PAIN IN DREAMS

Little is known about pain in dreams. Some studies indicate that it is rare and that it may be beyond the representational capability of dre aming. However, the present study describes experiences of dreamed pai n that were reported incidentally in experiments on the effects of som atosensory stimulation administered during rapid eye movement (REM) sl eep. Dreams were selected from five subjects who had reported at least one instance of dreamed pain in these studies. The subjects had under gone 42 stimulation trials over 20 nights and had reported a total of 13 dreams (31%) with one or more references to pain. Most often, these references appeared to be direct, untransformed incorporations of rea l sensations produced by stimulation. Pain was the principal motivatin g agent in a majority of these dreams and was in many cases associated with strong emotion-typically anger. Dreams often depicted the subjec ts' attempts to obtain relief from pain, in some cases by repetition o f actions, in others by metaphoric renditions of the goal. The results indicate that although pain is rare in dreams, it is nevertheless com patible with the representational code of dreaming. Further, the assoc iation of pain with dream content may implicate brainstem and limbic c enters in the regulation of painful stimuli during REM sleep.