Thread: Is it possible for pain to occur in a dream and have pain in awaking life?

In dreams, most pain is simulated. That is, it only hurts because you expect it to hurt. "That knife going through my back should probably hurt. Oh wait, yeah, sure enough it does!" That's one of my favorite things about lucids: once you know it's a dream and can expect things to not hurt, you feel invincible.

As for you back hurting you in real life, maybe you had a cramp or some other strain in real life, and your subconscious conveyed the pain into your dream. Often our dreams can be influenced by external stimuli. For example, you can hear a garbage truck outside while you're sleeping, and the dream can convey it as a racecar driving by. So I imagine the pain in real life caused the pain in the dream, not the other way around.

Quite an interesting question. I think that it's quite possible to feel dream pain in real life, but that doesn't mean you are hurt. (Although as spellbee said, it may be that real life pain is causing dream pain, like an uncomfortable position would transfer to you feeling it in the dream as some kind of dream body problem).

You have to ask yourself what is pain? It's your nervous system and brain's reaction to an external stimuli. But we know that in dreams we can react without external stimuli. I'm convinced that your body is actually producing some sort of pain response whether the pain is real or not. This is quite similar to other simulated experiences in dreams - feeling in love in a dream can make you have certain feelings upon wake and beyond. If you have dream sex - you experience the arousal in real life as well. Or when you are being chased you sometimes wake up all sweaty or having feelings of intense fear. So yes, your body reacts whether the thing is real or not.

One great thing you can learn with awarness practice and with the help of lucid dreams is that you can control your body's reaction to all stimuli. You can then choose to which ones to react.

Short answer: no

Well this is my theory (which is really pretty much the same as NyxCC's theory). Pain can be completely psychological or hallucinatory. The brain doesn't need external stimuli from the nerves to produce pain. It is the brain that makes pain, not the nerves. In dreams, the nerves are not involved and sensations such as pain are based on expectations or what your brain thinks should happen. So you get stabbed in the dream, you expect it to hurt, and the brain produces pain. After you wake up, it could still hurt because your brain is still continuing to produce pain because it believes you have been stabbed.

Originally Posted by HeWhoShapes

Short answer: no

What would the long answer be?

To certain degree it is possible
If you wake up smoothly while dream ends prematurely your senses might be still mixed with your dream body.

So example if you were walking in dream with a cup o tea.
You were slightly focused on sensations of it's weight and shape
And then you suddenly wake up moments later because you heard scary noises in the bushes.

You are back in your real bed and yet it might happen to you to be able to play around with this cup
You can feel it in your left hand, feel it's weight and shape
But when you wake yourself too much it will be gone.
This happend to me once ago

You could bring back pain sensation aswell i belive.
Thought it would worn off same as cup

And also since your partially connected to a dream world by that dream object you can try to transition back

Originally Posted by Oreo

What would the long answer be?

pretty much what everyone said especially spellbee2