Dealing with "Pain"

[Selski]

Hello all

Here is an excerpt from a dream I had last night, where I became extremely lucid and controlled the dream.
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Then we were in another room.  People were dancing and there was a bar serving drinks.  I was joining in and got swung around by a man.  I then ended up at the bar with Ruth.  I felt a lot of pain in my fingers and briefly took a look.  The man I'd been swung around by had put numerous long nails/screws into my fingertips and they were bleeding badly.  I looked at the floor and there was already a red puddle and blood dripping from my hands. 

The pain was becoming unbearable and I looked at Ruth next to me, whilst hiding my hands and not moving them due to the pain.  I asked her if she'd take a look at my hands without being horrified and tell me what was wrong with them.  I watched her look at my hands and the horror on her face was enough for me.

I was about to say to her, "OK, this is enough, I'm in too much pain, so I'm going to have to wake myself up," but when I started, I realised that I didn't need to wake up. 

This is when I became totally lucid.

Instead, I said, "It doesn't matter though because this is a dream.  We are dreaming!"  And I brought my hands up and placed them on the bar and looked at them.  They were a sorry state, but I concentrated on the "pain" and realised that it wasn't pain, it was very strong tingling which felt slightly unpleasant.

I willed my hands to be better and normal, and they slowly morphed back to their normal selves, and the blood disappeared.

"See, easy as that," I said.

Ruth looked surprised and pleased and wanted to test out my new "powers".  She came towards my hand with a screwdriver saying, "so you mean to say that if I..."

I stopped her by saying, "let's not push our luck," got hold of the screwdriver and bent the end.
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The interesting thing here was as soon as I became lucid, I removed myself from being immersed in the emotion/feelings of the pain and simply observed it.  As I did so, I realised the true nature of the "pain" and was able to let it go and deal with it.

It's quite easy when you're dreaming.  If only I could be as confident in physical reality! 

Sarah

P.S.  The screws/nails in my fingertips stems from reading a short science fiction story yesterday about a metal man. 

[DH]

That is similar to what a friend of mine does through Zen mindfulness meditation.  She has really bad back pain after a car wreck which has only gotten worse after surgeries.  Drugs don't help much either -- they leave her feeling whacked out without killing the pain much..  She says the only thing that brings her out of the pain completely is the meditation.  DH