Dream Pain?

[Tom]

Sure, I hate dream pain, too. Usually when I get shot it is the police chasing me. Bee stings and spider bites are more common. And the thing about pinching yourself? Yes, it hurts, too. The dream body is supposed to be beyond such things. Unfortunately there are certain habits which are hard to break and pain is one of them. Gravity is another.

[breeze]

Very recently I got shot in a dream twice. The first bullet in my chest did me no harm and I couldn't feel a thing, but the second one in my arm, was painful and bleeding like hell till I passed out in the middle of a street on my way to a hospital due to the loss of blood.

Pain just happens. I might be wrong, but according to my view, a dream, may it lucid or non-lucid, contains information about psychological (and physiological) processes of the dreamer. They can tell you something about recent events in your life, about your relationship to other people, about your health status or even about problems, which are normaly unconscious for you.

So, if you do have to fight regularly in your dreams, if you get wounded and so on, this can tell you something about some sort of an emotional or mental fight going on inside you. It just expresses itself through a dream and wants to be recognized of the consciousness.
According to that view, if you can feel pain or feel it even very realistic, this shows you how much you are doing harm to you by this struggle. Ok, now you might ask, what kind of struggle?
If you cannot ask your dream characters, what they are up to or which part of you they play, try to get to sleep with the thought that you don't want to harm anybody. You may get into a serious situation again, but without attacking your opponent. This could thwart a fight.
In case of an accident: just imaging during the day, that you are having some kind of painkiller in your pocket... you might find them in your pocket in the dream when you need them.

You might find another pattern in your dreams in which you experience pain. This can tell you more about what's going on and why it does happen.

Greetings,
breeze


PS: I once read a book of a German professor about lucid dreaming in which a man was mentioned who had done several experiments with his dreambody. He stabbed himself, burned himself, cut himself into pieces (just to experience which part of him contains his consciousness) and so on.

[Tom]

When I was in school, someone asked me if I ever have anxiety dreams involving my teeth falling out. Until that point, it hadn't happened. Afterward, I began to have the dream regularly and it was painful as the teeth broke up and fell out. Often there were many more teeth than the usual mouthful. All of them hurt as they came out and I worried about having any of them left. It has been a while since this dream has happened. Having written about it, it is more likely to come back. It isn't that anxiety was not a problem before these dreams started. It is just that someone gave me an expression to fit the experience and it had stuck. On waking up it is often necessary to put a hand in my mouth and look for loose teeth. Even finding them all there does not help right away.

[wisp]

I like what breeze said about this. Even the last part. It sounds like this person was trying to connect the area (body part) with the conscious message intended.

A auto accident often means your energy movement (vehicle). The accident is the resulting injuries sustained from a awake state maneuver. It can also be a warning dream.

Dreaming of teeth is a common dream. Loosing teeth is sometimes a meaning of change so that you can begin taking on new information in which to chew on and digest.It can also be about something in your present that you are having difficulty taking in, accepting, or digesting (like, "I'm not swollowing this").

Pain in dreams are surprisingly not written about alot.
Pain in a dream is about the "sense" of FEEL.
Injection into a part of your body is a common dream. I have a needle near my eye in a couple of dreams. I take it as seeing something I don't want see. Or maybe how to digest or swallow what I see (dream- dentist gave me a shot near my eye before beginning his work).
A shot in the arm may have to do with an action on your part.
Along with pain in a dream you can have the sense of feel without pain. I had a dream that I woke up with my hands in this guy's beard. I could actually feel the beard. I was also in the basement of a friend's house in this dream. I had never been there before. When I told my friend I was in her basement in my dream, she said she had just had her basement refinished.  I probably should have asked about this bearded guy while I was at it. http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

I think "feel "in a dream is a progression toward connecting to your intuitive abilities. Though a vague thing to say, it's true. A work in progress. The more your interested in what your dreams tell you, the more your subconscious feeds you valuable information.

[breeze]

There is an articel in which this topic is mentioned. It is called "Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience" (2000) and is written by Stephen LaBerge and Donald J. DeGracia. According to them:

"Lucid dreams can contain content in every sensory modality, including temperature, pain, olfaction, and gustation. Most of these modalities are somewhat rare in lucid dreams, just as they are rare in waking life; ..."

LaBerge and DeGarcia mentioned a test which they did with lucid dreamers:

"The results showed a notable deficiency in the reproducibility of the concisous experience of pain on demand in lucid dreams (...). The subjects had much better success at eliciting lucid dream sensations of pressure (...) and light touch (...)."

They write, that according to their findings, "it is easier to experience pleasure than pain in dreams", which is definitely good news for lucid dreamers.

The authors suggest that "to experience convincing realistic pain in dreams, the brain may require some peripheral somatosensory input that may be interpreted as pain."

breeze

[wisp]

Breeze, I'm having difficulty understanding your the last line of your last statement. Could you explain it more?

[breeze]

LaBerge and DeGarcia claim that there is a strong variability in somatosensation during lucid dreams. The question is, are these sensations, even pain, a completly mental creation or are they also influenced by sensations of the physical body?

Here is a quote, which explains LaBerges concept and thinking a bit in which these thoughts about somatisensation and dreaming are embeded ("Out of Body Experience FAQ" by Jouni A. Smed):

"Stephen LaBerge describes a theory in which OBEs [also lucid dreams] occur when people lose input from their sense organs, as happens at the onset of sleep, while retaining consciousness ... This combination of events is especially likely when a person passes directly from waking into REM sleep [WILD]. In both states the mind is alert and active, but in waking it is processing sensory input from the outside world, while in dreaming it is creating a mental model independent of sensory input ... When dreaming, we generally experience ourselves in a body much like the 'real' one, because that is what we are used to. However, our internal senses reside in the physical body, which when we are awake inform us about our position in space and about the movement of our limbs. This information is cut off in REM sleep [or almost cutt off?]. Therefore, we can dream of doing all kinds of things with our dream bodies -- flying, dancing, running from monsters, being dismembered ..."

In my oppinion, it would be interesting to know, if a dreamer who experiences himself in a dream as a disembodied point or freely moving center of awareness can also feel pain? He definitely can perceive acoustic and visual signals.

best wishes,
breeze

[Nate]

I once dreamt that someone snuck up behind me and snapped my neck.  I felt it break and I fell down, but it didn't hurt. Car accidents aren't painful either. this gives me idea....taaaa!!

-Nate

Do you have any idea how BORING immortality can get?! -Defalco

[cainam_nazier]

Breeze,

   INteresting.  Now from what I gather the pain mostly results from you dreaming of having a body? SO if there was no body there would be no pain?

Now the disembodied part.  Would that also be considered the 3rd person view?  Because I have had dreams where in the 3rd person and being able to see the entire body I was in control of and still had dream pain and carry over.


David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com
I am he who walks in the light but is masked by the shadows.
David127385.freestoreclub.com

[fredhedd]

i originally read this post  two days ago.  up until then i've never experienced dream pain.  last night in one of my dreams i was stabbed to death w/ a kitchen knife in my stomach.  i remember thinking that i was dreaming and this was the most pain that i've ever experienced.  i was alright w/ it all though because i knew i was dreaming.  this was the first time that i actualy remained in the dream when death came.  usually i wake right up when i die.  it turned out to be a pretty good experience.  it somewhat tested my fear factor because when i died in the dream, the thought ran through my mind that i actually died in real life also.  instead of panicking and trying to wake myself up i just lay there, dead in the dream, until i felt my self breathing again.  it was an incredible experience and i somewhat look forward to  more of them.

[breeze]

Interesting, 3rd person view was one way I meant.

But here is another one ... try it out fredhedd []:

Can you have a migraine in the void?

breeze

[cainam_nazier]

Another question.  This one sparked because of a responce from Danny_Boy in another post.

Dream injuries and pain.  Is this normal?

While dreaming I have been shot 5 times, stabbed a couple of times, burned once, and been in several car accidents.  In each case the pain was real, as in I felt it and would often wake up sore.  Now this only happens when the dream lasts long enough for actual contact to cause harm and my view is from the first person.  When it cuts off just before I don't have any problems or if it zooms out to 3rd person.  But I tend to feel every thing except minor bumbs and such.  It seems the more mortal a wound is the more realistic and lasting the pain, and although most of the injuries should have killed a living person I went on and had to deal with the pain.

Now my understanding is that this is not a normal function.  That for the vast majority pain is removed from the equation in dreams except on rare occassions.

Does any one else here feel dream pain regularly?
Does any one know why this happens?
Or even better why it happens more in some than in most?


David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com
I am he who walks in the light but is masked by the shadows.
David127385.freestoreclub.com