lying on a hospital gurney. I was wheeled down a well-lit hallway and into a small room. Once in the room I was joined by several other people. These people proceeded to wrap me in a bed sheet. My arms were pinned tightly to my sides and I was completely unable to move.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a metal tray. On the tray were a bunch scary medical things. One of these things was a syringe with the longest, fattest, sharpest needle I had ever seen. I think this is where I started screaming. The doctor or whatever he was then took that needle and drove it straight into my back. That yelling I had been doing was suddenly drowned out by a new, much better scream once he stuck that spear into my spinal chord. Now I knew why they’d tied me up in that sheet. I wanted out.

Must have woke up at that point in the dream because that’s all I could remember. After listening quietly to this whole story my mom just looked at me and said, “that wasn’t a dream, the doctors thought you had meningitis so they gave you a spinal tap. You were 18 months old.”