Man writes about spending three weeks in a drug induced coma

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On March 22, 2018, I was rushed to the hospital for life-saving surgery. Due to complications with the procedure, I didn’t regain full, coherent consciousness until the second week in April. For three weeks I was stuck inside my own mind, subject to a seemingly unending series of dreams. Dreams covering on a variety of themes, some light and hopeful, others dark and dismal. I dreamed the end of my life over and over. I was a hero and a villain. Sometimes, but not often, I was Michael Fahey.

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Imagine a massive hole in the Earth, a perfectly circular pit with brown rock walls. Rising up from the center of this pit is a cylindrical plateau covered with soft, green grass. The plateau is high enough to be touched by sunlight passing overhead, but still so low that I can’t see over the sides of the pit. That’s where I would find myself every time I “woke.” Illustration: Jim Cooke (GMG) In video game terms, the grassy plateau was my central hub, the area I returned to between subconscious fantasies. It’s where I would realize whichever dream or nightmare I’d just experienced wasn’t real. It’s the only place in my reverie I felt I had any sort of control, if only imagined. “Waking” from a particularly harrowing vision, like a return visit to the wasteland, I would think “Something different, please,” or “Don’t take me back there.” Sometimes it felt as if someone was listening, taking notes and influencing where I went next.

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One vision involved a battle between myself, a representative for humanity, and an anthropomorphic chicken. In this bizarre scenario, scientists had supposedly cloned animal hybrids that were perfectly fine being used for food. Why create sentient food beings? I don’t know, man. Point is, this weird chicken thing with arms and legs and armor and metal claws wouldn’t let us eat him unless we earned his respect in life or death combat. I don’t recall much of the actual battle, but the leadup to the fight was excruciating. Days of posturing. Birds are weird.

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