Can your dreams Hurt You In Real Life?

I have always wondered about the little discussed phenomena that sometimes occurs during a persons dream. A type of transference from the dream realm to the physicall.

For example: A person dreams that he somehow hurts his back, then wakes up with real back pain and even bruises that were not there the night before.

Another example: When my mother was pregnant with my sister, she had a dream that somebody or something had placed their hand on her belly...She awoke to find a dark hand print right on the same spot! This lasted a few weeks and slowly faded away.

So I ask, has anyone had similar experiences? Where things that happen to you while dreaming, manifest in the physical (and im not talking about pre-cog dreams, or seeing the future)

And how are our physical processes linked to these manifestations?

---GeminiSky

I honestly believe in the mind over matter concept. A similar thing happened to my father;he was running through the woods and his right arm hit a tree and he woke up with a bloody arm. It's also quite interesting sometimes how one can fully control your dream.

What's funny when I lucid dream I always feel pain from everything. From emotions to someone getting murder. A few times I don't feel pain. But pleasure and a feeling of support from gratitude.

I've posted about my experiences with this before on ATS, as i believe something can happen in really vivid dreams, i'm just not sure what.

I had a dream when i was very young, it was based around me being scrificed in an ancient Egyptian setting. I was laid faced down on an alter and stabbed in the back with a huge ceremonial blade, like a short sword.

I could feel the cut, and the blood running down my back. It was so real that i jumped up screaming my head off, my mum came running through and i looked in the miror.

There in my back was a large deep red scratch that ached like hell.

It was in the middle of my back, too awkard for me to have done it myself, but i wasn't led on anything either.

It's a mystery to this day, i kind if put it down to me having "reached there to scratch it somehow", but like i say, it was in a very awkward position.

CX.

[edit on 29/6/10 by CX]

Most of the time it happens the other way around. You experience a real life sensation and it manifests itself in your dream. For example, I experienced a leg cramp once in the middle of the night -- however, in my dream my leg had been bitten by a shark while I was out for a swim.

Originally posted by maria_stardust
Most of the time it happens the other way around. You experience a real life sensation and it manifests itself in your dream. For example, I experienced a leg cramp once in the middle of the night -- however, in my dream my leg had been bitten by a shark while I was out for a swim.

That's interesting maria, i was just going over my experience again in my head, trying to work it out and i wondered if maybe the body has a way of simulating physical effects on the body?

Say for example i thought hard enough about a red mark on my arm, could i "aggrivate" the brain and linked tissues enough to produce such a mark?

Silly example i know, but you get my drift. Like getting what you wish for, if you dream hard enough, can it manifest itself in or on your body somehow?

CX.

[edit on 29/6/10 by CX]

reply to post by maria_stardust


Yes I tottally agree that happens often, Even sounds that occur in your bedroom, can manifest as something in the dream. (Like an alarm clock goes off and you see a train in your dream making the same sound)

And also the leg cramp you mentioned....

HOWEVER,

I started this thread to discuss physical injuries that manifest on your physical body, that were NOT there when you went to bed.

Can the mind work together with our body to Recreate these dream injuries in the physical world?

For example could the body create a scratch or rash, that matches the injury in your dream?

No, dreams are nothing but hallucinations.

If someone takes a hallucinogen and sees a million spiders biting their arms, they won't get hurt. Because it isn't real, it exists in their mind only.


Though I do feel pain sometimes in dreams, but it doesn't feel like traditional physical pain- its a bit different.

reply to post by mnmcandiez


Oh really? Its all hallucinations huh

How can you explain the occurrences where dream injuries become actual physical injuries, there have been several examples presented here.

Did you know all 5 senses are deciphered in our mind as well? That a simple chemical can change our entire perception of reality?

What is do you consider reality exactly? Whatever is perceived with your 5 senses?

I can assure you the physical injuries that some people incur after a violent dream are very REAL indeed.

Originally posted by GeminiSky
For example could the body create a scratch or rash, that matches the injury in your dream?

There may be a more simple explanation for things such as this. I had a college friend who related such an instance once. In his dream he was fighting someone and when he awoke his upper arms and shoulders were covered with a few scratches. We placed his fingers upon the marks and the angles matched up. The apparent explanation was that he had scratched himself in his sleep during his dream.

That's not to discredit that instances as you've suggested don't occur. I'm just saying there are possible alternatives at work.

[edit on 6/29/2010 by maria_stardust]

reply to post by GeminiSky


Interesting! I have never experienced any physical injuries that have come about from a dream, but my sister has once. It's a pretty strange thing!

An alternative I can think of is that it's not the dream that causes the injury, but the injury that causes the dream. Perhaps you turned the wrong way and scratched yourself, causing your mind to create dream where you were injured in the same spot.

Or in some cases, like maria_stardust said, you could be dreaming of a violent thing and accidentally act it out and cause harm to yourself.

However, other possibilities may be true! I have never seen it demonstrated though, but would be very interested in seeing it firsthand.

Kind regards

All I know is that sometimes I have to apologise to my girlfriend for something I apparently did in a dream. Which I might add is usually completely out of character! So if you mean headaches then yes definitely.

In all seriousness though any time I have a nightmare I feel really weird for the rest of the day, like not quite myself. Especially so if I remember the dream vividly.

Only if Freddy Kruger is there .
Line2

Well....its one thing to toss and turn in bed and end up scratching yourself, but how about the account above where the poster dreamed about being stabbed IN THE BACK and woke up with a scratch on the back?

That cant be self inflicted can it? pretty hard to reach around (just tried it) lol

reply to post by GeminiSky


Interesting! For a scratch on the back, it could be, depending on the person, pretty hard to do!

I myself can reach my back pretty easily, but I don't know how I would do that while asleep. Perhaps it was something else, like a spring in the bed? I'm not very sure!

Maybe you're right, and the dream somehow changed reality. I would have to have more information to believe this, but I am not putting it out of possibilities.

Kind regards

[edit on 29-6-2010 by Hitotsumami]

Ok well i had a dirty dream and when i woke up it did feel like it was real, i could feel everything in my dream as if it was real..

the only question is who was that girl?

reply to post by CX


had something similar where i got stabbed and i could feel the knife going and in blood going down the front of my body and soak up my shirt everything felt so real that's when i woke up and could barley breathe.. but nothing was there..

i guess some things you just cant explain..

I had a dream once where I was looking at a mirror and then someone came through the mirror and jabbed me in the neck with their finger and afterwaeds I immediately woke up and my neck hurt at exactly the same spot as in the dream. There is so much that we can't percieve and science can't explain.

reply to post by America?


That is pretty interesting! I wonder how a dream could affect reality in such a significant way? I also wonder why positive dreams don't affect reality! I have had dreams of flying or having wings, but these things never seem to occur.

I would love to learn more on the subject and if anyone else has anymore cases, I'd be interested in hearing them!

As for your specific case, do you not think it could be your body acting out the dream and causing harm to yourself?

Kind regards

Carl Jung, one of the world's foremost students of dreams in terms of symbology etc. said that sometimes dreams ARE about physical things. There are two such examples in his writings:
1. death. For example, a man he therapized dreamed that he went to a skiing resort and started to fly over the ski track. Jung warned him but in vain - he went to his planned vacation and died in a ski accident.
2. sickness. e.g. standard shamanic symbols, for example a chain of evil-looking spiders come out of your kitchen sink may signify you have an undending infection, like a tooth canal.
I believe some dreams are about how your soul - or astral body - plans your existence. In that sense they do not CAUSE bad things - rather something else that causes the dream as well as the actual happening is the causative agent. Yes, dreams are hallucinations but sometimes they make sense - and there are archetypes in them as well as totally individual symbolism that you have to decipher for yourself.