I keep having nightmares where I feel, sometimes, intense and powerful pain. I don't wake from it, and I can't seem to keep it from happening most of the time. Just last night I had a dream where I was burned very bad on my hand, and I felt it. It didn't hurt after all the nerves had been damaged though. I was stabbed repeatedly, one going through my underarm and out of my shoulder, I could even feel each fiber of tissue tear as it was pushed in. I was slashed, and cut on my arms and legs, and gored by a knife across the belly. All the while I felt the pain, as real and horrible as it would've really been. I've even had dreams where I've felt even more intense pain than this. I used to wake from such things, and that would be the end of it. However now I have to really struggle to wake from it. I didn't even wake from that one, I simply managed to wiggle my way out of it.
2006-09-21 13:03:17 · 5 answers · asked by ianr1984 3 in Social Science ➔ Psychology
I've talked to counselors and psychologists. They just tell me I have psychotic episodes, and give me a pill and say it will help. I never has, I still have the nightmares even on the medication.
2006-09-21 13:14:21 · update #1
I've talked to counselors and psychologists. They just tell me I have psychotic episodes, and give me a pill and say it will help. It never has, I still have the nightmares even on the medication.
2006-09-21 13:14:36 · update #2
Sometimes, sensations that are present in the environment get incorporated into dreams. Therefore, if you are sleeping in a certain way that isn't comfortable, that pain would get incorporated into a latent form within your dream. Are you a restless sleeper?? Do you wake up uncomfortable or in a painful position??
If not, the perception of the pain in your dream is likely not physical. If it was as physically intense as you describe, you'd wake up. In this case, if you felt pain or felt someone ripping you apart even after you've woken, sure, you'd probably want to entertain the hypothesis of a dissociative disorder or psychotic episode.
If the pain is restricted to the dreaming state, know that this IS normal but the pain we interpret as physical in a dream is really emotional. This is not to say that you don't feel actual pain in the dream. Emotional pain CAN sometimes be far worse than physical pain, and in dreams, our minds create physical pain via an emotional outlet. Furthermore, emotion directs behaviour, whether it is in a dream or in real life. Dreams are thus functional, so rest-assured, you are not crazy or psychotic for having nightmares that do not carry over into a waking state.
Dreams are just ways our unconscious tries to direct our conscious emotional awareness. Given the themes of your dreams, I believe it would help you a great deal to get in touch with and identify the painful emotional feelings you feel you deserve or can not escape in real life. Often times, once our unconscious and conscious connect, the issue gets resolved first through waking cognitive processes and then hopefully through some proactive action. After that, these dreams usually just don't have any function anymore and cease to be.
2006-09-21 14:46:46 · answer #1 · answered by K 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This may sound weird, but it's perfectly normal. Interesting thing about dreams is that your brain perceives dreams as reality. For example, when you see a red object in your dream, same parts of brain get stimulated and activated as when you see a red object in reality. Same is true for pain - when you have a painful situation in your dream - BRAIN BELIEVES THAT PAIN IS REAL, and thus, your brain feels it. That's why you feel like that in your dream. And "when I woke up my neck was throbbing and tingling and it was quite painful and lasted for 5 minutes" - it usually takes some time for a person to get fully awake. Your brain was "still dreaming". Another explanation is that you slept in a bad position - and that's why you felt the pain. Your brain just gave you a dream with pain after that. Either way, it's perfectly normal, and nothing to worry about. All the best
2016-03-13 05:24:16 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sometimes I feel pain during a dream. Go back to sleep and think of how you are in control and how you will make the dream go your way.
2006-09-21 13:16:47 · answer #3 · answered by K 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes it is possible to feel pain in your sleep and not wake. I have had dreams of being shot to death by a friend and I felt every shot in my sleep but never came to. I told her about it and she laughed.
2006-09-21 13:14:52 · answer #4 · answered by victoria w 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i think i might be somewhat normal..for instance if one has a dream that they are falling they feel as if they are falling even tho they aren't going anywhere...u just have really bad "falling" dreams...so yea u can feel them...
scary how real it feels tho
2006-09-21 13:20:04 · answer #5 · answered by m3_mY$3Lf_! 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You should see a talk therapist, sounds like you have some stuff to deal with.
2006-09-21 13:08:00 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋