Have you ever felt physical pain while in a dream? Many people have the luxury of never experiencing pain in their dreams. Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people. I feel pain in my dreams just as vividly as I feel it in waking life.
If you don't feel physical pain in your dreams, you can use the lack of pain as a trigger for lucidity. If you are injured and suddenly realize you're not feeling any pain, perform a reality check to determine whether or not you're dreaming.
Have you ever been injured in a dream and woken later to find yourself experiencing pain in the same part of your body that was hurt in the dream? Or how about the reverse -- have you ever injured yourself in waking life only to have the pain seep into your dreams?
In my own experience, physical pain is fully capable of crossing the border between waking and dreaming. I recently injured my foot and a few days later dreamed of hobbling along a wooded path, stumbling a few times due to pain in that same foot. In my dream, the pain in my foot felt just as intense as the pain I was feeling while awake.
It provided an opportunity for lucidity because I paused long enough to wonder why I was walking through the woods instead of resting at home with my foot elevated. I questioned the scenario and realized I must be dreaming. Interestingly, the pain didn’t go away even after I discovered I was in a dream, nor after I considered that my dream self had no reason to suffer the pain my waking self was dealing with.
Even more intriguing is when the situation plays out in reverse. On two separate occasions, I have dreamed of being injured and then awakened to find I was feeling severe pain in the same part of my body that had been injured in the dream. The pain carried over from the dream into my waking life.
This raises a fascinating question: how does a dream injury trigger pain in your waking self? Does the dream injury occur as a result of pain in your sleeping body (perhaps due to sleeping in an uncomfortable position)? Does your mind interpret pain signals from your sleeping body and feed them into your dream, producing a dream scenario that involves the same pain? Or, does the dream injury occur with no prompting from the body and is then translated into physical pain by your waking self?
The answer just as likely may be “all of the above”. The mind-body connection is a powerful thing. In any case, experiences like these always evoke in me an even deeper respect for the mysteries of the dreaming mind.
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great topic. my first take is as you say “all the above.” especially when you add psychosomas like “phantom legs” to the mix, as well as relationship with dreaming and deep emotional traces. we hobble around all day without knowing the causes of our current moods too, when often they can be found to lay in half-forgotten disturbing dreams from the night before. and when you flip it, the potentials for dream healing become the next possibility….
A few years ago, I tried experimenting with the concept of feeling pain in a dream. I was aware I was dreaming and intended to inflict pain on myself to see what it would be like…. & the funny part is, my plan didn’t get too far , because…well, it hurt so I stopped. Kinda like real life.
Conversely, one common dream testing technique I use is to put my finger through my hand, and this never hurts. I’m sure b/c I never think of this action in the context of any pain, it’s just my “dream hand” and my “dream finger”.
I think expectation plays the biggest role in shaping physical sensations in a dream.
Ben Q.’s last blog post: The Joker
Does anyone have unexplained pain during Lucidity? I look at lucid dreams as more of a problem then a fun time. I have them most every night and they are most always wake induced. Most of the time I have a sever pain somewhere, not always and not always in the same place. Though most of the time the pain is in my right side, around the lower part of my ribs. If anyone could lend a helping hand I would really appreciate it. Also, does anyone else experience loud sound, bright lights and fear going into and out of wake induced lucid dream?
Thanks,
Clinton
Oh MG Clinton…i HAD THAT LAST NIGHT.
The dream was myself getting a hug….and the pain started..right side of the ribs..even when the person stoped hugging me inthe dream…I stil felt the pressure..but then it turned into something else…very painful..and when I tried to wa…nothing came out of my mouth….I felt like there was something inside my rib cage intentionally hurting me. The pain was so bad….tears came from my eyes…and nothing could come out of my mouth
Very scary…..
I have been trying to have lucid dreams ever since I read about them in an 80′s issue of Omni magazine, and I’ve gotten much better at doing so recently. There are many more resources out there on the subject now, many of which have helped me. I would have to agree that wake-induced is by far the easiest, at least for me anyway. I can also confirm the loud sounds and to a lesser extent the lights, it tends to happen so fast and in that state of mind- that limbo between consciousness and subconsciousness- it’s hard to process everything. As far as pain goes, I’ve felt it in dreams before and coincidentally just had one. I’m sure that this affects everyone differently and I’ve never had a dream where I experienced pain to a degree where it was uncomfortable even if I was having any kind of actual pain in my waking life. The pain that I experience I call “super hero pain,” and this is because it is like what I imagine pain would be like for someone like superman or wolverine. More precisely, it’s a sensation but not anything like what you would feel in real life. In this particular dream, there was an incredible storm forming in the night sky and the people around me were terrified as the clouds began to swirl and the lightning struck extremely close to us. I offered to go up and see how bad it was(knowing that I could fly because I was lucid) and I launched straight up. I got up about 45-50 feet and the wind tossed me violently to the ground. While I did feel a sense of pain from it, it was nowhere near what someone tossed from that height would feel upon impact.
last night,i saw a terrible dream.in the start we and my friends were gathered at my house talking,saying jokes and having fun and then a big shaped thing something like a monster arrived and starting killing every people around me and i was terrified.I ran away to escape from it but then i was again inside my house,in the living room (where everything started) and heard this kind of ‘monster’ coming to me, i tried to hide and then wake up but nothing happened and finally the thing got me and i was experiencing unfortable pains near my spine and my ribs,i couldn’t even breathe.This wasn’t the first time thought .In my early years as a student when i had such nightmares i used to have many times pain in different parts of my body
Hi Billy,
Nightmares are never fun, but they can sometimes lead to a deeper awareness or insight. You can also use lucid dreaming techniques to help you whenever you have nightmares. You might find these two posts useful for that purpose:
How to Turn a Nightmare Into a Lucid Dream
Using Lucid Dreaming to Overcome Nightmares
~ Kris
funny thing i have had many pain dreams like someone sticking a finger into my ribs and i can not move. or try this one i was eating lots of chicken wings and i dreamed i was pulling feathers out of my throat until i pulled out my lungs. traumatizing! i eat way less wings lately.. any ways keep you posted
oh heres one that freaked me a huge pain in my large toe then it explodes the skin opens leaving a hole but no blood just a large hole .the pain was terrible. i woke up looking at my foot . freaky yet when i was 16 i dreamed about a terrible storm, and that day the deadly tornado hit edmonton trailer court killing many, i woke up that morning and packed my bags and went to edmonton , i arrived just after the math. it was like i seen it or been there.
I’m 19 and I have a back disorder called spondylothesis my back hurts all the time. However I have lately been having nightmares and when I wake up it’s like I’d never slept and as if someone had taken a crowbar to my spine. I’ve also experienced two or three times having a nightmare and in it My nose is bleeding or I’m drowning, and when I wake up, I cannot breath. I haven’t experienced these dreams in a year but the others with the back pain I am feeling every night now.
My situation is even stranger. I have no clue why this happened to me. I was dreaming that someone or something was forcing me to dig my thumb nail into my forehead. As I’m going through this dream, I wake up and realize I’m actually doing it! I feel my forehead and realize it’s wet with blood. So I rush to the bathroom to see the mark and blood myself. What in the world made me do this is beside me. I still have a big scab from this and it happened 3 nights ago. Very strange and a little scary too. I’ve never experienced anything like this and I hope it never happens again. Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this?
Dwane, I have sometimes woken up with scratch marks or bruises after falling or fighting in my dreams. I THINK it could be a type of sleepwalking.
My biggest fear of feeling pain while I sleep comes from someone telling me “once upon a time” if I was shot or stabbed in my dream that the pain would be excruciating and I might really die. I hope writing it doesn’t make it happen
Hi Carole,
Before I started studying dreams, I’d heard the same warning — “If you die in your dream, you’ll die in real life.” I’m glad that turned out to be a myth. I’ve died in dreams at least a dozen times and I’m still around.
Thank goodness – I used to dream of airline crashes right down to the name of the carrier thankfully those stopped – C
I feel extreame pain in my dreams, its like i try to stop breathing so tht the pain can stop coz the pain is so extreame tht any moment if the pain goes any further i would die of heart atk or stroke. my breathing would become shallow and there will be these “hollowness” in my ears. i feel quite worrid tht i would really die. i though its ironic, my parents would have thought i died in my slp and its a gd way to die, but i actually went through all the suffering b4 i finally died, no1 would know. i experience this pain only when i am dreaming, not at all when im awake. these pain is a little in connection with slping paraylsis. i use to have tht and it come with the pain, now its simply dreams and the pain. when i dream, i simply dream the pain coming on my right lower rib, and my mind will be like here comes the pain again and i keep trying not to breath hard and relax to lessen the pain. there are no senario of car crash or getting bitten. or i guess its still slping paraylsis and pain. i have asked my doctor abt this b4, but it seems theres little tht he can advise on.. i really feel like i could die one day in my dreams when my heart finally couldnt take it or get a stroke… its very miserable and im really scared, the pain is so singnificant, its like going through torture session. i guess no words can describe… when i am jolted awake frm these dreams/pain, im afraid to go back to slp in case the pain comes back.
I had a dream last night that this guy was going to give me eternal life by taking his big sharp thumbnail and slashing a huge X from my upper chest to my lower belly, when he did it it hurt so bad but i didn’t wake up but i knew it was a dream, the pain felt like exactly like a sharp object slashing you, when i eventually woke up i was in no pain at all, i guess what your eyes see is real
Recently I have felt excruciating pain in almost every dream I have had for the past couple of nights. I wake up crying and sobbing and still hurting, but I cannot find any physical marks on my body where the pain is coming from. I dreamed that someone was forcing heated pins under my fingernails. It burned, stung, and was another type of agony I could never describe. The pain followed me into the waking world and I couldn’t stop crying and sucking on my fingers where the pins had penetrated in my dream. I wake up screaming sometimes, and my parents do not know what to do. I’m not sure there actually is something to do. Does anyone else know?
last night I had a dream that my pet snake was biting me (which she has never done) and it hurt so bad! no pain the next morning though.
i was tryin to look into this because i had something simular happen to me the other night. in my dream i had gotten shot in my right hip and was screaming after it had happened. i woke up right after the fact cuz i was actually screaming in real life and not just my dream and my right hip exactly where i got shot at in my dream hurt. its been a couple days and it still hurts. its in a way feels like it does when your fingers or foot falls asleep cuz it has the tingly feel to it simular to that with a painfull burning feel along with it. i have never had this happen to me before now and it kinda scared me i guess and was trying to see if this is normal and if there was a certain term for this happening.
I feel pain in my dreams all the time the other night i had a dream some type of missle hit our town and when the blast finally got to me it felt like my insides were burning from the inside out it lasted maybe 4 seconds that felt like minutes i was welcoming death just so it could stop and then i died in my dream and then i was able to wake up after. It was such a excruciating pain after even in the waking world i woke up feeling my insides burning and like someone was squeezing them i felt like vomiting i also felt like i was bleeding out of my ears in which i wasnt thankfully. But yes i feel pain, heat, etc everything in my dreams feels just like it would in the waking world.
I wake up almost everynight with excurciatting pain from the previous dream that follows me into life. I had a dream where i was being attacked by a wild dog and my tailbone slammed intothe concrete, waking up to the next morning unable to move wihtout my tailbone hurting. Just last night, i dreamt someone slashed my stomach. In the dream, my vision got blurry and I yelled at my friend to get the cops. After passing out within the dream, I woke up with the place my stomach was slashed stinging, but nothing was there. I’ve dreamt that I was in Fontana at night in my mom’s car, when a hispanic woman forced the car door open and slowly slammed a knife into my throat. I could feel the blood pour down my neck and chest and my vision fade. When i woke up, my throat still hurt and I couldn’t breathe. I’m only tweleve and I have no idea how to deal with this. After the neck stabbing dream, i was paranoid and I had a doctor appointment in Fontana the same day i awoke. I could hardly think without that “something bad’s gonna happen!” feeling running up my spine. I fear that this stuff could be prementions about future events, but it never happens. It’s all so vivid and I can feel when i die or get injured. It leaves me to wake up with my heart thumping wildly, sweat on my forehead, and extreme pain whereever the damage was done. PLEASE tell me if this means anything… In the dreams, i always know i’m dreaming, but its all so clear and real, when my regular dreams are cartoony and harder to care about.
Im 15 years old turning 16 this up coming June i have nightmares and when i wake up from them what ever happend in my nightmare i find the marks from it when i wake up. im scared i dont know what to do, what if i dont wake up next time. someone please help
That’s an interesting subject.
I remember the times when I am chased by a monster or something in a dream and when it grabs me I feel something like a numb pain, but it’s not like real pain, it’s more like an unconfortable feeling, like when someone tries to squeeze me or tickle me. I thought it was an interpretation in my brain, but not real pain, just a lesser unconfortable squeeze.
It puzzles me, is there pain that is exactly real like in real life?
There is a possibility you can almost induce feelings of this sensation, not exactly real pain, when you are awake. When you focus on some part of your body and think too much of it or when you look at a sharp object and you are scared of it pinching your eye. You get fixated, there is annoyance, but not real pain. But it could be possible.
I was just looking up ‘pain in dreams’ because I woke up from a nightmare this morning and the pain in my chest was killing me. In the dream I had both been impaled and shot in the chest. (I don’t know how that came about but I digress.) I woke up to a heaviness in my chest, and painful sensations around the area where I was ‘shot’ in my upper left chest, like the feeling of blood filling my chest cavity. I’m 18 so I am just reasearching to make sure it’s not something I need to bring up at my next GP appointment.
I fall off cliffs and feel the impact, fire engulfs me and I feel the burn. Posionous things and monsters bite me and I feel the flesh decaying and sting from the poison. My dreams are wierd as other people I know don’t ever feel pain when they sleep. I’ve fell from high places and been burned by welding and experienced being stung by wasps but never were those painful, just annoying. I am a sleep walker and fighter and talker. does that have anything to do with this abnormality.
I’m 20 years old and have been really bothered by my dreams for the past year. First of all, though they are very vivid and realistic, I still know that it is only a dream. However, I can’t wake myself up. I have figured out that the only way for me to get out of a dream is to die. I can fly in my dreams and escape for a little while,but whatever is after me eventually gets me. Unfortunately, I feel pain and dying is usually very painful. I’ve tried moving and screaming, sometimes just with the mad hope that I will wake my boyfriend up and he will be able to get me awake, but from what I’ve read sleep paralysis is pretty common. Anyone have any ideas on how to make this stop? I experience these dreams several times a week, and its wearing me out!
looked in to lucid dreaming and many similar things and never really got in to them, but i have for my whole life been able to feel pain in my dreams with some fairly traumatic memories not even being real.
I had a dream once when I was smaller. At the time I was a afraid of dogs (not anymore, I have one as a pet!) So, I was at a pet store with one of my friends’ mom, and we were looking at animals to buy. For some reason, I only cared about this one dog and a cat. I looked at the dog first. Perfectly calm, sitting with its chest out. It was something like a big grey bulldog-ish thing, like the one in Tom and Jerry. But no. I was scared of dogs, so we moved on and looked at the cat. The cat was fine, and I said, “Okay, let’s get this one,” and then it scratched me on my right forearm. I grasped my arm in the dream for about 2 seconds before waking up. I thought the pain would go away when I woke, but it didn’t! I was like, 7, and I thought I was going crazy!!! It hurt, yes, but the shock of feeling pain from a dream in reality kind of outdid the pain after a minute. I started slapping my arm, pinching it, trying to make sure it really was still painful. I was awake for sure, and there was no scratch or blood. Never had any sort of pain dream since then (only 5 or 6 years though, still have PLENTY of time.) It was so weird… I’m glad I’m not alone and I’m not going crazy!!!
I’ve had painful, lucid dreams for the last 18-20yrs. I knew i was dreaming but still, to this day, no matter how hard i try, i cannot control them.
To try and describe the pain, ranging from just lower ribs to full body, would not do it justice. Deep, ripping pain to sharp searing pain (especially pack of dogs), over the years i’ve learned how to fly with top marks.
For the last 5 yrs i can wake myself up with certain methods. . . the pain carries on in those places for at least 3-4 seconds after!!!! Its getting worse. Getting pretty sick of it. Too embarrassed to go to the doctors.
I also know im going to have a nightmare when my dreaming suddenly becomes darker and just walls, no windows, nowhere to go.
well last night I had a very odd dream to me, I was in some kind of war and in this one part a very large tank is in front of me and several of the other solders i was with where saying get to the tank for cover. it was odd because i knew what was going on in my dream as if real life, it was so vivid like a memory. but any way as im hiding in this extremely massive tank a nuke is detonated to my left and i feel the heat from it, as if my entire left side of my body is being burned. weird to me because it was my first time feeling something in a dream waking up and nothing wrong with me at all.
I’ve had dreams were for some reason CHIMPANNZEES hurt me. The only time I feel pain in my dreams in when there are chimps in the dream. This one time a big chimp got a chair and hit me multiple times in the back and when i woke, that same area had a ticklish pressure feeling and it was still moving or twitching.(twas so annoying)the most uncomfortable feeling EVER!
Then the next time i was dreaming there were about four chimps with me on top of a car or something, then one of them reached down to grab something and ALL OF A SUDDEN i wake and feel someone grabbing the lower part of mai left ribs( the spot where someone would tickle you) and i felt the same kind of ticklish pressure there.AGAIN VERY UNCOMFORTABLE!!! -.-
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