I had some of these experiences after my surgery in 2011. They are very real at the time.

I wonder if anyone else has? I do have a cousin who was in a serious car accident. She was seeing people without heads or bobbleheads in ICU after surgery.

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The first thing I was aware of was seeing colours and shapes - like a psychedelic painting but on a grand scale,' says Peter, who lives with his wife, Patsy, in Reading. 'But this was minor compared with other images I was having.'

But these medications can cause disturbing hallucinations and delusions.

 When combined with major surgery or illness and perhaps coming close to death

 this can leave people with a degree of trauma similar to that seen

 in those returning from a battlefield, say experts.

Often, patients are simply not prepared for these delusions,

 and have been known to become violent or even call the police from their hospital bed. 

When Peter came round after his surgery at University College London Hospital (UCLH)

 he was completely unprepared for what he saw and heard.

Peter was convinced he'd been taken to Eastern Europe to be questioned

 for information and the hospital ward had been recreated there to fool him.

 He even thought his wife and son were imposters.

 'I asked Patsy to show me her hysterectomy scar

, and to see my son's bank card, thinking that would catch them out,' he says.

'Patsy found it very upsetting, particularly because no one explained this was common.'

His delusions continued day and night.

 As well as his Eastern European dramas, Peter hallucinated about going to a hospital talk

 about assisted suicide,

 and saw other patients take their own lives

 or be helped to die by the doctors and nurses with lethal injections. 

In reality, he was bed-bound and heavily sedated. 

When doctors reduced the sedation, Peter woke up but the hallucinations continued.

 'I could see people throwing themselves off the top of a canyon and hear the thuds of the bodies. 

These images are still with me.

 I didn't dare talk to the medical staff - in my mind they were all enemies.' 

At one point, though he doesn't remember it, he told his wife he was going to commit suicide.
After ten days, Peter was moved to a high dependency ward (one level below intensive care).

 Two weeks later, he was finally allowed to go home.

 He was now just on paracetamol, but was still haunted by hallucinations. 

'I was starting to realise these things could not have happened. 

But I still got flashbacks every day,' he says.

 'I felt very depressed and started wondering if I was going mad.' 

Doctors have long known that intensive care can traumatise patients.

 However, a 2012 study at UCLH found the problem may be far more common than thought.

'More than half of patients in the study who had been on intensive care suffered clinical depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder,' says Dr Dorothy Wade, a psychologist at the hospital.

 This would equate to 50,000 patients nationwide every year. 'For some people this distress will fade with time, but there are studies showing the problem continues at 12 months,' adds Dr Wade. 

'One study showed that, at two years, 40 per cent of patients had clinical depression.

 I've encountered people having terrible flashbacks and nightmares ten years later.'

The drugs given to intensive care patients are similar to those used to put a patient to sleep for surgery.

 But they are administered for longer periods

, and as the patient's organs may not be functioning properly

, they are not broken down and stay in the body, leading to delusions. 

Dr Wade's study found patients who received benzodiazepines - 

a class of tranquilliser drug that includes Valium - 

were at high risk of psychological problems.

 Patients who suffered a high level of distress in intensive care and those with a history of depression or anxiety suffer more, too.

The trauma can be debilitating, affecting work, relationships and family life; some patients require therapy and antidepressants. 

Dr David Howell, clinical director of critical care at UCLH, says: 'If you come through intensive care, people say you're lucky to be alive. But patients don't see it that way if they are experiencing daily troubling flashbacks.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2609785/Hallucinations-Flashbacks-Nightmares-Depression-How-stay-intensive-care-leave-traumatised-going-war.html#ixzz2ze3ad0vX