Hi,

I'm new here. I read the sticky. I'll try to respect it.

Short bio: been involved in lots of not-ok stuff for a teenager. Lots of shady folks, lots of abuse. Don't want to get into it here. Suffice it to say I've been in therapy the past 17 years. I'm 35. Specifically, I've been doing a psychoanalytic-type therapy where I'm the one that does 95% of the talking. Dreams come up a lot. So I've got a lot of experience now interpreting them. But the dream I want to talk about is a bit different and it has me concerned about my health.

It was so long ago (I was 18) that I don't remember much details. Just, I was in a horse race. On a race track. Like you'd see in a movie. I think I may have been on one of the horse but I'm not sure. I think I fell. Anyway, I was on the ground and a horse ran over my side. I felt intense pain. I woke up. The pain was still there.

The pain has been there on and off ever since. Mostly off when I was younger and had the dream, but now it's mostly on.

I've had dreams with similar pain. A jabbing, knife-like pain. In my stomach. Bellow the rib cage, maybe around the liver area. I can't really tell. I've dreamt that I was attacked and someone hurt me there. I always wake up in a sweat, with the pain and that last feeling I always get at the end of those dreams: that I'm dying.

The reason I'm asking about this now is I wonder if dreams can be related to health issues. I've google it. There are various theories. That the pain is there and comes out in a dream. Or that the dream sparks the pain. Or whatever.

This year, two different people who gave me massages spoke about a weird shaped mass of 'stress' on my back. On the opposite side of the pain (which is in front). My back hurts me in that area as well; I'm always uncomfortable, but it's more a numb pain. The second person who massaged me said I had a horse-hoof shaped mass on my back. That reminded me of the trampling dream, and I started wondering if it might be related.

I realise this question is verging on the medical-forum type question, but I'm interested in knowing what dream people think. Intuitively, I think the two are related. Paranoidly, I think that dream was when I first started having something. And it's been growing ever since.

Which links back to the fear that I'm dying in those dream.

What do dreams like that, where you just know 'that's it', and you wake up, what do they mean?

Thanks,
CSG