Cause of experiencing pain within non-lucid dreams

I have long thought I cannot experience pain in dreams, but multiple dreams over the years have proved otherwise. Mind you: in lucid dreams, I have never ever experienced pain to any degree (despite very focused attempts and experimentation), and am thankful to my brain for providing this immunity in LDs by default :content: . So, the remainder of this post is about normal dreams.

Last night in an ND, my right hand was repeatedly bitten by a small but evil dog, and it actually hurt me even upon waking up. It turns out that in real life, my hand was likely stuck in a bad position for a while and upon releasing it, nerves were firing randomly. You might know this sensation because it’s similar to when you hit your elbow at just the wrong spot.

Nevertheless, I really dislike undergoing pain or tickling sensations in dreams since they are sometimes used as “torture” against me (such as the aggressive dog) in nightmares. I would like to go deeper into these seemingly ordinary events and investigate the cause and possible remedies. I cannot clearly remember if every instance where I have experienced pain before has always corresponded to a logical real life explanation, e.g. body part in a bad position. I personally believe that dream-pain is always accompanied by real life counterparts, otherwise I could not really explain my pain immunity in LDs (or many NDs for that matter). Does anyone have experience on this, e.g. experiencing distress in your dreams while being just fine IRL? Any related stories and suggestions are welcome.

EDIT: few studies exist on this subject, but I found this interesting sentence in Pain Dreams and Dream Emotions in Patients with Chronic Back Pain and Healthy Controls:

This seems to support a correlation between body signals felt in the dreaming world and waking life.

This is very interesting. I have thought and posted before about how I believe some subconsciously controlled body parts aren’t paralysed in REM sleep. Maybe the same filter also applies to the sensory nerves?

I experience two types of pain in dreams. One is superficial. I know in my mind that it is pain, but I don’t physically feel it as much, and it fades away as soon as the dream scene ends. The other is deeper and harder to filter out. This kind of pain has always been connected to real life pain, at least as I have been aware of.

ive always felt pain in dreams. i used to think the saying “pinch yourself to see if youre dreaming” was not to be taken literally, but i guess some people dont really experience pain in dreams. i guess everyone is different.

in my dreams pain might sometimes be different from real life, and in some dreams might feel muted. but in some dreams it is quite horrible, and not related to any real life pain i might be having. one of my motivations for lucid dreaming!

maybe as per Siiw’s theory, i have lucid nerves :eek:

i thought this situation felt familiar and found this dream I posted here feeling pain in my hand being bitten by a dog. i had an FA where i thought it was because my hand was in a bad position. :eek: :eek: :eek:

For a long time I felt no pain in dreams. But in 2014 or 2015 I tested this via lucid dreams. I wanted to see if I could feel pain if I tried. In the next lucid dream I offered my hand to a monster with a shark like maw, but her teeth couldn’t pierce my skin or cause pain. I then summoned a knife and stabbed my hand, but it phased through without pain.

However, after that dream I had a long streak of dreams where I felt all kinds of horrible pains. I was suffocated by radioactive ash, crushed inside machines, drowned, stabbed repeatedly, burned to ash etc. And I felt everything, to a varying degree. The dream where I was suffocated by radioactive ash was the ending to a lucid dream that I couldn’t wake up from, so it was most vivid and I felt every excruciating second of it like time had slowed down. Link to the dream.

When I woke up from these painful dreams, I wasn’t in pain in waking life or sleeping in an odd position. When I feel strong pains in waking life, I wake up or can’t sleep at all.

interesting

I cannot remember ever experiencing pain in (lucid) dreams. Naturally, I can feel all sorts of things like fear, excitement etc., but never pain. Its weird and intersting indeed. But I would like to keep it this way :smile:

This is not normal in dreams; I have had the fear of experiencing pain in dreams but I have never felt pain. according to my research it only seems to actually happen during astral projection related experiences. When I am under attack I call on God to save me; this has never failed me and has enforced my belief in God. Also if something tries to possess you during an out of body experience call God. Dreams should be safe though? right? Maybe my spiritual connection to God gives me immunity.