Pain anyone?

[Van-Stolin]

It can get pretty bad, I had a weird dream where I was impailed from behind, the pain was so intense that I passed out and didn't dream about anything else.

[cainam_nazier]

I could go on for some time about the intensity of dream pain for me.  But I won't and I will just say that, yes, it can be really bad some times.  So bad that you should have a good idea of what it actually feels like to have whatever it is happen to you in real life.

[Manix]

Pain is common in my dreams, with one difference. The pain does not mimic realistic pain. For example, if I were to take a razor and cut the flesh of my arm, leg etc..., the pain interpreted in the dream is different than the pain inflicted by reality. The discomfort or agony experienced is near equal for both the dream and reality. However, how I interpret the pain is different. The pain in the dream is more mentally focused and relies on visual recognition or conscience recognition of either the wound being inflicted, thinking about how the wound was inflicted (if visual is not available), and then imagining the pain into being. In such a scenario, seeing is believing and believing can lead too unconscious elaborations. Life trains you to expect pain from physical damage. This may lead to the expectation of pain from being wounded in a dream. However, the unconscious mind tends to exaggerate while dreaming. Therefore, it leads me to believe that if you experience some physical trauma in a dream that you have not in reality, your mind will first try to connect with the closet experience possible and embellish it accordingly OR if you have no recollection of a similar pain, your mind may concoct a new form of discomfort. In either case only your imagination would limit the amount of agony you experience. It may also go to show that the more you focus on one aspect, the more your center of awareness is drawn too it. In dreams or reality, the more you focus on a minor discomfort the more annoying and distracting it can become.

Back to the razor blade... In high school I experimented with scarification. The resulting memory was me squeamishly making numerous shallow cuts into the skin because I was too scared to make a single deep cut (I don't mind blood, but I do mind stitches). This actually resulted in more pain (than the single deep cut) because I was repeatedly torturing the nerve endings. At some point, whether real or imagined I thought I could feel individual nerve endings firing. The nerve endings are what make the difference in the pain felt between the two realties. They are individualized in one and generalized or blended in the other.

I have also noticed that if I am only slightly aware that I am dreaming I can step away from pain or shut it off completely. Unfortunately, my imagination is little wild and I can't shut off the visual flow of disturbing imagery which keeps on going with me as a bystander. Luckily, if I'm able to shut off the pain I can let the visual imagery run its course and step back into the dream when it's finished.

Lastly,
<I bet you're glad I'm about done sharing my inner dialog eh?>
...I have experienced a dream sensation very similar to yours, RooJ. It is quite common for me and feels like my ribs are being pried apart or when I try to inhale, the area of rib cage in question will feel as if the rib or ribs are dislocated somehow and popping out of place. It's a very uncomfortable experience where the level of pain varies. My inability to breath normally wakes me up from the dream eventually. The pain is similar to a muscle cramp I get in my back from sleeping in the wrong position. I've always referred to it as a "catch" and it causes a shortness of breath accompanied by a stabbing pain. This pain, if amplified would result in the pain I feel in the dream, thus contributing to my above conclusions.

El Fin.

[RooJ]

Thanks all for the replies.
Manix when you had the similar experience was it also completely unexpected? I can see how you could feel pain in a dream if your experiencing something such as being shot and expecting pain, just cant see why it would happen completely unexpectedly.

[Rastus]

Interesting, very interesting indeed!

I don't feel dream pain.  Whether normal dreaming or lucid dreaming.  Whenever I do (or have done to me) something that should cause pain, I always block it.  Usually I heal it as it happens (Yes, I'm a healer).  I do feel the sensations, but they are muted and not anything like they would be in the physical world.

I have had dreams where I have been terribly wounded(all those years of Martial Arts training).  I take the pain and wad it up into a ball and push it away.  Sometimes I can throw it back at the source.  At this point I am usually worked up to the point of 'doing' something about it [] and the issue doesn't come up again.  This is for Normal dreaming or directed Lucid dreaming(Lucid dreaming is more vivid, but I'm shielding by then, so it doesn't come up very often).

[RooJ]

I was the same Rastus. Never felt pain.. Ive been shot in the head, i flew into the side of a building at mach 3 and ive had numerous lucid dream fights with multiple people at once (aswell as many other injuries). Thats what shocked me about this pain.
To be honest i never thought id ever feel pain while lucid, i mean as i know im dreaming i know getting shot wont hurt me. Apparently there's still many things beyond my control in my lucid dream world.

[Van-Stolin]

Hmm, now that you mention it, I too have had dreams where I didn't feel any pain at all and this is where I would have felt more pain then the impailment.  For instance, being ripped to shreds from some horrible monster, or having acid dripped on me, the only pain that I have ever experienced in a dream was just that one, strange.

Another interesting thing, if I think about how something will hurt, I will sometimes get the felling.  Like just a few days ago, I had watched Kill Bill vol.1 and I was thinking about when The Bride got shot in the head and she had woken from her coma and tapped the metal that they had used to fill the hole in her head and then in the same spot, I got the worst feeling ever.  This also happens with my arms and legs too.

[Manix]

quote:Originally posted by RooJ

Thanks all for the replies.
Manix when you had the similar experience was it also completely unexpected? I can see how you could feel pain in a dream if your experiencing something such as being shot and expecting pain, just cant see why it would happen completely unexpectedly.

Yes, now that you mention it, it is always unexpected.
I have felt muted pain when it's been expected and extreme pain when it's been expected, so I can only explain the pain levels to my current state of mind.

[findtruth]

I know I've felt pain in dreams, but I can't really remember what the dreams were.  Something you might find more helpful is a recurring dream my uncle described to me where he is a soldier on a battlefield shooting at enemy soldiers and when he gets shot in the calfs (this happens every time) he feels the pain in the dream and then wakes up to find his calfs are all cramped up.  Thing is, he's not sure which was the cause, the cramps or the dream. It's odd that both legs would cramp up at the same time, though isn't it?
And Van-Stolin, I know what you mean about feeling pain by thinking about it or seeing it.  But do you ever feel other people's pain directly, like a telempath? (off-topic, sorry[])

[wisp]

No pain experienced in my traditional dreams. I did wake up one morning in some kind of distress. My dream character (voice only) kept saying the word feezle (sp?) over and over again. I don't know what this word means. When I woke up all the way, I discovered I had a belly ache.Very odd!

I had a lucid dream (trance-like) before going to sleep one night.Some guy with a red face was holding a small dog. This small dog nipped my finger, it hurt...but then I snapped out of my trance/dream.

[RooJ]

Hey all.
I had a great morning of lucid dreams yesterday, had lots one after the other with small unconcious dreams in between. One of them in particular worried me though.
While lucid i came across a women in distress, although i was lucid i was following the dream and felt sorry for her. I decided to comfort the woman and put my arm around her, i went to kiss her head in a comforting manner but as i made contact i felt an excruciating pain in my sides. The only way i can describe it is like the pain you get if someone digs there fingers into the sides of your ribs (that really tender part). Now imagine the fingers where 5 times bigger then normal and there where 4 in your right and 4 in your left side.
I can imagine getting peirced by 8 spears at once would feel about the same.

I had no idea it was possible to feel this level of pain in a dream, ive felt what i thought was pain before but now i realise it was more like me thinking about being in pain, this time it was actual pain..

Id love to hear from anyone who's had an experience with pain in dreams before or has any input on the subject, how bad can it actually get?

RooJ