June 2, 2000

Age 19

This is a disturbing dream for squeamish people. I was a nurse or doctor in a large one-room, one-floor building, with dirty white walls. People of all races, ages, and sexes are standing in line in the middle of the room, completely filling it, while I am at the back right corner, and a doctor (my apparent supervisor) is at the back left corner. I am giving insulin shots to all these people, but we are low on syringe supply, so I keep using the same syringe for each patient. At one point, an older nurse comes over to ask how I am doing as I wipe down this used syringe and continue to inject people, and I tell her that I think I should have clean syringes. She talks to the doctor in the back left corner, but she comes back and tells me that we are almost out of them and to keep using the one I have. Each time I inject a person with the same syringe, they have increasingly 'painful' reactions to the injection. During one injection, a little leak springs in the syringe tube, and insulin runs down my fingers. Soon, several large leaks develop, and even when I press the syringe in faster, it almost all leaks out. I call for the nurse, and she brings me back two new syringes to replace the damaged one. I open one of them and continue on giving injections when I wake up.