The realness of pain in dreams

**chajadan** · 02-27-2014 03:21 PM

I just wanted to start a thread to discuss dream pain. The idea being to discuss actual discomforts felt, and the boundaries of what is possible to feel in a dream that is uncomfortable. Need not be limited to pain, just some form of discomfort.

I've had several pains in dreams, of various intensities. I've yet to have anything near like, being hit by a car, thankfully. I've been totally nauseous to the point I had to wake myself up to escape it. I was hit by a barrage of arrows that didn't hurt, by they were for sure uncomfortable, like getting flicked in the ears, and were absolutely a physical feeling against my dream body. Last night, or the night before, in a lucid dream, I found a lighter and couldn't help but light the thing. I swear I felt like it was an extension of my body, and like, I could feel the spark of fire smolder at the edges, like it had a dial on it that I could turn up until it totally just hurt. All three of my examples involved some degree of lucidity. The topic certainly comes up enough for me.

Last night I went up to a crowd of DCs, knowing I was dreaming, and I started a conversation with them about pain, trying to find out, ~honestly~ if they were capable of feeling it. I explained to them what I was looking to find out, and the importance of why I was asking. The conversation didn't last long enough to conclude to my satisfaction, but I felt I was going to get a yes from those particular DCs, and I often seem to get answers slanted towards yes. I will continue to do this, since I'm not entirely convinced we cannot hurt other beings in our dreams. But as such, I expect there will be a certain amount of honestly in the soul to tell it like it is.

**~~Astaroth~~** · 02-27-2014 08:46 PM

It has always amazed me how pain seems to be even worse in dreams that in real life, don't know if there's any reason for this or if anyone else experiences this too, but that's how it feels for me. Before being introducted to the whole world of lucid dreaming I used to have lots, well, LOTS, of nightmares and dreams in which I would die because of any reason. For example I remember being shot by a guard in a store in which I was robbing, or being killed by a giant spider which felt over my head when I was sleeping, being cut off by a giant sword in a cave by a faceless man...

Nowadays I rarely have a nightmare, only two times in like... four years, besides sleep paralysis and that bitch of The Ring who felt the need to breath onto my neck at 5 AM when I was awake but unable to move. Anyway, a few days ago I had a lucid in which I appeared in what seemed to be an underground cave/prison/weirdthing. A man was there and I realized I was dreaming, but he didn't disappear (characters tend to disappear in my lucids) so I got really anxious because it felt extremely real and he was kidnapping me. I was too anxious to even rationalize that it was just a dream, so yeah, fear and pain can be quite real in that realm.

**chajadan** · 02-27-2014 09:04 PM

Good point about fear, it hadn't specifically crossed my mind but it certainly counts as a discomfort, and sometimes quite so. Maybe it didn't cross my mind because fear is so much more a common part of dreams, than flat out pain.

**sparkley** · 02-28-2014 06:42 AM

I actually felt pain in my first lucid, when I was going down from floating or soaring i hit some stuff and it hurt, I think i woke up from that

**PalmDreamer** · 03-01-2014 05:47 AM

I have had multiple dreams in the past (non lucid) where I experienced extreme pain in my mouth. I found out a month later when I went to a dentist (for a regular visit, not because of the dreams) that I had been grinding my teeth in my sleep. After getting a sleep guard for my mouth I haven't had any of those painful dreams.

It would seem that in my case, pain that my real body experienced seeped into my dream by my subconscious and was intensified.

**mimihigurashi** · 03-02-2014 11:30 AM

Creepy, just this morning I had a dream that a parrot bit my finger and it hurt like a motherf, and now I come here and find this thread, lol. Interesting.

**Soulless** · 03-02-2014 10:53 PM

Most of the pain in my dreams is emotional pain. My dreams can be very emotionally hurtful. Physical injuries rarely give me pain in dreams. 'm aware I am injured but there is no pain with the injury.

**chajadan** · 03-03-2014 01:13 AM

I have come to the conclusion, personally, that any experience IRL can be replicated in a dream. This idea based in large part on my perspective that "the real world" is simply, as I see it, another manifestation of consciousness, a form of dream.

**LucidNightmares** · 03-04-2014 01:35 AM

I've experienced physical pain in dreams many times, but only ever 2 types of pain. I've been shot multiple times (and wow does it ever hurt >_<) and I've been cut/sliced/stabbed with a sharp object, normally a knife or sword, which also hurt really bad. I've never experienced dream pain from falling and landing on something or anything else of the sort. Always being shot or stabbed, which sucks because they hurt SO BAD hah.

Emotional pain is something I rarely ever feel or experience in dreams, but when it happens it's always brought about by something bad happening to my immediate family or one of my pets or my SO, and it's always only sadness. An example is I had one dream where my baby sister was possessed by a demon. I was crying uncontrollably and shaking her shoulders begging her to snap out of it. When I cry in dreams I'm always crying very very hard, and my heart feels like it's down in the pits of somewhere too deep to imagine. Again, though, this is all pretty rare and doesn't happen much.

**acatalephobic** · 03-04-2014 07:39 PM

Just the other day I was shaving my legs in a dream, and I cut my knee. It stung, similar to how it would in real life, just briefly.

But even after I woke up, and made coffee and got into the shower...STILL it felt as if I'd hurt my knee, but with a tenderness similar to a bruise rather than a cut.

I kept looking for a mystery injury I may have sustained during sleep, but found nothing.