I’m curious about other people’s experiences with this.
Personally for myself I can’t remember ever feeling pain in a dream, strangely enough, though I have been injured numerous times in dream state. I can recall a few strange dreams in which I’ve been bitten hard by animals (most recently it was a possibly rabid gopher-rabbit looking thing, lol.) Not long ago i had a somewhat vivid dream in which I’d come across a handful of thorns. Getting injured in a dream is always odd to me. I always find myself knowing on some level that it hurts and that I’m supposed to feel something, but I’m also aware of the fact that it doesn’t actually hurt. It just feels numb or tingly and heavy and I think it will start to hurt any second. Actually as I type this I realize of course that I should be able to learn to use this kind of situation as a dreamsign for LDing.
I wonder though, are we not able to actually feel pain in dreams at all, or does it just depend on a lot of things?
My dreams are usually very detailed and vivid. I find that for me, pain is like pain. Especially in LDs. I’m also one of those people who doesn’t wake up right before they hit the ground- I just smack it. But I find that for me, pain is very real feeling. One time, I was shot in my upper thigh. It hurt so bad I thought I was going to pass out. I was screaming, laying on the floor staring at it when I started to think about what my leg used to look like. Just then, the blood was sucked back into my leg and it healed. I knew that wasn’t right- so I became lucid. But anyways, my point is that pain does feel like pain for me- which isn’t that great, but especially in LDs, it hurts really bad (like when I was first learning to fly and I’d smack/skid across the ground).
I remember a dream when I escaped from somewhere and jumped off a building - broke my legs and just felt very little pain. When I woke up (immediately after this), I realized that I landed on my feet/legs.
For me, its not like normal pain. Its more mental than physical, if that makes sense. Usually I wake up before I’m hurt, but if I am hurt then I know I should be in pain, therefore I act like I am in pain.
My dreams don’t often make a lot of sense in context with anything, but I do remember a dream where I jumped off a wall and I actually felt it somewhat realistically when I hit the ground. Of course, when that happened, I also did a rather unrealistic roll like in a 3D Legend of Zelda game. Realism like that only goes so far in my dreams, I guess
I don’t normally feel pain even when realistically I should, but it does happen occasionally. The weird thing about it is that my brain doesn’t seem concerned with making the pain match up with what caused it, like being hit vs. being cut vs. being burned. A lot of the time it seems to go “This should hurt, what is the worst pain? Burning is the worst pain.” So regardless of what’s actually happening, it feels like being burned. And without reality to limit what level of pain is actually possible, this can be quite unpleasant. Fortunately it’s pretty infrequent.
In normal dreams when I am being hurt, I feel a sensation that is not pain, but I interpret that sensation as pain so I squirm all the same. (Dunno how if that makes sense to you or not)
I don’t recall feeling pain in dreams. It’s more a thing of I’m aware of the sensation of pain without actually feeling pain. Like if I get shot in the arm, I’ll know it’s happened and feel that it’s happened, but it wont actually hurt.
It’s a good thing though I don’t, because I’ve been hurt in quite a few dreams lol. I remember one where I fell backwards off a bridge onto a shallow river and smashed into the rocks and died staring upwards. That would have hurt a lot if I had felt pain
I very frequently feel pain in my dreams. For instance, I had a dream not even a week ago where I was being stabbed repeatedly in my lower abdomen. I could feel every single entry and exit of the knife. The pain was so intense. Like nothing I had ever felt before (outside of a dream). In the dream I passed out and woke up again in the hospital. I was all bandaged up but I still felt pain, almost like a severe, constant stomach cramp. I’ve also been shot and have drowned in my dreams, amongst many other deaths, and it has all felt VERY real. I guess I’m just one of the unfortunate one’s. At least I know to try my best to avoid it in real life. Haha.
I’ve felt pain before, but usually it’s much dulled or a numbly sensation. I think one time or another though I’ve felt pain that was actually pretty realistic. Most of the time though, it’s dull.
Last night I felt what was probably the strongest pain I’ve had in a dream (although it was still a bit “dream pain”, slightly numbed). The nail on my big toe was cracked in half and whenever I moved my foot the two pieces would twist against each other causing the pain. I could barely walk!
The only time I recall feeling pain was in a dream where I was in an hospital bed but there where aliens around and they were cutting up my calves. I really felt the pain and woke up and realized I was actually having some terrible cramps in my calves (I was taking medicine before going to bed that used to give me that problem). However that was the only time the cramps made me dream about it (I used to get them almost every night) and it has also been the only time I recall feeling real, physical pain in a dream.
I, personally, have never felt pain in any of my dreams, whether it’s a ND or a LD. But there’s a very interesting YouTube video on this; just look up ‘GizEdwards can you feel pain in a dream’.
I once had a dream in which I was in the sea. I was looking at the fishes around me, walking in the water. And suddenly one of them, a kind of tiny shark attacked me and tried to swallow my hand.I didn’t feel any pain. Then I woke up and the same hand was like numb, with pins and needles in the fingers.
I found interesting the way the dream “translated” this into pain. However there’s no dream I recall in which I felt real pain.
