Dreams can be the subject of many interesting situations, from strange plots to absurd characters and confusing experiences. Dramatic and seemingly painful situations can also be experienced in dreams. For example, you may dream that you are in pain while being crushed by a tree, and you may wake up if we scream. But do we really feel this pain? Or is the real pain that you are exposed to while sleeping also felt in a dream?
This is a complex subject with a number of interesting studies surrounding it. The general consensus is that we can feel pain or pain in dreams. And in both directions. . . However, the answer to the question of whether this pain is triggered by the dream or by something that happens physically in your body turns into a neurological minefield.
One reason you may feel pain in dreams may be something painful that happens in real life. For example, if you are bitten by a fly or a bee while you are sleeping, you will feel the pain in your dream as well if you are dreaming at that moment. This type of pain in dreams was explored in a 1993 paper that used blood pressure cuffs to manage pain while participants were in the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep.
The pain experienced by the participants caused the cuffs to stretch, mimicking real-life pain. Interestingly, the plot of dreams tended to center around this pain.
Dreamed pain differs from “real” pain in that its source is the content of the dream rather than a real-life stimulus. For example, someone may be imagining being tortured in a way they have never experienced in real life. However, the trauma in the dream is still felt at that moment as pain, possibly inspired by learned perceptions of painful situations. Dream pain usually goes away as soon as the dreamer wakes up.
“I would argue that even ‘real pain’ is all in your head,” Erin Wamsley, an assistant professor of psychology at Furman University in South Carolina, tells Vice. Pain is, in a way, a mental experience. So when we experience an injury, the sensation of pain occurs in our brain rather than in the affected body part.
Pain in the brain arises as activation in pain-related areas of your cerebral cortex, triggered by information from pain receptors in your peripheral nervous system. When you dream about a painful event, your brain is probably not receiving pain messages from your body, but is instead making use of painful memories from your past.
Your general health seems to play a role in the frequency and nature of the pain you may feel in dreams, when it comes to your likelihood of having night attacks (or nightmares). A 2017 study says that pain in dreams occurs in about 1 percent of healthy people’s dreams and 30 percent of those with acute and severe pain.
“In patients, painful dreams can be triggered by real pain, while for healthy individuals painful dreams can be memories of pain. Future research should clarify how pain is processed during sleep. As patients with chronic pain have negative-toned dreams, ask chronic pain patients about their dreams and offer dream rehearsal treatment if necessary.” It would be helpful to offer specific treatment options such as
As a result, the answer to the question “Can you feel pain in dreams” is “Yes”, but your waking health determines whether this pain is “real” or “dream”. . .
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